Before I begin, I want to make it known that this has happened to me on many occasions, but I felt the need to write about this instance in particular very strongly. Once upon a time, I had a boy tell me he was sick of not being around amazing girls. I want to also bring up the point that the reason this topic came up in the conversation was that he asked me what I hated and I answered, “Misogyny. And you?” and his response was, “Girls.” When I asked why (ignoring the impeccable irony of his response), he made the comment about the lack of “amazing” girls in his life. So, after first telling him that I believed his standard for a girl (to be “amazing”, apparently) was unrealistic, and having him say to me that he didn’t feel that way, I inquired what aspects of a girl he deemed to make her “amazing.”

His response? Word for word: “Any girl that makes me laugh is truly amazing.” Although I appreciate his emphasis on the fact that looks aren’t the only thing that matters when searching for a mate (though he definitely did bring up their importance in the sentence prior to this one), once dissected, this conversation is a perfect example of the harmful effects of a patriarchal society.

Part one of the dissection is the underlying meaning of the sentence. For example, he did not say “I feel amazing around a girl that makes me laugh” or “Funny girls are amazing” or even “In my eyes, a girl who makes me laugh is amazing.” No, he said, “Any girl that makes me laugh is truly amazing.” Translated, this sentence says, “A girl is only amazing if I deem her to be, and she can only do that if she makes me feel good.” If that isn’t enough to make you shiver, allow me to continue. This then carries out to mean, “Therefore, a girl’s value is based off of her compliance to cater to my needs, and my needs alone.”

Part two of the dissection, I would go as far as to say that by making this comment in the way that he did, he is therefore cancelling out all other great achievements a woman can make, not just in his eyes, but in all men’s eyes. Basically, “Oh, you won a Nobel Prize and found the cure for ebola? That’s not very funny, I’m unimpressed.” This not only discredits qualities of women (and all people for that matter) that are truly amazing, but even says, “I don’t want to have to take a girl seriously. In fact, I don’t even want her to take herself seriously.”
Lastly of the dissection, the emphasis on pigeon-holing this ideal girl of his to have one face: she needs to be happy, funny, and loose. She doesn’t get to be, I don’t know, an actual human being who has off days. "You don’t make me laugh? I don’t want you." This is just as harmful as objectifying women as it is just another way of measuring their worth in the ability to please a man.

Granted, I am not saying funny girls are harmful to society, and I am certainly not saying a boy is wrong for wanting a girlfriend that will make him laugh. I am simply pointing out that the manner in which this boy crafted his opinion showed how he truly perceived women. (I also want to state that he was trying to use this line to flirt with me. Yes, insulting my gender and pigeon-holing what he deemed to be valued in women was indeed his way of flirting.) But really, the desire itself isn’t harmful, however the views behind it are.

When I told said boy that this sounded awfully hateful towards women, his reply was, “I have yet to have a girlfriend ever. I have yet to let any girl down. No girl hates me.” Apart from the fact that he is playing the kicked-puppy, “nice guys finish last” card, I just want to say this was an immediate red-flag for me. If you’re an eighteen-year-old frat boy who has never had a girlfriend, then you’re obviously not a very nice guy. Despite what you may believe, girls aren’t stupid. If you haven’t had a girlfriend yet even though you really want one, it’s probably because you don’t meet the standards that you put on women, not because you aren’t surrounded by perfectly amazing girls.
In conclusion, “I hate girls” is officially one of the worst pick-up lines I’ve heard in my life, and probably could have only been topped if he had said sometime along the lines of “I beat my last girlfriend” or “I ate puppies for breakfast.”