For Whom The Belle Tolls

I know my boyfriend's into me, and he's generally very loving, but I get far more compliments about how I look from guys I'm not dating. How do I get my boyfriend to let me know that he likes the view?

--Uncomplimented

There's a reason that the Miss World pageant lacks a mathematics category, in which contestants come out smiling and waving and then do one of the world's great unsolved math problems in their head: "And now, ladies and gentlemen, we'll watch as Miss Uruguay proves that the 196-algorithm does not terminate when applied to the number 196." Obviously, beauty isn't everything. In fact, according to research by economist Jeremy Greenwood, a smarty-pants, highly educated guy is more likely than ever (compared with, say, 1960) to require his bride-to-be to be similarly smarty-pants and highly educated. What hasn't changed is male sexual desire. Because it's intensely visual, it's reassuring for a woman to hear that the way she looks is driving a guy wild -- as opposed to driving him to pluck his eyes out with barbecue tongs. Men like to know they're making a woman happy -- or at least how they might have some hope of that. So, put it in those terms: "Baby, you know what I'd love...?" rather than "Buddy, you know how you're failing me...?" (Gently remind him until he gets in the habit.) A positive approach like this tends to be the most effective, tempting as it may be to hint that noncompliance will lead to severe sanctions: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, if you ever want a blow job again, you'd better say something nice about my outfit."