CASUAL YOUNG MEN

Hokitika Guardian, 30 March 1926, Page 3

CASUAL YOUNG MEN

(Hallie Fryer in “Daily Mail.’’)

As there are in this country 2,000,000 more women than men, it is perhaps not. his fault that the modern young man’s opinion of himself has become so inflated, and that his manners have become so hopelessly casual. Knotting himself to ho something of a “catch” he feels that he can afford to he careless in the matter of manners and i» the keeping of an appointment.

The other day a friend of mine arranged a party of six men and six girls. All the girls put in an appearance hut only three young men arrived. The other three wrote my friend no letter of apology. When several weeks later she met them by chance and asked them what had happened, they airilv remarked that they had forgotten all about it. Fifty years ago a young man considered'it an honour to he invited to a party by a. young woman. To-day he merely sits at home and waits for invitations to pour in.

Twenty years ago young men would sit happily through dull “musical evenings” and he regaled afterwards with •lemonade and biscuits or. if they were particularly favoured, weak whisky and water. They wore grateful for the privilege of spending the evening with charming girls, no matter how tame the entertainment. Nowadays an elaborate dinner has to be arranged to tempt them. 'Phe husband of an aunt iff mine called at her house fourteen times in the hope of finding her alone, in order to propose, to her, and it was only at the fifteenth visit that he succeeded in snatching five minutes in the hall with her. To-day it requires hard work and extreme cunning to extract a proposal from a young man at all. Of course, the emancipation of women has promoted a much saner relationship between the sexes, and has done away with the sex consciousness and coyness of the early Victorian girl. But casual manners certainly seem to produce casual treatment, and too great- a camaraderie, by destroying the mystery and romance of Woman, tends to create an alarming lack of,romantic interest on the part of the young man, even if it does PQt always destroy respect.