Chivalry ....is still alive, Right ? Pt. 1

Chivalry; marked by high-minded consideration especially to women, including honor, generosity and courtesy.

There is a line between guys who are master manipulators of women and guys who are just true gentlemen. Of course I have experienced the full spectrum and I have learned how to recognize the signs. The only way I can be affected by either is if I am actually attracted to you or interested in you first. It's easy for me to spot manipulators especially if you are not my type and you just don't pique my interest. I see the game coming from a mile away. It's also easy for me see a gentleman as well even if you don't appeal to me personally. If I am attracted, I am paying close attention to the most minor details and taking note.

Chris Rock has a sketch in one of his shows where he talks about men not being able to go backwards chexually & women not being able to go back in "lifestyle". It's pretty graphic the way he spells it out but if you can get past his crudeness, I think for many people this is true to a de.gree. I think I can handle the lifestyle part. Having gone through some things in my life personally, I have had to adjust to a change in lifestyle, i.e; div.orce equals one inc.ome vs. two and all that comes with that. My ex outearned me significantly, and I recognize that I may not find myself in a similar situation again, and truthfully I am OK with that because I maintain a lifestyle that I am happy with on my own. I do have some standards and expectations for a partner in that area, but clearly they are not necessarily straight in line with what I had before. Not that I wouldn't want that, it's just not a requirement.

What I have learned to focus more on these days is how a man treats me, specifically how chivalrous he is. I have experienced certain levels of treatment that I have come to expect. I will blog about the others later. Several things can set the stage early on for me but today we are going to talk about just one;

Consideration of anothers time.

For the record, I am known to be a little bit late alot of the time, my family and my closest friends know this about me. I am a bit of a procrastinator but I AM working on it & have improved ALOT. My family accepts it because my mother is waaay worse than me & always has been. They know that I really did get it honestly. I have a sister who got the same unfortunate trait & believe it or not, I am better about time than either of them. My close friends except it simply because, despite this trait, I am a pretty awesome friend ! LOL However, I am always prompt when dealing with people that I don't know well, in professional settings, and also in dating. So a guy who is just getting to know me has no idea, that I can have this tendency because afterall he doesn't really know me & has not spent alot of time with me, so it really bothers me when guys don't call me to say they are running late, or give me the opportunity to adjust what I am doing to accomodate the time change. I mean maybe I could have spent another 10 minutes on my hair if I had known right ?

Just yesterday, I was to have a movie date after church with a guy I have been on 3 previous dates with. As I reflect on this now, I am remembering that he was over 20 minutes late to our first date at a pool hall & did not call. I called him after 10 minutes to make sure I was at the right place because there were 2 similar places in the same vicinity & he was "just around the corner". Anyway, back to yesterday. We discussed some possible movies & I was supposed to get a return call from him in a "little bit" to confirm the show and time. What I got was a call over 4 hours later only to say that he had started to feel ill, had laid down to rest, then accidentally fell asleep & was just waking up. He had awakened to then realize he needed to call me to say that he was still "sick" & he would need a raincheck. How inconsiderate ! Of course he apologized profusely, saying he hoped that he didn't ruin my day or any other plans I may have had, blah, blah, blah ! Of course you ruined my day. Any other options I may have had had passed me by because I left Sunday open for you, but I digress. I guess after a couple of hours I realized that I was being stood up, which is why I didn't call him (pride). Anyway, after he made his excuses, me being the passive aggressive person that these men have led me to become, I simply stated, " I hope you feel better, get some rest. We will talk another time". NOT. I will not be making or receiving any more calls from this clown. I can honestly say that I was willing to try to get to know this guy a little bit better, since I am starting to feel like a " serial dater". There were a couple of things on our last date that kind of bothered me a bit, but after discussing with a couple of friends, I decided to just try to spend some more time getting to know him a little bit better, but after yesterday, I am just not sure I am interested anymore simply because of his lack of consideration of my time. Even if he was truly sick (which is doubtful) the presentation was just all wrong. Chivalry is still alive......right?

What is the proper protocol for cancelling a date ?

How important is the consideration of anothers time in dating ?

Should a gentleman's behavior be contingent on his level of interest or is a true gentleman always a gentleman ?