The Ideal Woman

Friends, I hope you will excuse me and my behavior today because I'm feeling a little pissy. It all started on Friday when I got online to do a little blog surfing. So, it probably actually started loooong before that, but I digress. Anyhoo, my homepage is MSN ~ I should probably change that to help prevent incidents like this in the future ~ and as soon as the page popped up I was greeted by this article/photo series called "Celebrity Bikinis He'd Love (or Hate) to See You In." Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. I don't know why (okay, I have some ideas), but the whole thing just hit me wrong and really pissed me off.

So I did what any sane mother-of-five with a to-do list that is longer than she is tall would do...I tossed aside all of the things I should have been doing and spent an embarrassingly large portion of the day scouring the internet trying to find what it is REALLY that men want in a woman. Because you know what? I find the whole idea that what men really want is a celebrity-type woman in a bikini ~ and not just any bikini: as the article points out it has to be the right bikini, no matter how hot the lady is who is wearing it ~ anyway, I find that idea really insulting. And not just to women, but also to men. Real men. Like the real man I'm married to.

I guess what I was hoping to find in my internet adventures is some kind of evidence to support the urban legend that what women think that men want is not the same as what men actually want. You know, like how women think that men want a bikini-clad celebrity style woman but that men really think that sexiness is about exuding confidence. I hate to tell you this, but I found no evidence to support this idea. The internet is full of articles about what men want and it basically boils down to this: boobs. Yep. Breasts. Ta-tas. And the bigger, the better.

Here's an interesting little tid-bit: Of all the articles I read, some written by men and some written by women interviewing men, I never saw a single photo of any of the men making the claims about what constitutes an ideal woman. After a while, I determined that these men - alright, let's call them boys (after all, most of them were in the 22-26 year old age range) - are likely knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers living in their parents' basements and that made me smile :) And the women they are describing are what they consider to be ideal sex partners, not necessarily ideal life partners.

You may be wondering why I even care about any of this. I am a happily married woman. But I still desire to be desired. I want The Hubs to think I'm hot! I want him to be proud when I walk into his office! When we go on a date I want him to look at me and think, "How did I land a chick like this?" 

Yeah, Selena's got it going on. There's no
doubt about that! Photo by Getty Images.

 
But reality's a bitch, isn't it? And the reality is that I am exhausted. Here is a taste of what I do in a day - it is probably similar to your own day. I am a cook, a maid, a nanny, a teacher, a book keeper, a taxi-driver, a nurse, a personal shopper, a gardener, a therapist, etc. I think you get the idea. On top of wearing all of these hats, I feel pressured to maintain a calm demeanor and a sunny outlook. There is also pressure to use my "spare time" to pursue my own interests so that I will have something to talk about other than "just" the kids. Oh, and at the end of the day I should look like Selena Gomez if I really want to keep The Hubs happy. You must be joking.

But it's not just a joke. It's a lie. It's all a big fat lie. The people who are trying to make you believe the lie are trying to sell you something. Do you want to know the truth? The Hubs thinks that I'm the ideal woman. And your hubs thinks that about you. That is why, out of all of the women in the world, he asked YOU to marry him. I'm not perfect and neither is The Hubs, but we are perfect for each other.

I'm not saying The Hubs would be disappointed if he came home one day and I greeted him at the door looking like that pic of Selena up there, but The Hubs is realistic (and mature) enough to know that an 18-year-old hottie would last about 5 minutes in our house. (And he has no patience for tantrum-throwing divas.)

I know this is kind of a weird post, but this is my place for working things out and I've been working this out all weekend. It's likely that most of you are better than I am at not taking this kind of junk quite so seriously. Sometimes I guess I just reach a threshold and go nutty on it. The internet, the movies, the television shows, the magazine racks at the grocery store...it can all just be a little much. And maybe you sometimes feel the same way.

So I've decided to do something about it (besides just this rant) and I am hoping that you'll join me. Because it is possiblethat I have let myself go taken "taking care of myself" off of my to-do list. I haven't done it on purpose. It's just that, with SO many responsibilities, sometimes something has to give. And something may have to give, but it doesn't always have to be me. And it doesn't always have to be you.

I'm going to challenge myself to do things a little differently and I'm extending that challenge to you, friends. I'm going to start taking better care of myself and I'd like for you to do the same. I want to make some changes and I want these changes to last, so I'm going to take baby steps. Won't you join me? I'll be posting soon with all the deets :)
~B