Low life | 11 October 2012

We hop on a bus. It’s moderately full. We stand downstairs, next to the doors. The bus pulls off and I study her from the side without her noticing it. In a Sunday newspaper style magazine that I read recently, there was a piece by a woman writer about ‘the ten things women really want from a man’. These ten things were contrasted with the ‘11 myths about what women want’. I read both lists closely, having no idea either about the myth or the reality, even at my age.

It is a myth, she claimed, for example, that women like their men to take a serious interest in what they wear. They don’t, apparently. ‘We want you to say, “That’s new. You look fantastic,” not have an opinion,’ she said.

We are at that early stage of a relationship where I am astonished to see her wearing clothes, any kind of clothes at all.