she's at it again

I guess maybe Ms. Hampson has realized her pieces have been a little one-sided and has decided to write her current piece on what women of a certain age want in men. However, not to fear, this does not mean she has reduced her dependence on ego stroking, cliches and stereotypes. Alright, you know the routine, go read it, you know you want to, then use the back button to come on back.

First off, Ms. Hampson works in a coy little story to show that despite her recent divorce she's still 'got-it'. Why else for the story about being hit on by a creepy, old married man. Ms. Hampson, I think it's time you got the "old creep-o-meter" re-tuned, because if it didn't flicker on the dying man saying he didn't have to be 'married' that night, then it's broken.

Later in the article, it's said that men "...should feel like your favourite pair of sweatpants." Nice, maybe Ms. Hampson was feeling guilty for last week's comparison of women to car seats and old leather and tried to balance the analogy scale.

What intrigues me is how although being a piece on what women want, it really seems to be tips on how women should compromise, balding, that's ok, a little paunch, that's ok too, things like career and success aren't too important. It's fascinating to see this.

Last week's piece was positioned as rules for women about what men want in women of a certain age, so why she didn't write this piece as rules for men is beyond me. It would seem more fair, rather than this piece which puts the emphasis on women looking past things in men that men may not be prepared to look past in women.

For example, women of a certain age, according to last week shouldn't talk too much about their children. It's against the rules. However, women should "pay attention to a man's relationship with his children from a previous marriage." It's important for women to know he plays a meaningful role with his children, but she's not supposed to talk about hers. If he does have a meaningful relationship with his children, I imagine he'll want to know that a woman he's interested in has good relationships with her children. But no, she can't talk about that, it's "against the rules".

You may also note that everything a woman should be looking for in a man, how he talks about his ex, his relationship with his children are predicated on a previous relationship. What about the single older man, oh wait, that's right, we're talking about Ms. Hampson, and she's the founding memberof the "if they're over 40 and never been married than they are not dating material" club. ARGH!

I mean really, once we all reach a certain age, male or female, aren't we looking for something other than the rules and games of our youth when we didn't know any better. Ms. Hampson is doing nothing other than trying to bring back those silly days of youthful relationships and trying to plant them on a completely different point of our lives, where we want to be and in fact are past them.