I can tell ya my personal answer to Freud’s question. I can tell ya what I want; (at least, this afternoon) and I don’t think it has changed much over the course of my blessedly long life.
Okay, I’m 73. WAIT DONT STOP READING! Yeah that is effing old. It was hard even to type that, although I know, from decades of experience, that if I live another 20 years I’ll wish I were back here. (And the picture is from 1/1/2020.);On the one hand it’s a great time to be that old, everybody of any importance in our country is even older! So there’s that.
I still ( and I don’t think it’s impossible, bless me) want to be an object upon which you can rest your eyes. I literally mean “rest” in the sense of restore, refresh.
And I want to be a source of comfort. Not just if you’re hurting, I mean comfort and ease you didn’t even know you wanted. You think you’re fine, but I can give you something pleasurable you weren’t even thinking of.
I want to be seen—AND heard. The châtelaines who ran the exclusive literary salons in pre-Revolutionary France: did they get to talk, or was their rôle just to provide the venue? Oh if I could have such a salon—although I’d be generous and appreciative of my guests’ skills and notoriety—I’d want to showcase my own talent, for reciting poetry, for pithy epithets, for telling jokes. (Yes I can do that well, even though I am a woman!)
Offhand I can only call to mind two (2) other women who ever comment here. So I reckon I’m aiming this primarily at the gents. And I might ask you:
What do you want IN a woman?
A stalwart partner and helper: two can stand together with greater strength against the slings and arrows.
A friend whom I can trust implicitly and completely with my thoughts, my concerns, my joys. Someone who is smart enough and confident enough to tell me when I’ve gone off track, who models better behavior and will make me a better person.
Physical intimacy: warmth and affection. Not only sex but also the casual intimacy of ordinary moments.
This wasn’t easy to find and it didn’t happen on the first try. At this point, I worry more about loss. Grief is the price we pay for love.
To be facetious, what I would like in a woman is the ability to tell me what she wants!
Let’s set aside the continuation-of-the-species aspect of relations between the two – only two – genders. (Someday, I hope to have the time to track down the source of the quotation about the Ancient (both senses) Greek philosopher who was asked how it felt to be too old for sex: “I am glad to be free of that hard taskmaster”).
Personally, what I want in a woman are the same things I want in a man – honesty, intelligence (the real kind, not the credentialed substitute), a positive attitude, and a nice voice.
Oh Kevin, you deserve that feeling!
Thanks to all you dear polymaths who responded to my li ‘l lagniappe of a post. Your responses made me think of these lines from Yeats’ poem A Prayer for My Daughter:
“In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many that have played the fool
For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.”
