There’s a special kind of girlhood that blooms around the age of 20, the moment you realise most of the men you date are frankly, a bit disgusting. Not biologically, though some shared bathrooms prove otherwise, but spiritually and emotionally. It’s a revelation that feels less like cynicism and more like liberation: the day you stop treating men like the main characters they think they are and start treating them like the recurring background extras they often choose to be.
Because if modern dating has taught women anything, it’s that disappointment arrives early and arrives often. Men who claim they’re ‘emotionally mature’ but can’t apologise. Men who weaponise incompetence like a personality trait. Men who ignore your messages like it’s a form of masculine strategy. Men who call themselves feminists until asked to rinse a plate.
What once felt humiliating now feels clarifying. Women aren’t embarrassed to have boyfriends; they’re embarrassed at how low the bar has been set, how many times they’ve contorted themselves to accommodate a man who couldn’t even rise to the height of bare minimum gestures. The disgust isn’t a punchline, it’s an awakening.
In fact, the embarrassment often dissolves the moment the boyfriend in question simply isn’t rubbish. “Having a boyfriend isn’t embarrassing if he isn’t a rubbish boyfriend. If you’re embarrassed to talk about him then he is embarrassing,” says Imogen, a third-year architecture student, distilling the logic with blunt efficiency of someone who’s done the emotional maths. Others are less forgiving. “Having a boyfriend is very embarrassing, men view their girlfriends as possessions,” argues Maja, a first-year graphic design student, pointing to a culture where control is dressed up as affection.
But empowerment, for many women, now lies in refusing to lose themselves in a man. “It’s only embarrassing if you lose a sense of yourself,” says Zuzanna, a third-year architecture student. “If you have self-respect and respect for your partner then being with someone can actually be something to be proud of.” Even the cynics admit that a good partner can soften the edges of daily life. As Gabija, a fourth-year medical student puts it, “the knowledge that you’ve given a part of yourself to a man is somewhat humbling. Alternatively, it can take away the embarrassment out of daily life if your partner is encouraging”. It’s the tension every young woman recognises, the hope that he’ll lift you up against the growing suspicion that he’ll drag you down. It’s a fragile balance, empowerment versus surrender, pride versus vulnerability.
For some the solution is simple. “As long as your relationship is healthy and your independence as a woman isn’t being overshadowed, you wouldn’t even be considering whether having a boyfriend is embarrassing. I think those who are questioning it need to run away from their man,” says Samia, a third-year architecture student.
Therapists see the shift too. Helen Ross, a couple’s therapist, is very clear-eyed about the landscape. “Never settle with second best. If you do, you’ll be disappointed.” Women lowering the bar is the root of the humiliation, not the act of loving someone, but loving someone who hasn’t earned it. “It’s difficult to meet men now unless you use dating sites. Women should never ‘tolerate’, better to be single.”
In the end, the embarrassment belongs not to the woman with the boyfriend who gives her a reason to hide him. And if modern girlhood is anything, it’s the art of outgrowing everything that once tried to shrink you, including men who never learned to meet you where you are. The disgust is simply a compass pointing women back to themselves: to standards, to boundaries, to the radical act of refusing to settle for anything less than being treated well.
