Where The Good Guys Are: A Guided Tour

The true puzzle of our time, the question that leaves so many otherwise intelligent women and gay men scratching their heads with all of the earnest obliviousness of a cheerleader, that riddle of riddles: Where are all the good guys? Let me tell you, they exist. Those elusive little unicorns of the healthy savings account and calling you back in a reasonable amount of time can, indeed, be found. One just needs to know where to look. Allow me to take you on a mystical journey through their natural habitats. Allow me to be your Bear Grylls of finding guys who are happy to meet your parents. Follow me.
1. He will be at school/ work: It kind of sucks to think about, but if you are looking for someone who takes even the slightest interest in his future/ the mark he will one day leave on the world, and is not content to just write four opening pages of a new novel every year, he’s probably going to be busy sometimes. He will be in libraries, staying late at work, going home relatively early on the weekdays, and generally getting shit done. Wouldn’t it be so much sexier to ride off into the sunset on a motorcycle, arms wrapped around a spindly guitarist who is secretly boning your best friend? Oh, yes, it would. But good guys will be putting all of that extra sleep energy into taking out the trash, waiting for you at the doctor, and listening to you talk about your feelings. Your feelings.
2. He will not be at gross clubs: No truly good guy frequents any place with a 20 dollar cover for men and 15 dollar cocktails. He doesn’t hang out where the only playlist is David Guetta, David Guetta, and MORE DAVID GUETTA. He doesn’t feel comfortable in a place called “Platinum” or “Red Russian” or “Bungalow 9 and 3/4″ or wherever you’re going to make a fool of yourself on the weekends. And I’m the first to admit, I love going out with the girls occasionally and dancing in a small solar system around the prettiest one and retiring to the bathrooms every 30 minutes. But I am under no illusions that my future husband lurks amongst the bros, frat boys, and egregiously under-buttoned men lingering around the perimeter of the dance floor. The best you can hope for with a guy you meet at a club is that he won’t vomit on you on the taxi ride over to his place for the horrifying one-night-stand.
3. He will be clawing fruitlessly at the walls of the friend zone: If we’re going to get real about things, we should just all collectively admit that the truly good guys who have passed through/ awkwardly remain a part of our lives have been quickly, neatly, and firmly placed into the friendzone. Mike just loves you so much, and you love him, too — he is like the brother you never had. You can fall asleep on the same bed after hours of conversation about the guys you’re interested in and not ever touch, not even once! In all seriousness, though, eventually we’re going to have to accept that the men we’re happy to reject when we’re 22 and surrounded by hot, emotionally deceptive chain smokers is going to be the man we would kill for when our biological clocks are ticking so loud we can’t hear ourselves think anymore. At least put the poor guy on a five-year plan.
4. He will not be looking at your blog: In case you actually did manage to fall for a nice guy, find him and decide, despite how dreadfully responsible and loving he is, to want him back — simply calling out over the plains of the internet won’t do. In no alternate universe will the guy you want see that Death Cab quote on your Tumblr and say to himself, “Oh my god! ‘They thought it less like a lake, and more like a moat’? I LOVE HER, TOO!!!!” No. The world does not work like that, and you can’t blame the good guy for not reaching out to you and risking the venomous, fatal sting of a young female rejection if the only information you’re giving for him to go on is, “He’s got a love like woe </3.”
5. He will not be attending super-cool events: I don’t want to make generalizations here, but let’s just say that a rough 97 percent of all men who care if they were photographed at the right party, are wearing the coolest kind of sneaker, or lose sleep over their Twitter follower count are going to hit it and quit it after two weeks maximum. I know that we all like to imagine that the sexy, interesting, incredibly well-dressed men who woo us at bars with their thrilling career in social media and friendship with Tyler the Creator will do anything but make us feel like gerbil droppings, but they won’t. They do not love us, they love themselves. And rightfully so, someone has to obsess over whether or not they’re getting red carpet access at that bullshit premiere. Occasionally men who have attained this kind of fame can hold onto their intelligence, their cunning, and their compassion — but I contest that it is so rare as to be impossible. One could argue James Franco stands as a shining example, but let’s be real, that man is not a human being.