This Is What Dating in New York City in 1974 Was Like
In DepthIn 1974, a dozen single men and a dozen single women talked to the New York Times about their love lives for two articles on dating in the city that never sleeps (but definitely has sex). After the pieces were released, the Times got all the subjects together for drinks, which resulted in third piece about how their quest for love and more was going. The result is a revealing and sometimes hilarious portrayal of dating – 40 years ago.
The men were profiled first, and their piece was entitled “Bachelor’s Life: Things Aren’t Always Hunky-Dory in Paradise.” They outlined a bevy of opinions; that they thought single men needed a “gimmick” to get women to notice them (playing volleyball in the park and losing the ball was suggested); that they didn’t want to date models, actresses or stewardesses; that they valued intelligence and warmth in a woman, and that they wanted to meet their potential partner through friends.
The fun Bachelor lifestyle is “just a myth,” said Peter Levinson (who, from the descriptions–if not the photos–in this article, sounds like a real catch), “a myth perpetuated by Hugh Hefner and Playboy magazine. Being a bachelor in this city is often very lonely, and often very difficult.”
They sound, well, nice. And sort of sad. Basically, they’re as much of a mixed bag as men today. As Levinson put it:
“Women here have, I find, a fear of relationships because of some terrible wrong that one or two or possibly three men did to them at one time or another.”
Another man said he believed that “women who say that the only men they meet are either married or gay are only ‘copping out.'”
“There is a type of woman in New York who doesn’t want a man except one who is unavailable,” said Mr. Olden, a physical fitness buff who holds a black belt in karate and a brown belt in judo. “They are no more interested in tying themselves down to one man than man is to one woman.”
Others, of course, had “mixed feelings about settling down,” due to “the ‘infinite availability’ of interesting women in the city, ‘like grains of sand along the seashore.'” They didn’t think it was possible to end a relationship without coming off as a jerk:
“Never,” he said firmly. “That’s like asking if there’s a way to get in and out of a dentist’s chair, or a nice way to suffer through an I.R.S. audit. It just can’t be done.”
But just when you think this article could have been written in 2014, not 1974, the beat drops:
…they tended to look down on women they meet in singles’ bars; they find more and more women are interested in “one-night stands”, or if not that, are asking the men to be “just friends”; and that even though many women are talking “the women’s lib game,” these very same women rarely offer to pay their share of an evening’s entertainment.
Several of the bachelors expressed surprise – and some dismay – at the fact that so many of the women they meet, especially in bars, are interested in only one-night liaisons.
“It’s as though women were going through a period of feeling their Cheerios,” said Ralph Di Pietro, a 31-year-old Manhattan management consultant who refers to former female roommates as “ex-wives.”
And most of the bachelors, according to author Judy Klemesrud, “…said that the women’s movement was having an impact on almost all of the women he dated. It is noticeable, the men said, in more aggressiveness on the part of women, such as in calling the men for dates; in being more active in politics and sports; and in speaking more frankly about feelings and emotions.”
“When a woman calls me for a date, I almost feel obligated to say yes,” said Hank Cha, a 32-year-old consultant for the Xerox Corporation, “because I know it’s probably taken her so much courage to do it.”
Oh Hank Cha.