Published in Beat Magazine, May 28, 2008

As a bloke who has spent more of his adult life out of relationships than in them, I know there are some things I don't get.

To anyone who just thought “yeah, sex on a regular basis”, that's not what I meant. And thank you for bringing it up.

Back to the fray – I can accept that there are elements of the relationship dynamic that I'm not familiar with, through inexperience. Thing is, I've just read an opinion piece on news.com.au that has me a little wrong-footed. The opening lines describe an SMS arriving at an ungodly hour, on the phone of the writer's husband. Whatever novelty sound effect the gentleman in question has on his mobile, it apparently wasn't enough to wake him. The next sentence is what got me, however...

“I, of course, read it.”

“Of course”? How does that work? Apart from my own personal privacy alarm ringing - and before you ask, that's not a “guilty conscience” thing; I have never cheated on a partner, and would you please stop distracting me – there has clearly been a crossing of a boundary, and I'm intrigued as to when it would occur. Was it a marriage thing? In sickness and in health, in SMS and voice mail, as long as your prepaid shall live? Was it at the point of co-habitation? Or did she help herself to his Nokia when he went to the toilet on their first date?

The aforementioned text was apparently a drunken request for a shag from a drunk co-worker, which as it turns out was utterly unexpected and unsolicited, and here I felt sorry for the man in the story. He has been shaken from his slumber by the writer, who is furious and demanding answers. As far as unpleasant wake-ups go, this ranks only slightly below a truck coming through the bedroom wall.

The husband came out unscathed, and the writer proceeds to opine on the idea of women making the first move (or occasionally, according to the article, the first several moves), closing with the following;

“I am too old-fashioned for this. Go back to the male booty call, I say. And girls, let the men make the first move. “

This doesn't work for me at all. I have always hated The Chase, even though I have chased harder than a particularly goal-oriented greyhound when the target has been valuable enough. Anecdotally, for many men it's all about the game, rather than the result, and once the maiden's affections have been won the next playing field is sought, but the only thing that “playing hard to get” has ever aroused in me is doubt. In fact, I have stumbled into a couple of bad relationships when the woman in question has shown in clear, obvious, and yet still dignified terms that she was attracted to me. In each case, unfortunately, what appeared at the start to be confidence and energy turned out to be neediness and noise.

I know full well that my vibe receiver is damaged, if not broken – perhaps that's the problem. Perhaps, by the time a signal is strong enough to be picked up by my borderline obsolete radar, the rest of the world knows it's powered by desperation. But I've always been a fan of simple. In Matt's Perfect World, the first move would be made by whoever gets the idea first. Simple – and probably part of the reason I'm single.

At least, this way, my text messages are mine.