I thought we’d created something beautiful in the 90s, with the notion that perhaps nobody was any good at fidelity or washing up. If only we could revive that message
My millennial friend was explaining the trajectory of the men-are-trash narrative. It fell out of fashion for a bit, but now it’s very much back. The proposition, in a nutshell, is that men are trash. It’s a narrative because it’s 2023, and everything is. There were boomers round the table as well. I know, I know: it sounds like an event I’ve made up, but what can I say, I run a very broad friend church, generation-wise. “Well, obviously,” said one, “that’s because men are trash.” “No, no,” said another 60-plus, who is known for her interjections of nuance. “Men aren’t trash. It’s just that women are more interesting.”
Tiny point of clarification: all these people are married and their husbands were right there. “Shhh, shhh, ladies, they can hear you!” I said, like a true gen X. “No, it’s true,” said a millennial guy. “We probably don’t do as much work on ourselves.”
