Men are like so

Adelle Waldman, author of famously well-executed-male-protagonist-having The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,* writes, of seeing her ex-boyfriend out with his hot ditz new girlfriend,

I was envious. Not of her, but of him. He could be attracted to and, it seemed, happy with a woman regardless of whether he found her interesting. This was not an option for me. The thought of sleeping with a man I didn’t enjoy talking to, regardless of how good-looking he was, made me feel so lonely I could cry.

The essay for The Point, which more than makes the case that Waldman is as smart as she says she is, juxtaposes a Philip Roth novel where a man thinks with the ol’ penis and an Edith Wharton one where a man lets other organs get words in edgewise, concluding that Roth had the more accurate assessment of human nature. Waldman rhetorically asks, “who more than smart, heterosexual women have a stake in believing that intelligent men want intelligent women?”

There is no hard-and-fast rule that women of this sort want men to converse with. There is, in Absolutely Fabulous and Sex and the City and The Golden Girls and this thing called life that I sometimes catch glimpses of as well, an alternate possibility. One in which lively intellectual (and not-so-intellectual) discussions are happening among women. Men are for other things. Sex, but not only. Also repartee, which is to say, conversations that feel profound because the person you’re having them with is hot, and maybe because there’s some undercurrent of, will this conversation lead to sex?

It is within the capacities of some straight women to find men ‘interesting’ where interesting means hot. To articulate the thought, ‘damn!’ with words like, ‘wow, that man has so many fascinating insights on accounting/plumbing/next week’s weather forecast.’ If this is something only unintelligent straight women have within their repertoire then feel free to appoint me queen of the idiots, because while this is not a thing that comes up in my life these days, it explains any number of boyfriends/crushes/conversations of yore.

That said, if you’re talking about embarking on a lifelong-type relationship, it is, yes, preferable to be with someone you find particularly interesting to chat with. Maybe not someone you discuss all topics with (friends, family, and colleagues also exist, as do social media mutuals in this day and age) but enough. I’m not convinced men and women are different in this regard. Many relationships last for as long as sex appeal alone suffices, and then you get two people who realize they’ve got nothing to say to each other. Ideally, at that point, you realize you’ve got lots to discuss!

In any case, Waldman describes finding it inconceivable to even want to have sex with a man whose banter wasn’t up to snuff, presenting this as a women-are-like-so (or, smart-women-are-like-so) quality. I’m sure some women are, but there’s probably a sapiosexual-to-himbo-chasing spectrum on that front. “The thought of sleeping with a man I didn’t enjoy talking to, regardless of how good-looking he was, made me feel so lonely I could cry.” Another woman might say, The thought of sleeping with a man I didn’t find immensely good-looking, no matter how funny and charming he was to chat with, made me want to vomit. And both could be smart straight women, and not, I don’t think, major outliers in either case.

What then is different about male sexuality?