Men Are Afraid of Me….I Think

Every week day, I get up, get dressed, do make up, hair, perfume, pick out jewelry and head off to work. And here’s what I’ve noticed in the past few years.  On the rare occasion  someone says “you look nice” ,”that’s cute” or “you smell good” it’s never ever a man.  Ever.  The only people who say anything remotely positive are young women. Yesterday, it was my friend Tasha…she’s 28 or 29 I think. The day before it was my daughter Lex (you can always count on daughters).

Now, here’s the part of this story that really gets me, and I promise, I’m not looking for compliments. I hear men compliment younger women (20-38) all the time. I understand at that age they are simply more attractive. I was fairly hot when I was twenty eight and living in the Keys. But men, you could find something nice to say if your tried, I really believe that.

I think the problem is men are scared to say anything nice to a woman 40 and older.  I think they are afraid we’ll think they are creepy, misogynistic, sexist or slimy.  Guys, if you say something like “hey baby you look smokin’ hot this Monday morning” you’re right, I’ll think ugly thoughts about you and I’ll work hard not to punch you in the throat.

If instead you say, “good morning, Diana, you look nice today,” you will absolutely make my day. I promise. I really need the compliment now.

When I was 28 or 30 I didn’t really need your compliments. I knew I had it going on. Men, when you tell a beautiful 32 year old how amazing she looks it’s kind of like putting sugar in the Cool-aid. Young women who post a lot of selfies probably already know how hot they are.

But when you say something nice to a 50, 70 or 80 year old woman it’s different, every kind word is like a lovely salve on the wound of time. When you say something nice to a grown woman, I promise you ninety nine percent of the time…you’ll make her day.

Wait, I’m going to revise my stand.  You don’t have to stop compliment the pretty young girls, you just need to include us too.  (I don’t want to sound old and bitter and jealous. Too late? Damn It.

I tell random men they look nice all the time. I tell strangers they smell good at the grocery store (if they are wearing smell good stuff they want to smell nice) , I tell bank tellers I like their Picasso ties, I told a dude at the Dollar Store yesterday that his high tops were cool looking.  A compliment makes people smile, it makes people happy, so who am I to deny other people joy.

So men, fear not! It would be wonderful  if you said something nice to a woman over 40 today. Don’t be afraid. If she misunderstands…she’s an idiot.

 

PS: My husband is excluded from this blog. He said something nice as I left the house this morning.

Woman vs Man

danceI was in the soup isle at Kroger when a couple rolled up behind me.

The forty year old wife said “I didn’t really like that thing I fixed last night. It wasn’t very good.  What did you think.”

The man wisely said, “It was ok.”

“You’re lying,” she snapped. “What are you doing?”

I accidently laughed out loud. “He’s trying not to fall of the ice burg into the cold black water, that’s what he’s doing.”

The husband laughed out loud and I’m sure the wife glared at me as I rolled away. I probably got the guy in trouble.  Once in the car I’m sure she hounded him about who I was and why I would say such a thing.

The truth is women are always setting traps for men.  And I don’t know why we do it.  We turn their words around, upside down and back wards then accuse them of being heartless, uncaring, cold or distant. When in reality men are just trying to figure out how to answer a question without getting in trouble.

But women can’t let it go.  We insist on making a fight out of absolutely nothing. I’m guilty too.  When I’m feeling insecure or unloved and I ask Alex how I look he sometimes makes the unforgivable mistake of saying “Fine.”

Well, that just blows me up. “Fine is average, fine is ok or mediocre. You’re saying I’m a five out of ten? Cause that’s what fine is. You didn’t say fine like Barry White your fine is a five.” and our night out is ruined.

Splash, my unwitting husband has fallen off the ice burg into the bottomless , frigid pit of my heart.  And he didn’t even know he did anything wrong.

I will agree that most men, including my husband, don’t realize how callous they can seem, even accidently. And they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman over 30.  We are sensitive and needy creatures.

But maybe it’s time to cut them a little slack. We shouldn’t use their own words to crucify them when they were actually trying to be nice. I’ve started trying to warn Alex before he says the thing that will set me off. I say “The water is very very cold,” and most of the time he backs up from the edge and trys to say the right thing.

You see, if we let them fall off the ice burg, or we push them off all the time, pretty soon we’ll find ourselves standing there all alone. And nobody wants to be alone.

 

How to Win Your Woman’s Heart…Trick Her

usDriving through Hot Springs this morning I started thinking about my husband, Alex….and the night he won me over. Most men have an opening line they use to pick up women. But Alex’s was so ridiculously sincere and immature that it worked.

Twenty years ago Alex was the chef at a Mexican restaurant in a cool old building on Ouachita Avenue.  He was always flirting and asking me out but I ignored him. At that time he was pretty hot,  (that’s sounds bad, he’s still ha handsome man) he had a swimmers body and long black ringlets. Lots of women in town were after him so I figured he was a player and just laughed him off.

One night I was on a date with a landscape architect from North Carolina. Of course we went to Alex’s restaurant, Acapulco’s. My date was sweet but boring and hopelessly in love with me. So he was trying way too hard. Yuck.

When he got up to go to the bathroom Alex blew out of the kitchen, walked right up to my table and said, “What the hell? I saw you first.”

He was so adorable I had to laugh. And we talked until my date came back. He made the mistake of asking Alex where we should go for an after dinner drink.

Alex told him we had to go to “Edelweiss “. It’s now the Brau Haus (and sadly about to close) . The restaurant is in Spencer’s Corner a wonderful historic brick building in Hot Springs. (It used to house a brothel called The Piggly).

Of course by the time we got to Edelweiss Alex was already there, waiting for us. Smiling smugly. It was over for the landscape architect.

So men, this Valentines day be creative, be persistent, manipulative, cunning, deceptive and immature. You’ll win her heart for sure.