A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the break-up,
at 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, he will call and say, "I just wanted to let
you know you ruined my life, and I'll neverforgive you, and I hate you, and
you're a total floozy. But I want you to know that there's always a chance for
us." This is known as the "I Hate You / I Love You" drunken phone call, and
99% of all men have made at least once. There are community colleges that offer
courses to help men get over this need.
SEX: Women prefer 30-40 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer 30-40 seconds of
foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place as part of the foreplay.
MATURITY: Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can
function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards
and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances
rarely work out.
MAGAZINES: Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked women. Women's
magazines also feature pictures of naked women. This is because the female
body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is lumpy and hairy and
should not be seen by the light of day. Men are turned on at the sight of a
naked woman's body. Most naked men elicit laughter from women.
HANDWRITING: To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just
chicken-scratch. Women use scented, colored stationery and they dot their
"i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their
"p's" and "g's". It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when
she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note.
BATHROOMS: A man has six items in his bathroom -- a toothbrush, shaving cream,
razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average
number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man would not be
able to identify most of these items.
GROCERIES: A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the
store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his
fridge are half a lime and a beer. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys
everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter,
his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett's car on Beverly Hillbillies.
Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane.
SHOES: When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, then
slip on Reebok sneakers. She will carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from
Saks. When a woman gets to work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes
later, she will kick them off because her feet are under the desk. A man will
wear the same pair of shoes all day. Let's not talk about how many days he'll
wear the same socks.
LEG WARMERS: Leg warmers are sexy. A woman, even if she's walking the dog or
doing the dishes, is allowed to wear leg warmers. She can wear them any time
she wants. A man can only wear leg warmers if he is auditioning for the "Gimme the Ball" number in "A Chorus Line."
CATS: Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking,
men kick cats.
OFFSPRING: Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows
about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and
favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware
of some short people living in the house.
LOW BLOWS: Let's say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match on TV. One
of the boxers is felled by a low blow. The woman says, "Oh, gee. That must
have hurt." The man groans and doubles over, and actually FEELS the pain.
DRESSING UP: A woman will dress up to: go shopping, water the plants, empty
the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up
for: weddings, funerals.
LAUNDRY: Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article
of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight
years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he
will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of
clothes to the laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the
laundromat. This is a myth perpetuated by re-runs of old episodes of "Love,
American Style."
EATING OUT: When the check comes, Mike, Dave, Rob and Jack will each throw in
$20 bills, even though it's only for $22.50. None of them will have anything
smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back. When the ladies
get their check, out come the pocket calculators.
MIRRORS: Men are vain; they will check themselves out in a mirror. Women are
ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface:
mirrors, spoons, store windows, Joe Garagiola's head.
MENOPAUSE: When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of
complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and
degree of these changes varies with the individual. Menopause in a man provokes
a uniform reaction -- he buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather
driving gloves, and goes shopping for a Porsche.
THE TELEPHONE: Men see the telephone as a communication tool. They use the
telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her
girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same
friend and they will talk for three hours.
RICHARD GERE: Women like Richard Gere because he is sexy in a dangerous way.
Men hate Richard Gere because he reminds them of that slick guy who works at
the health club and dates only married women.
MADONNA: Same as above, but reversed. Same reason.
TOYS: Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they reach the age of 11
or 12, they lose interest. Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As
they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and silly and
impractical. Examples of men's toys: little miniature TV's. Car phones.
Complicated juicers and blenders. Graphic equalizers. Small robots that serve
cocktails on command. Video games. Anything that blinks, beeps, and requires
at least 6 "D batteries to operate.
CAMERAS: Men take photography very seriously. They'll shell out $4000 for
state of the art equipment, and build dark rooms and take photography classes.
Women purchase Kodak Instamatics. Of course, women always end up taking better
pictures.
LOCKER ROOMS: In the locker room men talk about three things: money, football,
and women. They exaggerate about money, they don't know football nearly as well
as they think they do, and they fabricate stories about women. Women talk about
one thing in the locker -- sex. And not in abstract terms, either. They are
extremely graphic and technical, and they never lie.
MOVIES: Every actress in the history of movies has had to do a nude scene.
This is because every movie in the history of movies has been produced by a
man. The only actor who has ever appeared nude in the movies is Richard Gere.
This is another reason why men hate him.
JEWELRY: Women look nice when they wear jewelry. A man can get away with
wearing one ring and that's it. Any more than that and he will look like a
lounge singer named Vic.
TIME: When a woman says she'll be ready to go out in five more minutes she's
using the same meaning of time as when a man says the football game just has
five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or
replays.
CONVERSATION: Men need a good disagreement to get talking, e.g., "Wow, great
movie.", "What are you, nuts? No REAL cop would have an Uzi that size.",
"Well, maybe he got it because he knew about those Mafia guys", etc. Women,
not having this problem, try to initiate conversations with men by saying
something agreeable: "That garden by the roadside looks lovely." "Mm hmm."
Pause. "That was a good restaurant last night, wasn't it?" "Yeah." Pause. And
so on.
FRIENDS: Women on a girl's night out talk the whole time. Men on a boy's
night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are "Pass the Doritos"
or "Got any more beer?"
RESTROOMS: Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use
restrooms as social lounges. Men in a restrooms will never speak a word to
each other. Women who've never met will leave a restroom giggling together like
old friends. And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself
from a restaurant table by saying, "Hey, Tom, I was just about to take a leak.
Do you want to join me?"