Actual conversation with a 14-year old:

Jay:

So, are kids your age doing a lot of dating these days?

Kid:

I just broke up with my girlfriend. She was smothering me. I wanted to hang out with my friends, but she didn’t want me to. So I broke up with her. I’m done.

Jay:

How old are you, again? What do you mean, you’re done?

Kid:

I just don’t want to be tied down.

Jay:

I feel like I’m talking to an adult. You’re 14! You sound like you’re having your first mid-life crisis.

Kid:

My dad’s friend gets women from all over the world off the internet. They never hassle him. He just pays for their plane tickets and they show up at his front door. If he doesn’t like them, he gets to send them back within in 90 days. It’s like a guarantee or something.

Jay:

He told you this?

Kid:

I heard him talking to my dad about it. The last girl he got was from, I think, Russia.  She modeled for him online, and they chatted and stuff before she came over. He had to get her a Visa and pay for her plane ticket, but it wasn’t First Class or anything.

Jay:

So you’re thinking about going the internet route?

Kid:

Why not? It sounds pretty cool to me.

Jay:

Yea, like a video game. The problem is that the reality part will eventually find a way to screw up your fantasies no matter where you find these women.

Kid:

Then I’ll just send them back.

Note: I share this because I find it interesting that adolescent attitudes are merging with adult behavior, which is noteworthy, since they inherited it from us.

So now we’re stuck with a generation that can’t distinguish 3-dimensional reality from what is experienced online.

But perhaps that’s because is no longer a difference.

For my female readers, please get a pen and something to write on.

You might also consider printing copies of this essay and keeping them in the glove compartment of your car, your purse, your desk drawer, your bedside table, your journal and somewhere in the vicinity of your pile of vibrators...jbr

…………..

Note: In its current form, this information carries a copyright and cannot be re-posted without a visible credit.

Qualifier: The comments in this essay are directed towards women who want a better understanding of the inner psyche of well-educated, driven and successful men and the women they’re drawn to.

……………

To begin, ‘well-educated, driven and successful’ are adjectives used interchangeably by women to describe men who most closely mirror the Cinderella fantasy. They simply fill in the rest of the blanks to complete the picture. But these are the essential elements around which everything else is constructed.

The ‘fill in the blanks’ part usually includes a sense of humor, a capacity for empathy, an adherence to moral and ethical boundaries as defined by women [because women ultimately choose men and not the other way around, unless of course, the woman displays an unacceptable level of insecurity, in which case the man will roll over her like a super-tanker], sexual attraction [which includes penis size and its proper use, as well as  libido parameters], and an ability to commit to one person at a time, which does not include the time he’s engaged in the actual sex act…or acts, as the case may be.

Okay, so who is this man’s ideal mate? And why don’t you seem to fit his ideal profile? What is he not telling you? How do some women know how to nail the deal while others flounder in limbo wondering what happened to their lives and the men who were supposed to share them?

In other words, why were you left out of the preferred mating game?

Here’s where the pen and paper thing comes in:

Men who fit at least 8 of the 10 following line-items are all looking for the same woman. Go through the list and check the ones that apply to the guy you have your sights set on. If he falls in this range, get ready to write.

1] Sophisticated family of origin [does not denote extraordinary wealth, but often does anyway]
2] Handsome
3] Physically fit
4] Articulate
5] Degreed [from a prominent university]
6] Well-traveled
7] Successful
8] Passionate
9] Emotionally grounded [not psychiatric outpatients, for example]
10] Confident

Men with these attributes are culturally wired to respond to women who compliment them. So what they’re looking for is a kind of mirror into their own lives. This validates them, completes the picture and frames the rest of their lives.

So, beginning with #1 you must understand that men of this culture group aren’t going to resonate with an indigent. He wants relevance. When he mentions a particular author, like Hemingway for example, you should know who the hell he’s talking about without having to pretend.

And he’ll be even more demanding of your cultural literacy if he happens also to be handsome and physically fit, because now your reflection must place you shoulder-to-shoulder with him at the top of the food chain.

So in addition to cultural literacy, which includes a formal education, you have to be physically attractive and use your gym membership with the same consistence as breathing. However, he’s not interested in dating either a bodybuilder or a bulimic. Bodybuilders are perceived as personal trainers and/or people overcompensating for deficits he doesn’t have to worry about. Bulimics are problematic for other reasons, which are just as bad.

Always remember the reflection thing. Try to see life through his eyes.

#4 is of particular importance because culturally sophisticated people all speak the same language and expect you to do the same. So learn to speak the Queen’s English, for God’s sake! Take a basic grammar class if you have to. Never, ever utter any of the following when in his presence or in the presence of his friends and/or acquaintances — unless he knows you know better and are just fucking with him and/or everyone else in the vicinity.

Here are just a few:

1] “fer real?”
2] “ain’t”
3] “Where’s he at?” [This is called ending a sentence with the wrong preposition]

#6 is an important item because well-travelled people know their way around - from checking into a hotel in Madrid - to vacationing at places everyone in his culture group frequent. What this means for you is that you must know something about geography. Never say something along the lines of “Oh, I love that Spanish accent!” when the guy’s clearly East European.

If you don’t know, shut up.

We’re talking about human selection, here, which is serious business.

#9 is a big deal because he isn’t interested in dating a psychopath anymore than he wants an insecure woman who can’t hold her own at a cocktail function. In the end, the two present the same result. The psychopath starts speaking in tongue and talking about a Mothership next to your client, while the one who can’t get the accents straight is now talking about her trip to Frankfurt, Poland.

You have to come across as confident, without being indignant about the whole thing. There is a fine line here. A woman on cultural thin ice pretending to fit in - while resenting it at the same time - is about as obvious as staring directly into the sun…so be at peace with your objectives.

#10 is one of those all-encompassing adjectives that, for our purposes here, means that you’re going to be invisible without it. It is one of the most important attributes that you bring to the table because it bleeds into every aspect of who you are. But in order to have it, you generally have to have everything else as well, which is why I placed in last.

One manifestation of confidence is style, and it can take you a long way if you’re lacking in some other area.

So you must to dress well…even if your look occasionally involves thrift stores.  Having said this, you should know the difference between Guy Laroche and something you picked up at Sears.

Men expect women to know their designers, and confident women do. The ones who don’t usually work at places like NASA and don’t date much.

So if a guy had to draw a line down the center of a piece of paper and divide the good from the bad characteristics in his ideal mate, this is what the good side would look like:

1] Sophisticated
2] Pretty
3] Fit [flat stomach, narrow waist, clear skin]
4] Articulate
5] Degreed [from a prominent university]
6] Well-travelled
7] Successful [at pulling all this off]
8] Passionate [in bed, not in a competitive way]
9] Emotionally grounded [except in bed]
10] Confident [without the arrogance]

In summation, men who sit at the top of the food chain want a reflection of how they perceive themselves. So in order to land one, you have to know the rules of engagement. It’s an uphill fight, but the winners stay focused on overcoming whatever obstacles they may face [which may include some inequity in their own family of origin] and end up on top of the world…to the astonishment of everyone who knew them as a cocktail waitress at Hooters in Kalamazoo; something unbenownst to everyone else.

By the way, it’s okay not to know where Kalamazoo is located.

From a male perspective, women are objects first, human second.

Conversely, men are pigs first, human second.

As I’ve stated before, men see with their eyes, which is as cold-blooded as it is true.

In fact, what they see eclipses what they think. This is problematic from a number of perspectives, not least of which being our predilection for choosing narcissistic sociopaths over emotionally grounded women who value things beyond their deconstructed body parts.

Nonetheless, the body parts are still ground zero for us, sociopaths or otherwise.

Ignoring physical attributes is like skating on thin ice, which tends to expose women to hypothermia in the bedroom. This is because men want to see the same woman they met ten years ago. This doesn’t mean that she isn’t allowed to age, but he wants a reasonable facsimile.

This is often the reason men disappear without a trace. They’re not big confronters. They’d rather escape into the dead of night than tell their wives to lose 50 pounds.

Women already know this, but they resent it, in spite of the fact that it just makes matters worse. So when their asses start knocking expensive works of art off the walls, men take it personally. The first thing they do is lose respect. Then they stop sleeping in the same bedroom with the creature responsible for destroying one side of a $2000 Posturepedic Mattress.

The following is a great mantra for women. It’s taken directly from the journals of Cultural Anthropologist - and good friend - Cecilia Stratisworm, and is loosely based on the 12-step template:

Step 1] I admit that I am powerless over my resentment towards men’s superficiality – and that my obsession with equality has become unmanageable.

Step 2 – I have come to believe that a Power greater than myself can help restore sanity to an otherwise twisted perception of reality that has more to do with projected fantasies than reality as we know it.

Step 3 – I have made a decision to turn my will and life over to the care of my personal trainer.

Step 4 – I have made a fearless moral inventory of myself as it relates to my delusions about men.

Step 5 – I have admitted to God, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my delusions.

Step 6 – I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Step 7 – I humbly asked God to remove my delusions.

Step 8 – I have made a list of all the men I have disappointed with my obesity, and I became willing to make amends to them all by providing one free sexual encounter per person.

Step 9 – I will make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when doing so would lead to further injury; particularly when I sleep with several men in the same week, and sometime, day.

Step 10 – I will continue to take a personal inventory of my physique, and when I am eating poorly and not working out, I will promptly admit it.

Step 11 – I have sought through meditation to improve my relationship with men
as I understand them, and I thank God for making me the object that I am.

Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I have tried to carry this message of objectification to other women, and will continue to incorporate this behavior into all my affairs; sexual and otherwise.

With this in mind, I’m shocked every time I hear women complain about men treating them as objects.

“Guys are always following me around with their tongues on the floor, ogling my ass like some animal from the Discover Channel. Do they think I’m just a piece of meat?!?”

Note: Any woman who makes a statement like this is either a complete idiot, or not taking her meds.

She should be fucking thrilled to have men following her around grocery stores. Would she prefer that he focus instead on the fruit juice display and then look right through her like a ghost from the Titanic on his way to the dairy section?

She should be down on her knees thanking her lucky stars that she can still command enough attention to rival the blast of a 100-kiloton hydrogen bomb.

But women should never take male superficiality personally. It isn’t a dismissal of her intelligence, talent, emotional substance and/or success. It’s just hard-wiring that performs its own unique check list, and then passes the baton to other faculties.

The gender differences in this regard are extraordinary. I am always astonished when I hear women talk about how they learned to love their husbands.

“I wasn’t even attracted to him when we met. But he was really funny and I loved his attentiveness. And before I knew it, we were dating…”

This behavior is completely alien to men.

They progress from lust to love, but never before a lot of exposure to the first part. For women, it’s the opposite.

So what role does a man have to play in order to attract the attention of women?

#1: He must be successful and reliable provider.

#2: There is no #2.

“By the way, you’re fucked…” jbr

Photo of Dr Zegoyavich after injecting himself with the female aging gene. Unfortunately, this is the only image of Dr. Zegoyavich that I was able to procure from his agent, Cecilia Menincough Stratisworm.

Jay:

Dr. Zegoyavich, the last time we spoke you had just injected yourself with what you claimed was the gene responsible for female aging. Since that time you’ve lived as a kind of man-child with this extraordinary insight into the deepest recesses of female behavior.

Am I describing your situation accurately?

Dr Z:

Indeed, you are. I have moved far beyond the realm of physical things, as you can see, and into what I consider the primal mechanisms that drive the female human creature. I can only accomplish this with the genetic materials that contribute to the behavior in the first place. Do not judge my capabilities based on my current appearance. Be careful not to underestimate me.

Jay:

No, no…of course not, Dr. Zegoyavich. Believe me when I tell you what an honor and pleasure it is for me to speak with you.

Dr. Z:

Thank you. Okay so you wish to discuss the predatory instincts of the alpa-female, is this correct?

Jay:

Yes, as well as the particular men she chooses to exploit. You know, the ones who don’t realize they’re about to be being eaten alive because their narcissism is, as you’ve stated before, like a massive fog bank they cannot control…unlike certain females, I might add.

Dr Z:

Yes, well I can discuss this subject at length.The metaphoric “limping gazelle!”…Ha ha. Yes, well my gene implant has made them most obvious, I’m afraid.

Jay:

So basically, what you’re saying is that this gene has enabled you to pick your targets with pinpoint accuracy through the eyes of a kind of surrogate woman. You are able to sense specific weaknesses that enable you to exploit your prey before they know what’s hit them.

Dr Z:

Yes, I am like a terrible predator reptile of the highest order, only I am uniquely disguised the way beautiful women disguise themselves before feeding.

Jay:

That’s extraordinary adaptation, I must say. How exactly does it work? Can you set up a typical scenario for our readership?

Dr Z:

Yes, of course. If you understand that men are visual and that women resent this above all else, we can start from there. The most successful hunters put aside their prejudices and use male behavior to their advantage…while they can. They accomplish this by pandering to the fantasies that drive men in the first place. See, all women know exactly what these fantasies are, so don’t let them fool you otherwise. They simply assume that at some point along the way they can tweak a man’s perception of reality in general, women in particular, to fall more in line with theirs.

This never happens, however.

To simplify things, let’s use the following template as a departure point:

Younger women make older men feel younger. Younger men make older women feel older.

This is an inevitable consequence of these unions. Please don’t ask me deconstruct this, because I get bored quite easily, I assure you.

So, imagine a modern gymnasium setting where women are able to showcase their bodies under the pretence of working out in comfort. At this juncture let us introduce a female who wishes to optimize her workout by taking advantage of the wealth and celebrity of another woman’s husband. This is quite easily accomplished, because wealthy men are rarely satisfied with what they have. And because they can always afford more, they tend to acquire it when it becomes available. This is particularly true of men with too much time on their hands. Their minds wander, and like the unwitting gazelle on the Serengeti, they’re usually taken first.

Many of these men spend inordinate amounts of time in gyms for reasons that extend beyond health. This is a red flag. They are inadvertantly advertising that they wish to keep their options open. So they are vulnerable to women who are able to sense their predilections. Their genetics drive them to hunt long after it is necessary, which now renders them the hunted.

Jay:

So the tables are turned without their realizing it.

Dr. Z:

Precisely.

These men want it all, and feel they deserve everything and more than life can possibly offer. This is where the narcissism comes in and moral boundaries become relative.

Women of prey simply morph into living incarnations of the fantasies they know these men possess…or that possess them, as the case may be. They are physically flawless. Everything is in proportion to a genetic blueprint. Nothing is garish or obvious. Remember, this is about stealth, deception and opportunism.

Jay:

You’re saying these men are basically helpless. They’re slaves to their genes. They have no free will. They’re blind to the ramifications of their actions, particularly where women are concerned. If this is true, and women have become the hunter-gatherers, then what are men?

Dr. Z.:

A dying sex.

Jay:

Yea, and even if these men knew what was happening they couldn’t do anything about it because the women in question would deny their motives and move on to another target.

Dr Z:

Yes, because while men are willing to pay for their fantasies, they are not willing to sell the farm.

Jay:

So who wins in this world?

Dr Z:

It is my theory that average people tend to win, but ironically, are the least likely to believe it. They have lesser expectations, less narcissistic delusion, more day-to-day concerns. There is less time for fantasy and fewer resources to consummate them. The population leans in the direction of the mean.

From the perspective of evolution things are as they should be. We cannot all occupy the same stage. Someone must supply the audience. The people you and I discuss are members of an elite culture group who’ve grown too large for the planet. There is never enough space. This said, nothing of any extraordinary value would exist without them, so I will push on with my studies, and I assume, continue my discussions with you.

Jay:

Absolutely. And next time I’d like to know what happens to the wives of these wealthy, famous husbands. Who are they and why were they chosen over the so-called women of prey?

Dr. Z:

Who says they aren’t simply retired?

[end]

‘Sequential Romance’ sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it’s not.

It’s still everything our culture fantasizes romance to be only now it’s packaged as a comedy or dramatic series, and sometimes like another re-run of “Aliens.” Just think of an endless parade of shorts strung out over time.

Inter-dependence used to be the thread that tied two people together for a lifetime. Now the word we use is codependence. It sounds kind of like the first one, but the new one carries a battery of psychiatric implications.

In the first one [interdependence] two people agree to share a common set of responsibilities and principles. The wife stays home, raises the kids, prepares dinner and pretends that your 22-year old secretary in the stilettos was hired to amuse your clients.

In the second one [codependence] one of the two people nurtures a serial killer because that person would rather die herself than be abandoned emotionally by the psychopath.

Obviously, the second one is more relevant at this writing.

The sequential part comes in when the S.W.A.T. van descends on your home at three in the morning and takes your husband, along with some frozen stuff from the Frigidaire down in the basement.

In less extreme cases, the portrait is of a single woman, with her own career, “Editor’s Cut” collection of essential girl films, daily yoga classes, the obligatory dog…and more girlfriends than you can count.

Go ahead and date her, but be prepared to do battle with everything else for her attention, which is never undivided.

See, she’s no longer what was once known as interdependent, and whatever predilections she has towards codependency are mitigated by a weekly visit to a psychiatrist, who she happily pays to keep you at a distance.

Why are you looking at me like that?

You think I enjoy telling you shit like this?

We’re incubating a society of individuals, rather than couples. Independent opportunists, not unlike the progeny of murderous alien reptiles, who eventually leave the nest to exterminate entire planetary populations under the pretence of survival.

Anton Zegoyavich after a recent experiment. His identity remains a matter of national security.

Jay:

Dr. Zegoyavich, it’s been said that once an age-identical couple reaches the age of 40, the woman looks old enough to be the man’s mother.

Dr Z:

That is an interesting question, and one I’ve explored for the past 40 years.

I would say that while a 40 year old woman can certainly be physically beautiful, the visual disparity between the male and female at this juncture is profound. It’s no wonder men so often choose women who are at least 20 years younger than themselves. Two decades seems to mitigate this disparity.

Jay:

So what’s behind it?

Dr.Z:

There is an insidious gene responsible for all of it. We’ve managed to isolate it in clinical studies using indigents from the streets of San Francisco. The city sanctions it as long as we’re willing to share our morphine.

Anyway, the gene prematurely ages women once they pass their prime, which of course, has the effect of refocusing male attention on younger women. The problem is that women today are waiting longer and longer to have children, which makes this gene particularly insidious.

Jay:

So the idea is that if you can either remove or deactivate the gene you can accommodate this cultural nuance?

Dr.Z:

That is correct. Yes.

Jay:

So when it kick in?

Dr.Z

This process seems to begin around the age of 30. It then accelerates rapidly after age 35. I’m sure you’ve noticed it. The key is to decommission it one way or the other without disrupting other biological functions.

Jay:

What does that mean?

Dr.Z:

Yes, well even though the gene has been isolated, I haven’t yet determined how to keep everything else running. There is a cause and effect relationship here. I wouldn’t want to shut down brain activity, for example.

Jay:

Yes, I can understand that, but I still know a lot of women who would be willing to take that risk. Does anyone else know about this? Why aren’t you on Letterman?

Dr.Z:

The scientific community is highly skeptical of my work.

Jay:

You might build more credibility by using more recent photographs of yourself. Most people don’t submit photographs of themselves as infants.

Dr.Z:

I’m afraid that the photograph isn’t as old as it appears. The fact is it was taken last week.

Jay:

Dr. Yegoyavich, did you inject this gene into your body?

Dr.Z:

I’m afraid so. I wanted to see how male chemistry would react to it. And from the looks of it, men are wired to run straight back to the womb. They seem predisposed to a kind of arrested adolescence. The irony here is remarkable. The same gene that ages women has the opposite effect on men.

Jay:

Most women wouldn’t find any of that surprising, with or without your experiments.

Dr.Z:

Well it’s quite telling. As you’ve stated so many times in your own writing, men are constantly drawn to the hunt. Each successful conquest - even if it’s changing a light bulb - provides relevance. Women aren’t concerned about relevance in that context. What they want is security, but it often hinges on physical beauty, which is fleeting.

All of us on my team concur that we’re onto something really big here.

Jay:

You have no idea, Dr. Zegoyavich…

[end]

1] Career – CHECK

2] Sexual Freedom – CHECK

3] Financial Independence – CHECK

4] Equality – CHECK

5] Misery - CHECK

This discussion is limited to women in the 35 to 42 demographic who suffer from narcissistic delusion [give or take a year or two on either side of hell].

Women in their 20’s are excluded because their physical attributes rival the addictive qualities of crack cocaine, which of course, empowers them to rule the planet like Tyrannosaurs.

Generally speaking, women enjoy 15 years of uninterrupted beauty, starting at age 17 [for legal reasons]. Some men shorten this time line by 5 years, but I try to keep an open mind to the tiny fissures around the eyes noticeable only under halogen.

Many women find this level of deconstruction nauseating if for no other reason than because it threatens the fuel supply that drives their forays into the imaginary world of eternal youth.

Nonetheless, here’s the fantasy:

“Hi, I’m a 35-year old woman who has never had a problem dropping men to their knees. Sure, I’m just a bartender with a G.E.D. and a few felony convictions, but I’m still hot as hell, and that’s a lot more than I can say for those sagging socialite bitches whose middle-age husbands never fail to slide their business cards inside a wad of 20 dollar bills — on a 10 dollar tab.

I fully expect [and deserve] to meet and marry a handsome and successful man between 25 and 34. Any older and I’m selling out. And while I wouldn’t mind going younger, the guy better be on the right track, financially. Anyway, I won’t budge on this and I’m prepared to be single for the rest of my life if I don’t find him. I’ll just get a dog and be done with it.”

This is what I mean by narcissistic delusion.

With this in mind, no one enjoys witnessing the gradual disintegration of an aging woman in denial. I can’t count the number of online profiles I’ve read [and downloaded] of 30 to 40-something women stating a preference for “mature, handsome, successful and commitment-minded” younger men.

I keep thinking Debra Lafave, for some reason.

These are the same women who maintain “Platinum” memberships at 6 different dating sites for years on end. They use the same photographs with different profiles as though no one visits the World Wide Web more than once a decade.

So I’m actually being generous when I label them narcissistically deluded. I never say, for example, sex addicted or Borderline Personality disordered, in spite of the fact that these psychiatric conditions constitute the lion’s share of the pathology.

We all strike a Faustian deal with life. All of us. We get one thing in exchange for another, but never everything at the same time. The one exception might be unemployed Lotto winners who somehow run through 67 million dollars in 18 months.

This notwithstanding, while a woman may eventually meet a man who fits the physical archetype of her fantasies, he’s going to be at least 10 years older, have three kids from a previous marriage, and have no interest whatsoever in doing it all over again.

What women must understand is that men never see age disparity. Never. This is because once you’re in your 30’s you’re already perceived as older. It doesn’t matter what decade he happens to be in. He doesn’t do the math the way you do. He sees with his eyes…and what he sees answers all of his questions.

Am I getting through here?

Men can afford to play this game, but women cannot - unless they’re rich and famous - in which case they get all the reflection money and fame can buy, which isn’t exactly what they had in mind.

Goethe’s “Faust” is the tale of a man who engages in a blinding quest for the true essence of life. Frustrated with learning and the limits to his knowledge and power, he attracts the attention of Mephistopheles, who agrees to serve Faust until the moment he attains the zenith of human happiness, at which point he takes his soul.

Faust is pleased with the deal, as he believes the moment will never come.

Dr V:

Jay, take a look at the woman you chose to feature in the above photograph.

It’s hardly a coincidence that her skin is like porcelain, her gums pink and healthy, her teeth white, straight, and polished…and her smile like that of someone who’s just starting her journey.

There’s not even a stitch of make-up, or the supporting cast of gaudy accoutrements so common to the terminally-insecure attention whore. She conveys a natural beauty, sophistication and charm that attracts men of your background; particularly when they’re half your age.

Jay:

We do look for things that are familiar to us. She reminds me of the women I grew up around. Unfortunately, I still think of them the way I did when we were back in college. In relative terms, younger women never change. They preserve the fantasy, while extending the quality - and horizon – of a man’s life.

Dr. V:

So they immortalize you…the perfect drug.

It’s interesting how primal it all is. The hunter is rewarded for beating the odds.

Jay:

It’s also interesting that it doesn’t seem to work the other way around.

Dr. V:

No. In fact it tends to have the opposite effect. Women are generally insecure about their appearance…and younger men tend to magnify the problem, by default.

They’re a constant reminder that time has passed, rather than gone backwards.  This makes them feel less valuable. In a vacuum, women are far more accepting of the aging process, but they’re not in a vacuum, which is why there is so much plastic surgery.

It’s blatant pandering to the arrested adolescence of men.

Jay:

It’s only negative in a certain context.

Dr. V:

It’s negative if you’re not dating a mannequin.

Jay:

No, it hinges on their relative ages. If the man is older the woman always looks younger, which mitigates his sense of mortality. Men are not going to date a woman who reminds him of graveyards in those old horror movies.

Women set it up this way. We didn’t have all these choices in the past. Now we’re over-run with young women looking for a refuge from the onslaught of young men who feed at will.

Dr. V:

To be frank, these conversations with you are vexing. With all the advancements made by women over the past 50 years, they still find themselves subjugated to male superficiality. They can either choose to ignore men altogether or participate in a game they can never win.

Jay:

I disagree.

Younger women should be taught from the time they’re kids that that men are superficial first, human second.

A 25-year old urban woman should never marry someone her own age, unless of course, she plans to move to Kansas.

Large metropolitan areas offer no support for age-appropriate relationships once the couple approaches 40. By that time, women tend to look 10 or 15 years older than their spouses. These men grow painfully aware of this disparity and start to see the end of their lives like an oncoming train.

I’m dramatizing things a little to make a point, but if women want to feel beautiful and appreciated, they must find older men who don’t take their youth for granted. Even then, women must still maintain their appearance. They must never, ever take for granted or dismiss the immutable nature of the opposite sex.

Dr. V:

You place so much emphasis on physical beauty that it gives the impression that nothing else matters. But I know that this isn’t true, even though it comes across that way.

If I had to explain your position, it would be that a woman must be perceived as physically beautiful in order for you to pass go. Once you’ve taken the bait and entered the room, the length of your stay hinges on how well the shelves are stocked, so to speak.

Jay:

Catherine, you’re starting to sound like me.

[end]

I was just wondering what happens to the soul after brain surgery?

If you become an altered version of the person you once were, what happens to the soul of the other person? Does it simply co-opt the new identify, or are there now two souls?

My close friend, Sarah, recently underwent her last - in an unfortunate series of - procedures involving blood vessels in her brain, and thankfully, everything went well.

But I do wonder what happens to the tiny fragments of personality that, in the process, are altered temporarily or lost altogether?

So the other day I asked a stranger on the street about it and she explained to me that the human soul doesn’t reside in the brain at all, but in the heart.

“Oh,” I responded. We all have our templates, and it’s nice to know that some women have one that actually makes sense, though I couldn’t get her to elaborate.

Like most men, I drag around an immutable fantasy of what constitutes my version of perfect.

She’s a combination of elements that reflect some version of me, carved out of a subconscious need to finish something I don’t even remember starting.

I’m as aware of her presence as she is of my projections.

So she dances around the perimeter of my consciousness life like a marionette on a mission from Hell. She knows I want to dissect her in order to discern the imaginary from the brick and mortar. But she’s careful to maintain a safe distance in order to prevent me from performing a psychological drill down.

She doesn’t want me to obliterate the myth she’s become. Her existence hinges on the irreconcilable.

So the myth stands.

I thought I’d throw this out there because such fantasies taunt every man like Sirens screaming blue bloody murder for acknowledgement…as if they haven’t done enough damage.