Saturday, December 06, 2008

Maintenance

Two sensible, single young men I know, Mark and Rob, were engaged in their regular pastime of assessing women as potential mates, when they hit upon a useful metric: the higher the heels, the higher the maintenance.
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7 comments:

Brenda Kronemeijer-Heyink said...

could we modify the statement a bit? the higher the heels the higher the maintenance, except of course if she's able (and willing) to bike (or run) in those heels.

this is speaking from seeing/knowing a lot of dutch women who ride bicycles and fix their own tires - both in heels.

6:11 AM, December 06, 2008
Gruntled said...

That is pretty impressive. Are they pointy heels?

7:37 PM, December 06, 2008
Nate Crimmins said...

Oh I miss those guys.

11:37 AM, December 07, 2008
Kerri said...

this is one stereotype that, at least to me, seems true enough to be useful.

i avoid heels at all costs, since i can barely even walk in them (let alone BIKE). and i do consider myself a pretty low-maintenance sort of lady...

5:47 PM, December 07, 2008
Mac said...

Stereotypes, as I understand Kerri to be using the word, are biases about some group or some thing that have absolutely no rational support. "Stereotype" has come to have a pejorative meaning.

The "metric" in question, as with may other such informal rules of thumb, while perhaps incapable of scientific proof, may be properly used by reasonable people as a starting point. Such rules of thumb often constitute a "a reasonable and articulable suspicion", cf., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), based on experience that reaches the level of gut-checking, rather than absolute tangible proof.

Should these young men reject out of hand a potential mate simply because of her preferred style of dress shoes? Not mecessarily, but such a sartorial predilection is a hint that other signs of a demand for high maintenance should be monitored.

After the mate is selected,many husbands learn, to some degree or another, a collateral rule of thumb: "Happy wife, happy life."

1:20 PM, December 09, 2008
virginia said...

On behalf of heel-loving women everywhere, I beg you - let us be judged by our characters, not by our footwear :)

4:12 PM, December 10, 2008
Gruntled said...

Virginia, I agree that we should all be judged by the content of our character. As a sociological generalization, what do you think of the "high heel, high maintenance" theory.

5:59 PM, December 10, 2008

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