THE GENERATION OF SELF-LOVING WOMEN
A spring Thursday: soft sun, pleasantly cool — if a touch too chilly for comfort and liable to coax a few persistent sneezes. I love this time of year.
I decide to have lunch at a trendy place in town: light wooden tables, a cosy view of the Mediterranean and a very respectable wine list.
I sit down, straighten my jacket and notice a group of women settling at the next table — each with her own style, all self-assured, laughing out loud as if they need no permission to occupy the space.
I exchange a few words with the waiter and, from the glances we trade, I gather this was more than just lunch — it was a gathering of free friends. They looked as if they’d known each other for years, perhaps from school or somewhere similar: one had come from work, another from the gym, one was a civil servant, another studying medicine and perhaps one still cramming for a public-service exam — but all, to my eyes, very sure of who they were.
Even though, like almost everyone with blood in their veins, each probably carries her own closet of demons to contend with daily…
I thought of Zygmunt Bauman’s “liquid relationships”: everything slips away, nothing lasts.
But what I saw at that table was the opposite side of the coin: women who’ve learned not to cling where it no longer makes sense.
Our grandmothers could hardly have imagined this — they married for convenience, to secure a roof and a livelihood.
Today, this generation embraces autonomy, even knowing that sometimes it means coming home to no one to rest your cold feet on a chilly spring night.
And us, men of this generation, heirs to the bold pioneers of the world — where do we fit in this story?
I left lunch and they carried on — by then the third bottle of wine — I suppose they’d taken the day for themselves. I met some friends later that evening; nothing special. One of them often holds a midweek barbecue — nothing fancy, just a get-together. I rarely go, but those women had inspired me; I wanted to see the other side up close…
…and the conversation was the same old thing: bearded men lost in online games, topics that go nowhere and jokes from people who dodge commitment as a child runs from homework.
They treat relationships like videogames: swapping partners when bored, pressing pause when asked to give back even a minimum of affection.
Many still trawl Tinder looking for a mother they can sleep with — sometimes.
I stayed on the margins of that game.
I prefer a good book, music that touches the soul, looking after my body and feeding a social conscience.
My addiction has two wheels — a motorbike that takes me far — and a deep longing for genuine relationships.
That’s why those “aliens” of our times attract me: they arrive unafraid, speak looking you in the eye and leave no room for cheap come-ons or hollow displays of masculinity.
They set their own rules, not out of gratuitous rebellion but out of authenticity.
Flip the logic: anyone willing to enter that unscripted territory will come out ahead; those who insist on prehistoric conquest tactics will only lose out.
Bauman was right that our ties dissolve quickly — but the real fear isn’t getting wet; it’s diving deep and discovering you can barely swim.
They, by contrast, swim with ease. And if today they are labelled “difficult”, I ask: isn’t it you who got used to playing on “easy” mode?
This is the generation of women with self-love. An entirely new species on this planet.
A generation that comes preconfigured to say no.
My circle of friends weren’t trained for this kind of woman.
They want an ideal of woman that no longer exists — we weren’t warned we’d live in a world where women say, plainly: “I love myself.”
What I’m saying goes far beyond the woman thirsty for experiences regardless of the risks — Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, who discovers too soon that the world wasn’t made for her dreams.
Much less the hopeful, innocent “princess” syndrome of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, who ends up at home looking after three children while her husband drinks at the pub until three in the morning, forever anxious about being replaced by a younger woman.
These are women with agency, able to choose what they believe is best for themselves and learning to embrace solitude rather than accept crumbs of affection in exchange for mediocre sex and some vague social status.
With my rebellious, libertarian — even reckless — soul, I confess I love these days. Perhaps my megalomaniacal ego would rather die than enter a relationship of convenience.
Yet the idea of breaking down every objection of a woman who loves herself and values her peace above all is more thrilling than any dragon my namesake Saint George might have faced for his great love.
This generation of women who love themselves is the most delicious that has ever existed.
And every time I touch such free skin and feel the hairs rise slowly, I feel more powerful than all the kings who have trod the earth.
Because if that woman is there, naked in body and soul, it’s because she loved herself first — and I am a form she chose to express affection through.
My role is to prove, every second, every millimetre, that she was not wrong.
