Deconstructing the Married Guy Here’s a pop quiz for all you ladies out there.
Three guys go into a bar. They’re all in their late thirties/early forties. All reasonably good looking. None of them is wearing a wedding ring.
Guy #1 is tall, tanned, well-dressed, and in great shape. He is sitting by himself at the end of the bar and you overhear him say something really funny about one of the other patrons, which cracks you up. He notes your amusement, and, because he is friendly with the bartender, ends up getting you free drinks all night while regaling you with a host of other witty and slightly snarky observations about the other patrons, all of whom he seems to know. Before you know it, the two of you have pledged your drunken, undying love to one another and you float out of the bar on a cloud of bliss, convinced that, at last, you have found your perfect soul mate.
Guy #2 is of average height, wearing Levis, a leather jacket, and a baseball cap, and has a slight beer gut that has not yet progressed from the “cute” to the “just plain repulsive” stage. He circles you a couple of hundred times, eyeing you about as subtly as Whitney Houston would eye a crack pipe, before finally swooping in for the kill. During your conversation, he has difficulty maintaining eye contact because he’s constantly swiveling around to check out the other women who are entering and leaving the premises. When the tab comes, he offers to split it with you, but, as it turns out, he’s forgotten his wallet so you end up paying for the whole thing. And, even though he had taken your card, you know you’ll never hear from him again. And that’s...okay.
Guy #3 is also of average height, but he wears a business suit with an artfully coordinated tie and French cuffs (and boy, oh boy, are you a sucker for French cuffs). He approaches you confidently but respectfully, proceeds to ask you all manner of intelligent questions about yourself, and listens attentively to every answer, even cleverly repeating back your responses to demonstrate his good listening skills. He makes you feel like you are the most important person in the world, and when the check arrives he sweeps it up without comment before inviting you out to lunch the following day.
Can you spot the Married Guy in this crowd?
What? Guy #1, you say? Be serious. He’s gay, dummy! Why do you think you had so much fun together - there was no pressure on either part to turn the encounter into anything more than it was. No harm, no foul, and you’ve got a new friend for life.
Who said Guy #2? You? Oh, come on - you didn’t really pick him, did you? You should know better! Pick up that dunce cap and go sit your ass in a corner until you get a clue.
If you answered Guy #3, slap on a big gold star and march on up to the head of the class.
Guy #3 is the Married Guy. How can you spot this so you’re better prepared to repel him the next time around? Let’s deconstruct, shall we?
The first clue is the wedding ring. You know, that wedding ring he’s not wearing. I, personally, am of the opinion that every person in this country who gets married should be compelled by force of law to wear a wedding ring, but many men will complain about this because they “don’t like wearing jewelry.” Oh, yeah? Well, I have a solution for that, too, then! Tattoos! Every married man who refuses to wear a wedding ring should be forcibly tattooed. Originally, I was thinking that an enormous red “M” in the center of the forehead would be ideal, but my married female friends convinced me that that was a little extreme, and they didn’t really want to have to wake up and see that thing looming over them every morning for the rest of their lives. Point taken. A simple red band around the ring finger will do just fine, thank you, although I still think we should insist on one that glows in the dark so you can’t miss it in dimly lit bars, crowded nightclubs, and dark alleys.
The next clue is the outfit - the nice tie and the French cuffs. The Married Guy has learned how to dress snappily because, with a wife at home, he’s had a never ending flow of feedback. He has learned what works, what appeals to women, and, because, since he is already married, no one can ever accuse him of ‘trying too hard’ or - even worse in his mind - being gay. Why? Because he’s married, you see. Oh. Okay.
The third clue is his disarming attention to you. His interest is not feigned - oh, no, far from it. He really is interested in what you have to say. First, because it gives him an “in” into to your psyche so he can evaluate whether or not you’re mistress material; second, because the more you open up and talk about yourself the more you will come to trust him; and third, because you represent a refreshing change of pace from the wife-house-kids routine that has been boring him since the day he walked down the aisle. Yeah, he got everything he wanted, but it also makes him feel old and stodgy. He wants everyone to see him as the Dynamic Lord of the Universe, so rather than conform to society’s expectations and be the dutiful husband and father (which he pretends to be on weekends), he decides to spend his after-work hours hanging around trendy bars and hitting on attractive single women who hold more than a passing interest for him.
And the fourth and final clue is the lunch invitation.
Let me explain something to you about the Married Guy’s MO. He will never invite you out to dinner. That would be a date, you see, which means that he would be making a conscious effort to cheat.
The Married Guy rationalizes away his cheating by pretending that it is all accidental. That it’s just an evening between friends that got “out of hand.“ So he will take you to lunch, because lunch is safe and that’s how he will become your friend (unless he invites you to a private lunch in his corporate apartment, in which case he’s an old hand who has slithered his way down the Sleaze Meter from Casual Philanderer to Utter Scumbag and you should just flee for your life). Once the lunch is out of the way, and now that you are friends, he will feel perfectly entitled to invite you to come out for “a drink” sometime. From there, it’s only a few martinis to the “oh my god I was so drunk and you‘re so beautiful” excuse before he slinks home in the night, never to be seen or heard from again.
Until the next time he’s drunk and horny, that is. And that’s pretty much how it will remain, until he gets bored, you get fed up, or one of you dies.
The Married Guy will never leave his wife. No matter how much he moans and bitches about how lonely he is, how she doesn’t understand him, how she only pays attention to the kids and not him - he’s not fooling anyone except maybe himself.
Truth be told, he’s got everything he wants. Wife, kids, nice house, and a little sumpin’ sumpin’ on the side. Why would he want to rock that boat? And even if he does, by some miracle, up and leave - well, aren’t you the lucky one. You’ve just welcomed a known adulterer onto your doorstep. And, truth be told again, you don’t really have a clue who he is or what he’s all about. The only thing you can be sure about is that he’s a liar and a cheater, and you‘d better believe that if he did it with you he‘ll have no qualms about doing it to you.
So hear this, Married Guy: You’re starting to piss me off.
You disappoint me.
You lie by omission.
And, most importantly, you’re wasting my fucking time.
Married Guy, you are a scourge among scourges. You are selfish, evil, and devoid of any semblance of empathy or kindness. You hurt everyone you touch, and you‘re too self absorbed to even notice.
Go home, Married Guy. You’re not wanted here.
10:42:09 AM 
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