What do Men and Women Want from Each Other?

Here’s a scene (from Quantum Entity | the Successors) I have just written between a young coder (Nina, pictured above) talking to her mother, Daniella, and adopted grandmother, Dafne, about what men and women want.

“Why don’t they like me? I don’t understand men,” Nina says.

“Men are easy to understand, Nina. They just want food, sex and to be left alone at all other times,” her mother tells her.

Dafne and Nina can’t help themselves. They both burst out laughing at Daniella’s characterization of the male half of homo sapiens.

“So, Ella, what do women want?” Dafne asks.

“That’s simple too—women want a friend, companion, occasional lover, a handyman, a good provider, a healer, good listener, good father, someone who is athletic, attentive, gallant, intelligent, strong, courageous, dependable and ambitious.”

“Don’t forget,” Dafne adds, “someone who is funny, creative, tender, understanding, a sympathetic guy, tolerant, prudent but determined and passionate.”

“And,” Nina says getting into the swing of it, “they have to give her lots of attention, never forget her birthday, important anniversaries and St. Valentine’s Day as well as give her lots of compliments, go shopping with her, be honest, rich and not look at other girls.” Nina loved her time in Stockholm but she never subscribed to the Swedish model—one where girls don’t believe in romance.  Nina believes in both romance and drama.

“Right!” her mother and grandmother say simultaneously.

But when Nina thinks about Dafne’s list of manly qualities, it makes her think of Magellan, the guy who has never even asked her out. She goes back to weeping. “Denile” is not just a river in northeastern Africa.

 @ ProfBruce

@ Quantum_ Entity