Men vs. 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 it 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 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 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 school
romances 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 women 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.  Every year, men have to be reminded of his
children's birthdays.

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 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

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.

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.