Poor woman's latest got me thinking about men: how they fascinate me, how they drive me bonkers and what it is exactly that I love about them.

I'm a woman of “a certain age”, long and for the most part happily married, but honestly, when you stop looking and appreciating the opposite sex from an esthetic or theoretical perspective (or the same sex, if that's where you're at) you might as well be dead.

Flirting is an art lost on the Dutch. I know of one Dutch guy who can flirt: Cousin Wessel. We flirt all the time, it's safe. Dutch men are, on the whole, too earnest, their mindset too Calvinist to enjoy flirting. They either want to get down to business right away or they'll imitate Zeno the Stoic all night and leave you guessing. A Dutch guy will tell you you're hot,  so hot, he'd like to hop into the sack with you as soon as possible and then ask if you're on the pill, or he'll get all big eyed and silent like a lemur. I find both approaches rather disturbing. Dutch women generally (there are exceptions) aren't very good at flirting either, which puts a natural flirt like myself at a serious disadvantage—people get the wrong idea.

Most people have a “type” that floats their boat. I am often surprised by the men I see with women with in town. Shaved heads abound, lots of lean sinew and aggressive attitudes to go with the muscle. They wear baseball caps indoors and tend to smoke roll-yr-owns. Either they don't say much, so there's no clue to what their character is really like, or they shoot off at the mouth in a wanton display of ignorance, which totally destroys any postive reaction I may have had to their fabulous biceps. Then there are the long-haired, lanky and earnest. Men who feel the need to apologize for their testosterone. They not only want to watch the films with you and your friends on chick-flick night, they cry on your shoulder and need to be consoled. They tend to embrace a vegan lifestyle, but not on principle; they think it impresses the women. Another type lets the woman in his life run everything. He's just there for the ride. These are the men whose partners obviously lay out their outfits for them at night. They are impeccably dressed and color co-ordinated. If the girlfriend says “wear the crocs, sweetie, they match the clam diggers” these guys wear the color co-ordinated crocs and like it. There are of course, many other varieties with in the species, Dutch male, but the overall picture is not pretty.

I used to think that I didn't have a type. I've dated all different kinds of guys. I've admitted dating guys because they have great (chest) hair, , the biceps, the drummer in the band just because it sounded cool to date a drummer (I was very young), the jock, the class valedectorian (dear Phred), the motorhead mathemetician, the surfer dude philosopher, but in retrospect my boyfriends, lovers and eventually my husband have two things in common, and I think that this must be what sends me: they are all extremely smart and they have great, deep, warm speaking voices, as does The Big Bang Theory's delightful Mr. Wolowitz. The man is short, tied to his mother's apron strings big time, and has the style of a Star Trek conventioneer, but when he opens his mouth to speak, I just go weak in the knees.