Thursday, January 05, 2006

What Women Don't Understand About Guys

**Reader's Digest excerpt from "Dave Barry's Complete Guide To Guys"**

Contrary to what many women believe, it's easy to develop a long-term, intimate and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of
course, the guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's
extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what
women mean by the word relationship.

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine.
He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time.
A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy
themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a
while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs
to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you
realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly
six months?"

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very
loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him
that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship;
maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation
that he doesn't want, or isn’t sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of
relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so
I’d have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going
the way we are, moving steadily toward... I mean, where are we
going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of
intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children?
Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment?
Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: ...so that means it was... let's See... February
when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the
dealer's, which means... lemme check the odometer...Whoa! I am way
overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm
reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our
relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed
- even before I sensed it - that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I
bet that's it. That's why he’s so reluctant to say anything about his
own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the
transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not
shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather
this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is
shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don’t blame him. I'd be angry
too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way
feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty...
scumbags.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their...

"Roger,” Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have... Oh God, I feel so..." (She breaks down sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there’s no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know a correct answer.

"It's just that... it's that I... I need some time,” Elaine says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response.)

Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work. "Yes," he says.

(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)
"Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Sure."

(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Roger," she says.

"Thank YOU," says Roger.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he just doesn't think about it.

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it either.

Meanwhile, Roger, playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Hey, Norm. Did Elaine ever own a horse??

We're not talking about different wavelengths here. We're talking about different planets in completely different solar systems. Elaine cannot communicate meaningfully with Roger because the sum total of his thinking about relationships is Huh?

He has a guy brain, basically an analytical, problem-solving organ. It's not comfortable with nebulous concepts such as love, need and trust. If the guy brain has to form an opinion about another person, it prefers to base it on facts, such as his or her earned-run average.

Women have trouble accepting this. They are convinced that guys must spend a certain amount of time thinking about the relationship. How could a guy see another human being day after day, night after night, and not be thinking about the relationship? This is what women figure.

They are wrong. A guy in a relationship is like an ant standing on top of a truck tire. The ant is aware that something large is there, but he cannot even dimly comprehend what it is. And if the truck starts moving and the tire starts to roll, the ant will sense that something important is happening, but right up until he rolls around to the bottom and is squashed, the only thought in his tiny brain will be Huh?

Thus the No. 1 tip for women to remember is never assume the guy understands that you and he have a relationship. You have to plant the idea in his brain by constantly making subtle references to it, such as:

"Roger, would you mind passing the sugar, inasmuch as we have a relationship?"

"Wake up, Roger! There's a prowler in the den and we have a relationship! You and I do, I mean."

"Good news, Roger! The doctor says we're going to have our fourth child - another indication that we're in a relationship!"

"Roger, inasmuch as this plane is crashing and we have only a minute to live, I want you to know that we've had a wonderful 53 years of marriage together, which clearly constitutes a relationship."

Never let up, women. Pound away at this concept, and eventually it will start to penetrate the guy's brain. Someday he might even start thinking of it on his own. He'll be talking with some other guys about women, and out of the blue he'll say, "Elaine and I, we have, ummm ... We have, ahhh ... We ... We have this thing."

And he will sincerely mean it.

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