Ladies, It’s Time To Stop Putting The “Bare Minimum” Boyfriend On A Pedestal

It’s refreshing to meet a guy who’s honest and defines the relationship, but just because he’s kind and does the bare minimum to treat us with respect, it really doesn’t mean that he should be worshipped. Time to take these dudes down off that pedestal, ladies.

  1. We deserve those great behaviors and more. So the guy rushes to our side when we have a bad day or remembers that we take our coffee with two sugars. Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome that he’s so attentive, but we shouldn’t get hearts in our eyes or act like he’s a god. We deserve an attentive, sweet guy. In fact, we deserve even more than that. He’s great, sure, but he’s not the best thing since sliced bread.
  2. We shouldn’t sell ourselves short. If we build him up and put him on a pedestal, we end up cutting ourselves down. We might even think that he’s so great for us he’s too great and we don’t deserve him. What BS! We’re just as great as he is and we should be putting ourselves up on a pedestal.
  3. We shouldn’t act like good guys are an almost-extinct species. I know it’s really tough to find a good guy out there. It seems like at every turn, there’s a toxic jerk who just wants to hurt us or who treats love like it’s a game. But honestly, there are still good guys out there so why should we act like meeting one is some miracle? It’s not!
  4. We should believe in our worth. The problem with telling our friends how amazing the new guy we’re dating is because he doesn’t treat us like crap is that we act as though we don’t deserve someone who treats us like a princess. The truth is, we do! We should start acting like it instead of scraping the bottom of the dating barrel. That means not behaving as though a guy who does the bare minimum to impress us is some extraordinary creature.
  5. We should know he’s a dime a dozen. The guy who does the bare minimum isn’t all that special. He might be a genuinely good guy and have great BF potential, but he has to earn our love and trust. He shouldn’t think that he can pull out a chair for us at a restaurant or be polite to our mother and that’s all that’s required to make us fall for him.
  6. We shouldn’t chase anyone. The problem with putting a guy on a pedestal is that it makes us feel like we’ve found a rare person and so we should chase him to secure our relationship. Wait, what? The truth is, just because the guy doing the bare minimum has wowed us (hopefully not so much that we stop thinking clearly), it doesn’t mean that we need to act desperate around him. So what if he doesn’t text back or if he doesn’t ask us out even though he was so charming? Maybe he wasn’t all that great to begin with. It’s better to see that than look at him through rose-tinted glasses.
  7. We don’t need lazy guys. Swoon too much over the guy who’s doing the bare minimum and we might end up falling for one who barely makes any effort in our relationship but has us praising him all the time. Soon he’ll realize he doesn’t actually have to do much in order to get our time and love. Nah-uh. The guy needs to know that he has to continue working hard to keep us, even when we’re his girlfriend.
  8. We should accept—and expect—love. It’s not easy to date these days. Everyone thinks we’re too much or intense when we want to DTR and find love. Screw that. We know what we want and we shouldn’t be afraid to go out and get it. Instead of swooning over a guy who gives us tiny morsels, we should be proud about accepting and expecting that a guy who’s the real deal is going to shower us with love. Yeah, it’s nice when a guy is respectful and loyal, but we should come to expect that as the least he could do.
  9. We need to receive what we give. Sure, relationships aren’t balance sheets, but it sure makes them nicer to be in when our boyfriend is meeting us halfway instead of making us do all the heavy lifting. If he’s doing the bare minimum, that’s going to impress us for a while—like when we realize that some guys actually don’t use their phones during a date, go figure—but it won’t last. Soon, we’ll want more because we’re giving so much more to the relationship. And that’s fair, no?
  10. Nice is not always enough. Sometimes we meet so many toxic guys that when we finally date a genuinely nice guy we can’t believe our luck. But wait. Is being “nice” something to throw a party over? Shouldn’t everyone be nice and genuine? If we go crazy over a guy just because he’s nice to us, we might end up with blinkers to all the qualities he doesn’t have (especially if he’s the type of guy who’s hoping we want “nice” and nothing more). In addition, we could end up missing out on a truly fabulous guy who’s not only nice but interesting, kind, and so on.

 

Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
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