Neilikka
09-02-2008, 03:24 PM
Moscow's metro is a place where you don't have to feel nervous, nor do you have to spend money on petrol. You just have to relax when a noisy crowd of people is gently carrying you away from your handbag... So when I got used to these aggressive travel conditions, I decided to do what everybody else does on the metro - read. I started with Remarque, and I felt myself a real rara avis there. People (especially men) were stepping aside, trying not to look at me. But I quickly figured them out. They were treating me as a social outcast because they thought I was showing off while they were exhausted midway through the workweek and could only mentally handle the yellow press. I graciously smiled at everybody and got off at my station.
But then I took Remarque to the restaurant where I usually have my lunch. A handsome guy sitting not far from me stopped smiling when I cracked open the book. The waiter looked at me queerly.
"Is it Remarque that people don't like so much, or something else," I pondered on the way to the office.
The next day I forgot my book at home, so I bought "Hello!" magazine instead near the metro. I opened it with a snap as I entered the wagon. Men started to look at me with interest. One guy winked at me.
"Dear, don't you know that men prefer silly women?" my friend told me.
"Of course not! Why?"
"They have fewer problems with them."
And that is true. One of my friends suffers from his wife just because she is too smart and ambitious for him. He is proud of her when they spend time at parties where she passionately debates with his friends, but as soon as they get home they start to have fights.
Another 30-something guy likes young girls who are not 100 percent blockheads because they still look at him with wide-opened eyes as he relates stories about the situation in parliament today.
Unfortunately, it seems that men's advantages are often based on wo¬men's disadvantages. Do I need to be smart enough to hide Remarque under ‘Hello!' magazine? Or should I wait for the one who will tell me something new about Remarque's biography? Is your ideal wife the one who is sitting at home with a tasty dinner on the table, watching soap operas and waiting for you to come home?
Or maybe your ideal wife is someone who is ready to have a nice talk about some topical political issues?
I ask you, men, to think of it and please, don't try to make Condoleezza Rice out of Britney Spears, and vice versa. It will just drive you crazy.
By Anna Ozar
But then I took Remarque to the restaurant where I usually have my lunch. A handsome guy sitting not far from me stopped smiling when I cracked open the book. The waiter looked at me queerly.
"Is it Remarque that people don't like so much, or something else," I pondered on the way to the office.
The next day I forgot my book at home, so I bought "Hello!" magazine instead near the metro. I opened it with a snap as I entered the wagon. Men started to look at me with interest. One guy winked at me.
"Dear, don't you know that men prefer silly women?" my friend told me.
"Of course not! Why?"
"They have fewer problems with them."
And that is true. One of my friends suffers from his wife just because she is too smart and ambitious for him. He is proud of her when they spend time at parties where she passionately debates with his friends, but as soon as they get home they start to have fights.
Another 30-something guy likes young girls who are not 100 percent blockheads because they still look at him with wide-opened eyes as he relates stories about the situation in parliament today.
Unfortunately, it seems that men's advantages are often based on wo¬men's disadvantages. Do I need to be smart enough to hide Remarque under ‘Hello!' magazine? Or should I wait for the one who will tell me something new about Remarque's biography? Is your ideal wife the one who is sitting at home with a tasty dinner on the table, watching soap operas and waiting for you to come home?
Or maybe your ideal wife is someone who is ready to have a nice talk about some topical political issues?
I ask you, men, to think of it and please, don't try to make Condoleezza Rice out of Britney Spears, and vice versa. It will just drive you crazy.
By Anna Ozar