I agree wholeheartedly; a man doesn't need to do anything to make me happy. If we click, we click. And if he does the sorts of things I referenced on this list, we don't click.

Re: misogyny — no, being a man is not tantamount to misogyny. I don't have time to break down what misogyny is, but there are a lot of great feminist writers who discuss this topic, so you could look there if the idea confuses you.

I don't think all men strictly want booty calls; I think the assumption that men want sex and nothing more is a sexist stereotype that treats men unfairly as one-dimensional. I'm not saying that no men ever want one, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with booty calls. But the idea that men never want more than this is sexist and needs to fade away.

I can't speak to your junior high school experience, but I'm sorry if you saw a discouraging pattern in the girls at your school. Some people — of any gender — have emotional problems that make them think they have to "earn" love, as if they're not automatically deserving of it. I think that's where some people's attraction to aloofness comes from. But that reflects something unhealthy. Luckily, not everyone behaves that way. ;)

I agree that everyone has something that really interests them. The boring people are the ones who refuse to talk about these things. I generally ask questions very early on to find out what these things are, but if a guy won't even open up and say what his interests are, I take it as a bad sign.

As for women who don't tolerate men's feelings, yes, I advise you not to get involved with a person who can't tolerate your feelings. The bar in this article ultimately comes down to just three things: basic decency, emotional intelligence, and self-control. Within those parameters, there's vast freedom for feeling feelings; what matters is whether the person feeling the feelings handles them in a healthy, mature, responsible way. Abusive or destructive ways of handling feelings are what's not being tolerated here; it's not emotions themselves that I advocate disallowing.

That said, many people struggle with those three fundamental qualities. I used to get involved with those people, but I learned the hard, painful way after quite a few years that it doesn't work out. That said, there are plenty of women who don't draw hard lines at the qualities I mentioned here. :)

Thanks for reading!