I fear for all the women who possibly might not fully know the personal moral and intricacies of the men they are dating. Less than a week ago, I had been running late (per usual) to dinner with friends. I grabbed a Citi Bike to get from Chelsea to the West Village, knowing it was a cathartic way to cut my travel time in half. It was a Thursday evening, which meant the West Village was packed, and when the West Village is packed, Citi Bike docks are scarce. I checked the app and saw one dock left at a station across the street, so I waited for the light to change.

I wasn’t alone. To my right stood a tall, handsome brunette, no older than 26, staring intently at the traffic and clearly strategizing his route to the same station I was eyeing. As a very Type B person, I wasn’t concerned if he reached it first. I would have simply biked one extra block.

As we both biked over to the dock, a woman at the station ahead was hovering over a QR code, waiting for her bike to release. Perfect. He could take the visibly open dock, and I could grab her bike once she left, then park mine. As I waited behind her, I noticed the handsome man walking his bike parallel to mine. For a brief, conceited moment, I thought he might have been approaching me to flirt, maybe to ask my name. I had put eyeshadow on, after all.

But reality settled in. I glanced back at the bike dock I had presumed empty and saw that someone had gotten to it before he did. He was positioning himself to take the open dock the second the woman rode off. Absolutely not, I thought. He clearly saw I had been waiting.

Once she was situated and prepared to back up, I watched his grip tense on his bike handlebars and I asked, perhaps a little grimly, “Do you need this bike dock too?” Without hesitation, and while aggressively pushing his bike forward into the now-vacant dock, he replied coldly, “Yes.” He knew I had been waiting first, well before he approached.

My stomach dropped. My appetite was gone. Heat rose in my face. I decided to pick my battles, turned around, and searched for another station. Instantly, I did what so many women do when wronged by a man: I crafted optimistic excuses for his behavior, even infantilizing him. Surely something awful had just happened. Maybe his dog had gone missing, or his mother had been rushed to Lenox Health Greenwich Village and he was in a life or death situation.

I stopped myself. No. It was simple. He was rude and selfish. That was all. The only afterthought I had was sending my sincerest condolences to the women he could have met that night and my strongest prayers to the girlfriend he possibly had.

Recently, British Vogue published a fascinating piece that sparked necessary conversation titled “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” The article examines shifting heteronormative dynamics in modern dating. Today, being attached to a man is no longer a symbol of status or elevated worth for a woman. In many circles, it is increasingly met with skepticism. Women now hold one another accountable with questions that sound more like vetting criteria than romantic musings. What is he adding to your life? Is he making things easier or harder? I apply this standard rigidly to my friends because I want the absolute best for them. Applying it to myself is an ongoing challenge that I am getting better at.

In a city where dating is effortless but finding an actual partner is nearly impossible, I often wondered whether the men orbiting my life were as fascinating as I perceived them to be or merely performatively fascinating. Returning to the Citi Bike man, I am certain there are at least ten women in Lower Manhattan currently losing sleep over his charm or silence or half commitments. I wonder whether they would rest better knowing my ten second glimpse of his character instead of the romanticized breadcrumb trail he has likely left them. Because no matter how tall, dark and handsome he was, he was not kind, and he certainly was not chivalrous. Instant disqualifiers.

Observationally, men, especially in a large and liberal city like New York, have learned to conform to the expectations of the independent and successful women they hope to impress. I know, not all men. I’m talking directly at the men who know they don’t have what it takes to keep up with this recent wave of hyper feminist, eager, and successful women seen today, so they have to make themselves malleable in order to qualify. Whether that performance holds when the women are not looking is a mystery I find frightening. The idea that my future partner could present one version of himself to me and another to the world is unsettling. The thought of a girl screenshotting my boyfriend’s Instagram post in five years, sending it to her college group chat with the caption “LOL who is this girl, if only she knew,” terrifies me. Think about the drunken man dragged out of a bar at 11 p.m. for verbally harassing strangers. That is someone’s boyfriend. There is a real possibility his partner has no idea who he becomes in a certain perceived inconsequential environment.

America is currently in an arduous state, and millions are affected in ways that are difficult to metabolize. I am not a politician, but New York has long been a refuge for those seeking a progressive and inclusive environment. Many women move to the city not only to pursue a strong career and lifestyle, but for diversity, and autonomy and reproductive rights. Big cities like New York are fabulous places for everyone’s voices and rights to be expressed and fought for. Yet an increasing number of men who do not fully align with liberal values still seek out liberal women. They are aware that a liberal woman would never date someone who even questions their morals so what do they do? They know they wouldn’t make the cut if they expressed their true beliefs, so they offer vague evasions such as “I am not really into politics.” Yes you are, Steven. You work in private equity and went to Columbia for graduate school. Political neutrality or incompetence is not part of your daily life.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to men. Some women curate facades for their partners as well. However, in my observation, women tend to present themselves more earnestly, as more time is often spent seeking a long-lasting, quality partner than by their male counterparts. Some men enter relationships out of convenience, complacency, possessiveness, or simple sense of “why not”. The so-called taxi cab theory illustrates this well. A decent amount enter relationships with the intention of forming a deep and honest connection, knowing their flaws would ultimately limit their matches.

A recent viral TikTok trend underscored this dissonance. Women would share screenshots of bizarre, offensive and shocking messages they had received from men. The comments were flooded with men insisting that the women must be attracting the wrong type of person. The irony was striking. The men deflecting blame are the very men capable of sending such messages. Your best friend. Your coworker. Your brother. These things happen in private, under the assumption of zero accountability. No one expects their text to go viral, and no one steals a bike dock expecting it to become the center piece of a writing.

On the other side of this, I am learning to approach dating with more internal calm, and I am trying to use my own logic to my advantage. I have had my fair share of boyfriends, tumultuous situationships and crushes where my emotional investment far exceeded their merit. I expect I will gain many more experiences that refine my perspective on romance, but I want to place less pressure on the outcome. Honestly, we are all strangers. Months from now, I will probably find myself nervously reapplying lip gloss in a dive bar bathroom before my Thursday night date arrives. And for all I know, he might ignorantly push his way into an empty bike dock, ignoring the woman who had been patiently waiting for it, and go about our date thinking nothing of it. He might possibly charm me and expect a second date after we meet, guiding me cluelessly through the curated, admirable personality that I will confidently tell all my friends I am naively falling for.