She wants to communicate  

It has been said because women want above all else to communicate, "Every affair is born of the search for the perfect conversation." Is this true?

"The straying wife is looking for Mr Listener, not Mr Right. She seeks a man who will hear her out, a man who uses his ears to hear her - rather than as yet another body part he can tug, pick at, scratch." Are women more relationship focused then men?

"She wants a wailing wall, an interactive audience and a father confessor all rolled into one." Do men have the capacity do be what women want, or are there such fundamental differences that the tension between the sexes will always exist? If men can listen at work, why do the switch off at home where the real listening should happen?

"Modern home life is conducive to none of the above: home is where the other half grunts and snorts in front of the box, an anti-social animal who only stirs to refill his glass. Home is where children demand your attention, bills clamour for payment, and his mother comes for a meal. Home is where you run a bath to hear yourself think - and no one seems to want to hear you speak." Does home-life as described here destroy relationships so much, that to expect a focused, full-on romantic and caring love-filled relationship, with plenty of conversation and communication is just asking for the impossible?

"The office instead is an all too tempting speech forum. Here, exchanges alternate with restful silence; group activity gives way to interaction." Women in the workforce meet men away from "home" - both their homes - she's unincumbered, domestic demands are less - and he just sees her.

"And hours of working cheek by jowl make for an intimacy that family members - plugged into their earphones, shut in their rooms, absent at mealtimes - no longer share." Office space proximity becomes easy intimacy, where the talk can be far removed from the pressures at home, where both partners may live in "silence", their real needs never heard or listened to.

"Office life makes space for getting-to-know-you sessions - and women take the lead in this. Listen to a male and female colleague at work, discussing a proposed merger or a sloppy report. He will talk dry and dusty professionalism. She will coax him into more intimate details, asking whether he watched The Office last night, or whether he's read Nick Hornby's latest." Women, the "conversationalsists" want men to relate that way. Many men mistake this natural tendency for 'flirtation' or 'She really must like me'.

"Before long, she's loosened him up, and he's telling her how no, he couldn't watch The Office because he's had a row with the Missus ('she never understands how pressurised work is') and yes he did read Hornby, and sometimes wonders whether it wouldn't be easier to live with his son on his own." Soon the man mistakes her conversational intimacy as sexual responsivness as he begins to sexualise her interest.

"For a woman, this oral engagement is necessary - it is what she founds her friendships on, and what she tries to duplicate at home."

"For a man, it is deeply seductive: she wants to know about ME. And because he's at work, where he is trained to listen to his boss, the accountant, the clients, he has no difficulty in bringing his listening skills to his time with her." Suddenly both feel aroused - in different ways, and for different reasons.

"She thinks he's listening to her, he thinks she's gagging for him. What more promising start of an affair, as the Duchess would have said? "