Proust Quote:
“Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.”

Confessions Question:
Your favorite qualities in a woman.

Confidences Question:
The quality I desire in a woman.

Proust’s Answer:
Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship.

I do have to repeat – “Did I mention that Proust was gay?” With apologies to Proust, I kind of like pretty women as well.

Putting that aside, I do fear that some of these answers will both incriminate me and give away some of the precious information that I have hoarded over the years for my seminar: “All the Things I REALLY Can’t Believe that Women Can’t Figure Out About Men!”

Fortunately most of this information is me-specific and not applicable to the Man Kingdom as a general rule.

I wish to start with a scene from a fairly benign but fairly dreadful teen comedy called Drive Me Crazy.

In the scene, the male lead is approached by a couple of reporters for the newspaper and they ask him (more or less) to describe his dream girl. He responds (once again apologies for the vulgarity):

“All right. She’s the kind of girl who’ll call you on your bullshit. She’s not afraid to dance. She offers to pay. She doesn’t decide before a date whether she’s gonna kiss you or not. She’s not completely earnest, yet she’s not completely ironic either… She orders dessert, and she can be ready in ten minutes.”

“Well, we will have to change that ‘bullshit’ to ‘bull’.”

“Well, then use ‘pretensions’.”

Now I’m certainly not going down the “dream girl” road, but if I look back on 2009 and think of the women that have raised their stock this year, these must be the attributes that I think women should possess.

• Women should smell nice.
• Women should know that when a man makes a wrong turn, it isn’t really a wrong turn, the man is choosing to take the scenic route.
• Women should cry at movies.
• Women should give A Clockwork Orange a chance. They can worry that it is kind of violent (so much so that it requires a reassuring phone call), but after time, it should grow on them.
• Women should absolutely, positively, affectionately, affirmatively, aggressively, articulately, assertively, clandestinely, cognitively, concisely, constructively, creatively, cutely, definitely, densely, desperately, selectively, exhaustively, expansively, explosively, freely, genuinely, impressively, indeterminately, inordinately, intensely, obstinately, obsessively, passionately, pensively, perceptively, perversely, privately, profusely, resolutely, routinely, safely, sagely, sanely, savagely, sportively, substantively, supinely, surely, unchastely, uniquely, verbosely love words that end in “ely”.
• Women should know a little bit about sports, perhaps even have played sports in the past or present. They should understand the basics of what they are watching. It is okay for a woman to ask some questions, but I would say that about 3 per half is a good rule of thumb. It is okay for women to have opinions on sports, but they shouldn’t be more well thought out than a man’s opinions on sports. A certain amount of a man’s self-worth is dependent on how well he understands sports and when a woman knows more about sports than a man, the man feels inadequate.
• A woman should never pretend to be dumb.
• A woman should like jazz. Real jazz.
• A woman should let a man off the hook if he agrees to have his tonsils removed with her if she ever has to have them removed a second time because he wasn’t being serious. He didn’t know that tonsils could grow back.
• A woman shouldn’t whine incessantly about every picture ever taken of her. She should accept her beauty with a quiet grace.
• A woman should have some musical talent.
• A woman should have a soft heart for small children and animals.
• A woman should have an adventurous heart. Especially when it comes to posing for photos.
• A woman should have some artistic skills. Beaver drawing skills are a premium.
• A woman should have some interest in the arts.
• A woman should be able to eat candy or fatty foods without talking about how “fat” she is.
• A woman should own at least a pair of fuzzy socks and pjs.
• A woman should know of an alley that is photogenic.

Although hardly comprehensive, I think this list is a good start. As good as it is going to get at this time.