Although society seems to say that women want romance (and men want sex), and sales of Harlequin romance novels are almost indisputably to women, I think something else is operating when it comes down to the brass tacks of actually getting married.

In that situation, what I have frankly seen is a whole lot of men who all of a sudden find their "one and only", maybe even getting obsessed about it, and a whole lot of women who are doing some calculating about more mundane things - like money and prospects. That also shakes out in statistics about "marrying up" - which involve women in something like 80% of the cases. And I also suspect that the other 20% involve women who (naively) KNOW that the current drug dealer is going to land a hit record because of his musical prowess, or the guy on hard times is going to do something super-duper down the road.

Not to mention the ward nurse who is earning more than the resident in plastic surgery - when she marries him.

I think the reality is that men, when they are young, are on a search for sex on a short-term basis, and that's how the reputation arises, but they always have it in the back of their mind that someday they are going to find their real woman in a flowing white gown up on a pedestal. So when they find some approximation of that, they instantly project all of the qualities mapped in their head onto that woman. Women also project their fantasies onto the real-life approximation, sometimes in bizarre ways, like the example of the drug dealer above who is absolutely for sure going to land a hit record.

My idea is: People are just people. Sex blinds. The sex blindness wears off a bit after 2-3 years of close contact.

But this is the big danger for men, because they may enter into a legal relationship in which only they have the duties down the road. Forever and ever, long past the point where it may even be fun anymore. The cutesy cashier with a good body who is REALLY fun to be with may turn out to be a fat, sour-faced, dim-witted nothing in 30 years.

And for the feminists who will instantly pounce and say that men decay too: I know, but women don't have the responsibilities that come with leaving. At worst, she just leaves. At best, she takes some parting gifts with her in the form of the surplus of assets that he has earned over hers (and remember: women marry up statistically). Or more than just parting gifts, she's rich. And she certainly never would have been rich if she continued on Isle 3 at Super Kmart.

Aside from the fact that attractiveness may be defined in different ways among the genders. At age 20, she's at the height of her power with looks and her body. He's at the bottom with regard to money. At 40 or 50, it is reversed. But now he's stuck with the obligation.

Anyway, to end tonight's lecture, young men should maybe be forced to really talk to older men about what can happen and how you can be blinded. Whatever you think of the divorce rate (which I think is high), I have seen all too many long-term married couples that kind of hobble along on a low level of real loathing of one another. Constant put-downs and sighs. Ummm, no thanks. That's not life, that's just existing.