I got hit on this past weekend, but that’s not exactly the point of this article. I will say that it is an extremely rare occurrence for me as I don’t get many nights out and about—let alone in a city—so it’s worth a mention. Unfortunately, any tiny thrill of getting attention was quickly squelched by the vast ego of the manchild in question, and I was reminded that I quite like the comfortable invisibility of a woman past her prime.
But enough about me. This got me thinking about how ego is already destroying newly minted men, and how humility and secure masculinity are seemingly hard to come by these days. Thankfully, the men I surround myself with don’t seem to lean on an inflated sense of self-importance. Otherwise, we could have had a very different ending to the night.
First, we had a fabulous dinner out at one of the hottest restaurants in Philly, making the six of us elder millennials feel quite trendy. With our collective seven kids safe at home with sitters, it was a special thing to get away for an evening together. Dinner was phenomenal. Drinks, food, ambiance. Southern Thai food leans heavily towards intense flavor and spice, and it was so, so good. The frozen daquiri came in handy 😉
Afterwards, four of us decided to walk around Fishtown and find a drink before heading home. We settled on a place with open air picnic tables and nostalgia for our younger days; we were just happy to enjoy the mild summer night for a bit longer.
While our husbands were grabbing drinks, my female friend and I were sitting and people-watching, trying to guess the ages of the guests around us (naturally). Two tables over was a large group of “kids” we figured were in their early twenties. Maybe we stared too long, because a guy stood up, looked right at me, and did half of a Gen Z heart hands gesture.
I took it as a pop culture test and returned the other half of the heart, kinda stoked that I even knew what this hook-looking half heart even was. In the moment, I just kind of thought he was saying “Hi,” or “I see you looking at our table.” I didn’t think the interaction would continue whatsoever.
He took this as an invite to come over to us (oops). He brought a friend and they plopped themselves down (without asking) at our table, clearly drunk. Okay, fine.
Didn’t introduce themselves, just asked where we were from. They were from North Jersey; they insisted where my friend lives “isn’t Philly,” like they would even have the authority to know (it is). Perhaps I should have seen the signs of arrogance early on and shut down the interaction, but I didn’t. It was mildly entertaining.
We talked about location for a bit and then the friend, noticing my wedding ring, says, “You’re married?”
Me: “Yep”
Him: “Does that matter?” As he caressed my ring finger (ew).
Me: “Yes it does.” This is when I realized why they came over (oops).
I told him, “My husband is here, he’s just getting drinks.”
The boys asked if the husbands are going to care that they’re here at the table, and we said no, which is true. Our husbands would not feel threatened by drunk kids sitting with us. They might wonder why, of course, but they’d be able to tell we didn’t invite them to join us.
Husbands get back and the younger guy asks, “You’re her baby daddy?” Hubby says, “Three times!” very friendly. Not threatened whatsoever, as expected.
The kids start mentioning how no one is fighting anyone, which… no one suggested. My husband shakes his hand and agrees. The older kid I’ll refer to as Tough Guy says “Yeah, we aren’t fighting… because you would lose.”
It was very important to Tough Guy to make it clear he could beat up my husband IF a fight were to occur. He needed my husband to know he was doing him a favor by choosing not to kick his ass (for absolutely no fathomable reason, by the way).
Okay, buddy. No one is fighting.
We come to find out Tough Guy is twenty-three and kid who hit on me (I’ll call him Lover Boy) is twenty. My husband is so disarming that he ends up spinning Tough Guy’s claimed fighting prowess into recruiting him to be on my husbands side if he runs into any trouble at this bar (lol).
“Man, I’m gonna need you on my side if things go south here, can I count on you?”
It was truly hilarious to watch, because Tough Guy had backed himself into a corner by insisting he could basically beat up anyone there, so when propositioned to back up my husband should he need hypothetical assistance, he had to maintain his persona. As the kids say, it was cinema.
I tell Lover Boy I’ve been with my husband as long as he’s been alive. He had no concept of this. Did not compute. Honestly, I was just as surprised hearing it myself. I think I only said it because I was looking at this bearded fellow thinking, whoa, my relationship is as old as this adult man! (however immature he may be).
Of course, Lover Boy implied my marriage wouldn’t last because we “didn’t get to be single in college.” Again, with the arrogance and the assuming. What is it with these kids? I corrected him, as he was wrong. I got plenty of time to be single in college before we got together. Not that it’s anyone’s beeswax.
We talked about our respective colleges. I said I went to Penn State, and they took that to mean I dated the whole football team for some reason. Harped on that. Weird, misogynistic shit with a voyeuristic tinge. Super odd to have to deny hooking up with former PSU QB Michael Robinson and his teammates, but okay. 
They asked what sports the husbands played, which is funny in hindsight because it definitely felt pissing-contest-adjacent. Mine played rugby for Temple, and our friend played football for Middlebury. They surprisingly showed some respect for both of those things, then proceeded to say how we needed to raise our son to be tough. My husband let him know we wake up our four-year-old daily by repeatedly punching him in the sides to make sure we raise a real man. I love how my husband can be such a smartass while also maintaining an air of friendliness. (For anyone unsure, we do NOT punch our son).
You’re probably wondering why this convo went on so long. It was actually longer, and my only explanation is that they wouldn’t take a hint and leave. It did afford us many examples of these so-called men showing qualities that I would be embarrassed for my son to possess as he gets older. Lack of respect for women, bragging about being tough guys, making sexist jokes and assumptions, misogyny on full display. Not to mention the stupid ass trucker hat resting on top of Tough Guy’s head the whole time. Like not fit to his head, I mean literally sitting on top.
The guys finally did leave (and without throwing a punch)! When we went to catch our Uber home, they happened to be outside. They were still eyeing up my husband, trying to assert dominance? Or maybe it was really him they were after the whole time! Plot twist! I just waved goodbye real friendly-like, held my husband’s hand, and never looked back.
I’m telling it as a funny story, and we certainly will be laughing about this for a long time. But the whole thing was also disappointing in many ways. I know for a fact that not all Gen Z men are like this. They can be great! Emotionally intelligent, in touch with their feelings, respectful, inclusive, savvy, and funny as hell.
Not these ones. They gave me the ick on behalf of the girls they were with. They didn’t believe we were forty, which felt kinda good, not gonna lie. But they were sub-par in so many ways, I can’t really count that as a win. They thought they were going to come over and snag a couple of twenty-nine-year-olds (their guess), and that that was the way to behave in order to accomplish their goal. Baffling.
What’s really funny to me is that I posted this saga on Threads, and a bunch of people mentioned that this area of Philly has become known as the “Bromuda Triangle,” which I found to be an extremely clever moniker as well as an unfortunate discovery. One guy made some interesting points, shown here, and others communicated a similar sentiment.
Am I just getting too old to be out with the young people? Or is it that this particular area (and others like it) happen to attract the worst kind of men to interact with if you expect respect? Either way, it doesn’t feel worth it to spend what precious time we get to be out these days in the presence of people like this. I know all of us were kind of annoyed afterwards that these bros used up some of that sacred time, while leaving us with a negative impression of their generation.
(Again, shout out to the cool Gen Z-ers. I know you’re out there).
I’m proud of my husband for maturely diffusing the situation and not even remotely taking the bait from dumb, drunk kids. In reality, I don’t think things were even close to coming to blows, but that hasn’t stopped me from puzzling over the whole thing. Not just about the immature behavior we witnessed. I get it, to an extent, even if I disagree with it.
It’s that I know how differently things could have ended if the men we were with shared any of Tough Guy and Lover Boy’s qualities. If they had a shred of the inflated ego these boys possessed, would they have challenged them more? Would a punch have been thrown, or a territorial shove, or even some strong words and an invitation to leave our table?
One might wonder whether my husband and friend matured out of that type of behavior and ego over time, realizing the error of their previous ways with the benefit of age and experience. It might seem fair to assume that all guys get sucked into those ways of thinking before “growing up.”
Since I know the (real) men in question, though, I happen to know they were never successfully red-pilled. Somehow, the men who I have chosen to surround myself with never spoke to women like this in bars. I know this because I got shitfaced with them twenty years ago on the regular. Even with the shroud of drunken impulsivity as a defense, they never once provoked someone to violence in my presence, and were never rude to women. They never questioned a woman’s sexual history while trying to disguise it as flirting (I actually did meet guys like this in college, and got the ick immediately from them).
I know these boys/men existed in the early 2000s- I’m not implying that everyone was a gentleman, because NO. What I am saying is that it’s not inevitable, we just have to shut it down when we see it and not reward the bad behavior with attention. We need to be more discerning about who we choose to spend our time with. I filtered those types of guys out of my circle long ago, and I’m not interested in including any now.
I regret not asking whether they voted in the 2024 election. Could have been enlightening, though it could also have led to having to listen to ill-informed political takes, so maybe it was best to leave it. I’d also like to know their names, because Tough Guy and Lover Boy sound too complimentary. More realistically, they were Jacob and Ethan or Michael and Ryan, as boy names were still pretty classic in the early aughts.
ANYWAY, I have this running hypothesis that the male ego is the apex of what is wrong with our society and our country at the moment. Not one of the problems the U.S. is facing right now would have happened without the effects of inflated egos and the men to whom they belong. Power, money, dominance, masculinity. The pillars of their value systems. No room for anything that doesn’t ultimately serve their own self importance. If Gen Z men like this grow up to be our next wave of politicians, I fear we may never get out from under regimes like the one in office today.
But I find solace in my witty husband who somehow does not feel the need to center himself in situations like this. He is comfortable in his masculinity, in his intelligence, in the things he values, and he could not give one tiny shit about whether others agree. He is the epitome of being unbothered, and tbh it’s inspiring. Our friend who was with us is similar. He might get bothered, but he’s mature enough to gauge whether a situation warrants his attention, and he keeps his cool.
And let me just say, that if things went south, they could have held their own in my opinion. Thankfully, we didn’t have to find out.
I am so grateful that my son has many strong, steady, and empathetic male influences in his life, including a Gen Z uncle who is nothing like the guys in this story.
Please tell me about your amazing experiences with Gen Z men, because I need to hope for better than the Bromuda Triangle has to offer.
xo, Amy