Recently, the New York Times ran an article about Lulu, a new app that let’s women anonymously review men who are their Facebook friends.Using hashtags such as #Friendzone, #PornEducated, #ObsessedWithHisMom, and #DudeCanCook, to name a few, it’s been hailed as the female equivalent of “revenge porn.” Praised and hated by many, it’s been taking the Internet by storm and has grown “600 percent in the last six months…”
With that said, Lulu, I believe, could be very good for men and women.
Several years ago, when I was still in high school, my friends and I discovered that Comcast TV had a service that allowed customers to video date. The service consisted of men and women leaving five minute video profiles for interested parties to watch. Naturally, my friends and I devised a game that involved us looking at a woman’s username, and then guessing how good-looking she’d be. With names like: KittyKat123, Ginger, Gymgoer, and Librarian88, we were at no loss for laughs… and surprises. The second a woman jumped onto the screen we’d quickly be hooting and hollering. It wasn’t our proudest moment, and we only played it a few times before we eventually, as we did in those young days, grew tired of our game.
But a few weeks afterward, I was in the kitchen and overheard my sister-in-law and her friends playing our game, this time they were doing it with the guy’s profiles. Something was different when they played though. When the guys came on screen there was no immediate yelling or screaming. There was silence. At one moment I heard one of them saying, “Oh he’s cute,” and then I heard the rest of them, “Shhh … let’s wait and hear what his hobbies are….”
It was at that moment I first realized how differently men and women viewed the world.
Fast forward several years and I’m a twenty-two year old veteran home from the Iraq war. I was coming off a rough few months of drinking, smoking, and fighting, and was working on getting my shit together.
“Getting my shit together,” consisted of quitting drinking, drugs, and fighting; but it also included sending a letter to the last five women I dated. Some of them I had dated for a few months, others just a few days. In the letter I asked a few basic questions such as “What was it like when we were together?” “Do you feel as though I ever truly saw you?” “Do you feel as though you ever truly saw me?”
All the women whom I sent my questionnaire to were happy to respond—even though not all of their responses were happy. There were a lot of good comments, but in full disclosure, a lot of not so good ones, too. One said I was selfish in bed, another that I was often rude, all said I drank too much, none claimed that they ever truly felt they “saw me,” or I them.
The responses were difficult to read (even a hundred positive responses won’t lift a man’s spirit when he receives a single negative comment about his bedroom skills) but I forced myself to read every single comment, and as a result, I believe I became a better man. I took a solid look at what all the women had to say and how I was being with them, and being seen, and I forced myself to start to change. It wasn’t easy, but three months after receiving those letters, I met the woman of my dreams. It’s been five years and we’re now expecting our first baby!
The reason I bring all this up is because I believe that this new app could be a good thing for men and women. If men access it and see the impact they’ve been having on the women in their lives, it might just force them to change. Look yourself up on Lulu men, and if you’re not already up, ask the women in your life to review you. It may not be easy, but it could worth it!