For years now, there has been a crisis of expectation in modern dating. Straight women are increasingly demanding more from their male partners, while overgrown manchildren seem to abound everywhere. As the saying goes: the bar is in hell.
But… is it? Today, creators on TikTok are demanding nothing less than “princess treatment” in their relationships. The recent viral trend sees women grill their male partners on whether they think certain kinds of behaviour constitute “the bare minimum” or “princess treatment”. “Breakfast in bed… princess treatment?” suggests the boyfriend in one video. “Nope,” says his girlfriend, behind the camera, before soaking him with a garden hose as ‘punishment’. In another, a girlfriend asks her boyfriend if “tying her shoelaces for her” is the bare minimum or princess treatment. “That’s princess treatment,” the boyfriend says. “Bare minimum!”, she retorts. Massages on demand, fresh flowers every week, paying for manicures – all the bare minimum.
Some of these videos are tongue-in-cheek, granted. But there’s a grain of truth in every joke. Besides, there’s evidence elsewhere that our (read: straight women’s) expectations might be careening out of control. Earlier this month, screenshots of a Hinge conversation went viral on X; in the messages, a man arranges to meet a woman for a first date. When he drops her a line to let her know he’s on his way and running five minutes late, she responds: “Oh no, you needed to confirm this morning! I thought it wasn’t happening. So I am not there.” He apologises. She continues: “You should be so excited the morning of our date you can’t wait to reach out to me and let me know you’re looking forward to it, but that’s the bare minimum.”
This kind of attitude – regarding men as resources to extract value from, regarding yourself as a ‘prize’ to be won – begs the question: what the fuck? Why are women expecting to be fawned over by men they’ve never met? When did sweet, intentional acts of kindness and love become nothing but ‘the bare minimum’? When did something as arbitrary as texting to confirm a date become an immutable dealbreaker?
Regressive ideas about gender, which encourage women to self-objectify, have been creeping back into the mainstream for several years now. Back in 2019, The Slumflower was pontificating about how dating rich men is actually a radical feminist act — today, tradwife influencers like Nara Smith promote forfeiting financial independence in exchange for relying on a ‘strong’ male partner who can enable you to live a life where making dinner and doing laundry are your only responsibilities. It tracks, then, that there’s a new TikTok trend where young women get to teasingly excoriate their boyfriends for failing to ‘provide’ for them.
It’s easy to chart how we got into this mess. Over the course of the 20th century, young women began (rightly) asking for more in their relationships with men, and by the new millennium, it was no longer enough for a man to just be a breadwinner — women wanted them to show up emotionally, too. But as young women are now discovering, it’s still difficult to find a man who can offer emotional reciprocity. And so the pendulum is swinging back: because if you can’t find a man who is curious about your inner world, you may as well pick one who can at least show up materially and do things for you, right?
But what if we’re not really faced with a choice between emotionally stunted men and emotionally stunted rich men? What if – whisper it – there are men who aren’t emotionally stunted?
Criticising this regressive approach to dating, which encourages us to embrace outdated gender roles can sometimes lead to accusations that your standards just aren’t high enough, that you don’t ‘know your worth’, or – worst of all – that you’re a ‘pick me’. The assumption seems to be that if you’re not getting something material – dinner, holidays, money – from your boyfriend, then you’re a mug being taken for a ride. Of course, of course, the man who never organises a date, never makes you dinner, never buys you a birthday present is, on balance, probably not your soulmate. It’s good, obviously, to have ‘high standards’ for yourself. But you can’t measure love in terms of how much money someone spends on you or how much they ‘do’ for you.
We need to regain a sense of perspective when it comes to our priorities in relationships. What, really, constitutes ‘the bare minimum’? In my view, immaterial things: respect, honesty, kindness, warmth. What are some things you can reasonably expect from a partner? Random acts of kindness, thoughtfulness, the odd gift, just because. These aren’t exactly things you ‘earn’ – excepting abusive situations, love should be unconditional – but they’re things which just happen in a mutual relationship of equals (and, if we’re being real, things you’re mad to expect from a first date). I understand that men who are able to show up in this way are few and far between, and it’s important to be realistic when dating. But it’s equally important to be hopeful too – and assuming that all men are good for is paying bills and buying you shoes is neither.
