As it happens, I have met a nice man. We’ve been together for six years now, but I recounted the "you’re too clever" conversation to him on one of our early dates. "That’s fucked up," he said. Obviously, I agree. And obviously I didn’t accept my mother’s advice that day. It hopefully goes without saying that I don’t go around demurely asking men what they think while pretending to know nothing about the topic, or bashfully thanking mansplainers for their heroic wisdom. Like many women in 2018, I have wonderful male friends and enjoy lively discussions with them about films or books or politics or feminism. Sometimes we discuss my mother. "It’s kind of astounding in this day and age, that anyone can still think feminism is a bad thing," one friend said, scratching his beard in genuine puzzlement. I put it to my mum that maybe men do like clever women after all. I pointed out that I have a lot of evidence to prove it. She had an answer for that, too: "Oh darling, all your friends are just 'metrosexuals'." I could hear the air quotes. "They’re not men’s men, are they?" Incidentally, this is also her opinion of my father, who she divorced several years ago.