You know, back in the old days, I really had a way with the ladies. Back then, if I wanted to pick up a woman, all I had to do was approach her in my aspect as a bull or swan, and she'd be all mine, helpless to resist. The move was pure gold. It never failed even on goddesses.But these modern women, that's a whole other story. For some reason, they just don't go for it at all.

Take this past weekend. I was at a bar, and I saw this sexy little number sitting all alone at a table in the corner. Hoping to get lucky, I put my best moves on her, coming to her in the guise of a grand bull with eyes of fire. But when she gazed upon me in all my turgid majesty, instead of eagerly mounting me for a ride back to my place on Mt. Olympus, she just screamed and ran away in terror. What gives?

A few days earlier, I was strolling along the river when I saw a comely blonde maiden in a nice tight miniskirt sitting all alone on a bench. Remembering how well it had worked with Leda, from which union did fair and fabled Helen spring, I appeared to her as a great white swan imbued with a golden nimbus and bearing an oversized, inviting phallus. But unlike Leda, the blonde didn't get all hot for me. Instead, she just sort of sat there for a few seconds, looking completely weirded out, and then walked away.

It never used to be like this. I can still remember the time I came upon Europa as a bull as she bathed in flowering fields by the sea. When she looked up from laving her lithe, ivory limbs and beheld a strong white bull garlanded with hyacinths and violet, she was ready to go. Without any hesitation, she jumped up on me, put her feet upon my shoulders and rode me hot and hard all the way to the Isle of Crete. Literally. I ran right across the waves the whole way. Nereids on dolphins cheered us on, and Tritons blew their horns. And the sex was incredible. That Europa was mortal, but she sure knew her Eros from her Agape.

Recently, I tried the same move on another woman, but my efforts met with far different results. Her name was Jennifer Of Winnetka, and I spied her bathing as dawn broke and heralded the time when true dreams most often visit mortals. It was a little awkward, because she wasn't bathing in the usual sea or mountain rivulet, and I had to sort of use my bulls' horns to nudge her shower curtain out of my way. She looked up from washing her hair and, like so many of these women today, shrieked in sheer terror. When I tried to speak to her in seductive tones, she squirted a whole bottle of Aveda shampoo in my eyes. Needless to say, I begot no demigods with Jennifer Of Winnetka on that day.

I don't get it. Have I lost my touch? I'm Zeus, but I can't score for the life of me. And we're not even talking goddesses here. These are plain old mortal chicks I'm striking out with.

Sure, I realize you can't win over every woman instantly. I mean, when I first tried to pick up Hera, mother to gods and men alike, she wouldn't give me the time of day. But then I came to her as a cuckoo and, well, let's just say she warmed up real quick.

I also realize that not every woman goes for the same creature. Take, for example, Antiope. Bulls do nothing for her. But come to her as an man-goatish satyr, and she's a complete nympho. Then there was Aegina. The only thing that got her motor running was when I assumed the countenance of an all-consuming pillar of fire. Weird.

With these modern women, though, no manifestation seems to work. Even my awe-inspiring shower of gold, the aspect in which I fathered Perseus by the fair Danaë, is a total bust. There are some contemporary women who claim to enjoy golden showers, but they are not fit consorts for Zeus.

Apparently, if I want to shake the old golden bough, I'll have to use the trick I played on Alcmena, mother to that ungrateful little bastard Heracles, and come upon my chosen woman as her husband's double. It still works sometimes. But I do wish today's women were a bit more open-minded about bulls and swans and the like. After thousands of years on the dating scene, I've become rather set in my ways.