Cultured, well-read, romantic, emotional… In theory the ‘softboi’ makes a perfect boyfiend, it’s in reality that things get a lot more complicated
It was on one of those endless fabulous afternoons of the past, when we were walking down a crowded canal path after lunch, that my friend first introduced me to the concept of a “softboi”. She was single at the time and painfully gorgeous – watching her talk, my skin would prickle as if sunburned. She had amassed a sophisticated understanding of the available dating apps and was able to answer questions about their differences, their clientele, their various ways to hurt you, much like a black cab driver having studied the Knowledge. She could tell you the fastest route to a bad decision both in and out of rush hour.
There was a type of man that she seemed to attract, and it was on this leisurely walk (I picture it now through pandemic lenses, the sky a Technicolor turquoise, the smell of strangers’ cigarette smoke like expensive perfume, a dolphin leaping up the lock) that she tried to describe him. At first glance, he was decent. Interesting. Interested. He was in touch with his feelings. His bio was carefully littered with cultural detritus, an author’s name here, a song lyric there. He’d read all the Jonathans, from Franzen to Livingston Seagull. When he respectfully entered her Instagram DMs with a question about her thoughts on such topics as post-feminist marketing or the gentrification of the internet, he was halfway home. It was in the medium of the private message where the softboi could relax. This was his stage, his canvas: an “I’m typing” ellipsis showed the artist was present.
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