THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Fabulously Broke’s Gripe with Men

Looking Natural is a Big Fat Myth

Guys say: I want a girl who looks awesome without makeup.

Show me a girl you’ve seen that looks awesome every minute of the day without makeup, that you are NOT already in a relationship with.

BF once said to me: I don’t see why girls have to wear makeup.

(BF has since amended his statement to: I want a girl who wears a little makeup, but nothing heavy.)

<——- Like this, is too heavy.

The truth is that any girl who looks awesome au naturel is definitely sporting some makeup even if she doesn’t admit to it.

Or in the 0.00000001% of the population who doesn’t have bags under her eyes, under eye circles, large pores, a bit of acne, a bit of wrinkling, or uneven skin tone.

We are not naturally airbrushed in real life, and we look bad under certain lighting conditions.

So looking natural?

Not really possible, even though advertising may deem otherwise.

Guys expect a certain level of something, and it doesn’t help that advertising pushes those “Oh she can look great without anything“, myths.

I CALL BULLSH*T!

Most guys are expected to be slobby in appearances

And if they aren’t….

Then we’re amazed, unhappy that they’re gay, or pretty darn sure they’re a metrosexual —–>

Guys don’t have to worry about great skin tone, plucking their eyebrows to give a nice frame to their eyes, or wearing blush so you don’t look like a ghoul!

If a guy has a really hairy body, he says:

That’s just the way I am.

Love me or hate me.

If a girl sports the tiniest hint of armpit hair (a la Julia Roberts): People get all up in arms!

Women are under more pressure to stay young!

Men get better with age (George Clooney, anyone?), or so they say.

<——— Exhibit A

But women in society are helpless, as they are expected to not have any traces of white hair, wrinkles, or show any signs of aging.

We spend tons of cash on eye creams, wrinkle creams, skin moisturizers…

All for the sake of looking younger, because that is where society places the most value on in terms of women’s looks.

Sad, but true.

You can decide to follow it or not, but that’s where the chips are falling these days.

Some women go farther and pay every 6 months to get Botox or resort to Liposuction, whereas men don’t have to worry about wrinkles or being fat!

It’s their “charm”, remember?

And this is what women have as role models as we get older:

Things just cost more for women over men

Dry cleaning and haircuts to name the two biggest culprits.

A woman’s shirt? $5 more.

A woman’s hair? $20 more.

ARRRRRG!

It’s a catch-22 because if we decide we don’t want to pay for an expensive haircut we get flack from guys saying:

Er… that girl over there looks a bit like a Sasquatch. I don’t want to date her!

She hasn’t even been to a salon in years, and it looks it.

She doesn’t look cute, and her hair looks like a frizzy, untamed mess.

We are expected to keep up on maintenance to look decently presentable, or face laughter and derision!

Exhibit B: Susan Boyle

Women need to dress at a certain minimum maintenance level

I know that some guys prefer a girl to dress in a certain style.

Usually in a dress to be more feminine, but a nice dress that fits our body and looks good on us, is generally NOT cheap.

Guys can just throw on any old free beer t-shirt and call it Ashton Kutcher chic.

Girls? Not so much.

If we wear a free beer shirt and baggy jeans with a huge comfortable sweater, and frizzy untamed hair, we’re told that we look like men.

!!!!

And who wants to date (or sleep with) their best guy friend?

Even I am considered low maintenance, but I still doing at least 75% of the above things.

First Dates are expensive!

On a first date, a guy might:

• Wash his car
• Think about what he’s going to wear
• Brush his teeth

But a girl typically has the following schedule consisting of addressing one, some or ALL of the things:

• Brush her teeth
• Cleansing (Exfoliation, Moisturizing)
• Agonize over the perfect outfit to wear (shoes, outfit, jewelery)
• Deal with her hair
• Cut and manicure nails (Toes and Fingers)
• Waxing (Eyebrows, Legs & Other)
• Makeup
• Tanning (Fake or Real *boo to real!*)

And it continues on for the entire relationship.

The cost of maintenance doesn’t end!

Subsequent Costs in Honeymoon Phase continue to rack up

In the first blush of the relationship, I’d say a year at the most, girls are still trying to keep up appearances!

We buy all of these portable, fits-in-your-purse items to carry around an “Impossibly Gorgeous” kit for JUST IN CASE.

In the morning, when we sleep over, we’re brushing our teeth at 4 a.m. so we don’t wake up with morning breath and scare him off.

Or sneaking into the bathroom to apply a tad of concealer and blush to look impossibly fresh and gorgeous even at the crack of dawn, with just a spritz of perfume.

Guys? They couldn’t care less about smelling nice or looking good. It’s part of their “charm”.

We also spend time curling or straightening our hair, and calling it “natural”.

Relationship Maintenance continues forever

Then when the relationship moves off the honeymoon phase, and you have now stopped straightening your previously “naturally straight” hair, or wearing perfect concealer and makeup every minute of the day…

You still have to do some of the grooming and maintenance things above.

• Haircuts —- (No one wants a shaggy version of them)
• Clothes —- (No one wants a burlap sack-clad GF)
• Makeup — (No one wants a ghoul for a GF)
• Grooming — (Shaving? Exfoliating? Moisturizing?)

Even on wedding days, brides have to get EVERYTHING perfectly done to look like a perfect bride, which is a billion times more stressful than getting ready for a first date.

Men?

They just clip their nails, shave a bit, slap on some toilet paper on their cuts and head out there without any salon appointments or makeup consultations.

Even for their wedding days, they just put on a tux, drink some beer and remember the rings.

So guys, next time you complain about dishing out cash for anything you do with or for a girl…

Remember that we don’t look like this naturally without quite a bit of maintenance!

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About The Battle of the Sexes

This post was just one of four like it around the PF blogosphere today.

Please check out the other contributions to this “Battle of the Sexes” hosted by the wonderful bloggers listed below.

Krystal and I strongly recommend ripping apart J. Money & Punch Debt’s arguments, because they’ve been talking smack about women all week!

The Women

• Fabulously Broke: How men cost women more money
• Krystal At Work: Who spends more? Men or Women?

The Men

• Budgets are Sexy: Women and their Shoes
• Punch Debt In The Face: Boys Rule, girls drool

This article from Well-Heeled about a couple that divorced 25 years ago, really annoyed me.

Long story short, they divorced amicably, and signed papers saying they would waive all future rights to alimony from each other.

The husband re-married, and 25 years later, the ex-wife took him to court to get $400/week payments of alimony from his retirement cheque because she had no savings, no retirement fund or health insurance…….and and she WON!

The judge granted the $1600/month alimony. 25 years after they had signed the papers waiving all rights.

Most of the comments on Well-Heeled’s posts said things along the line of:

Why didn’t she get her act together in the 25 years they were separated?

She had more than two decades to save, become frugal, say “I’m on my own now!”

Why did she even think about taking her ex-husband back to court, 25 years later?

In my personal opinion, that’s pretty low. She wanted to milk the only cow she saw available, and she went after the ex-husband as a result. Even though they had parted on good terms.

Why did the judge even GRANT that request?

They waived all rights to any future alimony at the time of their divorce, 25 years ago. WTF?

They were even divorced LONGER than they were married!

Married: 17 years. Divorced: 25 years.

Which brings me to my next question:

Why the hell does it seem that guys always get stuck with having to pay for everything?

I am not saying this is a general rule, but it is a prevailing attitude that I am getting from some of my girlfriends that bothers me.

Some of my girlfriends think that just because they’re girls, they should pay as little as possible.

The guy should take care of them.

He should pay for all dinners out, all trips, treat them to gifts, spoil them with flowers, all in exchange for being with them.

It isn’t even really a question of them making less money than their boyfriends that changes attitudes.

The difference could be negligible, or nonexistent.

I know a dentist who is dating another dentist, and she still feels he should pay for EVERYTHING.

She doesn’t even reach for her wallet when the bill comes at dinner, and she complains if he doesn’t buy her a gift once every other week.

I also have another friend who says “That’s just the way it is“, having lived with her father who paid for everything in the home out of his pay, and her mother who just squirreled her own paycheque away, not forking out a single cent.

They own all the assets together, 50/50, and the parents both own and work at the same family business!!!

And of course, other girls who don’t work at all, and just stay at home sponging off their boyfriends or husbands, who bring home the bacon.

Or you read other posts like this eye-opening one by Retire by 35 talking about pre-emptive lifestyle inflation:

Yesterday on Facebook I was scrolling through a friend’s post and he was being giddy about some new toys that he bought.

He wouldn’t reveal what it was, so a number of his friends started guessing what he bought.

A new camera? No. A new laptop? No. A new car? No.

Nobody was able to guess it and he was really happy about that too. Many posts down his girlfriend chimed in saying that if he got new toys then she wants new ones too.

She started naming off the “stuff” that she wants him to buy her: the new iMac, a new car, a jetski, a house, and other big-ticket items.

She asked him when he would buy it for them.

I know both of them (the boyfriend and girlfriend) and they each make around 40 to 50 thousand a year while living with their parents. Both are older than me. Both travel more, buy more, and eat more extravagently than me.

The girlfriend has been pressuring the boyfriend for marriage and to buy a house for both of them to live in. She wants to start a family.

She wants the white picket fence and 2.5 kids.

She wants the shiny new toys and the hobbies to match.

I don’t believe they have much savings since they complain about being broke.

Lest you think I stayed silent…

I HAVE brought it up to them, stating that I didn’t think the guy always had to be on the hook for everything.

I also stated that 50/50 seems to be the fairest compromise to me, so one doesn’t feel resentful of the other.

But I don’t want to push it, because I’m not their boyfriends.

If he’s happy paying, and she’s happy taking everything, then all the power to them.

But what if he gets annoyed one day and says: “Enough is enough”?

It just isn’t fair..

I don’t think these girls are necessarily stupid for taking their guys’ money.

I think the guy is stupid.

But regardless of who’s taking advantage of who, the bottom line to me, is that it just isn’t fair.

Barring circumstances such as being a SAHM with kids to take care of, a woman should always have control of her own financial destiny.

Being a girl myself, I feel strange, “So why does a guy have to buy and pay for everything for the girl? Why can’t the girl step up and do her own thing?”

And so what if the guy makes more money?

I still pay my half, because he shouldn’t feel punished for making more money.

And vice versa. Trust me, I’ve been there where I was the one paying for everything.

So I cannot imagine that anyone (man or woman) in a relationship who pays more, doesn’t feel the slightest tinge of resentment.

I felt A LOT of it.

So much, that I started resenting the relationship and feeling punished for being in a relationship where I had to fork out way more of my pay just because my partner was not doing his fair share.

So how can it be that a guy would not feel any sort of resentment or regret?

My new attitude as a result was:

If I can’t afford to pay half on a huge loft apartment that he wants, then I tell him that this is what I can afford to pay each month for rent.

We either pick something smaller and within my price range so the percentage stays at 50/50, or he makes a CONSCIOUS, thought-out decision to pay MORE than his fair share, so that he can get the loft he wants.

Simple.

And if the guy has to pay all the food, utilities, eating out, trips, gas bills, etc.. then the girl has no right saying she ran up the credit cards into the red, shopping to cure her boredom of staying at home alone all the time.

GET A JOB!

And the girl, has no right to say that she can only afford to chip in $200 a month, when the bills are $2000 a month, and then goes out to buy a designer purse for $500.

To me, it just isn’t fair.

In my case, the guy bought new gaming systems at $500 a pop, but couldn’t afford to fork over money for food and rent.

Whassup with that?

You definitely MUST have some play money, like $100 a month, but if you can afford a $500 bag each month, you can afford to give $400 more towards the bills.

Edit: To be fair, I feel this way now because…

I’ve been there and done it on the other side of the fence, and I am just trying to shed some light on how a person might feel in that situation.

Male OR female.

As for the situation now, BF and I earn about the same kind of cash.

If we are both working full-time on contracts, we earn around the same amount ($16k – $20k/month)

We may only work for 2 months out of the whole year, as the case was for 2009 (I didn’t work at all, having made the cash last year and BF worked for only 3 months).

But generally speaking, we earn around the same kinds of rates (him of course, getting more contracts and earning more money per hour) when we work.

I guess I am trying to say that I don’t hold it against him that he has more experience, gets more contracts, and gets more money per hour.

He earned it, and deserves it.

Even if I don’t have that kind of money making clout, I just save my money and live off it for the year or two that I need to, because I am forced to manage my own money instead of relying on him to step in and save me.

But I think some girls in the same position might feel resentful of that fact, that they have to really watch their money more, if they earn less.

I should also say that our basic expenses are very low, so we bank a lot of cash when we make it.

With everything included: rent, food, and home stuff, we pay around $800 a month each.

And I am not trying to dispute what works for some couples: 50/50 in our case, and proportionate payments in other cases.

I am trying to point out that SOME women (clearly not all) seem to have an entitlement issues with money from their parents or their boyfriends just because they are women.

Their self-centered attitudes are what I have the real bone to pick with.

What do you think?

Totally my opinion all over this post but I am not surprised that guys have (or do) go to strip clubs, but I definitely don’t approve of them if they have wives or girlfriends…

Sure, they may go when they are single, fine, whatever (I still find it a bit disgusting)… but once they get a girlfriend or a wife, I am of the opinion that they should stop the behaviour because it’s not real.

Not real in the sense that those women up there are dancing naked for money which is totally cool for them, since they’re fleecing you suckers!

But you’ve got a woman, ready to be naked for you at home! And she’s not doing it for the money (well, not directly anyway, there are some women who are financial parasites)….

Anyway, imagine this: you get home alone, turned on, and look at your wife or girlfriend who may not be what you lust after (we’re talking unrealistic bodies here, with pumped up breasts, and women who dance all day for money so are in fantastic shape), and you feel disappointed.

That’s sad. Very, very sad to think about actually.

To feel DISAPPOINTED when you look at your woman when you get home.

Men may not feel disappointed to what I’m imagining, but they’ll sure feel something negative, since going to a strip club must have SOME negative effect – including unrealistic expectations of what a woman’s body should look like (trim, flat stomachs, inflated boobs, super tight muscles… please. Who has time and money for that if it isn’t your job?)

Worse, is if you have children and you frequent strip clubs.

It’s just me. But I don’t like the idea of guys looking at porn alone, going to strip clubs with the guys… I’m sure it may seem natural to a lot of women and a few of you are like: FB, shut up! It’s totally liberating! I even go with my man sometimes!

But I just can’t be that kind of girl.

I even find it a disgusting to the point where if he were to go out with the guys and then go to a strip club, I wouldn’t want to know about it (ignorance is bliss), and/or I wouldn’t want to have sex with him for at least 2 weeks.

My body would just reject him.

Man, I sound like a freak now! But it’s totally psychological and what I feel that I’d go through mentally.

• Being a lady is a lost art
• Professionally kept women: Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies
• Are emotional affairs worse than physical ones?