What men really want!

Another rant by your favorite Grand Druid
What men really want
Be Yourself!

I was on a date last week with a wonderful young, intelligent, beautiful lady. When I got there she was “fashionably late”, so had some time to kill. Her apartment was nice, stylish, comfortable and in a wonderful location with a nice view of Chaoyang park. While I was (in bad form: she never told me to make myself at home. I felt like I was in an opponent’s attorneys office reception), poking around I noticed a stack of “women’s magazines” and couldn’t help flip through them, luckily for me some were in English. Half an hour, forty-five minutes had gone by without a sound or trace that there was another person there, no coffee, wine or water (how rude). She didn’t pop out to tell me she’d be ready in however many minutes. Nothing! (I thought Chinese were overly courteous, but not her) I ended up toking, smoking and reading several articles before she came out. Well she looked absolutely stunning…almost worth the wait.

I had met her on the street, on my way home from my farm, all dirty, sweaty, smelly and slightly inebriated from biejao at lunch. Not my best moment to say the least and had no intentions to “pick up” anybody. However, when I saw her come out of Starbucks at The Place, I couldn’t control myself and made an off-handed comment in passing. What I said totally escapes me now. However I ended up with her number and a date. Wow! I thought to myself. Could this be “The one”? A successful, upwardly mobile professional, with curves in all the right places, just like in my dreams.

To cut a long story short, I don’t think I’ll ask her out again with romantic intentions. She’s fun and exciting on the dance floor; classy and able to hold intellectual conversation…I was enthralled. I think I did a good job of attracting her because by the end of the evening she was leaning close with what I imagine were sparkles in her eyes and eventually kissed. However, what I didn’t count on was the way she thought and acted. I’m sure she is very successful at work but I don’t think she’s able to keep a meaningful relationship with a real man for long. And no, putting out (being a slut) wouldn’t have helped either (well maybe in the short run). Anyway…

Ok so outwardly I’m no great catch being not so young anymore, strange, as good as broke, with a pot gut and all. But I know who I am and what I want out of life. I know how to treat a woman with respect yet able to keep things fun. (Ok sometimes I get too carried away) but nevertheless believe I AM a great catch…for the right gal.

Again, half inebriated, I went home alone to contemplate how this date went wrong (I can’t help but anal-yze everything to death). When all of the sudden, it hit me like a ton of magazines. She had done her homework and was acting just like the articles had told her to do.

While reading I had truly amused myself and thought to myself that no one in their right mind would follow this line of advice. Unfortunately it seems that women's magazines try teach women how to look, be and act around men, (but only serve to impress other women), propagate poor self-esteem, and show women how to "hook" a man by being everything but themselves. Sadly, most of the relationship tips that women's magazines give were written by women for women and don't really enable women to understand men at all.

I believe it would be much better for all if women don’t read those articles and just be themselves…and a little understanding is what men really want.