Notches

I don't like to keep notches on my bedpost

It's become a cultural norm for guys to treat women like trophies.

That getting a girl to sleep with us is the modern day equivalent of slaying a dragon

Society says masculinity is proportional to how many women you get, or how much you can bench press.

Guys complain that chivalry died because women don't like it when we try to be gentlemen

Quite frankly, chivalry died when men forgot how to be men

And women stopped taking our bs because they got sick of boys pretending to be men

I don't understand why guys think that way

Personally, I hate thinking of the proverbial notches on my bed post

All they do is remind me how many times I was almost happy

A count down of how many relationships does it take before I finally get it

Before I finally understand that the cure for loneliness is not at the bottom of a bottle 

Nor is it between the legs of someone who I only view as a bookmark and not the book

I am just as guilty of succumbing to hook up culture but that doesn't mean I like it

As a guy I've always been told it's polite to walk a girl home to make sure she gets home safe 

But I've also been raised around girls who were tough as nails and didn't want protecting

I honestly believed women today felt the same way any guy does when walking down the street until I went on a mission trip to New York

On one of our outings, a few of the girls split from the group to take pictures of time square.

I tagged along purely to be social and get to know the team

But one of them said "thanks for coming with us, I feel safer"

I wasn't sure what shocked me more, the fact she was actually afraid of being in a group of only girls

Or the fact she felt it necessary to thank me

As if it were an inconvenience to me to make her feel safe

That men are more often threats than protectors and so when one knight in shining armor comes along it's grounds for gratitude

I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that

But it's literally impossible for me to ignore it and carry on like it's not a big deal