Just Try

I was chatting yesterday with JW, my friend of many years 1300 miles to the north. The conversation centered around men and women, looks and aging, body types and preferences. He offered that the ugly guy with no socially redeeming characteristics gets the drop dead gorgeous (technology-savvy) babe because he is the only one brave enough to try.

That made me start thinking about the woman who has been my best friend since second grade. I will see her in Orlando this weekend, for the first time in over five years. She is the most brilliant woman I have ever known. When you put that together with how kind, nice, sweet and loving she is, and the fact that she is stunningly gorgeous (5'10", fabulous figure, beautiful thick long blonde hair that always does exactly what she wants, and incredible fashion savvy). Well, she's quite a package.

And yet she's never had a man in her life who was man enough to truly appreciate what he had. Her first husband decided after a few months of marriage that he wanted to date around. Her second husband travelled a lot in his work and brought home photos of the women he was with in other cities. Her third husband let his life go to hell rather than recognize what a wonderful life he had. (I'm oversimplifying of course, and encapsulating years into one phrase, but you get the gist of her life.) This woman would be a treasure to any [wise] man, but the men in her life have never been wise enough.

I'm not drawing any conclusions here. I just think it's interesting that the number of available good men as compared to the number of available good women is so small. Much less than 1:1.

Oh, JW has applied a new appellation to me, which I quite like. He says I am "truly a thoroughly modern, Internet babe."

He always knows how to make me smile when I'm feeling overwhelmed or underappreciated.