MEN vs. WOMEN

From the Original Author:

On the subject of men: I've been a member of the gender for 20 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 Suzy was 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 Idiots." 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 floozy. 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. 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 school romances rarely work.

HATS

Women look good in hats; men look like dinks.

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.

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.

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, "Looks like I've found an 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

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.

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.

MUSTACHES

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 met 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 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.

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's just got 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 girls' night out talk the whole time. Men on a boys' night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are "Pass the pretzels" or "Got any more beer?"

RESTROOMS

Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges. Men in 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 Fred, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?"

THE MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE OF ALL

� 1995-2002 William Geoffrey Shotts. Last update: Tuesday, March 09, 2004