Still Waters

Marina Grace muses on "why women want complicated:"

If the waters are calm all the time, and nothing stirs the surface, how do you know what’s underneath it? How can you claim to love it?

I answered, perhaps too glibly, "Because you can see through still water."

Let me expand on that and apply it to men as well -- we crave the swirling waters because we imagine something wonderful hidden in the deep. Clear, still water may be beautiful but it cannot promise more than it is.

We're often seeking not a real person with real flaws and finite limitations, but a Rorschach inkblot in which we can imagine our heart's ever-changing desires.

To use another metaphor, great legs descending from a pair of shorts can pass the time waiting for a red light to change, but the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't flash of thigh beneath a slitted skirt has the power to intrigue.