She sat at the bar perched on a captain’s chair.  While sipping on her white wine she starred at a BlackBerry.  This was not the kind of woman we were used to seeing in this joint.  It is usually filled with early twenty something dressed in oddly tight outfits, their knees against the wood as they talked loudly to their friends on pink cell phones. 

There was a purpose to this visit, to this woman.  Her dress was black, simple, elegant and expensive.   Her sandy blonde hair was cut to perfectly flatter her face and the pearls around her neck glistened even in the low bar light.  She looked at the door with a scowl, one designed for the object of her ire and to keep unwanted advances from men to a minimum.   She had the air of one who was used to being in charge.  “I can’t believe it, he’s half an hour late,” she told the bartender.  “He keeps telling me he’s ten minutes away, five minutes away and now he’s half an hour late.”  As someone who is always late for dates, I can understand where this guy was coming from.  I have done the same thing.   

As an aging Gen-Xer, I liked to fancy myself as part of a group of young men that were pissed off and angry at the world. However, I was just another entitled, spoiled child from the upper middle class suburbs who decided to snark instead of achieve.  The girls I am drawn to, the women that hung out with my friends and I back at NYU and who are my love interests today became smart, poised, perfectly put together high earning women.  Like this sandy haired blonde, they are now Alpha women and my friends and I who remained in this faux bohemian underground are Beta males.

An Alpha female has a higher income and is looking for a Male Wife to run the house: schedule/pay the cleaning ladies, drop off/pick up the dry cleaning, pay the bills, cook, and maybe later take care of the children.  She wants a man who will listen to her, be emotionally supportive of and take an interest in her career.  He is lesser employed and relies on her job benefits.  His job status as Home Manager is a reflection of her status and success.

After a second glass of wine, the sandy haired lady dropped her annoyance long enough to tell the barman a bit of her story.  She lived across the street at 32 Gramercy Park and had for over 5 years.  The guy she was waiting for lived with three roommates in a Fort Green apartment. Supposedly, he met his friends at the Black Bear Lodge, a Guyland bar one block up 3^rd Avenue.  They had met a few weeks earlier at Tonic, a large super pub at 29^th and 3^rd.  After several dinner dates and pleasant evenings, his calls ceased and they hadn’t seen each other since.

Finally, after nearly an hour of waiting, the classy woman in the black dress had enough.  “I can’t believe he couldn’t break away from his friends,” she said, holding her BlackBerry aloft.  “Here’s another text from him, he’s five minutes away.  He’s been five minutes away for the last half an hour.  If a guy comes in looking for someone, let him know I went home.”  She turned and headed to the exit, throwing her dark bag over her right shoulder.

Five minutes later in walked a semi-shaven Guyland type, with a pale blue shirt and semi-dirty chinos.  “She left my friend,” the bartender called out. “It was only a few minutes ago.  You should call her.”

He nodded and pulled out his iPhone.  “Dude, I can’t believe it, she gone.  I was only like, five minutes late,” he slurred, struggling to walk back up the block.  The barman and I looked at each other knowingly.  The Guylander had missed his chance to get laid with no strings attached.  However, not understanding his was the beta presence in the relationship, he made a fundamental error in logic: this was her booty call, not his.