Decoding Women's English

THE WOMAN'S DICTIONARY

40-ish........................................49
Adventurous..............................promiscuous
Athletic......................................no breasts
Average looking.........................Moo
Beautiful....................................Given to exaggerate
Emotionally stable.....................On meds
Feminist.....................................Probably smart
Free spirit...................................Sloppy as hell
New age......................................Doesn't shave
Old Fashioned.............................No B.J.'s
Open minded...............................No opinions
Outgoing.....................................Too approachable
Voluptuous..................................Obese
Large frame.................................Very obese
Wants a soul mate........................Suffocating
Yes...............................................Maybe or No
No................................................Maybe or Yes
Maybe..........................................Yes
We need.......................................I want
I'm sorry......................................You'll be sorry
We need to talk............................You're in big trouble
Sure, just go ahead.......................You better not
Do what you want to do................You'll pay later
I'm not upset................................Of course I'm upset, moron

You're being attentive tonight.....Is sex all you think about

Marrying A Younger Man Can Work

My next book, He's Not Too Young for You, is about older women with younger men. Last summer while I was in line at a supermarket, the front cover of a magazine at the checkout counter caught my eye. The photo featured a stylish woman holding hands across a restaurant table with her dinner companion. Women look so good today their precise age is hard to know, but she was certainly older than the man sitting across from her. He was good looking, muscular, clean-cut, and wearing an adoring smile. They were sharing a bottle of red wine. My thought--can it work?

I grabbed the magazine and looked inside. More pictures of them skiing on a white mountain, playing tennis, and, the picture that told the outcome--the lovely woman and her young man with a baby in her arms. I skimmed the article. She described her relationship as one that revitalized her life. “Yes I broke the taboo,” she said. “I was 40. He was 28. It wasn’t just sex. Don't get me wrong. Sex was great. But we fell in love. And I did what everyone warned me not to do. I married him. We both wanted children and knew that my clock was ticking so we hurried. As luck would have it, I became pregnant at the age of 41.”

Her first marriage fell apart, largely due to the travel demands of her job. She was distraught mostly because she thought she might never have a child. And then she met Tom at a support group. She described the group as being one “for repairing casualties of divorce.” Tom’s first wife ran off with another man a year into their marriage. “My friends and family warned me against a relationship with Tom. As my sister put it, ‘how can you go with a guy who was playing little league baseball when you were in college?’”

On the last page of the article, there was a picture of the couple with their 10-year-old daughter. The caption read: “The roar of disapproval stopped when we married and had our daughter.”

I drew some conclusions from the article—that there may still be some disapproval; that disapproval evaporates when the couple can demonstrate genuine love, and, most importantly, that these reverse-age relationships do work.

Men Love a Challenge

Though younger men say they like older women because they don't play games, their attraction will wane if you're too available. When he starts expecting you to jump at every opportunity to see him, you're removing the challenge. Let him put forth some effort.

Regardless of the reason, don't be a late night date, after he's been elsewhere, and maybe with someone else. And don't make excuses for him--that guys don't plan ahead. If they want to see you badly enough, they make plans. Forget when they tell you they don't like women who play games. They really do, as long as the game is a challenge and you're not being bitchy.

Fast forward now. You've become intimate. If after sex, he starts a habit of rolling over and falling asleep, or he jumps up, throws his clothes on and leaves without so much as a cuddle, you need to change the dynamic. Do what guys do. Let him chill. After you've made love, get up and walk out to the kitchen, put popcorn in the microwave, then grab the bag and plop yourself in front of the TV while you munch away on the fresh popcorn. He'll be out there in a couple of minutes wondering what happened. Don't whine. Just say, you still felt perky and didn't want to go to sleep. Do that a few times, and he'll get the message. When you stop chasing him, he'll chase you. Better for you that he's the chaser.

We Don't Need Viagra!

In our culture older women are not supposed to be sexy. I can't explain that position, because it makes no sense to me. There are many women in their 50's and 60's who may not be as famous as Raquel Welch or Catharine Deneuve, but they're still beautiful, toned, seductive, and sexy. What's interesting are the number of older men who choose much younger women while they disdain the notion of an older woman with a younger man. It's as if they're saying we don't want you because you're not young enough, and we don't want anyone else to want you either. Don't buy into this absurd and convoluted way of thinking. All it does is play into the hands of insecure older men who have perpetrated the myth that they can be appealing while the woman of the same age can't be. Check it out. These women look a helluva lot better than their male contemporaries, not to mention that they don't need Viagra. For us, everything keeps on working. Maybe Mother Nature had a message to send. Hmmmm. You think so?

The Wisdom of Benjamin Franklin

"Sure, I prefer older women," said one 38-year-old man. "When I do something nice for an older woman, she is so grateful, and let's me know it. With her, I don't feel as if I'm just another useful tool in her kitchen drawer." Showing a man that he's appreciated can be an elixir for him, at times even more than food or sex. And that's something you don't hear much about in self help books or women's magazines. A man will go to the ends of the earth if he feels wanted, recognized, adored. So the next time your man brings a gift or vacuums the inside of your car or runs out to help bring groceries in without being asked, let him know how much you appreciate him. If you don't acknowledge his thoughtfulness, there's a good likelihood it won't continue. Younger women often take men for granted as if they're entitled to whatever is done for them. And living with a woman who has this sense of entitlement will cause a man to stay late at work or to spend a lot of time at his computer in a room with a closed door or maybe stop coming home at all. This is just one of the many reasons men seek the companionship of older women. She expects less and is so demonstrably appreciative when she is indulged that it makes a man want to hang around to keep on caring for her. Did Benjamin Franklin get it right when he said, "Older women don't tell, don't swell, and they're grateful as hell."