This Fascinating Thing About Men And Women, And Bridget Jones

Bridget Jones used to be older than me and now she’s younger.

“Isn’t this world a crazy place,” said Vanessa Williams, but to remember her, you’d probably need to have come of age in the 1990s when Bridget was already in her thirties, and counting her calories and her cigarettes and her units of alcohol and noting it all in her red diary along with her search for Mr Right. Sometimes the snow comes down in June. Sometimes the sun goes round the moon. Sometimes a man eventually notices you after he’s exhausted all the other silly girls. Well according to Vanessa¹, that is.

I’ve been psyching myself up for Mad About the Boy, the new Bridget Jones movie. I was first in the queue when it came to booking tickets in the back row at a sensible time on Valentine’s Day. I’ve watched the trailer on repeat. And I’m kind of anxious about it, not because of the slapstick and the innuendos, or because Bridget’s dad seems to be in a hospital bed, but in more of a “we’ll have nothing in common” way because Bridget, who may or may not be around the same age as me, has children, and school runs, and a job, and a social life and is also fending off the attention of at least two males in their twenties. You see, Mark, her husband, the Mr Right she ended up with, is dead. And this has upset a lot of people even though he was blown up by a landmine in Sudan about ten years ago by Helen Fielding who wrote the book. “Nope I’m not watching it! They’ve killed Mark Darcy off. They all look and sound older. I refuse. I’m just going to revel in the memories of the first one,” said Katie on YouTube.

And the memories were good.

“I like you very much. Just as you are,” said Mark to Bridget.

I read this fascinating article about men and women this week. It was called ‘The men who like women and the men who don’t. Yes we can tell’². This article was based on another article, and it reminded me of Hugh Grant in Heretic³ when he diatribes to two missionaries about The Hollies filing a legal suit against Radiohead because the melody of The Air that I Breathe appeared in Creep. Then, a couple of decades later, in an interesting twist on copyright law, Lana del Rey was sued by Radiohead for supposedly plagiarising Creep in her song Get Free. “Iterations, over time, diluting the message, obscuring the original,” Hugh says. He’s talking about religions, but he could have been referring to anything, ideas, stories, articles about Glen Powell because the article on which the men who like women one was based, was all about the actor, Glen Powell, who apparently not only looks good in clothes, and wears the Top Gun suit like Val Kilmer, and is in on the joke, and does his homework, but also seems to really like women.

“It’s different than knowing you can get women, or wanting to control women, or even loving women. He likes them. He appreciates them. He enjoys their company,”⁴ said the first article.

But it was one paragraph in particular that had been running around rent-free in people’s heads…

“Tom Cruise doesn’t like women. Neither does Miles Teller. Channing Tatum likes women. So does Ryan Gosling. Brad Pitt used to like women but doesn’t anymore. Leonardo Di Caprio only likes them occasionally. Bradley Cooper doesn’t, George Clooney does. Matt Damon doesn’t, Ben Affleck only does in that one scene in the J.Lo documentary. Marlon Brando didn’t, Montgomery Clift did. Paul Newman didn’t onscreen but did IRL. Cary Grant did, John Wayne definitely, definitely didn’t. Will Smith pretends like he doesn’t but I’m not convinced. Mark Wahlberg absolutely does not, but Daniel Day-Lewis does. So does Paul Mescal”.

And the author of the second article felt it was important to further examine this. She’d never previously thought of using this metric with the men in her life, but it turned out to be completely intuitive. She could immediately see a pattern. She could easily differentiate between the ones who liked women and the ones who didn’t. Not knowing your name or never asking you a question were obvious signs of not actively liking, and I thought of the man at church who called me Amanda for more than thirty years and the men who direct all their conversation at my husband because he’s obviously more clued in than me.

“It’s in the listening, the curiosity, the respect. It’s in the eye contact. It’s how they speak of other women or speak over women. It’s whether or not they ever read women authors, listen to podcasts hosted by women,”⁵ she said.

And I knew exactly what she meant. As she referenced her Mormon pastors, I thought of the ministers and rectors I know and I tried to decide whether Presbyterians like women less than the Anglicans. As she described the men she played pickle ball with, I thought about the men I play tennis with. As she highlighted her uncle who always asked her what she was writing about, I thought about my uncle and how he always asked me that too.

I considered the evidence - the looking at you or the looking past you, the waiting until you’ve finished then asking you to share more about what you think or the waiting until you’ve finished then explaining why you’re wrong about what you think. There’s the never noticing you exist versus the invitation to be part of things, the pretending to like you and all other women because it’s a good political move, the platitudes about supporting women that never become policy, the giving you a reference but never giving you a role. I thought about my husband who finds everything I say enthralling because he has to, and I hoped this extended to other women too, where it didn’t have to. And I thought someone is bound to respond to this piece and say you’re being unfair to men. Women do all of these things to each other too.

“It's palpable in the way Powell looks at all these women — he really, intently focuses on them, which is a surprisingly rare thing onscreen and in real life,” said the first article.

It seemed we notice when men like women because it’s usually the exception rather than the rule.

And the second article tried to figure out why this was the case. Why did so few men actually like women?

“But the unfortunate truth is… successful men have little reason to care if they are perceived as someone who likes women. How they treat women has little to no effect on a man’s career, monetary success, popularity or reputation,” it said. “The sad truth is that men don’t NEED to like or respect women to successfully walk through the world. Not at all. In men’s daily lives - in their jobs, in their church, in their friend groups - social capital is gained solely through other men. They care if men respect them”⁶.

“Do you write women’s stuff?” I am often asked, and I am not quite sure how to answer this because I just so happen to be one, a woman, and therefore, everything I produce will always naturally come from that perspective. But I like to think it’s not just women who are contemplating their marriages and their parenting and their identity and the meaning of life, that men are too and if not, they should be. And I decided I’m not that fussed if men like me per se, I want them to like my writing, my work. I’m quite happy for them not to lean forward and hang on my every spoken word as long as they value my every written one. They don’t have to stare into my irises or overdo their enthusiasm. I’d just prefer they didn’t dismiss what I have to say simply because I’m a woman.

And on paper, she’s definitely at least a decade older than me, but I think there is still one thing Bridget Jones and I have in common. We’d like to be liked, properly.

“Will find sensible boyfriend … and not continue to form romantic attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, sexaholics, commitment-phobics, Peeping Toms, megalomaniacs, emotional f-wits, or perverts,” she said.

“I like you very much. Just as you are,” said Mark.

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2. The men who like women and the men who don't.

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4. A Unified Theory of Glen Powell

5. The men who like women and the men who don't.

6. The men who like women and the men who don't.