Dave Neese’s Provocations: Tips on wooing the ladies
Way, way back in high school days I counted myself lucky to have a couple of “wingmen” who knew — or claimed to know — the lines that would work wonders with the girls.
“We’ll handle this,” they’d say, approaching the lasses as “At the Hop,” Danny and the Junior’s hit tune, played in the background.
And indeed my wingmen were adept in approaching the damsels and engaging them in conversation. Sometimes they even managed to wheedle a phone number out of one of them.
But my wingmen, I have to say, were not in Vladimir Putin’s class. If I were to do it over again, I’d want Volodya (as his buddies call him) as my high-school wingman. That guy knows how to flatter the ladies.
On the recent International Women’s Day, Putin had them giggling like teeny-boppers as he laid it on thick.
And these were not just any group of ladies. He was addressing a group of Russian policewomen, ladies able to stand their ground just about anywhere, I’d bet.
Putin declared International Women’s Day an occasion “lit up with the joy of our women and your shining smiles.”
“You manage everything at work and home and stay beautiful, bright and charming,” he continued.
“We men,” he added, “must admit that it is not always easy to be worthy of you.”
Putin’s pitch, of course, would get him nowhere fast with the cohort of females that insists that gender distinctions are merely the “social construct” of a vestigial, patriarchal imperialism.
But it looked to me, judging by the TASS video, that sly Putin was winning over some ground with the ladies he wooed on International Women’s Day. Meanwhile, elsewhere on that very day, assemblies of celebrants in America seemed to yearn mainly for the day when, say, the number of Screamin’ Eagles parachuting into battle with the 101st will consist of an equal number of males and females, the day when there will be gender equity in filling the NFL’s tackle positions. Not exactly images that exude romance. In Europe on International Women’s Day there were reverberating demands for the continued erasure of artificial male/female distinctions, which, it was said, serve only to perpetuate gender oppression. Males attending these assemblies surely could be forgiven for protectively clutching their, uh, cobblers. But on International Women’s Day in the land of the Rus, Putin was the holdout. He came across as a throwback “Pvt. Killer,” the smooth, slicked-down ladies’ man in the comic strip “Beetle Bailey.” “Your love unites,” he said, gilding the lily, “it encourages, supports and makes us feel warm.” Was it possible that Putin had confused International Women’s Day with Valentine’s Day? In either case, he charged onward. “What does a young woman need to maintain her figure?” the mischievous Putin asked, sounding now like a Lothario on the make. “Three things,” he suggested: “A workout machine, a masseuse and a suitor.” Giggles from the ladies. In Putin’s spiel, according to the TASS transcript, the words “workout machine, masseuse and suitor” rhymed in Russian.
This perhaps gave his line of woo an extra romantic boost.
Did Pushkin himself, the great Russian poet of the Romantic Era, ever pen such a flowery torrent of woo?
Surely, though, there are elsewhere numbers of truculent feminists who would condemn such woo as the lowest order of porcine male chauvinism, as flagrant “cisnormative” insensitivity.
Still, you had to give Putin his kudos.
My high school wingmen used to say, “With the gals there’s no such thing as going overboard with the compliments. You can no more lay it on too thick than you can give them too many roses.”
Putin apparently adheres to that school of thought. His Women’s Day line included this verbal bouquet:
“You are destined to go the whole way of creating new life, the miracle of childbirth. This great happiness of motherhood and child-rearing transfigures the world, fills it with kindness, gentleness, sympathy and asserts the traditional values that have always made Russia strong.”
Yes, such rhetoric is not likely to get Putin far with those females who maintain Planned Parenthood’s Maginot Line against the embryonic menace.
But Putin apparently doesn’t care about that.
He went on to praise women’s “emotional generosity,” a “gift of nature,” he said. “And you, dear women, multiply this gift a hundred times,” he added.
The official theme of International Women’s Day included none of the sexual, ooh-la-la, vive-la-difference woo that Putin was purveying, however.
Instead, in celebration of International Women’s Day you were urged to post pictures of yourself holding your hands like a set of balanced scales, this accompanied by the hashtag #Forbetterbalance.
So then, which approach is likely to yield better results with the ladies?
Flowery words like Putin’s? Or holding your hands like a balanced set of scales and telling your significant other, “I’m in favor of better balance, sweetheart”?
I’ll not hazard a guess. But I’ll note that an acquaintance tells me he tried the latter, holding his hands like a set of balanced scales and telling his beloved spouse of 30 years, “I’m in favor of better balance, honey.”
As he tells it, she replied, “Take out the trash, dear, and when are you going to fix that leaky kitchen faucet?”