Men 101

It always amazes me when people ask me for advice. Somewhere along the line I must have developed a facade of scholarly wisdom, which I imagine would collapse if anyone saw me spending weeks trying to get my e-mail to work when my modem was unplugged or screaming at the desk I built in my living room that was too big to get through the door to the bedroom.

But still they ask me for my sage observations, most often on relationships. I guess people figure that someone who has had such a dismal string of horribly dysfunctional relationships as myself must have learned something from the ordeal. What I’ve learned is that I’m not good at it. But along the way I picked up a number of questions from women about the male of the species, and I’ve had a revelation that can all be summed up in one simple sentence:

Women don’t know about men what they think they know about men.

Okay, so it’s not Zen. But it’s still important. Achieve satori some other time.I know there will be women who will get upset at this hole I’m about to punch in their world-view, just as there will be some of my fellow testicle-laden who won’t like me opening their bag of amorous tricks. But there’s no reason for people to be bumping horns when a little education can ease the tension in so many relationships.

So let’s get started and watch for flying glass…

Harry and Sally
To start with, let’s be clear about the population I’m talking about. The following observations don’t include all men. Just 99 percent of the heterosexual men in America. That one percent may appear on Jerry Springer all they want to contest my findings. They’re outliers and of no significant statistical importance (how’s that for a brush-off?). Also, although hard to believe, there are actually women out there who willingly take advantage of men (just as, according to urban legend, there are men who take advantage of women). This information is not for them, as they know it already and are real stinkers, anyway.

Onward.

It seems every woman in America has seen the movie, “When Harry Met Sally.” Since men like being around women, the consequence of this desire is that they too have seen the movie. But both sexes see something totally different in the film. Women see the two genders being close friends without sex entering the picture, and men see a guy who finally got laid after sticking to his guns for 12 years (and let me tell you, I’m sure those guns were hurting by then). The movie is, of course, just a movie. But an important message is still delivered. Men and woman can’t be friends without sex getting involved.

Before getting worked up, let me add a few conditions to that statement. It doesn’t mean that every woman will be having sex with every guy she talks to. That would be neat, but it just isn’t practical. What it means is that, if a man and a woman are close friends, at least one of them will be sexually attracted to the other. If both couples are married, this tension is rarely a big problem as both are hopefully getting sex from their spouse (Yeah. Right). And some guys are able to control the urges and be “just friends” anyway.

But the sex is still there.

For some reason many women vehemently contest this. This is simply because they assume that, if they aren’t sexually attracted to their male friend, then the feeling must be mutual. Nope. Here’s where I start spilling blood secrets: One of the oldest tricks in the male sexual hunter’s handbook is to become a woman’s friend so she will realize how wonderful you are and agree to go to bed with you (I’m told this trick is occasionally borrowed by women to use on men. Turnabout is fair play, right?). Many times it becomes obvious that this trick isn’t going to work, but the guy sticks to it for a very long time, hoping the woman will change her mind, or get very drunk at some point where an “accident” is able to happen.Yeah, maybe it’s a dirty trick. Welcome to the world of Sometimes Life Sucks.

But don’t suddenly abandon all your male friends, annoyed that all they want to do is get in your pants. Sometimes a very strange thing happens. The man begins to enjoy the woman’s friendship despite the frustration of not achieving his goal and the hell of listening to her talk about all her other boyfriends and sexual adventures. Oh, he still wants to have sex with her, but it no longer becomes the goal of the relationship (but he’d certainly be willing to go a few rounds of mattress dancing if asked).

Many women will, at this point, still deny that their male friend has any sexual interest in them. “Aren’t we all civilized adults?” you may ask. “Are men so base that something as insignificant as sex has become so important (I actually heard a woman with a Ph.D. in Psychology ask these questions on a national talk show. What she failed to realize was that a Ph.D. doesn’t suddenly obliterate years of personal bias and socialization. Men just aren’t the same as women)?” Sex, insignificant? Biologically speaking, anything done by an organism after sex is irrelevant to the species. And to men, sex is what makes the world what it is. Woman (for reasons I will go into in this article) make very poor friends for men. We can’t figure them out and they don’t see things the way we do. But they have certain aesthetic pluses that the Guys don’t have.

But the sex is still there.

So here’s some advice if you really care about your male friends. First, don’t assume they aren’t sexually interested. They are. Keep this in mind. Second, many of them might actually have fallen in love with you along the way, as what better mate is available than one who’s your best friend? If you don’t feel the same way towards them (which, since life is cruel and unfair, you probably don’t), then be conscious of the possibility, and don’t spend all your time talking about how horny you are, how you can’t find a decent man, or just rambling on about guys you’d like to diddle. This is not only insensitive and annoying to the guy, but it can be outright torture if the poor sod’s in love with you.

And, the most important thing: The sex is still there.

Addendum A: The Sex Joke
Jokes about sex tend to pop up between men and women who are friends, which brings up another entertaining difference between men and women. Men don’t joke about sex with women, at least not in the traditional sense. Oh, men will say things about sex that are funny, but they aren’t really jokes. Take a common situation where a man and a woman who are friends meet in passing in the halls where they both work. The man says, “When are we going to get together for that orgy, ha-ha?” And the woman responds, “As soon as I buy some new leather pants, ha-ha.” The woman is making a joke and has no real intention of ever having sex with the friend (regardless of her position on leather). The man, on the other hand, would have no problem going through with the joke if the woman agreed, and is in fact hoping for it. He’s saying something serious disguised by humor, because he feels he doesn’t measure up in some way needed to rate sex with the woman, but still needs to make an attempt. But if the response is negative, they can both laugh it off.

Essentially, men make real jokes about sex with a women as often as wolves joke about hunting down a gazelle. Something that important isn’t to be taken lightly. Jest, in this situation, is almost purely a socialized cloak of protection.

After all, you can tell when a male first becomes interested in women when he starts looking at girls the way he used to look at a chocolate chip cookie. And no 5 year old would scoff at a chocolate chip cookie.

Open House
I will be the first to admit this one is silly, but it amazes me how many women are completely unaware of it, and are stunned when it smacks them in the face. Woman assume that a man will know the difference between what they consider signs of sexual interest and every other human behavior. The truth is, to a man, every human behavior by a woman is a sign of sexual interest. For those of you still in college, I’ll phrase this law properly: Any non-negative interaction with a woman will be interpreted as a willingness to have sex, or at the very least a willingness to consider the prospect.

It’s not just a matter of smiling at a guy, or touching him innocently, or even carrying on a conversation with him every day in the company break room. It’s also sitting next to him on the bus, working out at the same gym at roughly the same time, being employed by the same corporation, or asking him if he’ll please stop peeing on your lawn. I have a female friend who sold her car to a guy who she didn’t know at all. He just saw the ad for the car in the paper, stopped by, and decided to buy the piece of crap. During the test drive the guy made a pass at her, and she was flabbergasted. I then had to point out that she could have avoided the whole incident if she had shot him in the leg first, but otherwise: she sold him a car, she must want to go out with him.

Selling a car should be a fairly sexually-neutral transaction, right? Only if you sell it to another woman. As long as you don’t reek with the stink of death (and sometimes then too), with a man it’s a maybe.

Sure, this all borders on the desperate, but it’s a very male process. Men tend to hunt for mates in the same way the US fought the Vietnam War. Blow the bejesus out off everything in sight, and hopefully you’ll hit something important (actually, I think we fought most of our wars that way. Shows what happens when you put guys in charge of things. A perfectly good conflict deteriorates into a shooting match…). But then biology dictates this kind of process. A few zillion years ago cave guys were designed to run up to unsuspecting women as they were trimming their teeth, have sex with them before they realized what was going on, and run off before getting a mastodon bone shoved up their south stabilizer. Time may have advanced, but men haven’t. Why mess with what works?

Is there anything you can do about this? Aside from poking every guy you aren’t attracted to in the eye with a sharp stick, no. It’s my experience women are fairly skilled at dispensing rejection, so the only problem is getting into sticky situations. Just know that when you accept rides from strangers or get rescued from disasters, the guys involved will probably hit on you. Have your response prepared in advance, and maybe keep that sharp stick handy.

Men are Stupid and Women are Crazy.
One of the greatest obstacles in men and women understanding each other is that we just don’t think the same way. There’s even some scientific basis to this. For example, when a man and a woman enter a room where a party is going on, they each notice different things. The woman is more likely to notice the people, what they’re wearing, and what they’re talking about. The man is more likely to notice the stereo system, the furniture, and the type of car pictured on the wall calendar. Men and women think in different ways and have different priorities in the way their brains process information. There are even gender differences in brain size (some say the reason men have larger brains than women is that they need more just to keep up. I and my huge brain reserve judgment).

Whether this relates to the most important difference, or if it’s just socialization, I don’t know. But men tend to be simple, direct, rational thinkers and women are -– well -- something else entirely. Having worked in the mental health industry for several years, I know crazy people when I see them. I’ve seen all variety of fruits, nuts and assorted granola clusters. In fact, that’s where I first heard mental patients lovingly referred to as “fruits, nuts, and assorted granola clusters.” Some of the most intriguing of mental patients are the schizophrenics. They have truly odd ways of viewing reality. So do women.

Not to say that women are schizophrenic (there are treatments for schizophrenia…). And I’m certainly not saying that men are totally rational. No human being is ever totally rational. But women are so far from what we men consider “normal” that it frightens us into accepting it as part of the status quo and frustrates us into banging our heads against walls, both literal and figurative.

Of course, it has crossed my mind that this irrationality is a mere sham, a put-on to keep men off-balance and to avoid many of life’s difficult choices. But, unless there’s a special seminar that women attend in the bathroom (which would explain the group exodus to the potty), there’s no way all women could be so good at it. I have a sister, and she’s just as irrational and has been so since puberty. Before puberty she was just a little silly…

This, I imagine, is the point in the argument where I’m going to be asked to cite some examples (by women, of course. Any man who’s been in a relationship with a woman has no need of proof). I’ve collected some statements from women that I think prove my point. Mixed in are two statements from actual psychiatric patients, to show how difficult it can be to tell the difference.

1.) “I only date men I don’t like. That way when we break up, it isn’t too big a deal.”
2.) “I married him because he’s a temporary fixture in my life. I never dated you because I want you around forever.”
3.) “I wear the purple suit to keep the assassins working for Margaret Thatcher from eating my spleen.”
4.) (immediately after having sex)”Do you find me attractive?”
5.) “My father tried to kill me by training a water snake to jump into the boat while we were fishing, and only my aluminum foil underwear saved me.”
6.) “I have to break up with you because it interferes with my fencing practice.” “But you don’t fence.” “So?”
7.) (A Chinese friend, calling me in tears after having fought with her boyfriend, thrown his belongings down the stairs, and put shaving cream in all of his socks)”He said China was communist!” “Uh…it is.” “But he said China makes lousy cars!” “Do they?” “Yes, but it was how he said it!”
8.) “I find money and looks unimportant in a man. It’s character and intelligence that are important. And I like a man that can make me laugh.”

As you can tell, the statements made by mental patients and women are very similar in their unique grasp of reality (3 and 5 were patients. 8 was a trick question, it was said by a mental patient who was a woman).

And I’m fully aware that many of the statements shown as examples of irrational thinking are in fact just ploys being used to break up with a man. The amazing thing is not that such strange excuses were used (it’s all just a variant of the “It’s not you, it’s me” excuse, perfected by George Costanza, which is in fact “It’s not me, it’s you”). What truly boggles the male mind is that such left field remarks appeared to be rational excuses to the women who made them.
Women seem to have the strange ability to hold two conflicting concepts in their mind at the same time, and view them both as true. Granted, this allows them to be somewhat more flexible in day-to-day activities and often recover faster from adversity than men, but to men it is totally alien. And it seems to us that women, in thinking like this, find themselves continuously amazed at the logical and obvious outcome of their actions.

Men, on the other hand, are very simple (no jokes, please). We have concrete rules of behavior and interaction that can be learned by anyone, and we do not deviate from these rules except as a means to get sex (the exception to all rules). If women took the time to learn these rules (some do) and would follow them in their own life, we would all be better off, although we’d have more than a passing resemblance to Klingons.

Now here’s the rub, so to speak. Is there any reason at all for women to change their strange way of thinking? Nope. Because men have, and always will, put up with it. We may retreat to our Keeps to cower and shake, but we still put up with it. Why? One big reason in one little word: Sex.

You just can’t beat City Hall.

Finally…I don’t expect anything will change after this article, except possibly my relationship with my Mother. I’ve told my female friends this stuff many times, and most of them prefer not to believe it. It’s too annoying to consider one’s preconceptions may be false. That’s why the sitcom “Third Rock From the Sun” is still on the air, despite sucking on a galactic level. Someone important is desperately clinging to the idea that it’s funny.

It’s also important to note that, like my critique of television sitcoms, this all falls under the category of opinion. You have the right to believe it or not believe it. All I have to base this on is what men do and think, and what woman seem to believe men do and think. You are welcome to take away from the experience as much or as little as you want.

But when you find yourself in a position that could have been avoided by simply paying attention, you have only yourself to blame. And if you ever see me on the street and I seem to be staring at you as if you were a chocolate chip cookie, for God’s sake have sex with me…