Eat Me: Love, Sex and the Art of Eating

Prepare to suspend your deeply cynical beliefs and be amazed.

Beauty came top of the list, although surprisingly men are not as attracted to glamour girls as we think they are. Beauty, it would seem, is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

True, the kind of women they want to date take good care of themselves and of how they look but, apparently, it is not about having the perfect body or looking like the models in the fashion mags (airbrushed within an inch of their skinny, cellulite-free, digitally-enhanced, irritating selves), it is about confidence. If you look good you will feel good, ergo you will be upbeat, friendly and approachable. If you make no effort with yourself, why should anyone make an effort with you?

To keep a man you need to be:

a lady in the parlour, a cook in the kitchen

and a whore in the bedroom.

JERRY HALL

So it’s not about being a perfect ‘10’, it’s about being the best you that you can possibly be, no matter what you may weigh, how old you are or how much money you have.

Take heart, ladies, here’s what men really want, in no particular order:

An infectious giggle, sparkly eyes, manicured hands, a toned body (but definitely not skinny, all the men I spoke to preferred a curvier girl), also important is intelligence and a wicked sense of humour that includes being able to laugh at ourselves.

Men are attracted to women who are independent, have a certain joie de vivre and are in control of their own lives. They also like women who are unpredictable, exciting and adventurous, both in and out of the bedroom.

They want a woman with whom they can have fun, who preferably likes football (a tough one I know), who doesn’t want to change them (admit it, we’ve all tried) and who understands when he’s had a bad day and he needs a cuddle.

They are dead keen on women who can cook (funny that), and girls who are not carrying around loads of baggage from past relationships. Having similar interests, ideals and goals is also considered important.

Men adore women who go to dinner and actually eat. They want someone who will support them, love their mum and not expect them to give up their mates or spend every Saturday afternoon shopping.

In addition? Men want sex; lots and lots of sex. They never want to hear the words ‘Not tonight darling, I have a headache’. Ever.

A woman waits motionless until she is wooed. Much how a spider waits for a fly.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Ok, now for the gentlemen. What attracts us ladies to men? Good looks are clearly a consideration, but we are not expecting you to look like a movie star. That said, grooming is paramount, we want you to look and smell good. Aftershave should definitely be in evidence, but not so much that we are asphyxiated.

Women have a bit of a thing about men’s shoes, my advice is buy the best you can afford and keep ’em polished. Lots of women say a good sense of humour is imperative, make us laugh and it would seem you are home free.

Bottoms came up, a lot. We girls apparently have a bit of a thing for your pert buns, almost as much as we like kind eyes but not as much as we value that old chestnut Good Manners. We like it when men open doors for us, pay for dinner on a first date and talk to our faces rather than our cleavage. We like it when you have orderly, tidy homes and when you listen, really listen, to what we are saying. If we do tell you our problems we don’t expect you to fix them, just listen.

Gentlemen, it’s better for all concerned that you don’t go on and on about football, your bitch/angel/goddess (whichever fits) ex or drone on and on about work. We know you work hard. We do too.

Oh, I nearly forgot, we love that you can cook but please don’t do it as well as us.

Men don’t live well by themselves. They don’t even live like people. They live like bears with furniture.

RUTH RUDNER

Men are having a hard time these days but, conversely, women have never had it so good. (I think.) Apparently we live in an age where Women Can Have It All. But as much as we do want it all, we don’t want to lose our femininity and we still want our man to be a real man, even if we are earning more than you and are perfectly capable of changing a fan belt whilst knocking up dinner for ten.

But, and there’s always a but, in behaving like the strong, silent, dependable men we yearn for, you must be strong but not too strong. God forbid we should feel patronised or controlled, but there again God help you should you display any sign of weakness. (Understand why I’m feeling a bit sorry for them?)

Gentlemen, we don’t want to wear the trousers but we don’t want you to wear them either, couldn’t we just take a leg each?

Yup, women really can have it all. The job, the kids, the holidays, the money, the perfect relationship, the perfect body, new boobs and smooth botoxed skin that will never age and the most significant validation of all, a trouser leg. It’s just that sometimes it’s exhausting and we just want a cuddle. And a chocolate biscuit.

Intuition is the strange instinct that tells a woman she’s right, whether she is or not.

OSCAR WILDE

FIRST DATES (#ulink_9f57e908-c6e5-559a-93e2-2cc009987fb1)

First Impressions

Don’t think of him as a Date, Think of him as a Dinner.

LUCILLE BALL

Hopefully our improved talents in the art of attraction will have been put to good use and will have resulted in securing the attentions of an eligible and gorgeous man, one whose sole purpose in life is to ask us out to dinner.

So you’ve finally got a date, but please don’t be tempted to cook, you’ll have plenty of time later to wow him with your culinary expertise if the evening goes well. Go out to a lovely restaurant, relax and find out a little more about each other and see if this is worth pursuing.

A propos of not cooking, do take my advice as I’m talking from bitter experience. Every time I have cooked on a first date it has ended in tears, generally mine. Even if the food was perfect and everything looked fabulous, by the time my date arrived I was frizzy-haired and frazzled from the hours spent in the kitchen and from the cleaning regime required to turn my apartment into something out of Vogue Interiors.

On one occasion when I was asked out, memorable because I really liked this guy and had been trying to get his attention for months, I decided to dazzle him with both my cooking skills and my fabulous 44th-floor apartment overlooking Hong Kong harbour. So I stupidly (with hindsight) invited him to dinner.

I cleaned, shopped and cooked all day, preparing a menu planned with military precision. Parma ham with Chanterelle melon was followed by an inordinately expensive grilled lobster and a mango soufflé finished off the dinner. The whole meal was washed down with several bottles of Veuve Clicquot. I wore my killer little black dress and lit enough candles to illuminate the Vatican. Everything was perfect.

Except … he was Jewish. (Who’s to know?) He didn’t eat Parma ham (pork) and he didn’t eat lobster (shellfish) and hated the perfumed aroma of mangos.

I became increasingly flustered and more than a little resentful that all my hard work had resulted in him nibbling on a breadstick and not much else. Especially not the hostess.

Whilst I’m sure my ill-advised dinner was not solely to blame (I think it was a lot more to do with my evidently increasing displeasure), having eaten the square root of exactly nothing he made his excuses and left. That was the last I heard from him.

Like I said, don’t be tempted to cook. (In a fit of pique I ate everything on the table plus all the after-dinner mints so not only did I feel rejected, I also felt fat. Not a good combination.)

Back to happier things.

It doesn’t matter how many first dates I’ve had or how many restaurants I’ve eaten in, I always get excited about the first time I have dinner with someone new. You never quite know what will happen, there’s always the chance that this could be the one.

The problem is, of course, that first dates don’t always live up to our expectations. I’m sure we all have a Dating Disasters Dossier, filed away in our memory under Not To Be Repeated Under Any Circumstances. Those dates that forced us to question our apparent inability to spot a really bad idea! How in the name of all that is sacred could we possibly have accepted, or worse yet requested, this interminable torture? I have spent far too many first date dinners surreptitiously glancing at my watch, willing the minutes to tick past whilst seated opposite someone with whom I had absolutely nothing in common and, worse, whom I was starting to actively dislike.

It happens.

Far too bloody often, actually.

You know who you are, guys, those of you from my bleak and beleaguered past that caused me to coin the idiom ‘First Date Disorder’. If I looked bored it’s because I was. There, now you know.

The tragic thing was that on these ghastly, coma-inducing, sub-standard debacles I invariably ended up paying the bill, purely to prevent any possibility of having to kiss him through some kind of misplaced guilt. Subsequently, I ended up bored to tears, questioning my judgement and, to add insult to injury, considerably poorer.