Romance for Real Women

Some of my darling friends have visited this blog and because they are my darling friends, they haven’t hesitated in sharing their opinions.

“But, Lesli,” one said, “it’s supposed to be about romance. You’re talking about your daughter.”

“That’s true,” I said, “but it’s called romance for real women. Real women have children and we have to train them not only to be real women, but to appreciate real women.”

That didn’t wash.

“But that’s not romantic.”

“Try being romantic if your daughter is in a snit about a bathing suit,” I returned.

She was mum.

I went on the attack. “Try having a romantic evening when she’s in tears because you didn’t buy the bikini.”

“Try having sex while your son is whining because he wants a tattoo.”

I would go on, but it’d start to sound as if I was feeling sorry for myself.

At any rate, we went on to discuss more important subjects like the new Hulk movie. But she got me thinking.

The construct of real romance consists of all the day-to-day influences impacting our lives and how we live and think about life.

To me, it’s romantic my son feels he can share his woes with my partner and that my partner can be trusted to deal with the tattoo issue gently.

It’s romantic that my partner tells my insecure little girl she looks beautiful in her swimsuit.

These things fan the still beating flames of a long relationship. They tell me something about him and not so incidentally help me handle sensitive domestic issues.

In the bigger picture, broad, societal attitudes toward marriage, sex, and children inevitably affect our own attitudes.

Is it important for real women to know that more than 30 percent of the nation’s children don’t live with either parent while almost 20 percent of children live with a single parent, usually the mother? Does this fact affect our view of romance? Our attitudes and expectations for a partner?

I think it does and I think we need to stay aware of them.

So, I’ll continue to report and comment on them. Just as I’ll continue to report and comment on trends in sexy lingerie, chocolate, jewelry and other things dear to my still romantic heart.

Real women know that some subjects are much too rich to be mined adequately in just one blog. Such is the case with the recent University of Texas study I mentioned yesterday.The headlines focused on the fact that the study found that beautiful woman want it all…status, economic prospects, resource acquisition potential (whatever that means), etc. The study was carried on major news outlets like ABC and FOX with all the correspondents agog at this seemingly new and fantastic fact.

All of them overlooked the truth that after, say, the age of twenty, beautiful women have to work at being beautiful. Duh. Also, that there is a point to all this effort…getting and keeping a guy. It’s their job, honey. Of course, they want the most for their efforts. Duh.

Your faithful correspondent, however, took the time to read the entire news reports and thus came upon the nugget, buried at the end of the stories, that all of the interviewees, beautiful or otherwise, rated intelligence as the least important of desirable “mate value” qualities in a partner.

I don’t know about you, but it is taking me a little time to assimilate this factoid.

I e-mailed the study to my partner who heretofore I was unashamed to admit is highly intelligent.

“Whaaat?” he said. Notice the one syllable word. Perhaps that counts.

“Who authored it?”

“The University of Texas issued it,” I said. “It’s apparently in the current issue of Evolutionary Psychology.” I added, just so he would know I’d done my research. Opps. Too intelligent. Aware my mate value was plummeting egregiously, I quickly mumbled, “I don’t know.”

“Huh?” he said.

Bravo, I thought. Perhaps he is, after all, on the evolutionary curve.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked, switching gears. Ah, hah, I thought, this is great. A short attention span. An inability to focus. Gotta be headed in the right direction.

But I floundered. The study didn’t indicate whether pulling together a hot meal on time has mate value. It does, after all, take a modicum of intelligence to plan, cook and have a meal ready. Or at least, that’s what I always thought.

So, I took refuge in an old trick. I stuck my fingers in my hair and pulled, just slightly. But, he didn’t see my mate value enhancing confusion. We were on the phone.

I didn’t say anything. I waited. He waited. Damn, this stuff is hard. So, at last I ventured. “I don’t know.”

He sighed and it wasn’t a pretty sound. I’d promised him something special. But I want to be on the evolutionary curve, too.

“How about I pick something up?” he finally said.

“Great,” I started to say, but then thought maybe just an “Okay” might have higher evolutionary mate value.

“Are you all right?” he asked and I felt a nice wave of concern.

“Fine,” I mumbled. “See you later.”

I clicked the off button on my cell phone and sat there for a few minutes looking at it.

“Fuck this,” I thought in words of one syllable.

I thawed a steak and had a glass of wine. Then I e-mailed him and told him to forget the Chinese.