Small Town News

Women still crave to be lassoed by a cowboy

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AROUND TOWN

You can hint all you want, ladies. You can tell a guy the time is coming shortly when all men should show their commitment and love to that someone special If you put that saying to a man directly, telling him to check his calendar for February, most guys will immediately call their mechanic and schedule a tune-up, oil change and transmission work for their car.

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and you would be better off just circling that date in fluorescent red for them. Spell it out.

Women were brought up on Valentine's Day. As young girls we were indoctrinated as far back as kindergarten. We had that lacy Valentine's Day box, sitting down front, where we daily deposited little envelopes with stapled candy hearts in anticipation of when the big day would arrive and our names would be called.

We carefully wrote our scripted signatures to cards that had cowgirls on the front throwing a rope around a cow guy. It usually said something like "Be my little buckaroo." Oh, the boys put their cards in the lacy box too, but usually they were signed with what look like forced handwriting and upside-down letters; you could almost sense their mother's presence over their shoulder.

Well we've come a long way in the romance department. Or have we? As the great psychiatrist Freud was often quoted as saying, "Women, what do they want?" And so, we have a rapidly changing profile of the ideal man.

According to my research, which is totally scientific, women have gone through several stages of change.

It used to be that the sensitive man was in vogue. You know, the one who got in touch with his feminine side and inner feelings. He ate quiche and salads. He cried at long-distance AT&T telephone commercials. And he spent hours talking over emotions, feeling good karma and Oprah. In other words, he never shut up!

As far as I can tell from my scientific research, we have come full circle. Women just want a man who will shut up, stop talking and eat red meat or at the very least, a good tuna casserole.

If a woman hears the phrase "soul mate" one more time she will embark on a course of retching and not stop until sometime in late August.

I've always objected to that term myself. First of all, a soul doesn't need a mate. And secondly, usually a guy thinks of soul as either a place in Korea or a piece offish.

But anyway, women are tired of the random excuses for affairs, infidelity, hookers and the whole stand-by-your-man philosophy.

They don't want a guy who borrows their purse and has nicer hair coloring and nails.

It turns out what they really are looking for in the romance department today is that buckaroo after all. The cowboy is back in vogue.

They want someone who can ride the range and mend fences. Today that translates into mowing the lawn and fixing the toilet. Any guy who can do something positive, without whining, is considered a catch. Tattoo artists are at a premium; anyone who can put a rose on your thigh is back in the saddle. Garbage men, trash men, cabinet makers, lawn care workers, in fact someone who can say "What else needs to be done?" surfaces to the top of the eligible list

Women are now looking at the classified ads as dating resumes. Questionnaire-type formats used on internet dating sites are out the window.

To sum it up, this Valentine's Day season would be best described by the columnist Maureen Dowd, who once referred to the ideal romance in one of her articles as sort of a Rodeo and Juliet thing going. Guys, I would saddle up now.





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