Cynthia writes about dating and women’s issues (see her dating advice column here, or buy her book here). Her central question is: what sort of “Usefulness” do we want from our relationships? How can we get it? Categories of Usefulness include: Romantic, Sexual, Entertainment and Technical to name a few. For women in longer term relationships, the same concept can be used to examine what we’re are getting (or not) in return for the Usefulness we provide to our mates.
So why write for women and not men?
CJ: “Women need coaching in this area much more than men. In countries where men have the over-whelming upper hand, husbands could really care less how Useful their wives find them to be — or how happy these women are. Meanwhile, a wife better have a high Usefulness Quotient (UQ) to him or it’s off with her head. Thus, as women become more economically, socially, politically empowered, we need to learn to measure UQ at least as well as men already do. Otherwise we can easily end up with your average, garden-variety Barely Useful Male (BUM) where we’re putting scads more energy into the relationship than we’re getting out of it.”
Cynthia’s book is called, Dating for Fun and Profit: A Girl’s Guide to Useful Men. Here you can find out more about the book, ask her questions and find her blog divided by category.
Postscript from cj: Wait! If you’re a guy who’s about to write me a nasty email don’t bother. Most of us women consider ourselves pretty darn useful to men already. So just go ahead and apply the idea to women too if necessary (isn’t it obvious that it goes both ways? Some of you are awfully touchy).