The other night, a female friend of mine came home from a date. Yes, a real date. A Stanford guy asked this Stanford girl out on a date. They went out to dinner, he opened doors for her and paid the check. Don’t worry, this is not yet another article about dating, or the lack thereof, at Stanford. What shocked me was not that it happened (I mean, come on, it’s a date, it’s not like the Card beat the Wildcats), but her response to it.

After coming home from a seemingly great night, she said, “He’s really cute, funny and smart but I’m not going to go out with him again. He’s just too nice.”

Umm, excuse me, nice is a good thing. A really good thing. Yet women still get all riled up over the bad boy. Okay, not all women, but enough for movies about it, like “Grease,” “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton,” “13 Going on 30” (wow, I’m really embarrassed to admit that I’ve seen “13 Going on 30”) and “The Breakfast Club” to be totally cliché.

Another embarrassing admission is that I’m one of those girls. I fight the impulse, yet I, the liberal, usually anti-military pacifist, find Navy SEALs to be the epitome of sexy. There shouldn’t be anything hot about a guy knowing how to kill a man 18 ways with his pinkie, and yet there is.

Why? Because it’s masculine. Men are supposed to be powerful. They are supposed to fight and dominate. They are supposed to protect us, the fairer, weaker sex. Perhaps these are all remnants from the days cavemen slugged it out with wooden billy clubs then dragged their conquests back to the cave. I don’t know. What matters is that it is seen as unmasculine for a guy to be nice, communicative, sensitive and gentle.

But those are all good traits. We should be nurturing them in our prospective mates, not refusing to go out on second dates because of them.

This is where guys have it worse. The sanctions imposed on men when they break gender norms are harsher than those imposed on women.

For example, when a little girl likes to play sports, wrestle with the boys, collect insects and hates pretty dresses, she’s a tomboy. She can still be popular, well-liked and well-adjusted.

But when a little boy would prefer playing with Barbies to playing kickball, he is likely to be ostracized. If he hasn’t learned to conform by high school, he’s lucky if he doesn’t get the crap beaten out of him.

When a girl wants to experiment with her sexuality, she gets applauded. Guys are the first to congratulate her. And ask for pictures.

When a guy wants to experiment with his sexuality, he’d better be careful or, who knows, he might end up beaten to death and left tied to a fence post.

No one blinks when a woman wears pants, but everyone stares when a man wears a skirt.

From my experience, men are a lot more willing to date a strong, opinionated, powerful girl than women are to date a soft-spoken, sensitive, emotionally accessible guy.

None of this is meant to suggest that women don’t face sanctions for breaking gender roles. I think my past columns have made it clear that I hardly think women have it easy. But nor do men.

It used to be that only women felt pressured to achieve bodies unachievable without the aid of starvation and silicon. Now average men feel inadequate because they can’t rival the Hulk in bicep measurement. And at least we are allowed to cry about it.

The gap is closing. Gender roles are increasingly becoming an equal opportunity discriminator. And it hurts everyone.

If you, too, are embarrassed about having seen “13 Going On 30,” e-mail Anne at annekf@stanford.edu.