Who is the man I fear?

[garote]

One day while I was single and feeling really jaded by the dating scene, I sat down and asked myself an interesting question:

Who is the man I fear?

That is, who is the imaginary man I feel is out there, dating the same people I am, who I most resent competing with? The guy who I instinctively dislike, and am intimidated by, and who has way better success than me, at least in the short-term?

Coming up with a description of that guy was both educational and weirdly interesting.

Who is the guy I fear?

• He is taller than me.
• He is in great shape with broad shoulders and obvious abs.
• He has no gray hair.
• He has tailored clothes that hug his body, and wears a single earring and/or a fancy watch. He wears cologne and his hands are always clean and his shoes are always expensive.
• He’s a great dancer and has been taking dance classes for years. He goes skiing and sailing often. He knows a lot about beer and wine. He hops on a jet to Paris when he wants; the expense does not concern him.
• He is supremely, endlessly self-confident and self-assured, and cheerful and smiling all the time. Scratch the surface and he is also intensely arrogant, but to the people he pulls into his orbit, that's seen as justified.
• He doesn’t do anything particularly aggressive, but just by looking the way he does and expressing mild interest, all the women I go on dates with instantly forget about me and decide they want to be with him instead, and flirt with him relentlessly on the first date. “I don’t know what it is,” they might confess to their friends later, “I’m just really attracted to him and I can’t explain it.”
• He inevitably makes out with them on the first date, or takes them home in his fancy car, where they have sex on silk sheets in a house full of expensive furniture that kids would wreck in a few days, and though he isn't a very giving or attentive lover, the shape of his body and his imperious behavior make his dates overlook it.
• When women I'm dating run into this guy, I never hear about it. From my point of view they simply ghost me.
• A while later some of these women might pop back onto the dating sites, after being with this guy for anywhere between a month to a year, and feeling increasingly intimidated, exhausted, and paranoid for reasons they can’t explain. That doesn’t mean they’ll like me. They won’t. If they lose Mr. Amazing, chances are 50-50 they'll blame themselves for failing to keep up with him, and set about looking for another copy of him.

And this is what I imagine, in my more paranoid and self-loathing moments, when women mysteriously stop talking to me.

This is the guy I fear.

I sometimes think I see copies of him, chatting away with women downtown. The women giggle and touch his arm, picturing him naked, while their stomachs turn little somersaults.

I imagine covertly drugging his cocktail, so he suddenly craps his pants while they drive to his house, and the stink fills his tiny expensive car and makes her gag. She tries to laugh it off but he snaps at her because his leather seat has diarrhea on it now. He showers at his house but she doesn't want to join him. The spell is broken. She asks for a ride home, and he takes her with bad grace.

Then I realize I’m probably looking at a married couple or maybe two siblings and I have no idea who they are, and it’s all in my head, and I tell my brain to shut up and change the subject.

Still, he's lurking in his corner, in my mind; that guy I fear.

Is there a guy, or girl, you fear? A romantic competitor lurking in your mind?