Have a sandwich...

So one of those things that's all over the Internet right now is this woman who made her boyfriend a sandwich, and apparently he said (joking or not) that if she made him 300 more over the course of not-quite-a-year, he'd buy her an engagement ring and marry her.

I am of mixed feelings about this. I confess, my first reaction was to go all Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!" Because if you entice a dude into marriage with sandwiches, you're probably never gonna be able to STOP with the sandwiches (despite the stereotype of "Oh thank goodness, now I don't have to diet any more" or "I never have to shave again" or  "I don't have to pick up the apartment any more").

I mean, I don't want to totally cast aspersions because I admit one way I express my love to people I care about is cooking for them. But. I'm not doing it FOR something, no matter how jokingly it may be offered. ("A gift that's demanded is no gift at all.") And I confess, I've fantasized about someday cooking for a fellow I might have considered setting my cap for, and have him fall madly in love with me because of my skill in poaching eggs (seriously, that is one thing I do really, really well, and I do it the "hard" way with the vortex of just-barely-boiling water in the pan, and I get nice neat little flattened-oval shaped eggs with the white all nicely surrounding the yolk - they are cooked well AND they look pretty) or my deep-dish pizza recipe, and decide that I Am The One.

But still, there's something slightly off to me about, "Do this for me 300 more times and you might get a ring out of it." I don't know if it's the quid pro quo aspect, or the fact that it's really fairly regressive (I was once "introduced" to a fellow here but it didn't take because I quickly learned he was a twice-divorced person mainly looking for a new housekeeper and stepmom to his kids. And while I don't MIND helping with housework or even being a stepmom if it came to that, I don't like the sense that's my primary attraction for a chap.)

I also admit, while eating dinner tonight, I thought, "It's like a very weird children's book: "If you make a man a sandwich..." (And you might remember what happens if you give a mouse a cookie...)

But then I thought of something and rooted around on my bookshelves. Nope, this is not a new idea. The venerable "Saucepans and the Single Girl" (copyright 1965) has a whole long chapter on "what to cook for the Man of the Hour."

However, their categories of men are fairly limited, stereotyped, and seem to suggest (well, in all but perhaps one case) some serious overage of aspiration:

Man in a Brooks' Brothers Suit (Presumably, the sort of men Mad Men was about)

Man's Man (The forest-ranger kind, not the "I wish I could quit you" kind)

Man in a Garret (poet or painter)

Lover with a Leica (Oh, and this is where the book shows its age. Does Leica still make cameras? Also, this fellow is supposedly an investigative journalist. Mmmmn, no)

Man in the Grey Flannel Lederhosen (Jet-setter. Do jet-setters still exist?)

Man with a Million (heh. "One. Million. Dollars." Doesn't sound any more impressive  now than when Dr. Evil said it)

Gallant Gourmet (Apparently a food-writer for a magazine or something)

Amorous Athlete (Really, now)

Man with a Method (actor....I'm not sure I'd be happy dating an actor, based on some of the actors I've known)

Old Charlie (This is less self-explanatory. He is the "bachelor downstairs" who is "no matinee idol" but, presumably because he's "genuinely nice to your mother" and can occupy himself (he ties trout flies), he's in reality the best of the lot, and the most marriageable.)

What strikes me as odd? No doctors, no dentists, no teachers, very few of what I would consider the more "stable" professions - actors, food-writers, and even athletes may wind up with some years of very low earning ability, and presumably, as the stated goal of the authoresses of the book is to marry and leave the "steno pool".....well. While I would not be averse to having to help financially support someone who was, say, a textbook author, still, times have changed and I never expected I would marry and be able to quit my gig and sit around by the pool or something.

And anyway, if you dislike cooking as much as the joking conceit of the book is....is that really something to hang your future on? (Or, I suppose, the assumption is that after the wedding there will be a Cook hired.)

The book IS pretty tongue-in-cheek but it is funny to see how different times and assumptions were a mere four years before my birth.


And back to the sandwiches....I suspect this whole "300 sandwiches" thing is a gambit, to either get publicity or perhaps get the couple in question's wedding paid for by some commercial outfit. But then I tend to be a bit cynical that way.