Picasso, Gaugin, Matisse. “Men” are so good at painting. False portraits. One of their favorites on the list of greatest hits called Duping a Woman is creating the illusion of a magical first (and maybe even second and third) outing together that is pretty much a replica of Javier Bardem’s sauverie in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Depictions of eating decadent food (though not so much so as to be too full to fuck), drinking “expensive” wine (though what he views as expensive might not align with your perspective) and talking about “life and love”–whatever the fuck that means–will take the average woman for a ride. Even if she’s already been through the wringer of being made a fool of once or countless times before, she can’t help herself. Believing “men’s” lies is, in part, how women survive, persist in helping the patriarchy perpetuate the false notion that there is such a thing as happily ever after.

So she wavers, lets the falsely painted portrait appeal to her apparently dull senses. For, in truth, there is no imagination to the skeevy date agendas of “men,” the last of the “straight” ones of which will only get creative in how they can make a splash with their “penis” for the purposes of spending as little time and money on the endeavor as possible–ergo the thickness with which they will slather on the ephemeral charm. But, even Vicky (Rebecca Hall)–fortress-like pragmatist that she is–can fall victim to the full-on Monet (oops, mixing movie analogies here) that is a “man’s” presentation of how things will be, with the asterisk’d caveat that it can only be so for a maximum of no more than three to five fucks’ worth of “romance sessions.”