Featured image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

“Okay. Would you also agree that you have noticed the marketing of products toward women has been more focused on making women please themselves without regard for others? At least with hair colors, clothing and scents?” I queried.

“Are you saying we don’t have that right?” Melony asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

“No. I’m answering your question” I replied.

“I asked how a woman gets a guy like you!” she exclaimed.

“And I’m explaining why the deck is stacked against you and all young women. It has nothing to do with you being a single mom, what you do for a living, or where you live.”

“Continue” she said.

“This marketing effort has been teaching women to live for themselves, not others. It is all sold under the banner of empowering women. Fine if you want to be empowered, just realize you will most likely be living alone. Personally, I’m more than okay with being alone, especially at this stage of life, knowing each day could be my last. The truth is each day could be everybody’s last, it is just statistically more probable for me.”

She rose up across my chest in sort of a side sitting position fully focused on me now, so I continued. “The real cruelty came with the marketing of scents to females. Scents and fragrances only other females like. They sell in great quantities to single women and women about to find themselves single. All of the old scents have been beaten down in cultural lore. Ultimately, all men are dogs. Even intelligent, attractive, wealthy men are driven by food, a comfortable bed and most importantly scents which are not only pleasing to us but tell us we are home.”

“We will journey out for sex, but we will not stay just for sex. Oh, to be certain, a twenty-something will hang around for sex for a few years. They might even give up half their stuff, when they have very little stuff, to hang onto good, regular sex for a few years, but that’s as long as it lasts.”

Melony nodded with a look of understanding in her eyes.

“Let me explain it to you this way. As shocking as it may seem, I was once a child who had a grandmother. She always wore either some kind of lilac water as it was called, or smelled of roses. When I got older I learned it was ‘Her Majesty’s Rose’ which was sold by Victoria’s Secrets. At least once a week she would bake either a small loaf of bread or something with vanilla in it. She buried two husbands. It wasn’t long after the first died that her second came along. As a child I simply knew that her place and she smelled good. This was back when Victoria’s Secret was selling garments and fragrances to women looking for men. Shortly after this they quit making ‘Her Majesty’s Rose.’ It was during that whole shift to ‘I’m worth it’ advertising. Instead they began selling clothing to women which only other women liked and more importantly scents women liked which were insect repellent as far as men were concerned. Do you understand now?”

“Not really” responded Melony.

“Condensing it down into a shot glass, you, being the younger generations of women, have been told since childhood you can be anything and should find a man who completes you. The type of man you seek, if he is interested in settling down, is looking for a woman which completes him. He cannot put it into words and may not understand it himself, but when he walks through the door he wants his subconscious to tell him he is home. The scent tells him he is home long before anything else can. His conscious mind may try to tell him he is home, but, if the subconscious doesn’t agree, he isn’t staying no matter how awesome the sex. The one sentence answer is ‘two left shoes do not make a pair,’ but that sentence has no meaning if you haven’t been on the journey.”

Her smile went all the way to her eyes when she said “you can’t marry yourself.”

“Exactly! You’re intelligent, good looking and far from destitute. You claim to be looking for the same in a man, but, I doubt you would be willing to become a housewife which is what the kind of guy you describe with the income you are hinting at would want. If you marry yourself you will be divorced in under two years. Most people simply can’t live with themselves.”

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