MATURE CHARM OF THIRTY YEARS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 205, 29 August 1940, Page 12

MATURE CHARM OF THIRTY YEARS

Girls Who Are Left Out Of The Running

To girls who know they are a little out of the running where men are concerned, even in high years, who wait in vain for the. telephone to ring and the right man—or any men!—to suggest a movie or a supper, Kathleen Xorris gives the reminder that the more mature charm of thirty years often has more appeal then the fresh bloom of twenty. She says: The question of what qualities a man likes in his sweetheart and what onee he doesn't has been torturing a certain class of girls ever since there were girls at all. One class of girls flirts, gets kissed, dances, slips happily into matrimony with no trouble at all. Another class looks on and wondere, giggles at the wrong time, is solemn at the wrong time, is shy, is bold, is awkward, decides that she hates the whole world of men, and finds herself out in the cold at 29, unmistakably superfluous and unpopular as far as men are concerned. Marriage at Thirty. Then suddenly, when she has practically abandoned the struggle, has determined to make for herself as attractive a life as she, can, with no more bother about the idiocy of love affairs, suddenly she finds herself desired; finds herself being quiety besieged by eome eligible male, and so makes a late, and usually a happy marriage. This happens so often that I wonder that girls who know they are not popular with men, do not realise there must be some reason for it. The answer is that the girl changes. For some reason, known only to the gland specialists, she is one of the unfortunates who from childhood is affected by the mere presence of a male. She cannot treat a man naturally. She would indignantly deny this, but everyone who knows her knows that it is true. Two Important Rules, i So I advise you to follow two j important rules and see where they get you. The first is to be as happy and busy and absorbed in your own life as possible, filling your time with office work, books, language study, puzzles, walks, everything else that interests you. Select from them all interesting or funny details about which to talk. The second rule is to pick out two or three nice men and take a sudden and concentrated interest in them. Show obvious pleasure in casually encountering them; have something to say along their lines of work. Don't let silences grow; ask advice. Be puzzled about some perfectly simple thing and let a man solve it for you.

Don't be bold, of course, but at the same time don't be rebuffed. Don't reproach or question him if he caivt accept your first suggestion that he attend a concert with you, or go to a bridge lecture, but ask him just as simply the second time, and the third.

Don't decide, because he sometimes talks flippantly, that a man is necessarily superficial. If he judged you by the way you act sometimes he would come to the same conclusion. Try ,to treat him exactly as you would a new woman acquaintance, surmounting the initial stiffness and shyness with persistent friendliness and confidence, and before you know it you will have forgotten all your worries about yourself, and be concerned instead with the question of that shirt of Jim's that hasn't come back from the laundry and the trouble Junior is having with his lower front teeth.