It seems plausible to me that The Anthony Hopkins character was a repressed gay. Surely a randy female would have picked up on that very quickly. Chalk it up to clueless females being intrigued with "sensitive" males and not understanding the cues.
shareIt's actually more like selfish and self-centered. I don't mean to bash every woman but that is a trait that I have observed in too many women.
There is a reason that you see a magazine called something like " Bride " on magazine racks but never a magazine called " Groom ". Like a girl said in a show, most guys don't want to get married, you as a girl have to try to make them think they want to get married.
Society frowns on and deeply disapproves of any male that is too emotional, too prone to outbursts or crying. A dichotomy then exists between what is expected of the male, to be in control of his emotions while at the same time not being in control, when it is in the interest of a woman.
I don't know if you have ever had the experience of a group of people thinking that you and some girl you didn't know should be boyfriend and girlfriend. This demand that you be warm and friendly to an extreme towards a total stranger is just a bit too much. To develop genuine warm feelings toward someone you have to get to know them.
Miss Benn started making advances virtually the first day she was there toward Stevens. This was essentially a demand that he instantly have warm feelings towards her starting right then and such a demand itself is just as cold and barren as it can be.
No one likes to feel that they are being cornered, intimidated, pressured into something as personal as romantic love. There can only exists a deep feeling of resentment and distrust. I have observed guys do this to girls as well, so guys can be selfish and self-centered too.
It is possible that Stevens was gay, but I think it was more a case of a woman demanding too much, too fast. Stevens didn't really know her, and by the same token she didn't really know him.
One thing I learned recently was that a good number of women want to get married because they see their friends getting married. Miss Benn seemed to be around 35 years of age so I would imagine she would have seen her friends and relatives getting married and probably questioned as to when she might be getting married. You could see the seething resentment of Miss Benn towards the younger woman who was planning to get married, Miss Benn seemed to be doing her best to dissuade the young woman from getting married. Misery loves company I suppose.
A hetero male would have been very interested in a female who made her intentions very clear. Stevens was to me gay not just asexual. If one is in the presence of a female with an obvious wide-on a hetero quickly makes a pitch. It is just an aspect of the human condition.
shareThe conditions of the job required one to be single and also Stevens was her boss. It would be highly inappropriate for a man in his position to pursue her. A woman or any person's intentions or not are not always clear. A man can misread and often he does the actions of a woman towards him.
A study I read determined that when a woman puts her hands on a man a lot of times she means it as a friendly gesture, but he perceives it as sexual interest. If he acts on what he perceives, particularly if he is her boss he can find himself in big trouble.
Now, what defies reason is having men and women living in the same house together, working along side each other at times, eating together like a big family, and having the expectation that they will not develop warm feelings toward each other and perhaps want to get married.
It's rather hard to see how that would not happen.
Stevens seemed to be in his mid-fifties when he first met Miss Benn. At that age one has to start to consider one's demise and what kind of funeral one would like to have. His father seemed to die in his 70's so Stevens had roughly probably 20 years max before that final event.
Now in a society that demands that men be heterosexually married by a certain age, if one was a gay man then one would certainly find relief in a job that required one to not be married.
The problems of "reading" one's intentions would never occur between heterosexual types. Their would be some flirting and then discussions about intent. But the setting and time portrayed in the film suggeest a very repressed era in Britain.
I know a few fellows who married for the first time in the late sixties and one at age 71. I was honest with them in saying they weren't looking for a sex partner but a nurse. Pity the women who were clueless. All the women were about twenty years younger and had never married or had children. Asexual Companionship? Probably but the woman will end up as a nurse to the older partner. They are clueless for not understanding why the males really married them- they wanted a nurse in waiting.
I suppose some women just want to say they have been married. If they married a rich older gentleman then they may just be waiting for him to die, particularly if he is in ill health. Usually such a woman will have a boyfriend on the side.
I think even today workplace romances are frowned upon, flirting can disrupt the normal ebb and flow of the workplace which after all is suppose to be about work. A nightclub, a bar, a disco, etc is more a natural place for seeking out the opposite sex.
Women when flirting want to maintain what they call denability. This means if put on the spot they can always deny that they were trying to make advances towards a male. This protects them but at the same time can send confused messages towards the intended.
One can misinterpret behavior. As a guy you can think a woman is interested in you when she is not, and you can think a woman is not interested in you when she is. If you determine that she is interested in you, you may simply have no interest in her.
People marry for all kinds of reasons ( money, lust, stability, social status,etc ) and choose not to get married for all kinds of reasons as well.
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Yes, I'm afraid a lot of people don't really know the person they are marrying all that well, which is something I just don't understand. How can you make such a major decision on such little info?
I think you need to know a person about a year before you should consider marrying them. That gives you time to find out about them and discover any bad habits they may have.
A marriage is about two people and not just one. I would think that friend of yours would prefer his own natural kids to adopting some other woman's kids. Nothing against adopting kids, if the woman was barren that would be one thing.
If a woman is ever going to have a baby then 32 is getting close to the age where it would pose a health risk to try to have one.
This is where the sole notion of romantic love can lead people astray. You have to think about the practicalities, where are you going to live, do you want kids or not, if so what religion will they be, etc. Hopefully you get all this sorted through before you decide to get married.
He wasn't gay, he was in love with her, he just couldn't show it.
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