My Funny Valentine

My Funny Valentine has to be one of my favourite songs. It’s a ballad that has always appealed to me due to both the lyrics and the music. I happen to like it sung deep and slow however and my recording of choice is definitely sung by The Peddlers. These guys were a sixties blues, rock and jazz band and I have heard it said of their work that 'never in the field of human entertainment has so much great music been heard by so few'. I think I would have to agree with that. My opinion aside though, I was reminded of this song the other day, or rather of the lyric Is your mouth a little weak / When you open it to speak are you smart. This came to mind when I was reading about women who are apparently dumbing down.

Despite the fact that more and more females are achieving positions of power and authority in the workplace, there still seems to be the conception that in the social arena we should be more circumspect. There is the notion about that if you want to get a guy you shouldn’t be too funny, too smart or too successful. Or at least if you are, you shouldn’t be obviously so. The male sex is apparently intimidated by intelligent femmes and so there are sisters out there who are fabricating alternate identities in order to become more appealing. Dumber identities that is. Oh its mostly ok for you to be a lawyer or to have attended a university or whatever but if you happen to be a partner or the valedictorian, well you had just better leave that part out.

Now this is not a diatribe about what a sexist society has brought us to or that glass ceiling we haven’t quite smashed yet but rather an expression of my bafflement as to how this strategy could possibly be worth it. I mean who really has the energy to consciously hold back all the time lest you appear a little more clued in than the bloke next door? Wouldn’t you then be worrying about what you have and haven’t said all the time as well as whether you were being seen as an over-achiever men didn’t want to hang out with? It sounds tiresome to me. And I know that every time I decide to ask new acquaintances to call me by a nickname so I can try it on for size it lasts about as long as it takes to say ‘hi my name is’ because after that I inevitably insert my Christian name anyway!

Of course, you could quite possibly argue that my inability to maintain an alternate identity should be indicative of the fact that I wouldn’t need to, at least in regards to portraying the level of my intelligence. I would still argue though that this sort of thing won’t do anyone much good in the dating game. Isn’t finding a partner about finding someone equal and having no secrets? If you were one of the country's top spies sure, I can see why this would be a useful and perhaps a necessary skill to have but for the rest of us, perhaps not. As for myself, I will definitely not be dumbing myself down for a bloke any time soon. Although I do sometimes wonder if I’d be better served by wising up.