Grim Reality: Some advice for the naive male
Once a poor, misguided male friend asked me for some advice about women: "Um, I hear about this PMS stuff, but I don't know the details. When is it safe to approach a girl?"
Because I'm mean, my reply was less than encouraging:
"Well, PMS by definition happens before her period, but how many days before and how long it lasts depends on the woman. Then we feel cranky during the crampy-time, and some feel drained right after, too. So that means possibly the week before, the week during and the week after, we may feel like crap. Plus, there's no good way to ask a girl when her period is so you can calculate. So the best thing to do is to leave us all alone, all the time."
"Oh, damn."
I smiled a wicked little grin. I was exagerrating things to make them seem more dire but really, there is no guaranteed way to not appear like a jerk when you hit on a girl.
Sure, manners count and you should always try to avoid purposely acting like a pig. Also, despite what your drunken buddies tell you, obnoxiousness is never charming. However, the grim reality is whether she likes you or not can depend on random, trivial stuff.
Infuriating, no?
But it makes sense. This is the way it works:
Scenario 1: You're walking down a street and you smile at a girl.
Outcome A: She's in a good mood/appreciates your color-coordination. She thinks "he seems nice."
Outcome B: She's in a bad mood/is disgusted by the food stuck in your beard. She thinks, "eww, what a perv."
Scenario 2: You think your co-worker is cute. You ask her out for drinks.
Outcome A: She already thinks you're nice. She agrees or lets you down gently.
Outcome B: She already decided she has no interest in you. You develop a reputation around the office as "that creepy dude in accounting."
But, you wail, "that's totally unfair!"
Actually guys, you do it too.
Scenario 3: A girl accidentally bumps into you.
Outcome A: She's a Pam Anderson look-alike. You say, "Oops, my bad."
Outcome B: She's a crack whore missing half her teeth. You say, "Hey, watch it!"
So, we sort of think alike because we're human.
But you still can't understand us.
Sort of makes you want to crawl under a rock and weep, no?
For men seeking to understand women, here it is in black and white:
You can't. But we like it when you try.
posted by Snark Scribe @ 9:38 PM
5 Comments:
At the bottom of this subject is this reality:
It's just the Stockholm Syndrome of society. Since fucking Day One...
Women have been studying men, analyzing their actions, predicting enormous if/then/unless scenarios.
We've been at it since forever, and have become quite good at being devious and doing the "end-run thang" to get things done.
Men, bless their non-introspective minds, are way behind, helpless against our superior knowledge of relationships and male motivation.
Now, if only the hapless and frequently dangerous men would just step aside and let us run the world for the next 7,000 years...
(All Hail the Carnival!)
Naomi (age 61 in fifteen days, atheist, former truck driver and aspiring politician)
Very funny! (Here via carnival of the feminists.)
Mad Kane
http://www.madkane.com
Your assertion that men do the same thing is flawed. As you can see from your examples men act predictably. If a woman wants to be treated nicely she needs to be more like a pam anderson look-a-like and less like a crack whore. Women on the other hand use completely arbitrary reasons for their behavior and allow no way for men to adapt to be treated fairly.
Scenario 3: A girl accidentally bumps into you.
Outcome A: She's a Pam Anderson look-alike. You say, "Oops, my bad."
Outcome B: She's a crack whore missing half her teeth. You say, "Hey, watch it!"
I would apologise in either case, it's a common courtesy thing.
I loved this post. You probably scared the crap out of the guy. And yes, it is nice when they try to understand us, especially the certified nutcases (me).
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