MORE OBSERVATIONS
Women's Interests
Recently I was at Barnes and
Noble perusing their magazine collection. The magazines were grouped into
major categories, two of which were "Women's Interests" and "Men's
Interests." Being male, I am familiar with men's interests: sports, hunting,
cars, and women. The covers of these magazines had a mix of photos that reflected
those male interests. And of course there were more than the necessary female
photos. It seems that no matter how nice a car looks, putting a sexy female
next to it is assumed to make it a more attractive car.
Moving over to the "Women's
Interest" section I noted that almost all of these magazines had photos
of women on them. It didn't seem to make any difference what the focus of
the magazine happened to be. I began taking inventory. In spite of getting
a few strange glances, I counted 107 different magazines purporting some area
of interest to women. Of these 107, 101 of them had photos of women on the
cover, three of them had no people photos, and one had a male and female photo.
Only one had just the photo of a man.
Am I to conclude from this
that women are more interested in other women than they are in men?
I decided more research was needed, so I started watching other women when
I was out on a date, not that this was unusual behavior for me. In general,
men tend to look at other women, even if the women they are with are beautiful.
It's in our genes.
What I noticed is that women tended to look at my date rather than at me. Were they more interested in her, or did they just feel sorry for her? They couldn't have all been lesbians. It seemed as though I was just an accessory, and not one in which they were interested. I do recall reading somewhere that women dress for other women. As long as they get undressed for men, I guess it's okay.
Larry
Somewhere in my distant past I have probably purchased a pair of shoes at Sears. Perhaps it was Sears and Roebuck back then. At least I have this vague recollection of doing so, but when I think of shoes, Sears does not come to mind. I buy my shoes at the cheapest places I can find, because I view shoes with the same mindset that a horse must have regarding saddles. They are often necessary, rarely noticed or appreciated while wearing them, and a relief to take off. I don't ever recall someone saying to me, 'Nice shoes,' but then it could be that I've never had any nice ones.
So it was rather atypical for me to be wandering through the shoe section of Sears on a recent outing. I was taking a shortcut through Sears in order to reach the parking lot when a pair of shoes caught my eye. They were not attractive shoes. I recognized them only because a friend of mine was wearing a pair a few days earlier and extolling the virtues of how comfortable they were. I stopped and started examining the shoes on this display.
I recall the days when, in addition to their manufacturer's name, shoes had names identifying them with their style ' like the famous Blue Suede Shoes of Elvis fame. The shoes I was examining all had men's names. I tried on a few pair, and my friend had been right -- they were very comfortable. I paid $20 for a pair called "'Larry." I really wanted ones called "'Al", but they must have been out of stock. I think creativity in shoe marketing has hit an all-time low.