On the subject of men: I've been a member of the gender for 24 years.
I've stumbled through many of the stages of becoming a man, including
wildly irregular voice changes at the age of 12, acne attacks in my
teens, major crushes on girls who still do not know I am alive and
periods of time when I knocked over or broke everything in sight
because I had grown seven inches in four days.
Regarding women: You could take what I know about women and place this
information in a hollowed-out walnut shell, and still have room left
for a network executive's brain. But that has not stopped me from
observing, questioning, applauding, admiring, and wondering about
women.
One basic truth: Men and women are different.
Now, this may seem a little simplistic, but the fact is, for a period
of about six months in 1973, it was very fashionable to believe that we
were all persons first, and members of our gender second.
This, of course, was so much hooey. We are different -- in our habits,
and in the way we react to environmental stimuli and the way we spend
our leisure time; and we are especially different when it comes to our
attitudes regarding relationships.
My personal observations have uncovered many significant differences
between men and women.
RELATIONSHIPS
First of all, a man does not call a relationship. He refers to it as a
romance, or a period of dating, of going out, or, in some unfortunate
circumstances, "that time when me and Suzie were doing it on a
semi-regular basis."
When a relationship ends, a woman will cry, and pour her heart out to
her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled "All Men are Morons."
Then she will get on with her life.
A man has a little more trouble letting go. For six months, his ex may
not hear from him, but then, at three on Saturday night/Sunday morning,
he will call and say, "I just wanted to let you know you ruined my
life, and I'll never forgive you, and I hate you, and you're a total
bitch. But I want to let you know there's always a chance for us."
This is known as the "I Hate You/I Love You" drunken phone call.
Ninety-nine percent of all men past the age of 21 have made this call
at least once. Some men make a career of these calls. There are
community colleges that offer extension courses to help men get over
this need; alas, these classes rarely prove effective.
SEX
Women prefer 30 to 45 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer 30 to 45 seconds
of foreplay, less if at all possible. For the man, driving back to her
place is considered a part of foreplay.
MATURITY
Women mature at a much faster rate 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 schoolromances rarely work.
HATS
Women look good in hats; men look like idiots.
GROCERIES
A woman knows how to shop for groceries. She makes a list of the
things she needs, and then goes to the store and buys these things. A
man does not shop on a frequent basis. He waits until the only items
left in his refrigerator are an opened can of Schlitz and a half a
lime. Then he goes grocery shopping. A man 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 the Beverly Hillbillies. Of
course, this will not stop him from going to the 10 items or less lane.
MAGAZINES
Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked ladies. Women's
magazines also feature pictures of naked ladies. 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. Naked men
elicit laughter from women.
HANDWRITING
To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just
chickenscratch. Women use scented, colored stationary, 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.
COMEDY
Let's say a small group of men and women are in a room, watching
television, and an episode of the Three Stooges comes on. Immediately,
the men will get very excited; they will laugh uproariously, and even
try to imitate the actions of Curly, man's favorite stooge. The woman
will roll their eyes and groan and wait it out.
BATHROOMS
A man has 6 items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving
cream, a razor, a bar of Dial soap and a towel from a Holiday Inn. The
average number of items in a typical American women's bathroom is 437.
A man would not be able to identify most of these items.
Most men take only 2-3 minutes to relieve themselves. Women's
Restrooms always have long lines.
GOING OUT
When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is ready to go out.
When a woman says she is ready to go out, it means she will be ready,
as soon as she finds her other earring, makes one phone call and
finishes putting on her makeup.
CATS
Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't
looking, men kick cats.
SHOES
When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, and
then slip in 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 one pair of shoes for the
entire day.
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.
MIRRORS
Men are vain; they will check themselves out in the mirror. Women are
ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface,
mirrors, spoons, store window, toasters, 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.
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 hopes and dreams.
LOW BLOWS
Let's say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match on television.
One of the figures is felled by a low blow. The woman says, "Oh gee,
that must hurt." The man doubles over and actually feels the pain.
DIRECTIONS
If a woman is out driving, and she finds herself in unfamiliar
surroundings, she will stop at a gas station and ask for directions.
Men consider this to be a sign of weakness. Men will never stop and
ask for directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all the
while saying things like, "Look, love I've found a new way to get
there." and, "I know I'm in the general neighborhood. I recognize that
White Hen store."
ADMITTING MISTAKES
Women will sometimes admit making a mistake. The last man who admitted
he was wrong was General George Custer.
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.
DRESSING UP 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.
NICKNAMES
With the exception of female body builders, who call each other names
like "Ultimate Pecs" and "Big Turk," women eschew the use of nicknames.
If Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah, and Michelle get together for lunch, they
will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah, and Michelle. But if
Mike, Dirk, Clint, and Jack go out for a brewski, they will
affectionately refer to one another as Bullet-Head, Godzilla,
Peanut-Brain, and Useless.
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.
PLANTS
A woman asks a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The
man waters the plants. The woman comes home five or six days later to
an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens.
MOUSTACHES
Some men look good with mustaches. Those men are Tom Selleck and Burt
Reynolds. There are no women who look good with mustaches.
DAVID LETTERMAN
Men think David Letterman is the funniest man on the face of the Earth.
Women think he is a mean, semidorky guy who always has a bad haircut.
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 room -- sex. And not in
abstract terms, either. They are extremely graphic and technical, and
they never lie.
LAUNDRY
Women do the laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every
article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were
really hip about eight years ago, before he will do the laundry. When
he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatsuit inside
out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of dirty clothes to the
Laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the
Laundromat, but this is only a myth perpetuated by old reruns of Love
American Style.
POLITICS
Men love to talk politics, but often they forget to do political things
such as voting. Women are very happy that another generation of
Kennedy's is growing up and getting into politics because they will be
able to campaign for them and cry on election night.
WEDDINGS
When reminiscing about weddings women talk about "the ceremony." Men
talk about "the bachelor party."
CHEERLEADERS
Female cheerleaders are cute, sexy, fresh, and all American. Male
cheerleaders are scary.
SOCKS
Men are sensible about socks. They wear argyle socks or standard white
sweatsocks. Women wear strange socks. Socks with pictures of clouds
on them. Socks that are cut way below their ankles. Socks that have
little fuzzy balls on the back.
GARAGES
Women use garages to park their cars and store their lawnmowers. Men
use garages for many things. They hang license plates in garages, and
they watch TV in garages, and they build useless lopsided benches in
garages.
MOVIES
For women their favorite movie scene is when Clark Gable kisses Vivien
Leigh for the first time in Gone With the Wind. For men it's when
Jimmy Cagney shoves grapefruit in May Clark's face in Public Enemy.
NUDITY IN 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.
THE MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE OF ALL
Colored underwear. Women are allowed, in fact encouraged, to wear
colored underwear. There is no reason for a man to ever, ever, wear
anything besides solid white.
