Men as a general group have some issues with their brand.

Nothing critical, after all we are still, despite wild differences in the quality of the product, the number one romantic partner on the market for heterosexual women.

The major issue for men as a brand is we make commitments we can never hope to fulfil.

In this respect, we are a lot like opposition parties. It doesn’t matter what side of politics or what level: campaigning for something, whether government or a member of the opposite sex, means you’re going to say anything.

The parallels don’t end there. The less likely you think your chances are, the more outrageous the promises become.

This isn’t pure lying. Both opposition parties and men think along the lines of, ‘The chances of me succeeding are so low, I’ll never be in a position to have to deliver on any of this stuff.’

Likewise, if the signs are massively in your favour, you can afford to dial it back a bit. After all, in these cases you know you’ll have to fulfil these crazy promises.

Very few politicians or men can avoid campaigning altogether. Politically, Kim Jong-un can. And in the dating world, Ryan Gosling probably fits into the category of men who live life like they’re in a one party system, with no need even to campaign. Come to think of it, there are an uncanny number of posters of Gosling everywhere, too. This quality is arguably the only thing Kim Jong Un and Ryan Gosling have in common (that I’m aware of. Who knows? Maybe they’re the same person. I’ve never seen them in the same room).

For most men however, the fact any woman is interested in them is quite simply mind blowing. We know only too well how much we come up short.

We therefore approach every potential romantic entanglement like an opposition party twenty points down in the polls and with zero name recognition.

So what do we do? We make outlandish promises, fudge the financials, never show the costings and put forward populist proposals. If we can help it, we stick to key messages, ‘I’ve never met anybody like you,’ or, ‘I have a lot of money,’

Unfortunately for men, too often and much to our surprise this approach actually works. As they say,sixty-percent of the time, they work every time.

Then the real problems begin. Now, with dawning terror, we have two choices: break these promises or worse, live up to them.

Here is the basic policy platform a man in pursuit will use. All promises are effective despite them being completely unfeasible.

I really like your friends

This is easily the most common policy promise we make and the one broken first. The key issue here is that women really value their friends, so this polls off the charts.

Yet ideology sets up a real problem. Men do not really value their own friends, let alone yours.

Men have alliances, usually built around getting women (it tests very well in focus groups to appear to be liked by other human beings) but these aren’t true friendships.

How often does any man in your life catch up with a male friend for coffee?

Never.

Unless men can catch up while doing something we already want to do (drinking, watching sports etc.) we’d really prefer to be home watching TV. A friend being there adds almost nothing.

So when we don’t want to visit that friend of yours, who you really like but no men do, remember this was an election commitment that could never actually be fulfilled.

I take care of my house and myself

Three. This is how many truly clean and neat heterosexual men I have met in my life.

Left to our own devices,we are truly disgusting creatures.

Sure, there’s been a push to get straight men into grooming but do you really think they’d do that if women weren’t around?

Men will tolerate a level of mess that allows dangerous bacteria to flourish. Just compare the male and female restrooms in any nightclub (do it subtly though; turns out people don’t appreciate it).

This is a campaign promise however that will be delivered in some capacity. Men will attempt to lift their standards to impress a woman and even to keep her.

“Nonsense,” I hear many women saying but I’m not saying it will be a promise completely fulfilled; I’m just saying that it’s light years better compared to the effort he put in before he met you.

Am I saying this excuses men for doing less around the house? Absolutely not; I’m just saying, the resting state of most men is not far above a vagrant.

I’m shocked by how other blokes behave

He’s really not. You don’t really think he’s some amazing man who’s grown up never behaving like a real jerk or handling something with the sensitivity of Prince Philip?

Any bloke has gone through it all. Juvenile behaviour, not returning calls, thinking empathy is a brand of women’s hygiene products.

That’s not to say he hasn’t grown up a bit. Remember though, when in campaign mode we pretend to have matured way beyond our years.

We can’t sustain it though. Over the long run we’ll regress to the mean. This is a campaign policy that can never be fully delivered on.

I love your music

This can occasionally be true but mainly it is a promise we know will break even when we make it.

For most men, listening to the average women’s iPod for any long period of time would lead to a dangerous drop in testosterone.

I remember one particular car trip where I felt like I was trapped at a hen’s party. It took me three hours of listening to Metallica to be able to open jars again.

I’m really attentive

This is the policy that probably causes the most problems. It’s like a pledge to fix public transport; it can’t actually be done but every few years an opposition party gets in because they say they’ll fix it.

How many guys have been dumped for a guy who truly listens? Fast-forward a few years and that same guy gets voted out because he barely notices you anymore.

Deep down men are not attentive. It’s not a male-female thing. Men are not innately attentive towards anyone, including each other.

This doesn’t bother other men however; they’re too busy not paying attention to notice someone else is not paying attention to them.

Men can pay attention when they have to but it’s in short bursts, like a cheetah which can run faster than any other animal but only over a short distance.

This policy highlights the biggest discrepancy between what the voters want and what a party can actually achieve.

For women, knowing their partner is thinking about them and paying attention is the most important thing. For men, it’s knowing they’re not in trouble. As long as they’re in the good books, they couldn’t care less if you’re thinking about them at all.

So is there a way to fix this state of affairs? Not really. The effort on both sides is not really worth it. Sure, you could pay more attention to the feasibility of the policy platform he’s running on but that’s a lot of work.

At the same time, for men coming up with new policies is hard work, especially when the existing ones still seem to work.

And like most western political systems, what are you going to do? You have to vote for one of us.