Lenny Law, late of this parish, made an interesting point on Twitter the other day. He wrote that if asked when younger he would have said that he didn’t have a ‘type’. But looking at his youthful crushes, a pattern emerges – short hair, delicate features, and large eyes. Summed up in one word: ‘Elfin’.
If pushed, I would have said that my type was ‘any woman who would give me the time of day’ but looking at past partners, and indeed the current one with whom I hope to spend the rest of my days, they are generally round of face, with ample curves and usually, though not exclusively, fair. I suppose the shorthand would be ‘earth mother’.
It seems odd to me that I have never realised this until mid life, though I dare say close acquaintances would shake their heads and say they could have told me that *years* ago.
Anyway, how about you? What’s your type, and have you only just realised you have one because I’ve asked the question now?
Anyone that said yes!
When asked who is their favourite beat combo…?
Every man ultimately has a type quite close to their mother, even if they rage against it..
Probably why all mine have been different as I have no recollection of my mother.
My mother was a plump pigeon of a lady and akin to Margaret Rutherford as she got older. My wife looks like Wendy Weber in “Mrs Weber’s Diary” (as used to be in The Guardian). I am a lot like George Weber these days. Not much like mater.
My mother is a stick insect of a woman in build and a horrific amalgamation of psychological syndromes in temperament. If she influenced my taste in partners it was only in reaction to her by running as far and as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
My wife is of a type quite close to my mother-in-law, actually. We’re getting all the jokes out of the way now.
My mother thought I was too good for my first wife (she was probably right). She though my second wife was marvellous but drove her nuts. She doted on my current wife largely because she turned up at the right time to save me from twilight years of lonely alcoholism. None of them were anything like my mother because, well, she was my mother…
Wait. I’m confuse. How many wives have you had?
Three – first, second, current.
You married your first wife first? How quaintly conventional…
It was touch and go…
I can beat that. My current wife (the third) was also my first wife.
Are you Richard Burton?
“Current”? What, like a raisin?
(Not being cheeky – quote from Detectorists!)
Ah. So they are sequential and don’t overlap.
Er yes…one divorced, one dead and one current. I sometimes refer to the current Mrs thep as my last wife just to confuse people. It’s a fair assumption.
Well that is complete nonsense. I have had 3 long term relationships and none of them resemble my mother either in looks or personality..
In fact thinking about it none of the three long term women were remotely like each other in looks although I do have a penchant for strong women with their own personality.
Not for me quiet shrinking violets.
Quite. The most attractive, and most important, sexual organ is the brain.
Are you, um, Hannibal Lektor, Tig?
Wrong tree, right forest….
Mmmm.
I am not giving away the secret of my success, other than it involves “pity”.
Who needs a big knob or a six pack if you’ve got a talent for emotional blackmail?
You know me all too well, Moose. “Put my cock in their hand and cry” as Derek and Clive discuss.
On the one hand I tend to think that having a type is something you should abandon once you get past fourteen. But then I imagine the younger me being told he would end up married to a woman with straight dark hair, big tits and a Geordie accent and saying “Yep, all the boxes ticked there. So much cleverer than me then, are yer?”
Nothing like me mother in any way. My mother is withdrawn and sarky, Mrs M is sociable and kindly. I haven’t married me mother, I am me mother. Now let me get this motel cleaned up…
As a regular contributor to the Afterword could I ask…. What is a woman?
…. where’s me old medical charts…
Ha
Comic Sans, probably.
Alternatively, back in the 80s, when I was a teenager, it would have been an amalagamation of the following actresses:
Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Kim Greist in Brazil, Glenn Close and mostly Miranda Richardson. But on reflection, there’s only Ally Sheedy – in (all but the final scene of) The Breakfast Club, and High Art. Her and Jennifer Ehle in Pride and Prejudice confirm what I always suspected are my types – strong willed brunettes.
I have fond memories of the divine Ms Ehle in The Camomile Lawn…
Oh don’t we all. Not so much pride and prejudice as pride and joy.
Type O Negative
You devil!
Universal doner? I’ve met women like that.
What? Attached to a pole, rotating and gradually getting her flesh roasted?
Now look what you’ve done, Gatz! The shadow of Mr Bates is going to henceforth hang over this thread.
I don’t think I qualify here but I do treasure the memory of a former colleague whose type was big, bossy, sarcastic women, all of whom were welcomed into the bosom of our company as they hilariously kept him in his place.
He had no idea that there was any pattern – but everyone who knew him could tell. Picture Julie T Wallace, with dialogue coaching by Suzi Kettles and Miss Janice Toner. There were at least 4 ladies who fitted the type, and he married the fourth. She swept him back down from Glasgow to Kent, where she was from, and he settled into a life of cosy domesticity with her, and the ponies (that he had never expressed the slightest interest in), and cats (which he had never been keen on). I do hope they are happy.
I was looking for @SteveT’s ‘type’ but he’s not here yet so I’ll save him the bother, he has a thing for that bonnie lass from Scotland Nicola Sturgeon.
Me? I don’t have a type, there’s been 3 Baroness up to now and many that wanted to be, all different in every way. The current Baroness the bestest of the lot ❤️
If the Scottish witch was the last woman standing I would have to turn.
And by the way Baron is punching well above his weight.
Jack Russell terrier. Short-haired, but I couldn’t say no to an Eddie Crane..
Woah… There are valid arenas
..
Looking back at my successful relationships – that is excluding the fundamentally batshit crazy ex-wife mother of my very smart and kind son – the only thing my female ‘friends’ have in common is that they have been very clever, and very kind.
Short, and relatively tall. Round of face, and longer faced. Well proportioned, and less well so. There honestly doesn’t seem to be a physical commonality.
Bunch of old men discussing their ideal woman? Not sure bout all this.
Saying that, Wife No2 could not be more different to Wife No1 in every possible way. As a young man, if a woman had long blonde hair that was enough.
I’ve never understood the idea of having ‘a type’. I’ve always thought that you have little control over who appeals to you, whether it be a physical or mental attraction.
This bring to mind a routine I once saw from the great comedian Reginald D. Hunter. He was talking about why he could never rule our being attracted to men sometime in the future. I am butchering his wonderful routine here, but it was something along the lines of ‘how could I rule that out, I used to say I would never put broccoli in my mouth’
The purple sprouting variety…?
An intriguing question and one which has baffled me all my life.
My ‘type’ was, in my mind, quite clearly defined by my early teens – tall, slim, blue-eyed, long haired brunette.
The reality was short blondes as friends, girlfriends and lovers one of whom became Mrs Attackdog.
My teenage defined ‘type’ remains unchanged.
I snorted with amusement over the thought of being introduced to someone actually called “Mrs Attackdog”.
This reminds of John Peel calling Brixton rapper Overlord X to congratulate him on his session. A woman answered.
“Is that Mrs Overlord?”
I heard a story somewhere of Wreckless Eric introducing his mother to an interviewer as Wreckless Doreen.
And she replied, “No. Mrs X.”
which could be quite confusing or boastful when said out loud.
I’ve googled her and, well, she’ll catch her death of cold one of these days.
We had a physics teacher at our school called Mr Phillips. He had been a decent rugby player in his youth with excellent “dainty” footwork and that became his nickname. One time a schoolboy interrupted us in a class with a different teacher as someone in our class had to leave and see “Mr Daint” immediately, oh how we laughed …
Dainty footwork…
When the one your “with” is usually David Crosby? No thanks.
When I was a lad it was either Kate Bush or Debbie Harry. Mine is Kate Bush
@dai she looks rather nice but that squeaky talking voice would get right on my tits.
Yeah, that’s why I preferred Kate ….
I know I have a type. The three women I have spent 30 odd of the past 40 years with could have been sisters. Of course that is the reality. My fancy is that I like tall blondes (and only ever dated one of them). They are not.
What they are is incredibly smart, shortish (ok 5’4″) and opinionated. Oh, and into music.
And then there is my oldest mate. Go, on. Guess. At my wedding some people thought she must be one of my wife’s sisters.
Obvs, I was just honing in – been with the GLW 27 years this weekend.
I suspect that this kind of post is one of the reasons why nearly all of the lovely female Afterworders, (@drakeygirl used to wear a badge saying ‘Word Bird’,back in the day,) have deserted this place. ☹️
Tis what I was trying to say above (before I went and joined in)
Yes, I think this was a mistake. If even I’m saying that…
Well the (few) females here can tell us what their male type (or female type) is too … Likewise some of the men could maybe let us know which type of male they like
Gabriel Byrne glowering in Gothic, Daniel Day Lewis chasing a deer half naked in Last of The Mohicans, Rupert Everett with a floppy fringe in Another Country, Mark and David flirting with each other in the Word podcasts. I could go on…
I’m not sure this is a thread about letching or leering. More a series of sentimental reminiscence about romantic histories.
That was the intention, and I had hoped the pretty obvious one, but everyone is free to read what they will into it (though with hindsight the ‘universal doner’ line was misplaced).
There were certainly threads in the old Word blog that were along the same lines. The phrase “hubba hubba” seem to be employed a lot.
The fact that no female has chipped in with “music snobs in their 50s and 60s” probably tells us everything we need to know. And if we are lucky enough to have a partner, we should never take them for granted.
I like writing about my wife here, because far from taking her for granted I spend a lot of time in a state of quiet amazement that I have managed to hold down any kind of proper relationship, let alone a marriage of nearly twenty years with an actual female woman of the opposite sex. I enjoy talking about her too – seeing that look that people try to suppress of thinking “Shit the bed, somebody married that! There’s hope for everyone! What a wonderful world!”
I regularly expect her to cheerfully inform me that the administrative anomaly that caused us to be married has now been resolved, and now I can pack a bag and go and live in the Sally Army hostel where I clearly belong.
Oh, I don’t mind this thread at all, almost all posts have been rather sweet, and the others have been jokes, so nothing to offend my delicate female senses… 😀
But being very Aro/Ace myself, I have very little to contribute to this subject! Back in the day before I knew that that’s what I was, my “type” was the most unavailable men possible (which should have tipped me off…) – meaning openly gay men and impossibly beautiful men. Or…I’d get very very drunk… 🙁
I’m glad that kids today can easily find out that this is a thing (or two, rather) because it “didn’t exist” when I grew up, or rather was described in such a strange and frankly wrong way that nobody could identify with it!
So, in conclusion: my type is a man who just wants to be friends! 🙂
I didn’t know about Aro/Ace so I just read up about it. Very interesting – thanks!
Neither did I. I initially misread the first one as aromatic…which I’m sure applies to many Afterworders.
…..no I will not open a window. It’s January!
Thank you @Locust . I had intended this thread to be sweet, where people of whatever gender or orientation could reflect on what sort of partners they find themselves attracted to rather than their objectifying fantasies. I like to thing I can recognise an objectionable thread as well as anyone, and was taken aback when some people saw this one that way, but enough have that I have to accept that as a reasonable reading.
First marriage was Comic Sans – interesting at first, but then of no real interest or humour.
Second marriage is Arial – it’s a default setting, do I really need anything else
My marriage is Rockwell – because I always feel like someone is watching me.
Oho!
Bocklin – ’nuff said!
I have been with ‘Mrs Wheaty’ for 25 years and we have two kids but in the early years thought about getting married but it didn’t happen.
I would love to understand how someone can be married three times!
What changes? And why?
Death might be an answer!
In my case, yes. No.1 was a terrible mistake, and lasted a year. No.2 lasted 30 years until death did us part. No.3 has lasted 14 years so far, and I have no plans for no.4. I’m not Zsa Zsa Gabor, you know.
Till death do you marry? I’ve never been married either, and have been with The Light for 13 years (first date was 13 years ago on Monday – we’re just back from a couple of celebratory days in Prague). I confess I’ve never got it, though if she wanted us to be married I would be happy to agree.
Married the 1st far too naive and immature, because it was “what everyone else was doing” and, over the years we drifted apart. Took 19 years and 2 fabulous kids, mind. The 2nd because I was flattered by her attentions, when I was, frankly, lonely, she being the pusher for the legitimacy, promptly, 6 years later, leaving me when the money ran out. The 3rd because we really hit it off and it works. Yes, even the L word. 6 years married, 10 together. In for the long haul this time.
Sure, would have loved to be a member of a “successful” marriage, and I believe I am. It just took 3 gos.
My Brother in law married young while at University. Still restless he ran away to Scotland with a colleague to run a restaurant. Which fairly inevitably closed in a year. (marriage #2) Dated my wife and married her sister (awkward). As he says, this one has to work (25 years, so I think it does).
Mother in Law – #1 criminal (Barlinnie) #2 criminal (MBE), ran away to Libya to meet #3 (Jim, a great guy).
Mother – #1 wife beater, #2 dropped dead 6 months after they adopted me, married widower next door #3 separated but married till he died, Ron the Insurance man #4.
One sister has married 3 times, one only 2. 2 of my 3 nieces married 3 times each.
GLW together 27 years, married 26 1/2. Bit surprised to be honest.
Blimey, are you a character in EastEnders?
Does feel like it sometimes.
I’ve been lucky.
Prior to meeting Donna I had no shortage of girlfriends. That sounds both flippant and boastful but it’s simply the way it was. Art school in the 70s was an experimental education that exceeded far beyond life drawing and two point perspective.
It was a lot of fun with the occasional bit of heartbreak thrown in for balance.
I’ve only been married the once. We were together for thirty five mostly happy and contented years. Although my girl died just over seven years ago I still wear my wedding ring and I shall never remove it from my finger as I am still married as far as I am concerned. Less happily of course due to the circumstances but in my heart and in my memories she is still beside me and always will be.
Anyone who is shorter than me, for bizarre/practical reasons.
In my youth, I went ballroom & Latin dancing once or twice a week. I didn’t meet any nice young ladies (they were all at the University club) but I did meet lots of nice middle-aged divorcees and John The Postman (no, not that one). All of our dancing partners were shorter than me (I’m just shy of 5′ 11″), except for one at about 6′ 0″. The trouble is, I adopt a “concentration face” when I am trying to remember the correct sequence of steps to avoid treading on anyone’s toes. If I caught anyone’s eye while concentrating, I lost my count. I had to pass the 6′ lady onto John.
I took the future Mrs F dancing in the years Before Children – she’s 7″ shorter than me, so I could stare at the top of her head while I tried to control me feet. We gave up when we got to learning the Tango, which usually involved me falling flat on my arse.
There are ergonomic reasons why being in a relationship with a slightly taller woman is sometimes a good thing. I’ll leave it at that.
I love the idea of an Afterworder’s partner being exactly 7” shorter. Did you wait until she was 33 1/3 to propose?
“I’ve measured the height difference between us with Spiral Scratch”
“Oh, Boredom and Orgasm Addict – how romantic!”
45 surely?
It’s an extended play….
An allotment and a discreet garage.
Tigger has both of those.
I know. I’ve waved the rent for a couple of months. The only jiffy bags that slightly ooze at the corners are entirely the responsibility of the dim bloke with the wrench.
Tell me about it. Can’t get the staff these days. I blame Brexit.