On a recent 10pm train home from a spicy, Szechuan dinner in Bloomsbury, I called up my best friend who lives out of town. A romantic affair had blown up and I was gagging to dissect it. “That is just classic boy,” she told me, after I loudly regaled the drama, revelling over the tonal specificities of an exchange that had particularly irked me.
Hearing her words felt good. It was a dance we had done through most of our twenties (I’m now 28, and this time around have been single for a year). Someone in our friendship group would relay their version of some infuriating and/or disturbing series of events – a wild love bomber, an unruly gaslighter, a pushy sexual partner – and the rest of us would roll our eyes with predictable fury. “That is soooo male.” “That is such a boy thing to say.” “That is such a man response.”
