I Don't Understand Women Who Do This and Men Who Let Them...

He's not bad looking, he's a nice guy, and he seems to adore you. And yet, you can't help but treat him like an irritating cowlick -- always in your hair and unable to do anything right. You find yourself making fun of his friends, his clothes, his hobbies and his habits and you hate yourself for it. What's going on? You're dating a "Doormat Man".

Most everyone finds themselves in one of these relationships at some point in a dating history. It starts like this: an arid, dune-filled dating landscape stretches before you when a guy whose best virtue is that he's available turns up. As he's courting you by reciting the story line from last night's "Seinfeld", you're playing badminton with the idea of going out with him. "Maybe," you think. "Naw. Well, maybe. Naw!" Prospects look otherwise grim and hey, at least he's not married you think. So you give him your number, half hoping he won't use it, but knowing that within 72 hours, you'll get that call.

Getting the first call from a new man is one of the most exhilarating experiences in a woman's life -- most of the time. But when this guy's voice comes over the line, all that goes through your head is: "what was I thinking? Should I pretend that whoever he thinks he's calling moved out, why, just yesterday?" But you're a "nice" person. You can't do that. So you settle in for ten minutes of hemming and hawing on his part (you're filing your nails) before he can get to the BIG question. If you're in a charitable mood you might offer, "Yes, actually, I like Jonathan Demme movies too." While he takes that opening and runs with it though, your idle mind turns to thoughts of good old Aunt Tillie who, as family lore has it, was saved from spinsterhood when she unexpectedly fell in love with dull, reliable Ralph (now "Uncle" Ralph), a somewhat lumpy suitor who pursued her relentlessly for years until he finally won her heart. And then it occurs to you that Aunt Tillie was 2 years younger than you are now, when it finally happened.

"O.K.," you interrupt, "Sure. I think I'd enjoy that," you say to whatever he's come up with. And even as you hang up the phone, you wonder at the mysteries of womankind who accept dates from men they really don't want to go out with.

Women are by nature, charitable, sympathetic, nurturing creatures whose first instincts are to soothe and comfort. So it must be said that when we accept that first date from someone who we know is never going to win our heart (nay, not even score too well against it), we always have THE BEST INTENTIONS. Perhaps our first impression was wrong, we think, giving the fellow the benefit of a host of doubts. Maybe I'll learn to love him, we speculate. Maybe he's got a sense of humor á là Billy Crystal in "When Harry Met Sally". Maybe he'll gain more confidence when he sees me in broad daylight.

And sometimes, we're evil and think: Maybe he's got a brother...

"Gee, you look great," he offers hopefully when you open the door, and the strangest kind of irritation wells up in you. It's not that you don't appreciate the compliment (any compliment), it's just that you really want to tell him, "Please don't try so hard!" But he doesn't know how not to try so hard. And you, with nothing better on your dance card, fighting your crawling skin, see him for the second time, and then a third, and soon, you find yourself transformed from mild-mannered nice girl into SUPER WITCH.

He's created a monster and you are she. You find yourself committing every crime in the Code of Dating Ethics and inventing a few new ones. You don't ever really listen to him (and yet you've always been such a "good listener"). You don't bother to conceal flirting with virtually anyone else who might be handy. You drop the phone three times per call because you're juggling two other tasks while he hangs on the other end. You've been "too tired" to have him up to your apartment for the last two months.

Strange, petty things about him drive you nuts. "Do you always have to blink that way?" you ask him, not really as a question. But instead of calling you on it: "And how would you like me to blink, your highness?", he apologizes. "Gosh, sorry!" he offers. "I'll try not to blink like that anymore." And now, for some reason, you're really mad.

When you socialize with a couple like this, you spend all your time cringing. Out for dinner with the gang, they sit across from each other, he, staring at her adoringly, reminds you of a lovesick seal. Meanwhile, she's flirting madly with the men on either side of her, and the 16 year old bus boy. Her date asks a question in an attempt to join the conversation and she rolls her eyes. He laughs at one of her jokes and she rolls her eyes. You haven't seen so much eye-rolling since Linda Tripp said she was "just trying to be a friend". You can't help but wonder why he puts up with it. It's almost as if she (or we, if we're in such a relationship), is purposely being outrageous, trying somehow to provoke him into... something! Defending himself, yelling at her, walking out and slamming the door.

On the surface of our thoughts when we're the ones doing the eye-rolling, we're thinking, "What does it take to get this guy to tell me to jump off a cliff?" But deeper inside us, in that reasonable self hunkered down in social hibernation, another voice asks, "Why am I being so mean?" Every evening we say goodnight to this guy with a sigh of relief and an hour later, the bad feelings start rolling in -- guilt for treating him so badly, and anger, at him, for letting us. The truth is that we're angry at him for letting us be the worst we can be, instead of the best.

A good relationship provides more than companionship. The best of them make us feel good about ourselves, glad to be with someone who is, in many respects, the half that makes us whole. Those cheery older couples who refer to one another as "my better half" are speaking of a symmetry in their lives that calms them when they're threatening to strangle the neighbor; that offers an objective opinion when the handmade birdhouse turns out looking more like a dish drainer; that reminds them that they're more wonderful than they know, or not as wonderful as they think, whichever they need to hear.

When a prospective partner can't provide that symmetry for us, our inner ogre comes out, beats up the Helen Hunt side of us, and turns into the playground bully. Oddly enough, bullying makes such men try even harder. They become kinder, even more gentle and more obsequious than ever. They turn into "Doormat Men". Exactly the wrong approach. When you look at them, all you see is a quivering dessert. You find yourself humming "J-E-L-L-O" during conversational breaks. What self-respecting person, you marvel, would allow his girlfriend to treat him so, well, disrespectfully?

Therein lies the answer. A man (and of course, this applies equally to a woman) who "takes" such treatment, probably does not have much respect for himself. He may feel he deserves to be treated like a sock hamper because he thinks he's somehow unworthy. He may have grown up in a household where he became the whipping boy for an unhappy, angry parent. Or he might have been the always unfavorably compared brother to a sibling who was the "star" of the family. Sometimes just having been largely ignored during childhood shapes a personality that expects to be ignored; an invisible person for whom any attention, whether positive or negative, is better than none.

So now we find ourselves in such a relationship, and wonder about our options. We can end it and throw ourselves back into the pool of wandering, dispossessed single women, staggering through cities, arms upraised like something out of "Night of the Living Dead", or we can stop and reevaluate. Life is short (as women who have wondered if they'll have one more date before they die are well aware of). If we meet someone who cares for us, this is a good thing. A real thing.

Think once again of "Aunt Tillie". She lived the dating life that, demographically doesn't look likely for this generation of women. And yet, she settled for good old Ralph. Take a second look at your boring beau. What would happen if you treated him honestly, told him what you were thinking, kindly? You know, a bird in the hand... might just be the falcon we're searching for.

If after reconsidering him and being honest with him, he still wants to bring you your slippers in his mouth, maybe you should bail out while his ego and your image of yourself as a "nice person" are still intact. But perhaps you can forge a new relationship. After all, something about him made you say yes to that first date (apart from the fact that he asked you!). And maybe someday, in a not too distant future, Aunt Tillie and Uncle Ralph will be dancing at your wedding!