The Seven Habits of Highly Compatible Couples

by Michael McKee

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Dedication

This book is dedicated toall girlfriends and wives past,

present and future without whomnone of this would have been necessary.

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All men are different, but in exactly the same way.- Sintheya Segue (Exotic Dancer)

Women are the same in that they are all different.- T'zu Li (Buddhist Monk)

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Prologue

To Begin at the Beginning

My first real experience with a woman was in the 6th grade. I had a girlfriend named

Yvonne. She was my girlfriend because we had kissed several weeks earlier during a

game of spin the bottle in her parent’s garage. At some point Yvonne came down with a

case of the chicken pox and was out for a week or so. When she returned I was surprised

to see the small faded red marks on her face, remnants of the pox. Rather than being the

consoling boyfriend I should have been I, for whatever innocently playful reason, called

her “spot”. She proceeded to grab me by the hair and beat the crap out of me in front of

the entire class. Kinda poetic, isn't it? Although we broke up soon after I stopped

bleeding, I consider that to have been one of my more successful relationships.

Successful in that individual needs, interpersonal interaction, an honest exchange of

feelings were clearly communicated by the swift administration of constructive

criticisms.

Considering the outcome of my first relationship, I have no doubt that you’re wondering

what would give me the right to write a book of this nature. What specialized training or

lucrative vocation gives me the right to convey to others what amounts to advice on

relationships? Is this not the domain of those functionaries who appear daily on network

television repairing the tattered and desiccated relationships featuring tube-topped, chain-

smoking Arkansas waitresses taking issue with their lovers and brother’s - sporting

nubbins, webbed toes, tongue studs and a surprisingly small number of teeth - because of

jealousies which have recently surfaced over a hunting dog? The answer is yes, or maybe

no...I'm sorry I forgot what I was saying.

Let me begin again. I can say that, at this point in time, I am currently in a compatible

relationship. In fact, it’s a very compatible relationship. And once she gets divorced from

her estranged husband, it will be a perfectly compatible relationship. Fortunately, I’m

here to discuss compatibility and not perfection. If it’s perfection you're searching for

there are plenty of books available on that particular subject such as; most religious

books, anything by a college professor, virtually all spiritual texts and sexual manuals.

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And while I’m on the subject, let me also state what this book is not. This is not a sex

manual. Now, having said that, some of the exercises described in here could be

considered foreplay. So for those of you who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of

thing you’ll like. Bottom line is that, you’re likely find little to drool over within this

book, other than some of my saucier stories which took place way back when I was

young, foolish and randy as a stoat!

I have, over the years, been in about a dozen real relationships. Here I’m defining a real

relationship as one in which her stuff is in your bathroom. In each of my previous

relationships, as well as my current one with a married woman, I have learned many

important lessons. A veritable bucket-load of wisdom it is which I’ve decided to share. It

is the compilation, correlation and distillation of these lessons which is contained within

the Seven Habits described herein.

As well as an overview of each of the habits I have also provided a number of exercises

which have been created in order to help in adopting these habits. That’s right, this book

is about adopting new habits. Replacing old habits with new habits. Is that going to be

fun or what? Actually, many of the exercises are simply things to think about and

consider. No real effort to be expended other than in contemplative reflection. An

opportunity to see things in a new way or to think about things differently as it were.

Some of the habits, however, will require quite the nasty expenditure of both time and

energy.

What’s it all about, Alfie?

So, what is the goal of this book? I wrote this book initially as a 'Relationship Field

Guide' for Guys. Sort of an outdoor survival guide, but for relationships rather than the

Brazilian jungle (which is equally frightening, but far less dangerous). Within those

original pages, men could learn such useful skills such as; how to spot the elusive signs

of a developing relationship, how best to weasel out of going to a chick-flick, and how to

survive when lost in the Woman’s Wear section of Nordstrom’s. That guide was simply

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intended to convey useful information so that men would not need to reinvent the wheel.

This would allow others to avoid pitfalls into which I have taken the proverbial tumble

during past relationships. Or at the very least, to give men an idea of what to expect.

Standing on the feet of Giants – isn’t that what they say?

What this has evolved into over time, however, is a bucket-full of useful information as

well as a variety of exercises designed to demonstrate to both sexes, men mostly, how

people can learn to work together toward compatible relationships. So, what does it mean

to be in a compatible relationship? There are many, many definitions available so choose

your favorite. Here’s one of my favorites; A compatible relationship is one in which both

people are truly happy, have a great deal of respect for one another, enjoy and look

forward to the time they spend together, have interests in common, and good

communication with one another. Oh yes, and of course, a great sex life is imperative.

Say what you want, I got all the friends I need.

Who helped, and why.

Once I had completed the first draft of this book I showed it to my sweetie who was kind

enough to proof read it for me. Upon completion she promptly called me an idiot and

further stated that I knew absolutely nothing about women, nor men for that matter.

Well, you can imagine that I was fairly pissed at that point, having put so much time and

effort into this book. However taking my own advice, I smiled and simply said to her,

“OK, then you’re welcome to change what you think is incorrect.” And, God help me,

over the next two weeks she did. So, although she refuses to be added as a co-author

(“I’m not getting near that train wreck”, were, I believe, her exact words), I decided to

dedicated this book to her - more or less. I did make several minor updates after her

rather extensive edit, but most of what she had changed has been left untouched.

Each of the sections in this book contains one of the Seven Habits. Each of these habits

contains two different parts, one meant specifically for the male in the relationship, one

for the female. The text at the beginning is for both; for “all y’all” as my Dad would say.

I’ll not make any assumptions as to the make-up of your particular relationship, other

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than to say that, typically, the yin & yang energies tend to somehow define themselves

within each partnership. So, given this I will refer to these energies as male and female

(or men and women) since I suspect those of you in relationships have already decided

which energy belongs to whom. If it’s still not clear let me put it this way: Basically, one

person watches Monday night football and drinks beer while the other does the dishes

and then crochets. It’s up to you to decide who’s who. So, you are hereby warned to only

read the gender-specific section which belongs to you.

Now, if you do choose to read the text of an inappropriate gender, then don’t blame me if

you don’t like what you read - I told you not to do so in the first place. There’s a reason

for each section being very gender-specific. I know it’s not an easy concept to

understand, but information concerning the opposite sex is processed and understood

differently by men and women. But why should this information be any different? Pretty

much everything is processed and understood differently by men and women. And it’s

because of this fact that the gender-specific sections have been written with your mind in

mind.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Let’s get right to it, shall we. From my perspective, typically, woman are a bit better at

relationships than men. Come on guys, we have to admit at some level that they often do

the lions share of work when it comes to the care and feeding of the relationship. This is

not meant to imply that women need not work on improving their relationship skills as

well, but simply that most of the exercises will necessarily be directed toward the men.

Within this book are a number of exercises which anyone can do if desired. They have

been designed to help in communication and understanding within the context of a

relationship. Some are just things to think about, no real homework you have to turn in.

But, of course, before we begin anything we must deal with the Disclaimer. Anytime you

do anything these days you need a Disclaimer. I wonder what the Disclaimers for those

stupid reality TV shows look like? You know, those shows where they dump a frightened

load of people, whose idea of the wilderness is a vacant lot, onto some God-forsaken

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island to see what happens. If you ask me they should do it right and put eight random

people in a life raft in the middle of the ocean for a month. They would each have only a

quart of water, six small packets of catsup and a fork. Let’s just see what happens now!

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Disclaimer

The first thing I want to make clear is that there are many generalizations within the text

of this book. Of course, these generalizations may or may not be relevant to you and your

situation. Many men and women will exhibit few of the traits I discuss, while others may

demonstrate many of them. Just want y’all to know that I’m often just talking about the

average man or woman, not anyone in particular. You folks out there reading this are, no

doubt, way above average. Yeah, way above.

If you’re already in a relationship, and you’re a man, then you’ve likely already screwed-

up somewhere along the way. If, however, you have not screwed-up then a hearty

congratulations is in order. You, wise sir, may find some interesting tidbits within these

humble pages, but if you’re doing fine on your own you probably don’t need anyone else

telling you what you should or should not be doing. That’s your woman’s job. If,

however, you have already screwed-up then depending upon what it was you’ve done

there might be little hope of your regaining any love or respect she may have, at one

time, had for you. If, in fact, you have lost her respect then you best get-your-shit-n-get

because it’s likely to get much worse. If you’ve lost her love then you best get a fire

extinguisher because your stuff may be burning on the front lawn.

A quick note about the exercises: Many of them are just things to ponder and think about.

No actual effort is required on your part, unless you consider pondering to be an

expenditure of effort. A piece of advice before you give this stuff a try though; don’t

bother with any of this unless you’re truly in love with your partner. Some of these

exercises require significant investment of time and energy which could, in my opinion,

be better directed toward finding someone with whom you are in love. Might sound

cruel, but it’s much better for you as well as your partner to be up-front and honest about

this. If it’s not right, then don’t spend time trying to make it right; get up, get out and get

on with your life.

Also, if kids are in the equation then that throws a bit of a spanner into the works. Kids

require attention - lots of attention. A relationship between two or more committed adults

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also requires a great deal of attention. In my opinion, you can realistically do only one or

the other successfully. This is why, I believe, many problems tend to rise to the surface

once children enter into the relationship. If this is the case, then these exercises may be

even more important. Learning to relate to one another in a caring and supportive fashion

is imperative if you parents are going to get through those difficult child-rearing years

with your sanity and relationship in tact. Not to mention your responsibility to society for

not sending out into it yet another maniacal nutcase. Like we need more.

Anyway, bottom line is I make neither claims nor guarantees concerning the efficacy of

the exercises or the accuracy of the information contained herein. Also, any similarity

between any of the characters in the stories contained herein and real persons living or

dead is purely coincidental. That is unless I happen to use their real names and the story

did, in fact, happen to them. Then it’s not such a coincidence is it? So, you are hereby

warned.

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Beware

Here, there bee Dragones

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The Habits

Once I had decided to write this book many years ago, I knew that I needed to get away

from all of the people I knew and all of the influences that influenced me. I needed to get

away from all of that so that I could clear my mind and focus upon the basis of this book:

Relationships. So, I went camping to clear my mind. I had no preconceived notions about

the contents of this book other than to relate what I had learned up to that point in my

life: Women are complicated, men are simple.

And so it came to me at some point during my mind-clearing activities that much of what

we do, particularly in relationships, is simply out of habit. What I mean is that we don’t

usually put a great deal of thought into our daily activities; making toast, doing the

laundry, picking the crap out of our toe nails. And so too with the things we do in our

relationships. I think that the manner in which we treat one another tend to become just

another one of our daily activities - just another set of habits we get into and with which

we become familiar.

OK, so what exactly are habits? Being that I’m not a lexicographer, we’ll need to consult

the professionals on this matter. My trusty dictionary says here that a habit is a “Settled

or regular tendency or practice that is hard to give-up.” Interesting, a practice that is hard

to give-up. Does it have to be hard to give up? What if it were something easy to give-

up? Is any habit easy to give-up? I can’t think of any, except for the habit I once had of

calling my wife by the name of an ex-girlfriend. That unfortunate habit was finally

broken early one evening along with two of my toes.

Maybe that should be the definition; a habit is something that's not easy to give-up. For

example, cigarettes. Are cigarettes a habit because they’re hard to give-up or because

they’re just so damn yummy? And what about unusual cases, such as people who eat

dirt? Yes indeed, a medically recognized condition causes some folks to just want to up

and eat soil. But apparently that’s not really considered a habit, more of a “unique

personality trait”, it says here in this personals ad. So, it’s not really clear, is it? What

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about eating in general - a habit? I’d say so. Wouldn’t want to mess with that habit,

would we?

What about things that don’t really make a difference, like changing the hand you brush

your teeth with? That’s a hard habit to break - try it if you don’t think so. But is that

really a habit or a handedness trait? I think a habit can also be something that you do just

because there’s no reason or motivation to change. Like the way you dry yourself off

with a towel after a shower, or tie your shoe laces. You probably do it the same way each

time because there’s no reason to do it differently, but now that you’ve done it the same

way for so long these habits would be very difficult to change.

These are really the sorts of habits I guess I had in mind when writing this book. The

sorts of things that we do in relationships, not really conscientiously, just sort of out of

habit. The stuff that we do because we got into the habit of doing it without really

knowing, or usually caring why. I think that almost everyone has a tendency to fall into

these types of habits when it comes to relationships to some extent. Men, I think, seem

more likely to exhibit these tendencies than women.

So it stands to reason that some of the relationship-related habits we, both men and

women, fall into would be acceptable to your partner (putting the toilet seat down,

pronouncing her parents names correctly) while others would not (explaining to the in-

laws how their political views are a joke while clipping your toenails at the dinner table).

So, given the possibility that some (or all) of your habits might be unacceptable to your

partner, we may want to consider modifying one or more of our habits which we’d

always thought uniquely define us.

Now when anybody talks about changing people’s habits we Americans look for the easy

way toward enlightenment. Something along the lines of a patch or gum or maybe even a

suppository to cure what ails us would be more in keeping with what we had in mind.

Anything actually involving the expenditure of effort exceeding that of pressing of a

button or walking to the refrigerator would likely not be a big winner here in the US. So,

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maybe we can make this easy. What about, rather than going to all of the trouble of

removing a habit, we simply replace it with a different one?

Why exactly would a person want to replace one habit, with another? Well, ask any

woman responsible for the care and feeding of a man and I have no doubt that she will

have some very specific opinions concerning those habits she would like to have him

change or adopt. Now whether or not he decides to adopt said good habits are anyone’s

guess - my guess is he won’t. I’m not saying that a man can’t change, I’m just saying that

the odds are he probably won’t. It is said that change starts from within, but like a store

dedicated solely to moisturizers, creams, lotions, notions, potions and cosmetics, we men

don’t go there.

Now, let’s say for the sake of argument that a man has some interest in wanting to

change a habit. To exchange a bad habit with a good one. How would someone go about

doing this? That's where the exercises can be helpful. They can aid in understanding why

we do the things we do and how we can change them. So, of course, the question remains

as to just exactly why we do the things we do in the first place? I asked everyone and

obviously nobody knows so, as a result, my best guess about why we do the things that

we do has been boiled down into one of the following four reasons:

It feels good

It doesn’t hurt

It pisses someone off

I don’t know

So, there you are. All of the answers to any question you may have concerning human

habits and their nature. Well, OK, so I could have spent more time on the analysis part of

this effort, but I think that you get the idea by now. And so I present to you, the

remainder of this book and the Seven Habits contained herein. While that may seem

unnecessarily trite, it’s actually politely curt.

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Habit #1

Try To Be AsProactive As Possible

You are no doubt asking yourself: Why should I be proactive? What does proactive

mean? How can he read my thoughts? How do I make the voice in my head talk? All

good questions worthy of my admiration and attention. First of all, proactive simply

means “taking the initiative”. That is doing something which you know needs to be done,

or you should know needs to be done, without having to be told to do it. This can range

from the simple (taking out the trash when overflowing, washing the dishes when dirty,

taking her out to dinner when bloated) to the very complex (somehow sensing that she's

going to need a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food as well as someone to listen to her

about the bitch at work who’s trying to ruin her life, when she gets home).

So, getting back to being proactive. Women appear to be proactive by nature, they are

always thinking ahead. It doesn’t seem to matter if it's birthdays, anniversaries, or

planning the entire day around kids, meals and a crisis or two, women are always one

step ahead. This is in stark contrast to men who, left to their own devices, would live like

a wild animal with a credit card; ordering pizza when hungry and maybe remembering to

wash on occasion. This is not a pretty picture as a man buying a 6-pack of beer for the

evening, is about as proactive as most men get. So for this habit we have quite a few

exercises for the men and only three for the women.

* Men *

The following exercises are geared toward understanding of those things which you can

do so as to appear that you are being proactive. Notice I say “appear”. I don’t expect you

to get carried away with a great deal of effort here. Still, some of you men may be

wondering why being proactive is so important, I’ll tell you. It’s because women expect

you to be psychic. Did you know that? They believe that you have the ability to read

their minds. They won’t actually come out and say it and may not, in fact, realize it

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themselves; but on occasion there will be the unspoken expectation that you have psychic

powers. She also believes that not only do you possess these powers, but often utilize

them poorly.

Guys, we must deal with this head on. We must stand firm and let them, our women,

know in no uncertain terms that we’re not simply going to allow ourselves to be treated

in this manner. And then we’ll say “yes dear” and do our best to become psychic. I can

hear the women who have just read this, even though I said they shouldn’t, saying, “I do

not expect guys to be psychic.” Well, ladies, I respectfully disagree. I think you do and

so decided to prove it. I took a poll and asked, “Do women, on occasion and without

actually meaning to, expect men to be psychic?” On this the women [my mom, my sister

and a cashier at the market] all said, “No, we don’t expect men to be psychic and what

the hell is wrong with you asking a question like that anyway? You should know

better!” While the men who were questioned [my dad and the mailman] said that they

didn’t know what psychic meant.

So, I feel it’s pretty cut-and-dried on this one. Women, without actually meaning to or

without even realizing it, do occasionally have this expectation. And we, as men, have

little choice but to cope with this affliction. Note that my sweetie crossed out the word

“affliction” and wrote an expletive next to it, but I added it back in with the hope that

she’ll not reread this section. God help me if she does.

I can hear the men now, “OK, smart ass, I love my woman. I want to be a proactive kind

of guy. So what do I do? Maybe there’s something about it on the Discovery channel? Is

there some kind of pill I can ask my doctor about? Should I try to throw a football

through a tire? I want to get back into the swing of things too!” No, it’s unfortunately not

that simple. This is going to take some effort as this is the most difficult of the Seven

Habits to master. This will take time, but the more you learn the easier this will become.

Learn about what, you ask? Well, specifically, about your woman and your life together

(if you have one). What? Is that all there is to it? Well, no. While that’s not quite all

there is to it, this is where we get the biggest bang-for-the-buck, so it’s here where we’ll

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concentrate our efforts. There are, of course, additional subjects and activities which are

not covered within this Habit we could take on when it comes to being proactive, but

that’s more of a long-term effort. I think that if you can become proficient in these

exercises, which stress activities in and around the house, you’ll have it made. I have also

done my best to be realistic about the effort you’re likely to put into these exercises.

Now it’s time to discuss those things you can focus upon in order to begin your new

proactive habits. First, we will have some exercises to help you keep an eye on things in

and around the house which you might not normally notice. Then we’ll have some

exercises to help you keep an eye on her, who you hopefully do notice. You will soon

notice that there are a great many things to notice.

Exercise 1.1 - The Trashes

This is not a difficult one unless we take into account any of those little

bathroom or bedroom trashes. The first problem with these little trashes are

the size, they are simply too small to deal with unless you happen to be that

small. The next problem with these doll-house sized trash cans is that simply

turning them over does not, usually, dislodge the trash within. Which brings

me to my tirade with respect to these things. You have to reach your hand in

there to get the trash and you don’t know, or want to know, what the hell is

in there and more importantly what’s making it stick to the bottom of the

can.

Anyway, I just needed to get that out of my system. There are usually several

aspects to this trash issue. Typically, the woman tells the man when it’s time

to take the trash out of the house. The man, knowing exactly what to do here,

will take the trash out trailing coffee grounds and a brown liquid from the

bag. He will then place the leaking bag into a somewhat larger receptacle.

The man is solely responsible for these larger trash cans as well as the trash

bag itself. Realize that anything which should be in the garbage but is not, is

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also yours with which to deal. This may sound simple, but the problem you

will have is deciding what should be thrown away and what should not. If

you’re not sure, ask her. Better to be annoying than to be thought of as

someone who’s deliberately trying to hurt her by throwing away something

she really loved, wanted, needed, treasured, etc. The man’s only other

responsibility is to make sure that the large trash cans get out to the gutter

and back on trash day without serious incident.

As far as trying to be proactive concerning the trashes, my suggestion here

would be to simply take a look at the trash can in each room when in or

passing that room during your usual activities. Emptying the trashes on

occasion without having to be told to, however, may not get you the desired

response. Realize that her reaction could very well be, “What are you doing

you weasel. You’re wasting trash bags, that’s not full-up yet”. But if nothing

else, this new behavior of yours will keep her off-balance wondering what it

is you’re up to. If you wash out the trashcans as well it will cause your

woman to wonder who’s stolen your brain, but not enough to actually expend

the energy to find out.

Exercise 1.2 - Clothes (Part I)

Clothes are not quite as easy as they sound. At first blush, one might consider

the possibility that any article of clothing which is not in a drawer, hung on a

hanger or neatly folded on a dresser would be a good candidate for the Dirty

Clothes Hamper (we’ll get to this beastly thing in a minute). Well, this is not

the case. You, as a man, will have no idea if an article of clothing is clean or

not without first asking her. But let’s take this from the top. Don’t worry

about her stuff, you simply need to have a really good idea about your own

clothes. Make sure that she does not have to pick up [your clothes] after you.

Deal with this on your own by placing your clothes into a “Dirty Clothes

Hamper”.

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The Dirty Clothes Hamper: This is usually a brightly colored wicker thing

with a cushioned lid of some type. Don’t ask, just dump your soiled clothes

into it as soon as you take them off - preferably in the garage so you don’t

mess up the rest of the house. Be careful though, there may be different

hampers for different colored clothes and white clothes and maybe even

different material types and number of buttons per acre for all I know. It’s

just out-and-out segregation, if you ask me. I have always washed everything

together without regard for ethnicity, which is why I don’t do the laundry

any longer.

While this may be fine for a man’s clothing, it is certainly not sufficient for a

woman’s wardrobe. As far as I know neither water, sweat nor any other

liquid should ever touch any article of a woman’s clothing - which often

includes her bathing suit. These articles of clothing are likely cleaned in the

same way in which shoes are made in a cobbler’s workshop when he’s taken

ill just before an evil banker is to foreclose on his family home: Elves do it.

Exercise 1.3 - Clothes (Part II)

Unlike clothing which is simply dirty, this category of clothing includes that

which is in need of repair. This would include, but would not be limited to,

clothes having any of the following; missing buttons, any tears or rips, any

visible stains, shrinkage or stretching, puckering (I don’t know what this is),

hems coming undone, unpleated pleats, missing sequins or rhinestones, etc.

To make this easy, we can just say that if you notice anything different about

your clothing, this might be cause for concern.

This exercise will actually be easier than the first part which, I know, gave

some of you nightmares. This will be a two-step process the result of which

should be your receiving a reward of some kind for your vigilance. So, the

first step involves simply identifying the problem. This should be fairly

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straight forward as I’ve mentioned, since you simply need to notice anything

different about your clothes. While I say this should be straight forward, of

course, for a man it is not. He wouldn’t notice, for example, if his plaid pants

were properly matched with his Hawaiian shirt. This is one reason why

women are so very important. All you need to do is to have any woman (at

work, the market, wherever) look you over quickly. They are trained to spot

anything out of the ordinary.

The second, and thankfully last, step in this process is to point out the

problem or concern to your woman. This does not need to be detailed and

simply calling her attention to the issue would be sufficient. In fact, if you

attempt to go further and try to identify the problem yourself, you might end

up incurring her wrath as you’ve likely wasted her time having to prove you

wrong again. So, don’t bother with the details, just hand her the garment. Oh,

good point. Make sure that you’re not wearing the piece of clothing in

question. She’ll just make you take it off, and then you will have wasted

even more of her time. Finally, you can walk away proudly knowing that you

have done more than she has ever expected of you.

Exercise 1.4 - The Dishes

Getting the dishes done is simple in theory, but difficult to master in practice.

The reason is not that dishes are a difficult concept (rinse and place into

dishwasher), they’re not. The problem is that when you, the man, take it

upon yourself to do the dishes several things are likely to result. The first

being that your woman will think that she’s died and gone to wherever it is

that wives who have done all they can for their ungrateful husbands, but are

still under-appreciated, go.

The second, and more important, is that she will probably intervene once she

realizes what it is you’re doing. Picking herself up off of the floor, she will

closely examine the dishes; those either done and drying in the rack, or all

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ready to go in the dishwasher. You know what she’s looking for don’t you?

Any sign that you’ve screwed up by leaving something on the dishes which

she would not have. And regardless of your skills, she will likely find

something. Now is the true test of your manly manliness, stand there and take

it like a man . Don’t be a wimp and start whimpering. Steel yourself for

what’s to come knowing that there is little chance, unless you’ve scrubbed

the pattern off of the plates, that you’ll get a passing grade here. But know

this, regardless of what she says you’ll have the quiet satisfaction of knowing

that she’s damned impressed.

Exercise 1.5 - The Floors

Here’s the deal with the floors; this is where everything eventually settles so

they get very dirty very quickly and they’re not easy to clean. This is why

your mom had such a fit when you walked on her freshly mopped floors you

little brat. Anyway, there are three primary phases to floor care; picking

things up, vacuuming things up, and wiping things up. Notice that everything

having to do with cleaning the floor involves the “up” direction. This is a

good thing to remember because simply by picking things up you are doing

more than would typically be expected of you to keep the house clean.

We’re going to make this easy for you as far as being proactive. If you do

see something on the floor which probably should not be there (such as;

food, clothing, anything on fire) just pick it up and put it on any table or

counter, if appropriate. Note: if something is on fire, picking it up and

putting it onto a table would probably not be appropriate. So, I guess the

bottom line here is unless it’s on fire, pick it up and place it on a flat surface.

By flat surface I do not mean back onto the floor, choose another flat surface.

Now that you’ve actually picked something up off of the floor and placed it

onto a table or counter, you must now tell your woman. This is a very

important step in the process and one which, if skipped, will result in your

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being blamed for the new location of the object (or fire). So, make sure that

you tell her what you’ve done. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to show

her as well. Then just sit there and wait for praise, and maybe a biscuit.

Exercise 1.6 - Making the Bed

If the bed has not been made, and there is nobody in the bed, then make the

bed. This may seem relatively straightforward, but like everything else in a

relationship, it isn’t. Making the bed, in this instance, is simply a gesture of

how much you want to help rather than actually making the bed to her

satisfaction. And by satisfaction I mean specifications. Realize that she will

probably undo what you’ve done and remake the bed herself.

Her resulting freshly-made bed may appear to differ little from your version,

but there will likely be one very important difference; the sheets. A man is

missing that part of the brain which helps to determine whether or not sheets

need to be changed. So men learn to use a calendar. “Let's see, it’s October.

Well, then it’s 'bout time to change the sheets”. A woman, on the other hand,

will typically change the sheets if anything other than perfectly clean flannel,

satin or silk has touched them.

Regardless of what you think, the bed, like pretty much everything else, is

her domain. She will fluff, fold and tuck her domain just exactly the way she

wants. And the fact that you, an uppity male, would take it upon yourself to

make the bed is, in her view, a cute if inept attempt to once again do

something too important to leave to a man. Good try though.

Exercise 1.7 - Light Bulbs

Again, this should not be difficult, but it is. Only because within the home

the wattage of each bulb is, for whatever reason, very important. Men do not

understand this concept, but there it is so we need to learn to live and deal

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with it. The best thing to do when you observe a bulb has burned out is to

replace it with exactly the same bulb of exactly the same wattage as quickly

as possible. Tell no one. Should you somehow get away with this, consider

yourself fortunate and speak no more of this unfortunate incident.

Don’t make the same mistake my Dad once made. He replaced a burned-out

light bulb in my Mom's bathroom with one of a different wattage. This new

bulb was not well received as the output of the new bulb was not quite that of

the original bulb. The ensuing discussion somehow resulted in all of the

bulbs in the bathroom being replaced with 200W bulbs as well as the ceiling

fan being removed from the ceiling leaving only 3 bare wires and some

tattered insulation in its place. If you knew my parents you would understand

how this makes sense. After eight years my therapist finally does.

Now that we’ve proactively dealt with some of the fun-filled activities around the house,

it’s time to get to the [sic] heart of the matter. That would, of course, be your woman.

The love of your life. The most important person in your world. If, in fact, she is not the

most important person in your life, then you’ve got problems far beyond my meager

capabilities. If, however, she is all that and more, then learning all you can about your

woman will go a long way toward your appearing to be truly proactive. Even to the point

of truly being psychic (“Oh Kenneth, you just know me so well”). Sexy, eh? So let’s give

it a go shall we?

Exercise 1.8 - Her Potions

This exercise is related to her mysterious female lotions, potions, oils and

creams. Most of the items will be located in the bathroom or the shower. I’m

not going to spend too much time on the details of these potions, lotions and

notions since I honestly couldn’t begin to identify most of them. But after

spending about an hour pouring over more than 30 different bottles of things

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I never knew existed, I have a much better idea of what’s going on here (and

you didn’t think I did actual field work). Here’s what we have, although the

outer labels and suggested uses of these things may differ, virtually all of

these potions and lotions and whatnot consist of the same 12 ingredients. I

think that they simply use different proportions of these ingredients to make

the resulting liquid more soapy, cloudy, clear, lemony, coconutty,

freshening, refreshening, vitalizing or revitalizing.

Her mysterious potions and lotions may include; various face or body

lotions, face or body potions, skin creams, powdered shades, fluffing liners,

silky oils, fragrant soaps, feminine sprits and sprays, foundations encasing

her in concrete and steel, Egyptian over and under-liners, camouflage-

colored concealers, a large variety of pads whose distinctions you couldn’t

begin to understand, etc. You’re never going to learn all about these things,

so don’t even try. But this is not to say that you should admit defeat either.

Here’s how I handle the problem. What I do is to make a list of all of her

things. Don’t laugh, it works. It works because a woman will rarely change

the brand or type of thing she uses. So, basically just write down the

information which is on the front label of the bottles, jars, boxes or whatever.

Don’t screw-up the details. One potion or pad may look similar to another,

but that is usually where the similarity ends. Imagine her having to use the

wrong face cream, or something with wings which should have been

flightless. I shudder to think of the resulting consequences. Anyway, I keep

this list in my glove compartment. It comes in very handy when she calls and

wants me to pick up her pore-enhancing soap, anti-glare forehead liner,

cinnamon butt paste or the sanitary napkin variety pack. So, if this happens

to you, you’ll be ready and she’ll be amazed.

Exercise 1.9 - Her Cycles (don't cringe)

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You, yes you the man, can actually participate in her menstrual cycles. How

great is that? Not very? Well, what I mean is that you can make yourself

useful during those days when you are typically not. What can you do, you

ask other than staying out of her way? What you can do is to make sure you

know what sorts of things she uses during these times so that you, yes you

again dorkhead, can purchase these things while standing uncomfortably in

line with all of the other men staring at the floor, purchasing similar things

for their women.

Now as important as these pads and plugs and such may be, chocolate is even

more important. Preferably dark chocolate. You might want to stock up on a

few pounds every so often. This is very important, don’t take it lightly.

Women don’t just like chocolate during these times, they need chocolate. I

remember the story of my neighbor whose wife locked herself in the

bathroom with his Playboy collection and a pair of scissors and didn’t stop

until dark chocolate was slipped under the door. This will put the fear of God

into you, eh? So, once again don’t forget the chocolate, or to paraphrase a

popular 70’s saying; “Chocolate will get a woman through times of no men,

better than men will get a woman through times of no chocolate.”

Exercise 1.10 - Her Moods

You may have thought that we covered this topic in our last exercise, or the

one before that, or the one before that, but no. Every man on Earth who has

had any interaction at all with females knows about mood swings. To be fair,

this is something which affects all women differently. Some women have

little in the way of mood swings during any given period of time, while

others may be Cinderella one day and a wicked stepsister the next. The mean

one. Some of this may be based on hormonal fluctuations, however most of

what we men term “mood swings” is likely attributable directly to you, the

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man. You have no doubt, once again gone and done something to piss her

off.

Whether sweet, cute, loving, happy, irritated, irked, petulant, snappy, sullen,

winsome, grumpy, carefree, glum, crabby, joyful, miffed, peevish, surly,

sappy, saucy, sulky, slinky, sloppy, sleepy, sour or deadly, you should

always remember to try to empathize and have compassion for her. Do your

best to understand that life is tough for everyone and you make it even more

so for her. She’s doing the best she can, but sometimes it’s all just too much.

But you can help. Just exactly how depends upon her mood and about a

million other things on which super computers around the globe continue to

work feverishly.

If in fact her mood happens to be on the negative side, you’ll want to either

do something to turn that frown upside down (do not say this to her), or get

the hell out of the way. If you decide to attempt to do something, there’s not

much in the way of a generic panacea for whatever it is the problem may be.

This being said you can usually not go wrong with dark chocolate and a good

foot massage. If you are really adept at the art of foot massages then she just

might fall asleep. This will afford you the opportunity to have yourself a few

beers to get ready for when she wakes up.

* Women *

And now for the women. What can I say that you don’t already know about being

proactive? Nothing. Not a thing. Nada, the empty set, bupkis. Well, now if you’re going

to give me that look then I’ll mention that there are a few things that you may not be

aware of, which I’d like to relate. Let us begin with some of the more basic concepts in

the understanding of the male gender and then we’ll work our way into the...oh, who are

we kidding. When it comes to men, there are only basics.

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Exercise 1.11 - The Basics

When seriously in doubt, show up in a string bikini with a 6-pack under each

arm. This will be about as proactive as you will need to get for most men.

Once he gets his “medicine” and a really good meal afterwards he’ll want to

just sleep for awhile. If a football game is on when he wakes up, that should

just about do it for his basic needs. If you want to get any more complicated

than this, you certainly can knock yourself out. But remember that there is

every chance in the world that he won’t appreciate it. It’s not that he’s being

cruel or uncaring, that’s just the nature of the beast. You may as well expect

a bee not to sting, a snake not to bite.

Exercise 1.12 - Extracurricular Activities

On occasion, you will want to get him out of the house when he would

otherwise just be hanging around getting in your way. Make this about twice

each week or more if desired. Maybe poker with the guys on Friday nights

and golf Sunday afternoons. This will allow you to rest, relax and get some

things done without having him underfoot. Crank-up Aretha, get out all of

those files you’ve wanted to go over for months now, get yourself a wine

cooler and have yourself a good old time without him around.

Now, of course, you are more than welcome to go out with any of your

girlfriends at anytime. That is provided that you let him know where you’re

going. That’s all you need to do, if only because it’s the right thing to do. If

you’ve had enough of him for awhile and can’t get him out of the house,

then head on out yourself. There's no law that says you need to stay home

with him if he doesn’t want to go out. Realize though, that if you do go out

without him, he will probably resent you for doing so. Attempting to get him

to explain to you why he’s mad and hasn’t talked to you in three days will

likely be difficult and will only result in a rambling proclamation of how you

done him wrong. You’ll shake your head wondering how the same man who

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will think nothing of riding a crazed 2000 pound bull, can be so fragile. A

mystery surrounded by an enigma, wrapped in a paradox it is.

Aside from those times when you send him away because if you hear him

talk to the TV one more time your going to stab him in the eye with a crochet

hook, make sure he knows you want him at home with you. That is when

he’s not working his ass off to buy you houses, yachts, diamonds and

emeralds. Sorry, got carried away there. Anyway, make sure you talk about

this because some concepts are difficult for men. If you really intend to get

your point across to him, then you’re going to want to make sure that the

television set is off. If you don’t understand why this is, then the next

exercise was designed just for you.

Exercise 1.13 - The Television

The television is another one of those things which means something

completely different to men and women. For example, women see TV as an

entertainment portal and information resource. An experience to be shared in

those quiet evening moments with a loved one. Men see the TV as a

combination personal refuge and Fantasy Island. It’s his world where all of

his dreams involving sports, power, women, beer and large powerful trucks

can be lived out vicariously through the actual participants on the screen.

This is something which is particular to men because they are so visually

oriented. Women do not succumb to the tube to nearly the same extent. They

simply see a picture on a screen, and continue to wonder if their mother

wasn’t actually right about you.

Knowing how important TV is to a man, you, his woman, might want to

learn more about his favorite baseball and football teams. Forget basketball

unless you live in Dallas in which case you ain’t got nothin' else. However, if

he has a favorite curling, hurling or caber tossing team then don’t bother. If

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this is the case, then he’s probably European and, if that’s the case, you’re

definitely on your own here. Talk about your never-ending projects.

However, if he is just a standard, regular kind of guy then surprising him by

wearing only a team jersey, helmet, mouthpiece, cap or cup may just get him

in the mood for a real sporting event. Don’t make it a long game though as

he’ll tire easily.

If you attempt to talk to a man during a sporting event you may as well be

talking to your oven for all the good it will do. To get anything into his head

which has any hope of staying there without flying right out the other side

will require that you turn off the TV. But be careful here, you can’t just pick-

up the remote, push a button and expect that a serviceable conversation will

ensue. It likely won’t. Attempting to turn off the TV during a sporting event

may result in unpredictable consequences. In fact, depending upon the timing

of this action, it may be a story your 60 cats will enjoy again and again in

some 20 years or so. You’re much better off waiting until the game is over as

you are likely to have a larger portion of his quality attention at that time.

Trying to squeeze in a conversation during commercials certainly offers

unique opportunities for the rapid exchange of ideas, thoughts, barbs, hopes,

jabs, accusations and insults. However depending upon the subject matter it

may required more of his attention than several sequential 60-second

commercials might afford.

Once he has been disengaged from the TV and you are in the process of

actually talking to him, make sure that he’s really looking at you, or in some

other fashion acknowledges your presence. Just because the TV is not

necessarily on, you cannot assume that he is paying attention to you when

you are talking to him. Men often have TV shows, short films or bits of

songs going through their heads. It is quite possible that while you're

engaged in a deep discussion concerning your most private fears, hopes,

needs and feelings, he may well be thinking about the episode of Green

Acres where Mr. Douglas hired Mr. Haney to paint his house and Mr.

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Douglas had to buy a “Pore Key” from Mr. Haney who then couldn’t find the

“Pore Key Hole”. This is why men will occasionally appear to laugh quietly

to themselves for no apparent reason.

One good way to keep him engaged in the conversation is to ask relatively

simple questions. Forming these questions so that his responses are kept to a

minimum might help facilitate the conversation as well. You want to make

sure that he not feel pressured to form complete sentences or to expend a

great deal of effort in actual conversation. This, sadly, is your best bet.

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Habit #2

Begin With SomethingIn Mind

The old saying, as I remember it, is “Begin with the end in mind.” Sort of like “keep

your eye on the ball”. Actually, that’s not it at all, is it? Let me begin again. What this

habit is all about is having something in mind when you begin a task, a thought, a

journey. A plan as it were. This is vital because from a woman’s perspective, men often

get going on things without much of a plan, let alone a destination, in mind. We men

want to divest our women of that woefully uninformed opinion. We want to be able to

demonstrate that we can create and follow a plan to completion, but really just having

something in mind would be a really swell place to start.

The exercises associated with this habit will have some interesting aspects for men and

women alike. In order to illustrate some of the more subtle aspects of this habit I will

relate a story which took place many years ago. I’ll give you the moral of the story first:

He did not begin with much of anything in mind.

This is the sad but true story of Tom, a present day stay-at-home Dad. He

was once a factory worker who was now on the type of disability which

seemed to be in remission while on a golf course. He spent a good deal

of his time taking care of the kids, puttering around the house,

pretending to vacuum and, oh yes, surfing the Net for porn. And all this

while his none-the-wiser wife worked during the day, bagging groceries

for Safeway.

So as is typical with these sorts of things, all was well until one point

after which all was not. His loving wife, Carol, upon detail examination of

her Visa bill one day noticed several rather odd charges which she did

not recognize. After several increasingly irate phone calls she quickly

realized that her oh-so-wonderful husband was using her credit card to

access an interesting variety of pornographic websites. A frank and open

discussion ensued, as you just knew it would, after which Tom decided

that he needed to get back to work. Apparently the pain resulting from

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his disability was preferable to that of his wife’s continued ire. The

removal of the household computer was another of the changes which

have taken place in that particular household, I am led to believe.

You see folks, this was an example of beginning something without having much of

anything in mind. Tom clearly did not consider the likely outcome of his actions. Now

what could he have done here rather than foolishly use his wife’s credit card which is so

easily traced? Tom could have had a plan. And it didn’t need to be at all complex in form

or function. He could have simply made his own money to use in any way he saw fit.

Tom could have utilized the vision of a developing entrepreneurial spirit He could have

done something along the lines of setting up his own web-site. A simple computer, a

web-cam, a mask of President Bush, a feather duster and some book: He’s all set.

Tom could have made plenty of money by charging people admission to access his web-

site. This low-key, non-assuming site might have featured Tom, naked, except for an

athletic supporter, the mask of Bush on his face and the feather duster stuck up his butt

prancing around his living room while reading books by Dr. Seuss. I easily can picture

his rendition of “Hop on Pop” becoming very popular with the Baby Boomer crowd.

Using the resulting income to access his favorite pornographic web-sites Tom would

have little fear of being discovered. Ah, but for the lack of such a vision, Tom might still

be happily puttering around the house and whatnot.

This is just one example of how embracing and practicing these Habits could have helped

Tom, and how they can help you too. Excited? I have no doubt. Can’t wait to get started?

I thought so. Ready for the exercises? All right already, shut up and let’s get going.

* Men *

Now it’s time for one of our more important exercises. It involves angering your woman

and my ardent suggestion that you try your best not to. Now a man, being something

other than the sharpest tool in the shed, is often quite likely to ignore my suggestions and

go right ahead and piss his woman off. He will soon discover the truth behind the old

adage: “If she ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”. You want to be happy, don’t you? And

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you want her to be happy don’t you? And you want to go on living your relatively happy

life together, don’t you? Ok, so don’t piss her off!

The question, realizing that it has been asked in many forms throughout the ages, is how

does one go about accomplishing this at times seemingly insurmountable task? Well, I

have spent years tracking down the greatest historical texts on the subject. I have sat at

the edge of mist-shrouded Himalayan cliffs and pondered the question. I have walked the

shorelines of the oceans of the world lost in thought. Sometimes just lost. Finally, in the

most desolate part of the vast Ethiopian desert, within sight of King Solomon’s lost

mines, it came to me. There before me shown two distinct paths. Yes, nature has revealed

to me the paradox: These are two different paths which we men must travel at the same

time. What? How can a person travel on two paths at the same time? That my little

Locust, is the imponderable answer. Perhaps it was the imponderable question which was

not clear. Regardless, here now the two paths shall be revealed:

Don’t do anything to piss her off.

Don’t say anything to piss her off.

Exercise 2.1 – Don’t piss her off

Don’t do or say anything to piss her off. These should be your primary goals

with respect to your woman. So, how to go about accomplishing these goals?

Well, it really helps not to say anything stupid. Now, I am well aware that

this is likely not possible for most men. Guys, for the most part, can’t help

saying something stupid once in awhile (this is likely a daily occurrence).

The reason is this: During any given discussion a woman will have, oh say,

10 or more relatively completed thoughts swirling around in her head just

waiting to come out as fast as she can talk. While a man during this same

discussion will typically have no idea how the sentence he’s just started will

end. As a result, things just sometimes come out of a guys mouth without

having gone through the “should I really be saying this” filter.

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What I’m getting at is that it is important to get into the habit of thinking

through what you’re going to say before you say it. Men are not usually good

at this, because if they do attempt this they will forget what they were going

to say in the first place. It’s easier for a guy to actually say something first

and then listen afterwards to see if it sounds good. So, this exercise is

concerned with the process of thinking about what you’re going to say before

you say it. Now understand that this exercise won’t be of much benefit unless

you listen to that voice in your head to see if it’s actually saying something

you’re really going to want to say.

The result of practicing the art of thinking about what you’re about to say

first will be two-fold. You will find that you are talking less often and thus

less likely to say something stupid, and you will be surprised at how much

less often you piss your woman off. Why is your woman pissed off less

often? It’s because things that you once thought were a good idea to say to

her, you have recently discovered, probably were not. Case in point: My

friend Frank came into work one day looking rather poorly. I said to Frank,

“What’s wrong punkin?”. He looked at me with bloodshot, sleepless eyes and

related the following story (pay attention here):

Frank and his wife, Rhonda, were getting ready for dinner with

Frank’s parents last night. Rhonda was upstairs getting ready and

Frank was downstairs wrapping a present for his mom as it was

her birthday. They were going to meet his parents at a restaurant

in the city. When Rhonda came downstairs Frank, wanting to do

nothing but compliment his beautiful wife said, “You look really

good with make-up”. No apology could persuade her to speak to

him the remainder of the evening, though she was civil to his

parents during dinner I was led to believe.

Frank then related to me through a shattered spirit, the pain of a back aching

from a night on the couch and tired bloodshot eyes, one of the single greatest

proverbs ever uttered:

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“Anytime you say anything to a woman, it’s a crap shoot”

An incredible flash of insight into the female psyche, this was. From the

depths of his despair, Frank may have hit upon something interesting here.

Sometimes it may not be what you say, as much as when you say it. Now in

Frank’s case he could have uttered those unfortunate words to a woman in

1500 BC or 800 years from now and the reaction will likely be the same.

However, some things a man might say which might make a woman angry on

one particular day, may not receive the same reaction on another.

This brings up an interesting point. Sometimes men, having the awareness of

a bag of rocks, will not even know their women are mad at them. Of course

it’s easy to figure out she’s upset when dishes or crockery are whizzing past

your head, but on other occasions you may not have the luxury of these

external signs. Take, for example, the possibility that you have forgotten yet

another birthday, Valentines Day or anniversary. She’s waited the entire day

for you to surprise her with a gift demonstrating your love for her as well as

your capacity to remember important occasions. Instead, you inform her that

you’re on your way out to play poker with the guys and not to wait up for

him. Without looking up she will say, “fine”. You the man will think to

yourself, “Great, she doesn’t mind that I’m going out to play poker with the

guys tonight.” Wrong! Of course she does, you idiot. You need to understand

that often her saying something like “fine” implies that things are anything

but.

Now getting back to Frank and his unfortunate compliment. What could he

have done here to make his life a bit less miserable? Right, he could have said

nothing, He would have, of course, still been in trouble but significantly less.

If Frank had, however, practiced the exercises he would have scrapped that

original compliment for something less specific like, “You look lovely” or

“You look beautiful”. Don’t go running off into the weeds when it comes to

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compliments, you never know where you’ll end up. Since this is such an

important topic, I’ll give y’all another real-world example, this time from my

own brain-damaged experience:

It was the morning after the first night my girlfriend and I had

spent together. I was living in Redondo Beach, California and had

a small place by the ocean. My girlfriend, Cindy, and I were having

a romantic morning-after breakfast at one of the local hang-outs.

She was sitting next to the window with the rising sun behind her.

It was all very romantic and she looked very attractive. So I

lovingly, and with only the purest of intentions, said to her, “I Love

the way the morning sun sparkles through the fine downy hairs on

your upper lip.”

That was a memorable morning, yes indeed. Twenty years later and my foot

still aches when the weather changes. Now realize that even if I had run this

through my addled mind beforehand I would likely not have flagged it as

something which might have made her angry. The problem was that I had no

idea how women felt about facial hair, and in particular their own. So as long

as we’re on the subject of not pissing off your woman, let me state here and

now that if you were to completely ignore any hair on her face, you’ll be way

ahead of the game.

Exercise 2.2 - Compliments (basics)

Again, my advice would be to stick to tried and true compliments. Use only

those which have proven their virtue time and time again. Going out on your

own here risks being ignored for the evening at best and being written-up as

a Darwin Award with your head paraded around the internet on a virtual pole

at worst. So you say, what are the standard compliments which I can use with

relative safety? Glad you asked, here’s the complete list:

You look beautiful.

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You look lovely.

Your hair looks great (be careful with this one).

I love those shoes (make sure she’s wearing shoes).

So, that’s about it. These can be used interchangeably and at virtually anytime of

the day or night. I have heard that there may be one or two others which might

actually belong on the list, but I would approach them with the greatest caution.

However, for the sake of completeness I give you these other two as well:

Have you lost weight?

I've been thinking about you.

These compliments may sound good on the surface, but extreme caution should be

used. Consider the first: “Have you lost weight?”. Any man who does not see the

obvious problem with this one within one minute should be hit in the face with a

large frozen sea bass. Any implication that she may have, in any way, gained

weight should be seriously avoided. In fact, any talk about her weight at all should

be avoided as completely as any discussion concerning her facial hair.

The second compliment above, “I've been thinking about you”, will likely cause her

to wonder what you may have done to be thinking about her? Is he hoping that I

don’t find out about something or someone, she wonders? What’s he hiding, she

continues to ponder? You do not want this to happen. So please be careful if you do

choose to utilize these compliments. I’ve heard through the Poker-game grapevine

that there may also be unintended and delayed reactions with their use. I’ll let you

know if I hear more.

Another compliment which may seem innocuous is the all purpose: “Is that new?”

This will only work if whatever it is she is wearing is in fact new (note: if she's not

wearing any clothing this compliment may still be applicable in some instances). It

is far more likely that she’ll be wearing something she’s had for years that you

simply had never noticed. Remember the old saying; “Tis better to keep quiet and

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be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.” Again, this is a

very dangerous compliment, so use with caution.

Exercise 2.3 - Compliments (her hair)

Now as to the compliments concerning her hair. This is very important.

Never, never underestimate the importance of her hair. A good hair day for a

woman is as important to her as are her children. All of them. Although a

woman may be swayed in other areas by an obviously undeserved

compliment, this is not the case with her hair. If her hair does not look good

do not say a thing. To be safe, a simple compliment just before she goes out

in public would be appropriate. You’re pretty well assured that if she is about

to go out into a public setting, her hair will have been sufficiently dealt with

so that this compliment should be warranted. But still please be careful here,

you’re playing with fire.

Also, and this is very important, make sure that whenever she goes out to get

her hair done that you compliment her on it as soon as she gets back. Even if

she’s crying. Believe me, this happens more than you would think. I’m not

kidding here. Regardless of what she thinks about her hair at this point, you

MUST say that you think it looks wonderful. Repeat this no matter how hard

she cries. Never agree with her that it looks bad, you will regret it for a very

long time.

Exercise 2.4 - Compliments (her clothes)

You should be able to tell the difference between an everyday outfit and one

meant for a special occasion. This will be the difference between saying

something like, “You look nice darling” and something along the lines of

“Oh my God, you look incredible!”. Again make sure that you can tell the

difference between the two types of outfits. Don’t mistake one for the other.

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Again, you’re much better off saying nothing than the wrong thing. Case in

point:

My sweetie had just come home from shopping. I was sitting in the

living room minding my own damn business munching down guac

and chips and watching the game. She entered the room and

immediately started in on conversation while digging into the

boxes she’d brought home, effectively drowning out the game.

She was so excited, she couldn’t wait to show me what she’d

bought. And all I could do, what a lunkhead I was, was to sit there

without one fully-formed thought in my thick head watching Dallas

losing yet again to the 49’ers. So, she wriggles into this thing

which she’d spent no less than 2 hours trying on and stressing

over, smoothed it down the sides, stuck one leg out in a fashion

magazine pose and asked me what I thought.

I looked over at her and said, “It looks fine”. Turning my attention

once again to the game, I failed to notice her once joyful

expression degenerate into instant anger. Instant karma to be

accurate. Rookie move, dude. She, of course, thought that I hated

the dress. I, of course, did not hate the dress. I really didn’t care

one way or the other about the damn dress. But at that point none

of that really mattered. She was upset for about a week before I

finally figured out what I had done.

If this ever happens to you, please do not attempt to explain your way out of

it, just apologize. Even though this incident was technically not my fault (you

should now be laughing uproariously, of course it was my fault) apologize

immediately and sincerely. To conclude this story I, afterward, felt the need

to demonstrate in some fashion how much I really did love the dress. Well,

that didn’t work out as she had already taken the dress back, a dress that she

loved by the way, because I didn’t like it. She never let me forget that

incident. Sure, why should that be any different than any other incident she

never let me forget? Just be careful, that's all I’m saying.

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Exercise 2.5 - Lying

Don’t lie; you will get caught. In the same vein, don’t accuse your woman of

lying. You won’t catch her in one. Even if she is lying, she’s so far ahead of

you in hiding that lie that you’d never find out. She’ll have girlfriends

already set-up to corroborate any story she’d need to crush your accusations,

like she’s crushed your spirits. So don’t even bother. This goes for affairs as

well. Don’t bother with accusations, she’ll nail your ass to the wall and hang

a picture of her parents on it.

Now, when you do lie and you do get caught, admit everything and apologize

immediately. What, you say? Admit everything and apologize? Are you

crazy? Hold on now. I am well aware that others in the industry state

emphatically:

Never admit anything!

Make her prove everything!

Deny it even if she can prove it!

I’ve heard this time and time again. My friend Duane in Compton used to

say, “Don’t never cop to nothing. Even if she got pictures, even she got a

witness, even she catch you in bed with the bitch – don’t never cop to

nothing!” Well, I think I’d have to respectfully disagree there Duane. This

may sound like a dramatic departure from the accepted standard, but I

believe that for the most part a woman will forgive a man who is truly and

sincerely repentant. She will, however, not usually tolerate one series of lies

followed directly by another.

Anyway, this is my best advice Habit-wise: Get into the habit of simply

telling the truth about everything. It’s so much easier than lying and you

won’t need to remember anything other than what actually happened. This is

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provided, of course, that you can remember what had happened. Be aware

however that prior to getting into the habit of always telling the truth, you

may have to get into the habit of not doing things you’ll need to lie about.

That is going to be the hard part, isn’t it?

We’ve seen some of the habits which we men can adopt in order to keep from angering

our women. However, this is just elementary stuff. What we really want to do is much

more difficult. We want to remove obstacles which keep her from being happy, from

talking freely and expressing herself. Such as being pissed at you. It’s alright if she’s

pissed at someone else. In fact that’s the best of all possible worlds as you’ll gain points

here simply by being sympathetic with her. These are important concepts as are those

detailed within our next exercise. You may be of the opinion that because she is talking

that you actually need to be listening. Well yes you do, but only to the extent required.

Exercise 2.6 - Keep her talking

She needs to talk until she is finished talking and your job is to listen and pay

attention to her. It is important to realize that she knows that she will have

only a certain amount of your attention. That’s fine as long as it’s in

proportion to the importance of the conversation. For a really important

conversation you will need to pay close attention, and probably participate as

well. But for the most part, for most conversations, you don’t really have to

say much. A relevant comment or question now and again is probably all you

will need to interject. You may, if you’d like, simply employ the following in

a loop while she’s talking:

Really, no way, un huh, yeah, I know, she did, that bitch,

Really, no way, un huh, yeah, I know, she did, that bitch,

Really, no way, un huh, yeah,...

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This should work for most women for most conversations, which are not

relationship-related. That’s because your required participation is for the

most part limited. Just as is should be. Men talk when they have something to

say, which as we’ve seen should be sparingly. This is not the case with a

woman. Women will often be talking without realizing that they are doing

so. Either that or they just always have something to say.

While I’ve concentrated on the man’s part in all of this, what this

conversation does for the woman is very important. She will not feel close to

you unless she can tell you all of those things she wants to tell you, which is

pretty much whatever it is that comes into her head, for whatever reason,

concerning any subject, at any time.

* Women *

As for your part women, your primary goal is to keep your man well fed. A well-fed man

is a sleepy man, and a sleepy man is a good man. This is the best of all possible scenarios

as he is at home, quiet and is not making a mess in the house. Remembering an old

1950’s advertisement imploring housewives to make sure that their husbands where

made to feel as comfortable as possible when they got home from work, to wait on them

hand and foot and not to bother them with unimportant details as his problems were

much more important than hers, makes me wonder if women really ever embraced this

concept. I would hope not, but I believe that many men actually feel this way. A man

who believes this tripe is someone up with which you should not put. Though they’d

never admit it, most men have a deep-rooted desire to be taken care of. Your job, should

you choose to accept it, is to make sure that he can take care of his own damn self, that

he clean up any mess he’s made and that he get his ass in gear and help out with

housework.

The problem, of course, was his mother. She treated him like a minor deity, he could

probably do no wrong in her eyes. She likely did everything for him for the first, what,

20 or 30 years of his life. And now he expects similar treatment from you? Yeah, right.

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So, clearly you’ve got a lot of work to do in order to erase any traces of his mother’s

influence. I’d suggest you get up and get after it because he ain’t getting better on his

own.

Something to Remember: If he gets pissed-off, for whatever petty reason, and won’t

say a word to you or even acknowledge your presence, then there’s not much you can do

but to wait it out. It may take a day or two before he comes around, sometimes even

more. Unfortunately, there's really not much you'll be able to do but to just go about your

business like it’s no big deal. Because really it isn’t. Women think it’s a serious problem

when a man clams up, but it’s just a man's way of coping with things which can not be

successfully dealt with using conversation. Note that food is often a good ice-breaker

after about a day, and sex after two.

Exercise 2.7 - Keep Him Fed

Women, as has been mentioned, your primary goal should be to keep your

man well fed. A well-fed man is a man that is easy with which to deal. While

the well-fed man thing is probably not the most important goal with respect

to your man, it is often the most useful and the easiest on your back.

Fortunately, men can be trained to eat and survive on virtually anything.

There will be a section later which will show what they have likely eaten as

bachelors, it’s horrifying. Once you see this list you will understand how

easy it would be to get them to eat things like tofu, bran flakes, vegetables, or

fruit.

Let us take a real world example where you’ve slaved over a meal for him

which doesn’t turn out the way you have planned.

Several weeks after being married, my wife made her first

real dinner for us. It was turkey meatloaf with vegetables

and smashed potatoes. Really a nice feast. Halfway through

the meal, she asked what I thought of dinner since I’d been

too busy eating to say anything. I said without really

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thinking, “It’s good, it’s not like my Mother used to make”.

She, of course, heard “Well, I’ll choke this crap down if I have

to, but I sure do long for the days of my mother’s wonderful

cooking”. Whereas what I was actually thinking was, “Geez,

this is really good. My mom’s cooking was terrible. She

would cook everything for 2 hours at 350 degrees”. I, of

course, did not say this because I am an idiot. My next

memory was of a stinging sensation somewhere near the

back of my head where my wife had just slapped me and a

ringing in my ears that, when I focused on it, sounded like

her saying, “...and that's not all I'm going to do differently

than your mother”. To this day I really wished I would have

listened to the beginning of that sentence.

Exercise 2.8 - His Ego

As necessary as the care and feeding of a man may be, the more important

goal might be the never-ending effort of keeping his frail ego intact. Though

this is a difficult undertaking, realize that damaging his ego can be disastrous

for a relationship. So, understanding the male ego is important. OK, how do

we tip-toe around that frail ego thing of his anyway? It’s a paradox of nature

is what it is. He’ll gladly kill a giant spider (although he’ll need a gun and a

shot of tequila to get the job done), but when it comes to anything which may

dent his fragile ego, he’s just a little kid lost in a big department store whose

mom left him and didn’t come back for a long time.

So, what we want to keep in mind here is the likely outcome of not keeping

his frail ego intact. That being an injured man who feels he’s been unjustly

offended or verbally abused and who is probably going to clam up and not

say anything to anyone until his master plan to bring the entire world under

his domination, at which point his enemies will be dealt with properly, has

been realized. Either that or he’ll eventually get hungry having found that

bread, mustard and pickles are satisfying only to a certain extent, and ask you

to make something for him to eat. He should be fine again after a good meal.

- 44 -

Belittling him. Don’t belittle him in public, particularly in front of his

friends. Though his friends will love you for it, he will be pissed and

likely resent you for having done such a thing to him. So as tempting as

it may be, it’s just not worth whatever entertainment value may ensue.

Of course, in private, you're more than welcome to put him down in

any manner you see fit. But consider his possible defensive reaction to

this versus that resulting from a more loving form of constructive

criticism. Constructive criticism such as sleep training. A training tape

in a small tape recorded hidden under the bed can do wonders for all

sorts of things you’d like repaired.

Do you know the way to San Jose? When he’s driving, it is important

that he be allowed to navigate. Even if you get lost and it takes you

twice as long as it should to get anywhere. If you want to drive then, as

annoying as it may be, it’s a good idea to let him navigate. This is

because that is what men do, this is why we were born, To explore new

worlds, route the indigenous peoples, drive them from their lands and

exploit their vast resources. That’s what men do. They sail ships to the

farthest reaches of distant lands only to somehow find their way back

home again. It's a genetic thing, it’s nature and a calling which is

simply beyond our control.

The worse thing you can do to a man with respect to his navigational

skills, or the lack thereof, would be to skid to a stop by the side of the

road in frustration, grab the map from him and figure it out for

yourself. You will have at this point, accomplished two things: First,

you will finally figure out how to get to where it is your going and

second, you will have completely emasculated him. You will have, with

this thoughtless action of yours, caused a mutiny in a very real and

practical sense. His shipmates have essentially deemed him unworthy

of the duties entrusted to a navigator and so he has been

- 45 -

unceremoniously replaced. And by a woman no less. Realize that this is

one of those man things that will likely get worse before it gets better.

The Manly Man. Ask him to open jars, even if you can do it yourself.

Asking him to perform those simple tasks which you could do just as

well or better yourself will allow him to demonstrate to you his

usefulness. Men love to feel needed and useful. If you can manage to

find something for him to do involving strength or bravery, so much

the better. Try to make sure, however, that whatever it is you have him

do is not critical to the smooth functioning of the household of any of

its members. Giving him a task or chore which will keep him busy for

hours and will not cause you to become upset should the outcome be

less than ideal, is a good habit to get into on weekends.

So toward this end, some things which you might have him do around

the house to make him feel more useful would be; turning the mattress,

moving furniture, removing bugs and spiders, lifting boxes up onto

shelves, getting boxes down off of shelves, cleaning out the fireplace,

building a fireplace, cleaning the Bar-B-Que grill and protecting your

honor. Note that as far as the Bar-B-Que is concerned, men will say

that the grill should never be cleaned. Although he’s right, make him

do it anyway. It’s good to keep in practice.

Good boy. Keeping in mind that men love praise, even if undeserved,

it’s a good idea to praise him when he actually does something without

screwing up. Particularly if it’s something unexpected. Men live for this

and will occasionally do their level best not to screw-up. Also, if you

can make the praise (or better yet reward) commensurate with the thing

he actually did correctly, well you’ve got yourself a whale of a training

mechanism there. So, for example, the successful turning of the

mattress without breaking anything in the bedroom may result in a pat

on the head and a kiss, whereas the successful installation of a

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dishwasher might result in his favorite meal followed by his favorite

bedtime activities. Yes, yes I know but come on, it is a dishwasher for

God’s sake!

Now if he has screwed-up something, praising him for it will only

confuse him. In this case you may feel the need to swat him with a

rolled-up newspaper or rub his nose in it but please refrain. He had

probably done his best and things just for whatever reason didn’t work

out. Regardless of how you’d like to handle these touchy situations, if

you want to have him continue doing things for you in the future it

might be best to occasionally keep your thoughts to yourself -

regardless of their relevance.

Hey baby. Don’t tell him he’s good in bed if he’s not. He’ll never get

better this way. Don’t fake it either. Men would rather that you tell

them they’re inept than to deceive them. Although others will say

differently, men really do want to learn to please you. Too often,

however, this is more important to you than it is to him. We all know

that he is likely to, how shall we say, reach the promise land pretty

much every time. To you, however, it may be just a hazy memory in

the distant past. Is this the way you want to live your life? No, I didn’t

think so.

If he’s not good in bed, then help him learn. In fact, learning together

has great benefits. Get yourselves a book, a video, a surrogate (well,

maybe that’s going a bit too far), anything which will help him learn

more about you. Help him learn what you like and what you want.

Realize that he probably has no idea about your needs. He barely has a

clue about his own. He’s yours, dammit, train him! If you don’t you’ll

regret it for the rest of your life. That’s not what you want is it? Again,

I didn’t think so.

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Exercise 2.9 - Understanding His Lies

Women need to understand something about men. A man can not typically

get through an entire day without lying to you at least once. They don’t mean

to and certainly have no intention of hurting you, but they can’t help

themselves. It’s like a religion for guys. No, more like an addiction. No,

actually it’s more like a disease. That’s it, it's like a disease and we have little

if any control over what we say sometimes because, well, because of this

damned disease. You have to forgive us because we need help. Medical help.

Yeah, that’s it, we need some medicine. No, I’m lying. We need neither help

nor medicine. See how easy it is?

It’s just that if we tell the truth all of the time then as a result there will be

questions, inquires, discussions. It all becomes very complicated and so to be

avoided. If, however, we make things simpler, then there is less to question.

Take for example, the standard female question, “Where have you been for

the past 3 hours”? This question would likely elicit one of the following

standard male responses:

I was at Jim’s.

I was at Fred’s.

I was at work.

I was stuck in traffic.

I thought I was having a heart attack and so went to the hospital, but

when I got there I felt better and so I guess it was just indigestion

and then I stopped and had a quick drink just to make sure I was

OK and then I came right home.

Guys are not born liars as many women would suspect. They learn to lie.

They learn that lying to women is often easier than answering questions. And

y’all do ask lots of questions. Take bachelor parties, for example. I have been

- 48 -

to only one in my life, and mine was not one of them. I couldn’t make my

own bachelor party – don’t ask. Anyway, the one I did attend was innocent

enough (I was led to believe) as far as bachelor parties go. There wasn’t

anything overly lewd or lascivious. Although there were these two girls that

had this...well, let's simply say that it was a tastefully done performance.

As innocent as this party was, when I arrived home, at a very reasonable hour

mind you, I was immediately and mercilessly bombarded with questions,

accusations, suggestions, and innuendo concerning my activities. Well, I

thought this was completely uncalled for and so I protested saying to her,

“What gives you the right to ask me how my evening was”? She feigned

some surprise at my clever retort to her, what turned out to be very innocent

question, laughed, shook her head and walked away. I showed her no mercy

and demonstrated just who the boss was by sleeping on the couch for a week.

So, we’ve talked quite a bit about why men lie and some of the ways in

which they do so. It is my hope that women out there now understand that

men use lies in essentially the same way that women use chocolate: as a

crutch. We don’t really need it, we can get by without but our lives would

really suck. I have not, up to this point, touched upon a females capacity for

generating lies of their own since it doesn't happen too often. Women tend to

be more truthful than are men. I think this is because they have a better

memory. However, if a woman does lie it tends to be a biggie. Something

along the lines of; “Yeah sure, I’m 18” or the ever-popular, “The batteries

are for the remote, you idiot” is more in keeping with the sorts of lies which

a woman might conjure-up. Yes, what they lack in quantity they certainly

more than make up for in quality.

- 49 -

Habit #3

Do Something Else First

My grandmother once said, “Whatever you want to do, you always have to do something

else first”. Well, she was right. I wanted to get married but had to find a woman first.

Age old wisdom is amazingly wise. While grandma knew a good saying when she heard

one, she didn't go far enough. The more accurate version, I think, would be, “Do what

needs to be done in the proper order.” This, I think, gives one a better perspective on the

situation.

Here’s the thing of it, in order to get from where we are to where we would like to be

(your goal) we need to figure out how to get there. The best way to do this is to find a

nice quiet place somewhere and start drinking until it comes to you. This might take 3 or

4 stiff drinks, so don’t give up. Once you do figure out what you need to do (get

divorced, married, pregnant, sober) and you’ve furthermore determined how to achieve

that goal (get a lawyer, a relationship, a donor, some coffee), all you have to do is to put

your plan into action. This means that you, yes you Mister, must now get up off of your

butt and get to work.

Man, Woman or somewhere in-between, bottom line is that you need to become an

active part of your relationship or the relationship ship is going to sail without you -

nautically speaking. You and your partner need to determine what you want your

relationship to be like and work to achieve it as best you can. This may take quite a bit of

effort and planning. That being said, I'm not one to get carried away here with the

planning and all. You can plan as much and as finely detailed as you’d like, but odds are

whatever it is you’ve planned either won’t work as planned or simply won’t work at all.

That’s my experience anyway. Maybe it’s just me. As a result, I’m not big on planning

but preparation is another matter.

I definitely support the concept of being fully prepared at all times. I was once a Boy

Scout don’t you know. Well, if you want to get technical about it, not actually a Boy

Scout but a Weblow. A Weblow (what an odd word) is the limbo state adolescent boys

- 50 -

are mired in until they can perform some secret ritual which proves them somehow

worthy of joining the Boy Scouts. I never quite made it - washed out - 4F. Not big on

rituals, I guess. And let me tell you, being unceremoniously drummed out of the

Weblow's doesn’t look good on a resume. Where was I? Ah, planning; this Habit is all

about planning which I said I wasn’t big on, but we’re going to do it anyway as my

sweetie has recently explained to me that, yes, we do want to do this. So, there it is.

Welcome, weary traveler. If you have done some of the exercises so far you are now a

much more conscientious partner or are well on your way toward becoming one. Very

good, very good. Now you’ll need a way in which to achieve the goals you’ve set for

yourself. Did I mentioned that you should set some goals? Well, if I haven’t, you should

- set some goals that is. So, let’s say you’ve done this and that you have goals you’d like

to achieve. What we need is a process, a set of rules as it were, designed to take us from

where we are to where we want to be without pissing off our women. This is where

planning comes in which I said I didn’t want to do, but have recently seen the light.

If you remember the basics of the previous exercise, you’ll want to have a goal in mind

when you go off and start doing something. Now we can discuss the means by which we

might reach those goals: the Plan. Consider this Plan kind of like a roadmap you’d use to

get from where you are, which is probably either lost or in trouble, to where you want to

be, which is not. Think of it like a connect the dots game. Along the way will be things

you will need to do or say in order to get to the next point on the map. Let us not confuse

this connect-the-dots plan we have with other types of Gender-Specific maps. These

other maps are specific to each sex. Some example would be:

Language map. Women have an innate ability to create language maps in their

minds when it’s related to discussions and / or debate. Don’t ever try to debate or

argue with a woman. In the first place you will likely not win, and in the second

even if you win, you lose. Women travel these maps effortlessly while arguing

which is why we men have trouble in arguments; we tend to take the scenic

routes.

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Roadmap. Men seem to be better at roadmaps such as those you’d fold-up and

put away somewhere until you’re so lost that it wouldn’t help had you

remembered where it was when you needed it in the first place. That’s what men

are good at. That and forming needlessly convoluted sentences.

* Men *

Ah women, what would we do without them. Likely die off within a generation one

would imagine. So, thankfully they put up with us. Let’s face it, we’re not easy to live

with. We don’t usually think of anyone other than ourselves, we leave a mess wherever

we’ve been and often have little tolerance for others. This is a testament both to the lack

of awareness in most men as well as the saintly nature of most women. I think that only

because of these basic attributes of each sex has the human race managed to propagate

itself.

It’s clear that we men should have the wherewithal to better ourselves in some small way

so that we’re not so very difficult to live with, and a little lesson in planning should be

just what the doctor ordered. The goal of these exercises is to focus how to get from

where you are, which is probably in trouble, to where you want to be, which is probably

not in trouble. When working through these exercises keep in mind that you’ll want to

appear to keep her and her needs first and foremost in your mind. In reciprocation, she

will concern herself more and more with your needs as well. This is known as a win /

win strategy.

Exercise 3.1 - How to Plan

It has been said that failure to plan is a plan for failure. I'm guessing that this

is only true if you have a goal or destination in mind. If not, then any result is

probably just as good as any other. Like the sailors used to say, “If your not

picky about your harbor, Matey, then any wind is a good wind”. If, however,

any wind is not necessarily a good wind and you do have a goal in mind then

the question becomes just how to go about creating a viable plan to achieve

- 52 -

that goal. This is the question this exercise purports to address. Now, as to

whether or not it addresses it any sort of useable manner is anyone’s guess.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that you do manage to create some kind of

plan. At that point the issue of its actual execution becomes relevant. This is

usually where everything falls apart. When it comes to any plan involving

women, things just don’t seem to work out for us. It’s true, men over the

millennia have struggled with these issues with little success. As evidence of

this I would point to the distinct lack of progress in this area. What this

means is that I searched the internet and found nothing relevant.

As a result of this lack of available information, I have recently decided to

apply advanced scientific principles to the problem of planning and execution

and have come up with what I think is the answer. Or at least an answer. I

have looked at thousands of potential situations and have found that they all

fall into one of several simple categories. Well, this was great. All I needed

to do was to come up with a simple plan for each category, and the rest as

they say, was history. In theory, then all you would need to do is to figure out

which category your particular situation falls into, and simply execute the

plan associated with that category. Could it be any easier? Well, I guess that

someone could do all of this for you while you sit on your butt watching TV.

But since that's not going to happen then, no, it couldn’t be any easier.

Category: You want to get out of the house.

OK, so maybe there’s a game that you want to watch with your

buddies, or maybe you just want to go out for a drink. Hoist a few

down to the local pub as it were. Well, that may work in boring

English sitcoms, but women these days are typically none too thrilled

with their men spending the evening, not to mention the household

funds, on beer at the local pub. However, we as guys need to get out

once in a while and have ourselves some real fun. And I’m not

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talking about shopping here. We need to go to sports bars and cheer

on our team with others like us. We want to watch the game with the

guys and have a few drinks, or shoot some pool and have a few

drinks, or play some darts and have a few drinks. Regardless of the

reason, the need is the same; to get out of the house for a few hours

on your own.

Plan: Make her think it's her idea.

Realize that sometimes she wants you out of the house just as badly

as you want to get out. Hold on now, I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, “Shoot, all I need to do is to make such a pest of

myself that she won’t ever mind if I go out”. Yes, well chances are

you’ll be out on your butt for good if you try that - our goal is to

make sure that when you get back, you can get back in the house as

well. Now often this is not such a difficult task and saying something

to her like, “I'm going over to Kurt’s to watch the game.” is sufficient

provided that you also tell her what time to expect you back home. So

adding, “I’ll be back in before 4 my sweet darling. Is there anything I

can pick up at the market on my way back?”, will make this a no-

brainer. You have successfully provide her with all of the information

she’ll need to make plans for what she’ll do when you're out. Now

you’re wondering just what she’ll be up to when you’re gone, aren’t

you? Well, forget it – it’s none of your business.

However, if this is not the case and she’s actually not so keen on

you’re going out, then you’ll have to do something clever. So, here’s

what I would suggest. Pick yourself a friend from work (let’s call him

Tom) that she knows of but does not know that well. Have Tom call

you about an hour before you want to go out. Make sure she hears

your conversation. Say to Tom something like, “Nope, sorry buddy.

This is something you’re going to have to get through on your own.

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Yeah. Bye.” She’ll inquire as to the content of the conversation. Let

her know that Tom is have marital problems and wanted you to come

over so he could talk about them. You might want to build this up

over several days or weeks if you really want to be proactive.

Mention that your not very comfortable with the concept.

Your wife will be so shocked that another man has come to you as a

confidant, as someone to whom he can turn to for marital advice, that

she’ll probably encourage you to help him. In doing this she is

thinking that this is an excellent opportunity for you to exercise that

unused comforting, emotional side of yours while also giving you an

opportunity to reflect on your own wonderful relationship. She’ll

practically be pushing your ass out of the house. Of course, for the

three hours that you’re watching the game with your buddy the bulk

of the conversation is along the lines of, “Dude, want another beer?”,

but she doesn’t need to know that. Also, do your level best not to

come home drunk. You’ll wind up doing something stupid like

calling her a dame and throwing up on her shoes. Take it from me,

chicks hate that.

Category: You want to buy something for yourself.

Let’s say your walking through Sears minding your own business and

there it is, the 2,500 piece Craftsman Professional tool kit complete

with metric and standard socket sets, color-coded spanners, Allen

wrenches, shivs, shims, taps and dies. All 100% guaranteed for life

for only $159.99, what a great deal. Now being that Christmas is 8

months off and your birthday was last month, there is little chance

that you'll be getting this magnificent tool set anytime soon. Or worse

yet, imagine you see that beautiful Ranger Bass Boat you’ve always

wanted heading down the freeway. It’s completely decked out and

some little runt of a pipsqueak with a tongue stud is towing it with a

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green '74 Vega Station Wagon. What the hell is this world coming

to? Anyway, the clever implementation of the plan described below

may help you gain what should rightfully be yours in the first place.

Damn, a Vega!

Plan: Make her think it’s her idea.

Unless you can convince her that a big floods a-comin' you’re not

likely to get that Bass Boat anytime soon. Especially on your income.

Your best bet here is to inherit a boat from some relative who, unlike

you, had an investment strategy which included something other than

lottery tickets and selling cans of “Billy Beer” on eBay. The

Craftsman toolset, however, is much more likely. You see, what your

going to need to do here is to, in some way, demonstrate the utility of

those items you want to buy. You want to show how much better and

easier your lives would be with this thing. The tool set is relatively

easy since there are always things to be done or fixed around the

house. She will ask however, why you need so many tools and

wouldn’t a screwdriver and a wrench suffice. Simply begin by

discussing the different types of drills you will need for different

types of materials until her eyes glaze over. She will walk away

toward the women’s clothes section leaving you with a credit card

and her with the beginnings of a headache.

If you cannot figure out a utilitarian use for whatever it is you want to

buy (like a pool table) simply figure out another way in which it can

be used to make your lives better and easier. Note that Americans

define better and easier as having to push fewer buttons (“...now with

one-touch cooking”). If it is a pool table you’re after then showing

how it could also be used as an extra dining table for those

Thanksgiving holidays when family invades, or as an extra bed for

those guests who want to stay the night and need a nice firm mattress,

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might just do the trick. She’ll wonder why not just get another table

or bed. You’ll have to explain how difficult it would be to play pool

on a table or bed.

Although you might think that something like a new set of metal

drivers would be out of the question unless you had the forethought

to first ply her with jewelry, this is not necessarily the case. She will

see something like a new set of drivers as a useful item. It is a device

which will aid in getting you out of the house occasionally. She sees

this as a good thing, because sometimes you just drive her nuts.

Category: You want something Special for your Birthday.

For about 2 or 3 weeks prior to your birthday, she’ll be attentive to

anything you might have your eye on, or something that you may

mention in passing. This is not the time to get carried away with

unreasonable or unrealistic requests (example, if she didn’t do it on

your wedding night she’s not going to do it now). Let’s take a

realistic example of something attainable. How about that Bass boat

you’ve always wanted? The hell, you say? How am I going to get a

Bass boat for my birthday? What you need is a way to get results.

How, you ask, again growing weary of this? Well, one way is to

threaten her with something like, “If you don't buy me a metal-flake

red Range Bass boat for my birthday, I'm going to sleep with your

sister.” This will definitely get you results. They are not likely,

however, to include that Bass boat you wanted. So if your goal is to

acquire a Bass boat rather than to have your ass thrown out of the

house followed by all of your shit, then read on, seeker of knowledge,

read on.

Plan: Make her think it’s her idea.

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What you want to do is to again be a bit proactive about this and do a

bit of planning. So, several months before your birthday start looking

into Bass boats. Leave some catalogues around, access appropriate

web-sites, go to a boat show or two. A week or so before your

birthday she’ll be attentive as to what it is you might want. When you

detect this, just say that basking in the glow of the hearts and hearths

and his family is all that any man would ever need. And furthermore

that your life would be so much more complete if you were able to

actually provide for your family by, oh I don’t know, catching,

cleaning and cooking fish for the family meal on occasion. But how

to go about doing that...yes, how would one actually go about

catching a fish? How indeed.

Now it the time to startle her out of her waffle-stompers. Get out the

calculator and start those fingers a-flyin'. Some graph paper might

also help as well. With some sleight-of-hand and the magic of

mathematics, you'll need to demonstrate to her how this Bass boat

will pay for itself in just 15 short years. Yes indeed, given an average

of 15 fish caught per day for 15 years compounded annually and

adjusted for inflation, this will save enough in food purchased at the

store to pay for the Bass boat. Make sure the graph paper is

completely covered with lots of numbers and percentage signs.

Women hate percentage signs. Note, the bigger her headache at this

point the more likely it is you’ll get your Bass boat.

Category: You don’t want to visit her Mother.

It’s Sunday and you’ve got both the National and American League

playoff games to look forward to - one in the morning and the other

in the afternoon. You have beer chillin' in the fridge, chips and salsa

ready as well. This is going to be great as you clear away everything

on the coffee table to make way for your upcoming feast. This is

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about the time your woman will come in and ask just what the hell

you think you’re doing (she will neither wait nor be interested in an

answer) because you should be getting ready to go to her Mother’s in

less than an hour or did you forget? Remain calm. In the first place,

no you did not forget. Don’t hesitate, make sure you say this quickly

as if it’s been on your mind all along. In the second place, you’d

better read the plan on this one or your going to be spending the rest

of the day looking at 50-year-old pictures of her long-departed

family, drinking lukewarm dead flower tea and choking down

biscotti.

Plan: Make her think it's her idea.

Remember you’re a sensitive guy. You want to make sure that your

woman is getting everything she needs nutritionally, physically and

emotionally. And you want to make sure that she is aware that it was

just recently that you were listening to Dr. Phil discussing

relationships (her eyebrows should be way up on her forehead at this

point) and that several women had called in to say that the advice of

their Mothers was often a great help and benefit to them. And in

particular, the time that they can spend alone with their Mothers to

talk and share feelings seemed so very important to these women. You

also want her to know that her well-being is very important to you and

if that means having to forgo a visit to her Mothers now and again in

order to allow them both the time they need together, well then so be

it. Let her know that you are willing to make that sacrifice. This will

go over well, if you have actually listened to Dr. Phil and can quote

him on occasion.

Exercise 3.2 - You, Before and After

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This exercise is just something to think about and reflect upon. When a man

comes into a woman’s life it’s as if she’s just received a square 200 pound, 6-

foot tall block of granite on her door step. She sees this big lump of a thing

sitting there taking up space on her porch and in her life. Well, she can’t very

well deal with this thing as it is, so what does she do? She does what every

good woman does. She drags this thing in the house and cleans it up, wipes it

down, picks the crust out of its eyes and basically prepares this thing for the

onslaught to come. Next she gets out her hammer and chisel, metaphorically

speaking, or sometimes not, and starts chipping away at this poor slob of a

guy to see what’s really under there.

And that’s pretty much what actually happens. She’ll begin chipping away at

you with subtle nagging, thinly veiled suspicion, vague characterizations

concerning your family, doubts about your manhood until there’s nothing

more left to chip away. Then, when your standing there naked and

defenseless, she’ll decide whether or not she actually wants to keep you. She

may not, so be prepared to rebuild your soul quickly because there’s more

date’s awaitin' out there.

There is a much more devious manner in which women will chip away at

that stubborn exterior of the male. It’s difficult to explain, but it involves the

subtle manipulation of the male into situations in which he will likely fail or,

at the very least, will become embarrassed. Or sometimes only for

entertainment purposes. Regardless, of the motivation the deviousness of

these actions cannot be overstated. Let me relate the following story which

will illustrate what I mean:

Many years ago my girlfriend, Carol, and I took a trip to Big

Bear for some R&R. As my car was in the shop we had taken

her car, a Honda Accord. Before we left I told her that I

wouldn’t be able to help her drive as it was not an automatic

and I had never learned to drive a stick. She had no problem

with driving the 3 hours there and back. Well, wouldn’t you

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know that on the way back she decided that she was just too

tired to drive any further and so guess who was elected to

drive. Yes, that’s right; the only person in the car who did not

know how to drive a stick.

She said that it would be easy for me to drive a stick and

that once I got into 3rd or 4th gear I wouldn’t have to bother

with that shifting thing any longer. So, what the hell. We had

stopped at a deserted intersection somewhere near Apply

Valley where we swapped places in the car. Immediately 4

other cars showed up at the intersection, including an

impatient little guy in a big truck behind me. Carol said that

since the car was still running I could just put the car in gear

and get going.

Well, I wasn't an idiot. I’d watched people drive manual

transmissions before. I had a good idea of the basics. So I

put the clutch in, shifted into gear, let out the clutch, moved

forward about 2 feet and promptly stalled the car. I was

slowly edging into the intersection trying to restart the car

when Carol began laughing. I popped the clutch once again

and started moving forward, but only a few inches at which

point the car again stalled. The other cars began honking as

I was now blocking the entire intersection. Carol was

laughing so hard that she couldn’t tell me that I was trying to

start out in 3rd gear. I was trying to get out of that

intersection for almost 5 minutes. Giving up I just got out,

walked to the side of the road and sat down. Carol regained

her composure, came to her senses and finally drove us

home. I didn’t talk to her the entire way back.

Exercise 3.3 - Apologies

I can hear you men now, “Why should I apologize to her? I didn’t do

nothing”. Oh you fool, have you learned nothing? OK, let’s go over this

slowly. Consider the all too common occurrence: She’s mad at you and

you’re not sure why. All that you know is that something is bothering her.

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Sound familiar? So, what do you usually do. You end up apologizing to her

without knowing why you’re doing so. Men make this mistake only once (or

twice if you’re stupid). She will immediately ask why you’re apologizing.

You will have to admit to her that you don’t know why you’re apologizing

which will generate yet another round of apologies. A vicious circle, no?

Now, had you been born a woman you would know what’s bothering her.

And what’s bothering her is typically the fact that you, her man, her one and

only partner in life, the person who is closer to her than anyone in the world,

doesn’t know what's bothering her. That’s right, she often feels that you

really know nothing about her and furthermore have no interest in learning.

Since you are a man, you continue to have no idea why she should be upset

because, well, it still doesn’t make any sense does it? Be patient, little

Locust, one day you too may understand.

Whether or not you understand the preceding Zen Koan, you will need to

deal with this situation effectively. Of course, the best way to apologize to a

woman is to apologize for something you’ve actually done wrong. At least

here you know what you’re apologizing for, whereas in some situations you

may not. Well, fear not gentlemen. I have here the cure for what ails ya.

That’s right guys, gather around and sample Dr. Patience’ Generic Apology

Elixir. Distilled from the finest phrases found throughout the world this tonic

should work wonders for any situation in which you find you are confused,

tired and lacking focus. And so without further ado, here you go: “Darling, I

am sorry I have not taken the time to understand you and your needs. My

desire to provide for you and your comfort has tragically robbed us of our

precious time together. I promise to be more attentive to you in the future my

darling sweetheart.” This, guys, is as good as it gets.

The next best way to apologize is to apologize for something you’ve actually

done wrong. Now, having said that, try not to apologize for anything she may

only suspect you of, but has no proof. Only cop to something she can prove.

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However, once your guilt has been proven admit everything immediately.

This may sound like a contradiction, but we’re not necessarily discussing

something rational here so bear with me. The decision as to how to best

handle this situation will involve understanding just what it is she thinks

you’ve done wrong. You need to figure out why she’s angry regardless of the

difficulty. Then, at least you’ve got some specifics concerning your

transgression. You can sprinkle these specifics liberally throughout your

subsequent apology to add credence and believability. Be sincere, though. A

woman can see the lies in your eyes.

Consider, however, the scenario in which you may be accused of something

you had not done. This happens more often than you would think,

particularly if you’re in the habit of actually doing things for which you end

up in trouble. Given that this is not the case this time, and that you are

innocent, you’ve got two choices here:

Prove her wrong. Yeah, this is a good idea. Prove her wrong thus

exonerating yourself and pissing her off in the process. Present your

evidence, call your witnesses, file your writ of Habeas Corpus and

show in excruciating detail how and why she is wrong. This will gain

you the day, but lose you the night - if you get my drift. You have to

ask yourself, just what is it you’re after here anyway? To be right and

alone on the couch, or wrong with her in bed. The choice, as they say,

is yours.

Apologize. Yes, that’s right, apologize at once for whatever it was

you’ve been accused. Ask for her forgiveness and make sure you

sound sincere. Don’t sob and don’t whimper. Apologize like a man;

on your knees, wearing nothing but an athletic supporter, a lobster bib

and a jaunty cap. Try to make your eyes as big as possible, like a

puppy’s.

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Depending upon what it is you’ve done, one or the other described above

may be correct. Try not to do both as she will take you apart like she took

apart her Ken Doll when it didn’t call Barbie the day after she finally put

out. Geeze, this therapy doesn’t seem to be helping at all does it? Well,

anyway consider the following example:

My friend Jeff and a female co-worker of his went to a store

during their lunch break to pick up a present for a colleague.

A friend of Jeff’s wife happened to see them during their

shopping excursion. She called and told his wife just what

she thought she was seeing which, of course, was wrong.

Jeff’s wife had the afternoon to ponder the situation.

So when Jeff got home that evening he knew something was

amiss, by virtue of his clothing strewn about the front lawn. I

guess this is preferable to having ExLax secretly stuffed into

ones dinner as had happened to another friend. Jeff instantly

and immediately apologized for not telling her sooner about

the shopping outing. Though it did take quite some time, as

well as quite the number of shinny baubles, she did

eventually forgive him. Jeff showed great poise and presence

of forethought here by defusing a potentially difficult

situation.

Imagine what could have happened if Jeff were to have argued his case rather

than apologized to his wife. Again, we need to keep in mind just what is the

goal here? Do you really want to prove her wrong? This would likely require

a great deal of energy and where will that effort likely lead? To a harmonious

home life and a comfortable relationship with your one and only true love? I

think not. Look at the big picture and ask yourself if proving her wrong is in

your best interest. In my opinion, often it is not.

* Women *

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Men are relatively easy to deal with since they’re fairly simple creatures which require

no more than basic maintenance (oil, filters, lube, wash, rinse, repeat). Though most

men need no more than this and the occasional heaping plate of barbecued ribs to get by,

there are additional concerns with which you may want to familiarize yourself.

Exercise 3.4 - More Basics

The basics we speak of here are the absolute necessities in the world of

men, though women, for the most part, have no concept of their place in his

world. Women will see this as just another set of excuses for men to drink.

While there certainly may be some truth to this do not take these basics

lightly as their importance cannot be overestimated.

Sports. Men need sports like women need shoes. I'm serious. It’s a

genetic thing and you, the female, do not necessarily need to

understand but rather simply to tolerate. Most men do not need (or

want) to play sports. Living vicariously through their sporting idols is

more than enough. The real problem with sporting events (baseball,

football and basketball are the favorites for the American male) is not

that he’ll spend a serious amount of time laying on the couch stuffing

his face with heavily-salted snack foods watching people with thyroid

conditions running around like idiots, it’s that his mood will vary

depending upon the fortunes of his particular team. You will likely

not know how his team has done until after the game has ended and

something tips you off as to his mood (like a fist through the wall or

attempting back flips in the living room).

If you have the sort of man whose idea of a manly sporting event

includes snooker, darts or cricket then what you’ve got there is either

an Englishman or some kind of European mongrel. An Englishman

can be dealt with to some extent as long as he’s not a soccer hooligan.

Soccer-crazed men simply exist to serve as an example to others. Not

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so much as a mentor as it is a 'Scared Straight' sort of thing. American

men, in general, think that any sport which can be viewed while

eating and drinking is just fine with them. However, if you got

yourself one of those European types who think that bathing is a

spectator sport, you might want to find the section on his hygiene and

study up on it.

Alcohol, etc.. Men need to drink something. Men need to smoke

something. Men need to prepare themselves for any and all upcoming

female engagements. Note that alcohol, and such are even more

important if there is no upcoming female engagement on the horizon.

Men love beer, but will drink wine if there’s a damn good reason,

such as there’s nothing left in the house but Drambui and Ovaltine (an

attempt to mix the two is not a mistake men are likely to repeat). So,

let’s discuss a man’s need for alcohol and the like. A man sees the

world as it is: Rotten. It’s a tough world and it’s getting tougher.

Nothing is easy for a man, and his surly demeanor reflects the trials

he’s had to endure. This is why men drink. That and women. I’m not

certain what percentage of a men’s alcohol intake is attributable to

women but I’d venture to say upwards of 95% or so. Ladies, that’s

how important you are.

A woman sees the world as it should be: Lovely, filled with hearts,

stars and butterflies. A place where animals don’t eat one another, but

rather order out. If you doubt this, check out the difference between

men’s and women’s prisons. A man’s prison is a hell hole, a hole in

one of the lower levels of hell to be accurate. A woman’s prison is

basically a quilting bee with discussion groups and daily support

sessions led by a team of consoling consolers. It’s just how women

are, it’s their nature. So women by their very nature have a pretty

good view of the world, unrealistic as it may be, while men need

something to give the world that rosy color. And there’s nothing like a

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couple of good stiff Zombies or Long Island Iced Teas to rosy-things-

up some. Women, once he has reached this semi-blissful state, it is a

perfect time to talk to him. He will pay attention better than he’s been

able to before and will remember the conversation just as well.

Sports Bars. Combining the best of both worlds we have sports and

alcohol in a smoky, mostly male-only environment. With scantly-clad

waitresses serving the drinks, you have the male version of paradise

here on Earth. This is an environment in which the male can get

plastered with others of his kind while loudly rooting for his team.

No, not just his team, their team! The entire place is typically rooting

for one team or the other. A tip for the women out there. If you, a

female, were to be stuck in a sports bar with no way out, just do what

my uncle Jimmy in Texas does. He’s almost blind and when driving

figures out when to go or stop by what the car next to him does.

You can do the same thing and go along with the group. Simply cheer

when everyone else does and say “crap” when they do as well.

Regardless of the sport, you’ll be a real fan in no time. You should

realize, however, that women other than waitresses are looked upon in

a Sports Bar as bad luck. Just as on the ships of old, women are

viewed with suspicion in these venues. So, if the home team starts to

pull up lame, you may want to excuse yourself and slip out of the

women’s bathroom window. Just something to keep in mind.

Food (Pizza, Ribs, Burgers, Tacos, etc.) Anything other than pasta,

quiche, fruit or vegetables. If it doesn’t contain meat, it ain’t food. It’s

probably the stuff that food eats. My friend Fast Eddy once said that

he had not eaten a vegetable in 20 years, “I think if I ate a vegetable

now it would kill me”. In this, men and women differ greatly. My Ex

wouldn’t eat anything with eyelashes or a face. I won’t eat anything

that didn’t have a face. Men love anything that is deep fried, and it

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seems that you can deep fry almost anything. My Grandma was

making deep fried okra and hush puppies for my Grandpa one day

when I asked if she wasn’t concerned about cholesterol? She looked at

me like I was insane and said, “Everyone today is worried about fat

and cholesterol. Why, back in my day, we didn’t have cholesterol.

Crap, if we did, we woulda just fried it up and ate it”.

Food is about as important to men as is sex; depending upon the time

of day, maybe more. You can, if you have your sweet little heart set

on it, spend hour after hour making him a wonderful meal; perfectly

braised lamb basted with caramelized carrots and new red potatoes,

nice big bowl of greens, freshly baked sourdough bread (which you

made yourself using your own starter), and a hot Granny Smith apple

pie with melted Cheddar cheese. He will spend about 5 minutes

stuffing everything down, belch loudly, wipe his mouth on the table

cloth, go into the living room to watch TV and pass out while you sit

there gaping like a trout, no longer looking forward to a wonderful

meal and scintillating conversation. You can get mad if you want, but

it probably won’t do any good. You have been warned.

His Things. Women like to throw stuff out. His stuff.

Everything that is needed she already has and so his crap is no longer

necessary. It may, however, not be as easy as simply tossing

something of his into the garbage. He may have developed some

attachment to that 30-year-old bean-bag chair, the broken and leaking

lava lamp, or that hideous green vinyl couch. He will attempt to

explain to you that his silverware is actually the tradition snowflake

pattern in which every one is different. He will, of course, not be

successful. You can start by telling him that all of his crap is crap and

should be thrown out because it smells like someone’s feet. Make sure

that you don’t give in here, this is not the place to compromise. His

stuff is crap, I know it, you know it, he knows it. Just get rid of it.

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Mute, deaf women. On occasion a man will need for you to be deaf

and mute - probably at the same time. He will need you to be deaf in

the sense that you pretend not to have heard the stupid things he’s just

uttered, and mute in the sense that you won’t say anything about it to

him or anyone else. This is technically known as a 'mulligan' and he

will owe you one for doing this for him. Note: for the women out

there. A mulligan is when you are on the golf course and you take a

swing at the ball and screw-up so badly, that your friends choke

because they’re laughing so hard. You get to replay that ball once

without penalty. You usually get one mulligan per round. This is

opposed to a 'dick-out' which is what happens if you don’t hit your

initial drive past the woman’s tee. In that event you have to walk that

hole with your dick sticking out of your pants - hence the term 'dick-

out'. They never grow-up, do they?

His private cave. From the “Men are from Mars...” crowd we know

that men will, on occasion, go and sit in their caves to be alone and

ponder things. This is how men work things out and figure it out for

themselves. They really don’t need to be alone during this time, it also

works just as well if you just don’t talk to them for awhile. Many men

will retreat to the garage or workshop to fire-up something electrical

which makes a hellofalotta noise, throws stuff like sawdust or metal

shavings several feet into the air and is probably somewhat dangerous.

Men like to make a lot of noise while thinking. It help them think

better and to make difficult decisions such as whether or not to have

another beer. Typically, the initial decision would be to have another

beer and consider the question in more depth.

Exercise 3.5 - Your Cat

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OK, this is going to hurt. You might want to skip this section until you think

you can handle it. Here it is: Get rid of your cat. That’s it - I said it! Someone

had to say it and I said it. You need to realize that your cat is simply a

surrogate partner. You’ve redirected all of the love, attention and affection

you have to offer toward this critter which, trust me, does not love you back.

Whatever you may think, your cat simply tolerates you as long as you feed it

and treat it kindly. It would kill you and eat you if it thought it were possible.

How well do you think your cat would tolerate you if you were the size of a

mouse? To this predator, you’d be just another tasty morsel once it finished

playing with you.

Men hate cats. Men will usually make a big production of being kind to your

cat when you’re around, but once your back is turned he will scare the crap

out of it. The real issue here is that, while a man will not necessarily demand

all of your attention, he does not want you to have any other focus for your

affection. Note that if your man relents and allows you to keep your cat,

you’re going to need to revise your relationship with this animal. Best, at this

point, to count your blessings and make it an outside cat. Feeding it

occasionally should give you both a few minutes together. On the off chance,

however, that the man brings his own cat into the relationship, then run. Run

fast, run far and do not look back.

Exercise 3.6 - Be Flexible

When dealing with a man it is imperative that you learn to be flexible. This is

because you are going to have to put up with a lot of crap. As my Grandma

used to say, “No matter what, if it's got tires or balls your going to have

trouble with it”. Oh that Grandma of mine; crude but correct. The following

are some reasons why a certain amount of flexibility on your behalf should

make for bucket-loads of relatively happy memories together:

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Short Memory Span. He’ll forget what you just told him. Yes I could

remind him in his section to write down the things you tell him, but he

would just forget. You, however, could gently remind him of some of

the more important things with which he will need to deal. You could

even go as far as to write things down for him. You may also need to

tell him the same thing over and over a few times before it really sinks

in. You need to understand that he has a lot on his mind. Baseball

statistics and songs whose lyrics he can’t quite accurately recall most

likely. Understand that there is only so much that will fit inside a man’s

head, so you need to decide beforehand what to leave in there and what

can be deleted without causing you even more grief.

He will Stretch the Truth. This is a given; men have to lie like fish

have to swim and birds have to fly. At the cellular level it has been

shown that there is a gene on the 'Y' chromosome that causes men to

make things up. Actually, I just made that up. See? Even when there is

no reason to, men will often lie. Just understand that it’s not our fault -

honest. The need for men to lie, I believe, initially came about as a

mechanism to attract women. Picture this: The very large, very hairy

cave man comes back to his village empty-handed. Now, if he tells

everyone that he got bombed on fermented figs and has been sleeping

for the past two days under a tree rather than hunting, he will not be

looked upon favorably. However, if instead he tells everyone a

harrowing tale about the “…big-ass Mammoth…” that somehow got

away, the women will be so impressed by his manliness that they will

all want to sleep with him regardless of his overwhelming stinkyness.

Imagine the first man who thought up the concept of lying. The women

he must have had....

Not the Brightest Bulb... He will do or say something stupid. Yet

another given here. Please be patient, we honestly had only the purest

of intentions and the noblest of goals in mind. We did not mean to

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screw-up. How were we to have known, for example, that inflammable

meant flammable? Yes, well sure if we would have actually read the

instructions. Realize that often he is making a valiant attempt at doing

good. It could be something as simple as a really nice compliment

which just, well, didn't come out right. Usually there will be others

around when he does or says something stupid. When this happens, and

it will happen, nobody will notice the man behind the stupidity as he is

pretty much expected to behave in this manner. All eyes will, however,

be on you, his woman. Other women will nod their heads and

sympathize knowing that it could as easily have been them, while

others, like your Mother, will be firmly entrenched in the “I Told You

So” camp.

Not the Sharpest Tool... He will do or say something to piss you off.

Yet, another high possibility on this one as it’s similar to the previous

issue, yet with subtle differences. OK, he’s done something, yet again,

to make you angry. Now there are two possibilities here: Either he did

whatever it is he did on purpose, or else it was simply a man-moment.

Let’s take these one at a time. If it was just a man-moment, then please

refer to the bullet-point above for more information. In this case this is

likely something which he began with good intentions and then ran off

into the weeds somewhere along the way. If, however, he actually did

something on purpose which angered or pissed you off, well then have

at him. He deserves whatever he gets which, depending on the severity

of the act, might be a frying pan to the forehead, a ride to the local 'Y'

or an irate call from your lawyer.

His Wandering Eye. He will look at other women, you’re going to

have to live with this fact. There is every chance that your man will be

looking at other women any time he is out in public, regardless of

whether you are with him or not. As my Ex had said many times, “Men

are dogs”. Actually, I'm a chicken hawk (yes, this is what happens

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when you grow up watching cartoons while eating sugar-coated

cereals). Back to men and their wandering eye. You can castigate him

for this if you see fit, but it probably won’t do any good. Notice that I

said ‘castigate’ and not “castrate’, which wouldn’t do any good either.

If he has read this book, he’ll probably just say, “How would I know

how beautiful you are unless I compare you to other women which, I

must say, simply don’t compare?”. Oh, he’s good.

Exercise 3.7 - Your Faithful Man?

It has been said by those wiser than I that a man is only as faithful as his

options. This is certainly not true for every man, but it definitely is for a

large percentage of us. Why should this be so, you ask yourself? “Don’t I

slave day in and day out to give him everything he wants, everything he

needs? Isn’t my every waking thought about him, his concerns and his

comfort? Doesn’t he know I love him? Doesn’t he know that I care? That

bastard! I'll kill him!!!”

OK everyone, let’s just calm down, take a deep breath here and get some

perspective. Now I could say that it’s only natural that a man have the desire

to mate with as many females as possible thus maximizing the chances that

his subsequent offspring will....blah, blah, blah. I can see many of you out

there conspiring as we speak to track me down so that you can feed this book

to me through my butt. Well, hold on a minute ladies. I have another, and I

think less potentially painful, explanation.

Of course, your man is probably faithful. Statistics I've uncovered from 1973

say that less than 25% of men (as well as 15% of women) in committed

relationships cheat on their mates. So chances are, or were back in '73, that

you have nothing to worry about. Contrary to what you might think, men do

indeed have a conscience. They know the difference between right and

wrong. Why, then, do they seem to have so much trouble in doing what’s

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right? My belief is that it’s not “any other woman” which a man seeks but

rather just “another woman” on occasion.

This may sound like I’m nuts, but bear with me here a minute and let me try

to explain. I think that most men would be very happy and comfortable with

the concept of having 3 or 4 wives or girlfriends. This concept, which seems

to work well in many cultures, is that a man would have multiple partners in

a relationship. Have these other cultures discovered the solution to a long

hidden truth about men? Has the development of this sort of socially

accepted relationship between 3 or 4 adults operated in some way to preclude

the sorts of problems we find in our culture? Have they found an effective

solution to a cheating partner? Have they found an effective solution to the

fact that a man would have 3 or 4 mothers-in-law? Am I asking too many

questions? I think the answer to all of these is a resounding, yes!

In these polygamist cultures, the husband would spend 2 or 3 days with each

wife and then move onto the next, eventually rotating around to the

beginning again. In this way, his need for variety is satisfied and his interest

is maintained by the different women in his life. This would, if nothing else,

tend to keep him occupied. I think that, since our society allows only a single

partner, men are driven to look for affairs because of just those needs which

other cultures have addressed. The questions is; would a man with 3 or 4

wives ever cheat on them? I think the polite answer is no. I think the accurate

answer is, who would have the time or energy?

Regardless of what other societies deem acceptable, ours is pretty much

based upon the one man one woman concept. I have no doubt that you’re

now thinking, “Am I to understand that I simply have to put up with this sort

of behavior from him? Is there nothing I can do to make him realize that I am

the one and only woman he needs in his life?” Well, you can certainly try

your best at convincing him of that fact, but I’m telling you here and now

that you may be disappointed in the results. Alright then, what to do? My

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best guess on this one is to simply trust your man. That’s right, there’s

nothing more to it. If you have the sort of relationship that you want to last,

then you need to have implicit trust in your man that he will do what’s right.

If, however, you cannot bring yourself to trust your man once he’s out of

your sight then you might just want to consider calling it quits. You’ll always

be suspicious of him anyway. If you don’t have trust in him then you don’t

have anything to build upon. Trust is like the foundation of a relationship. If

trust does not exist between you and your partner, then your relationship is

nothing more than a house of cards constructed on the slippery back of a

drowning turtle. Right? OK, I think it’s time for another beer.

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Habit #4

Think “She’s Going to Win”

One of the other Habits in this book, I forget which one exactly, talks about striving for a

mutually beneficial relationship. I think this is a very good idea and once you learn more

about the concept, you will as well. So, just what is a mutually beneficial relationship?

It’s one in which most of the time she’s happy and you’re not in trouble. As we all know

if she ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. So, we want to get into the habit of doing things

that make her happy, or at least that don’t piss her off. This is known as a win / win

situation and is what we will be aiming for in these exercises. This is opposed to

something like a win / lose situation which may be characterized by your mate being

happy, and you not so much. Or worse yet, a lose / lose scenario in which nobody gets

what they want.

One of the main topics within this section will concern the ever-popular argument.

Arguments are an important part of any relationship. We do all love to argue, don’t we?

Well, some of us do and some of us don’t, and some of us live for nothing else. So let’s

talk about an average argument between you and your partner. In an argument of any

appreciable length (say, of more than a minute or so) you, the defenseless man, probably

won’t have a chance. This is because women are really good at arguing whereas men are

usually not. What happens during an argument is that a woman will have about 10

distinct thoughts swirling around in her brain concerning any given topic, while a man

typically doesn’t even know how the sentence he’s just started will end. This gives

women a distinct advantage in the art of arguing.

Now, men, does this mean that we should just give-up and not even bother to argue?

Absolutely not! Quite the contrary. We need to get back in there and give as good as we

get. Got it? Good. We’re not going to take this lying down. No, at some point we will

not. So, we’ll hit the snooze and sleep on this a bit longer but once the alarm goes off

again we’re going to get up, get going and get after it. We just need to sleep a bit longer.

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* Men *

The exercises within this section are some of the more challenging and rewarding in the

entire series. They will allow you to learn how to win while appearing to give in to her

irrational demands. You will become a clever practitioner of the art of male subterfuge.

Male subterfuge you say? What the hell? Let’s take a simple example; the act of

screwing up the laundry or the dishes by shrinking one and breaking the other. She will,

of course, never let you deal with these household activities again. Question is, did you

screw up by accident, or...?

Take, however, a more subtle approach. This scheme required forethought as well as

planning and practice, but it was well worth it. To begin with, I secretly learned to fake a

sneeze. And I mean a really good fake - you couldn’t tell it from the real thing. Next I let

my partner know that I had a variety of allergies including cats, dust, molds, relatives,

etc. and that I would get asthma if it got too bad. And furthermore, that I would die if I

didn’t do something to remedy the problem. I am allergic to cats, but none of the rest of

that was true. Although, it is true that if someone were to tie a cat to my face, I just might

expire.

So what you say? So here’s what; when I find myself in yet another situation that I want

to get out of, such as an afternoon with her relatives and their 10 screaming kids when I

would rather be at home watching the playoffs, I simply begin my fake sneezing attack.

Making sure she and others take notice and ask about it, I would wheezingly reply that

all that would be needed would be for me to get my butt back on the couch for the

remainder of the afternoon. Now what do you think? Diabolical, no? Understand that this

sort of thing takes planning, practice, timing and flawless execution. I wouldn’t expect

the novice to conjure up nor successfully execute such a scheme. Years of patience and

practice, little Locust, years of patience and practice.

Exercise 4.1 - Should I Argue?

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Should you argue with your woman? No, not unless it’s really quick. Don’t

get into a protracted argument with your woman. She will win, or to be more

accurate, you will lose. After many years of experience, my view is that for

the most part it’s just not worth the effort. If, however, you are dead set on

an argument, make it short and sweet. Don’t pull any punches - get in there,

say what you need to say without beating around the bush, and get out. It’s

like a boxing match, you’ve got at most one good round in you so make it

count. If you can’t wrap it up within that first round, best take a dive. You

ain’t got the legs; I know it, you know it, she knows it. You are simply not

going the distance, so don’t even try. Whatever the outcome, just know that

you’ve done the best you could - provided, of course, that you’ve really done

the best you could.

While I’ve stated that my view is, for the most part, an argument is simply

not worth the effort, many other men have a different opinion. They are of

the opinion that they can, in fact, win an argument. Now while that is true in

theory, it remains tantalizingly elusive in practice. The reason is that it is

difficult to determine just what exactly the spoils of victory are when you’re

sleeping in your car because you’ve been locked out for the night yet again.

Case in point:

In March of 1994 my Ex and I attended the wedding of our

friends Peter and Donna. We had not seen them since

moving away about a year earlier, but had keep in touch off

and on. We arrived a bit late, to find the potential Bride and

Groom arguing. They were standing in the parking lot of the

restaurant where the wedding was to be held. We had

thought it an odd location for a wedding and reception, but

who were we to talk. We were married by a blind, barefoot

Native American shaman deep in a mist shrouded redwood

forest (guess whose idea that was).

Upon approaching the arguing couple we quickly learned the

reason for the heated discussion. The kitchen of the

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restaurant was apparently next to the location of the

wedding ceremony, separated only by a thin wall. The Bride

had asked (told) the Groom to tell the restaurant personnel

to keep quiet in the kitchen since the banging of pots and

pans could be clearly heard through the walls.

The Groom dutifully had asked the restaurant folks to cool it

with the dishes which they had apparently agreed to do, but

only at the last minute since they still had customers to feed.

The Groom agreed and left it at that. The Bride, still hearing

the noises once the Groom had returned, was pissed. She

wanted them to stop now, not later. The Groom tried to

explain to his betrothed that they will stop as soon as the

ceremony began. She was having none of this crap. It was

her wedding and, dammit, she was going to have it exactly

the way she wanted. The argument was getting loud, heated

and ugly, when the groom finally said, “Look, that’s the way

it’s going to be so just live with it”. She just turned and

stormed-off. He said to us, “Well, I guess I showed her whose

the boss”. I had to pinch my Ex to keep her from laughing.

We next saw them at the ceremony.

As she walked down the aisle the sound of the Wedding

March mixed unpleasantly with the crashing of pots and

pans being washed, apparently, by violently banging them

together. You could see she was very, very upset. As soon as

she got to the makeshift alter the music and dish washing

stopped together as if on queue. The actual ceremony itself

took less than 5 minutes after which the bride and groom did

not kiss, but rather both simply turned to face the small

strangely quiet gathering. After an uncomfortable pause the

Groom said, “That’s it, let’s eat”. The banging of pots and

pans instantly began once again.

The Groom proceeded to get surprisingly drunk while the

Bride locked herself in the restaurant bathroom and cried for

the remainder of the evening. Her bridesmaid sat by the

door funneling in strong drink, chicken wings and Kleenex for

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hours. All in all it was not that bad and certainly not the most

unpleasant wedding I had attended in my time. I was the

best man at a wedding in the mid-1980’s. I still have less

than fond memories of the surprisingly quick training course,

the subsequent ceremony and my spectacularly

unsuccessful landing during one of the last legally

sanctioned skydiving weddings in Baja California. Peter and

Donna were married for a short, tumultuous 3 month period

before being divorced. Winner!

Exercise 4.2 - Talking About It

Men tend to be as comfortable talking about their relationship as they are

buying sanitary napkins in the supermarket on a Saturday morning, with a

girl scout troop behind them - pointing, giggling and whispering. Oh, sorry.

Now then, when it’s time to talk about your relationship, and make no

mistake about it the time will indeed come, take a deep breath and steel

yourself for the onslaught. This is not going to be your average conversation.

You are probably going to have to listen, pay attention and maybe even

participate in this discussion. You’re sweating, aren’t you.

If you find yourself faced with the prospect of having to actually talk about

your relationship, and you’ve already tried faking seizures, heart attacks and

the uncontrollable channeling of Ward Bond - none of which worked - then

you are likely to have to really do some actual talking. So, here’s what I

would suggest - apologize. Yup, that’s right. Get the first punch in by

apologizing. Say to her that you don’t spend enough time with her and that

you feel you’ve been taking her for granted lately. This is good because even

if you haven’t, she’ll feel you have. Add, sincerely, that you want to make it

up to her by doing more of the housework as well as taking her out for a

special evening - just for her. If you can manage to actually make that a

perfect evening for her, you may never have to talk about your relationship

ever again. Does this work? Well, it has so far. Was it worth the effort? Oh,

you bet!

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Exercise 4.3 - Where will Anger Get Me?

Where will your anger and temper get you? Usually nowhere, depends upon

your woman and her mood. Women typically don’t like to see anger in her

man directed her way. It’s not a comfortable feeling and picks away at any

trust and affection you have built up between you two. However, if you are

not showing enough emotion, then she may actually demand that you get

angry about something just to prove you’re not made of stone and that there

is some feeling in you. So, there are times when you should get angry and

times when you should not. Just exactly how to tell when you should get

angry and when you should not is anyone’s guess.

Consider the woeful tale of myself and a date just after

bowling one evening. We had bowled a few games and had

ourselves a few beers. She had beat me all three games and

was something less than a sportsmanlike winner. I, on the

other hand, was an even worse looser and was getting really

tired of hearing my date scream, "Girls rule, girls rule!"

I just wanted to get her home and be done with this rather

emasculating evening as I lifted the hood of my Ford Pinto to

get it started. OK, I guess an explanation is in order here.

The key broke off in the ignition which sort of implied that it

would always be running, which would be true were it not for

an odd electrical problem it also had. This problem would

manifest itself by everything in the car stopping and dying at

the same time. Wherever I happened to be at the time was

where I parked.

So, when starting the car it had to be in neutral and I would

just touch a screwdriver between two terminals under the

hood. With a shower of sparks it started right up, usually.

This is what I was doing in the empty parking lot of the

bowling alley that night. Problem was that I didn’t have the

car in neutral and when I touched the screwdriver to the

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terminals the car started and jumped forward hitting the side

of the building, and stopping with the front tire on top of my

left foot.

It sort of hurt, but not too much. Probably because I was

drunk, but not too much. My date, on the other hand, was

three-sheets-to-the-wind and laughing her ass off. I was so

pissed I started yelling at her to get in the car and put it into

reverse. This did not have quite the desired results. Rather

than helping me as requested, she displayed a hand gesture

which, I was to soon discover, meant, “Yeah, right. I’ll be

right back. I just need to run home and get my camera.”

Fortunately, a friendly cop happened by before she got back

and helped me out of my predicament. And yes, he was

laughing as well.

Exercise 4.4 - Cheating

Guys, please don’t cheat on your woman. She will find out. Let me repeat

this - SHE WILL FIND OUT! Make sure you understand this completely.

Good. OK, so when you do cheat realize that the only thing you’ll be able to

think about afterward is not getting caught. While it’s pretty much a given

you will get caught (mostly because you are a stupid man and would think

nothing about having an affair with the next door neighbor, driving your own

car to a motel, or using your wife's credit card to pay for an hour’s worth of

depravity at your local Whore’s-R-Us), here are some tips for you anyway:

The Sniff Test. Your woman will give you the sniff test when you

get home from work, or if she is at all suspicious of your activities.

She will probably accomplish this by hugging you and quietly

sniffing your neck. Most men would be mistaken as to why a women

would do this. It is not, as one might suspect, to determine if you

smell like another woman's perfume (which could happen anyway so

watch yourself), but rather to determine if you’ve recently showered.

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You had better not have or you’re going to have some big-time

explaining to do.

So, you really don’t have a chance here. She will either detect the

scent of another woman on you, or else you will smell like you’ve

recently showered. You should now be aware of the fact that there is

no way out. Men have always believed that simply taking a shower

after an elicit affair will wash away not only their depraved sin but

the scent of said sin as well. Well, it won’t. Never has, never will.

Protection. For God sakes, if you’re going to cheat, wear a condom.

Nothing screams “Hey everyone, I’ve been cheating” like a good case

of one of the more popular STD’s. But explaining this to the typical

guy is all but useless. It’s got to be the woman’s responsibility (even

though I know full well it’s not) because most guys, given the

opportunity, will jump on pretty much any woman without a second

thought. Guys pretty much see each sexual encounter as if it were the

last chopper outta 'Nam. For all they know, this is it, this may be the

last time this will ever happen so why bother with protection?

An example of the lack of reasoning in the man who is having an

extramarital liaison is the following slice of life: The cheating man

asked his mistress, who was in the process of undressing, if her name

was Victoria Dumont? To which she answered that yes, it was, and

furthermore how he came by this information. He would say, of

course, by the provocative initials on her knickers.

Location, location, location. Just where is it you intend to perform

this illicit act? Her house? Your house? The park? You had better put

a lot of thought into this question. The last thing you’ll want is to be

seen and recognized by someone you and your wife know. I knew a

guy in college who preferred the Bavarian Romantic Poetry aisle of

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the Linguistics Section at the college library. He had never, in 6

years, been interrupted at that locale until one day when an aged

librarian happened by. He managed the unusual feat of staining both

the carpet as well as his honor at the same time.

Clean up your Act. Somehow you’re going to need to wash

afterwards really, really well without her becoming suspicious. It

would be preferable if you could do this before you get home, but

never forget the pending sniff test. Therefore, try to only wash the

crotch part of yourself. You don’t want to do this at home and have

your wife become suspicious as to why it is you’ve been scrubbing

your crotch for the past 20 minutes. Maybe a gas station bathroom

would work for this activity. Try to use a good strong soap if

possible. But don’t rub so hard that you chaff, or worse yet, become

excited (honest honey, I was just cleaning it and it went off)

The Money, Honey. If there is any money involved with this

reprehensible activity (dinner, web-sites, a fist-full of ones) make

sure that its sudden disappearance is not noticeable. Lot’s of luck on

this one, it’s not an easy thing to do. If you want to be proactive

about it (hey, these habits do come in handy) you could save up little

bits of money over time to pay for your depraved sexual malfeasance.

But realize that this would clearly demonstrate intent and so could

end-up getting you in even more trouble than if she were to believe

that this was just some kind of spur-of-the-moment uncontrollable,

stupid male weakness. So, as far as money goes, since you’ve already

started ambling down that slippery path to hell, you may just as well

rob a liquor store.

Don’t tell anyone. Though, you will likely screw-up each of the tips

mentioned above, this is probably the one that will be the final nail in

the coffin with respect to your getting caught. Your telling someone

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what you’ve done is as good as her having an eye witness.

Remember, the walls have ears, the ceiling eyes. She has spies,

snitches, slime who would drop-a-dime on their own Mothers for the

price of a Whopper without cheese. So, if you intend to actually keep

this affair of yours a secret, you absolutely cannot tell anyone -

especially your woman.

Yes, indeed. This is what some so-called therapists would

recommend. It will aid in the healing for both of you to share in the

process, they will say. The therapist would argue that the only way to

face this head-on would be to just come out and tell her what you’ve

done. This is fine if you’re a therapist and get your money whether

things work out or not. However, this is actually a load of crap. Let’s

look at this from the perspective of your woman. Her view of this

situation would likely be that you simply what to break-up with her.

Why else would you have hurt her so badly by doing what you’ve

done and then telling her about it? There’s no other possible

explanation. You simply wanted to hurt her. So, in my opinion, if

you’re going to cheat, and then afterwards tell her about it, be

prepared to break-up.

Exercise 4.5 - Pay Attention

Notice anything new? These three words strike fear into the hearts of even

the bravest of men. Raging storms in the South Atlantic waves 80 feet high,

the horrors of hand-to-hand combat during the insanity of war, keeping an

accident victim’s heart beating with your own bare hands; nothing will shake

the rock-solid foundation of a man like the three words uttered by his

woman, “Notice anything new”? Upon hearing these words medically

detectable changes will occur in a guy’s physiology . The color will drain

from his face as the fight-or-flight response takes over, tunnel vision and a

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panicked search for escape routes quickly ensue. Sweat beads on his

eyebrows, his hands will become cold and clammy, his breathing shallow.

Your heart feels like a jackhammer is pounding in your chest as you realize

that there is no escape. In a panic you quickly scan millions of different

things in the room, on her person, in the air, on the walls, IN HER

DAMNED MIND, to try and determine what is different from the last time

you were put through this torture. OK, stop. Breath deeply and take a few

seconds here to calm down. You can deal with this; that’s why I went to all

the trouble of writing this damn book. Look at her, smile and say the

following, “Your hair looks wonderful and I just love your smile. My love

for you seems to grow with each and every passing day”, while

simultaneously praying for a heart attack. You could also try to bite off and

swallow your own tongue, but that would require a much greater expenditure

of energy and has been proven to be only slightly more effective.

Exercise 4.6 - Her Ex

One of the more perplexing questions men have asked over the years is how

to effectively deal with her Ex. This is easy, as you usually don’t have to do

anything. She is perfectly capable of defining whatever relationship they may

still have, which they shouldn’t be having in the first place. But if she wants

to stay in touch with an Ex I’ve found that it’s best not to push it. That is,

however, unless the past tense nature of that relationship somehow escapes

her notice. If she, therefore, spends too much time with an Ex, then this may

be cause for concern. Though, what exactly you would do in that case is far

beyond my level of expertise. I’d probably leave her before she throws me

out, but that’s just me. You could try asking her what she’s thinking, but

why?

If there is occasion for you to have any contact with her Ex, make sure that

you are always polite. Let him throw the first punch, this will demonstrate

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your preference for the high road. Your woman will appreciate this attitude

since there’s really nothing to fight over. She’s already dumped (or had been

dumped by) him and she’s now with you. If by chance you do happen to see

her Ex. Don’t go giving him that “Yeah, that’s right. I'm doing her now”

look in your eye. At best it will only make him nostalgic, at worse he will

rupture an internal organ laughing so hard.

* Women *

The exercises in this section are designed to allow you to become a gracious winner. We

already know that for the most part you’re going to win and get whatever it is that you

want. And all through the use of your feminine wiles. Damn those feminine wiles! Well

perhaps that’s as it should be but unless you allow him to think he’s won a significant

victory or two, at some point he may just grow tired of your shenanigans and up and

leave. Is that what you want? If so, then have at him and it won’t be long before you’re

killing your own spiders, fixing your own car, mowing your own lawn and hauling in

your own firewood. Otherwise, ladies, read on.

Exercise 4.7 - Should I Argue?

Don’t be ridiculous, what’s wrong with you? It's like asking if a pride of

lions should bring down a lame deer. They were born to eat venison and you

were born to argue. So, get in there and do what you do best. For the most

part he won’t want to argue fearing both losing as well as winning, but if he

does decide to give it a go realize that he is going to try for a quick ending. A

knockout in the first round as it were. Be patient, use the entire ring. Move

and jab, move and jab, you’re in this for the duration. You can easily tire him

out, he’s got no legs. It won’t be long before you’re receiving accolades from

the appreciative audience while he’s busy regaining consciousness.

If, however, he’s a keeper and you’d like to have him stick around for awhile

then you’re going to want to make him feel comfortable in expressing his

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thoughts, feelings and desires. As important as it is to allow him to express

himself, you’ll want to make sure that he understands that he cannot just go

and do whatever he pleases. So, this is a difficult balancing act in which you

want to make sure that the steam of frustration doesn’t build up too much

pressure in the ol' man-kettle, while at the same time making sure that he

knows intuitively when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, argument-wise.

This may sound unnecessarily convoluted, but after all it is men we’re

dealing with here for God’s sake. I guess the bottom line here is, would it

really hurt to let him win a meaningless victory or two once in a while? If

you could also make it seem, in some fashion, to have been a meaningful

victory that would really help as well.

Exercise 4.8 - Where will Anger Get Me?

Women are easily annoyed, angered, miffed, peeved; they heat-up quickly

and cool-down slowly. I have no doubt that there are plenty of women out

there who have just read this and are now pissed-off about it. See? But I

don’t have to tell you women out there that anger is an effective way to get

whatever it is you want. As the old saying goes, “If she ain’t happy, ain’t

nobody happy”. Realize, however, that there is only so much up with which a

man will put. If your anger is too intense or lasts to long (like there’s no end

in sight), he may just bail on you. This is why I would suggest crying as a

practical alternative. Men feel very guilty about leaving a woman while she’s

crying. Oh, they’ll still leave, but will feel guilty about doing so.

Long ago there was a commercial for something or other, which has really

stuck with me. Yeah, sounds like it you smirk. Screw you. I remember it

started out with this guy, a biker dude, gazing longingly at a picture. The

photo was of a beautiful Harley (chromed 1936 Knucklehead, if I'm not

mistaken) and there was a tear in his eye. The voice over said something like,

“Remember that bike you loved? The one you built with your own two

hands? The one your Ex-wife made you sell?” That commercial always

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meant a lot to me and I’ll always remember it for reasons which are not

presently clear. Regardless, consider the following:

Whilst between girlfriends in 1988, I decided to call in sick

for 3 days and head off to Lake Mead in Nevada. Great party

atmosphere and lots of women during the summer months. I

rented a motel room on the water and spent most of my time

drunk in one casino or another. In the room next to mine was

a couple with a baby. It was an unusually quiet infant, which

was great as I would usually get in after 4AM and sleep until

about 2 the next afternoon. One late afternoon, nursing yet

another hangover, I met the neighbors Ted “Just call me TJ”,

his young and pimply wife, Alma and their sleeping baby,

Image. Who would name a kid Image? Whatever. TJ did have

a shiny new ski boat though. It was a metal-flake red one

with a very big chrome engine.

They seemed nice enough for married folks but I needed a

shower and a drink, not necessarily in that order so I

excused myself. Coming out of the shower I heard what

sounded like twelve cats being tumble dried. It was coming

from next door. It was coming from Image. She was making

a nose like I’d never heard. I had to get away from there and

was just out of the door when Ted, uh TJ, called to me. He

asked if I wanted to head out for a boat ride. He apparently

needed to get away as well.

We headed to one of the many dockside bars upriver and

proceeded to get butt-faced in just under two hours. During

this time we had spent more than $200 and had collected an

obscene number of souvenirs as there was a wet tee-shirt

contest at this one particular bar. Who knew? It was dark by

the time we headed on back to our rooms. The water was

also very rough. It took quite a while to get back and I was

pretty sick by then. So was TJ. Once we got back he asked

me to just steer the boat because he wanted to get up on the

bow so the boat didn’t scrape the dock. It was then that we

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could see his less than thrilled wife standing there waiting

for us.

OK, now I want everyone to know that I have no idea what I

did next, so technically I’m innocent. The boat somehow

lurched forward and smashed into the dock throwing TJ over

into the water on the other side. A large sampling of our

souvenirs, which included an interesting collection of

women’s undergarments, also littered the dock. His wife just

stood there and stared at her husband who was floundering

and puking in the water. She just shook her head and walked

back inside. I saw TJ and his wife the next morning before I

left and went over to apologize. They were packing up to

leave. Image was also quiet once again. I told Alma how

sorry I was about what had happened. Without bothering to

look up and said, “We're selling the boat”. She looked at her

emasculated husband who shook his head in agreement.

They turned and left as did I. And that was that.

Exercise 4.9 - Where will Crying Get Me?

There is little a woman can utilize from her complete arsenal of relationship

weaponry which is more effective than crying. A man hates to see, or hear a

woman cry. Particularly if the reason that she’s crying in the first place is his

fault. It means, to a man, that things are just so bad that there is nothing left

for her to do but cry. She’s at her wits end and her only recourse at this point

is uncontrollable sobbing.

You, the woman, however know that crying is only one of many and varied

relationship-specific weapons which can be brought to bear on any particular

situation. Most men don’t realize that a woman can go from being a helpless,

sobbing lump to an angry, surprisingly season martial arts expert who can

inflict severe pain, in a wink of an eye. You will learn this quickly little

Locust if you are something other than completely sympathetic to her

feelings, particularly when she is crying.

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You’ll want to make sure, though, that only he sees you crying. If anyone

else were to see you crying they might think that something is actually wrong

and, God forbid, attempt to help. Men wouldn’t understand what you’re up

to because your actions would be taken out of context, while women would

understand implicitly. Without having that relationship frame of reference,

you become just another unhappy person in a sea of unhappy people. It is

also important to make sure he understands that although he may not be the

cause of your unhappiness, if nothing else he is at fault for not doing more to

console you. Men have no idea. They know nothing, nothing I tell you.

Exercise 4.10 - His Ex

He is likely paralyzed with fear and inactivity when it comes to his Ex. She,

like his mother, has probably damaged him so severely that he either

becomes a complete ass whenever she’s around, or else a whimpering,

spineless blob of unflavored gelatin. Regardless of his pathetic reaction, it is

up to you to define how he is to relate to his Ex. You let him know, in no

uncertain terms, that she is no longer part of his life and that if he ever does

see her again you’ll rip off his arm and use it to kill the bitch. That should do

it. Men just love the prospect of a cat fight.

If, however, he and his Ex share children, farm animals, clothing, hunting

dogs or other property then they will necessarily need to be in contact at

some point. In this event, you are going to want to make sure that you

chaperone the Ex couple. You don’t want to leave him alone with her. You

know how women are, they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. And

what they usually want is your man. So, though you may have a high level of

trust in your man, this is not likely to be the case with his Ex. You know

what she’s after. Just let her know that you know what’s going on and send

her packing. If she won’t go then do not hesitate, just bitch-slap her into next

Friday and be done with it.

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Habit #5

Seek First to Understand, Then Realize You Won’t

If everyone would just agree that men will never understand women and women will

never understand men, then I think we could all just get back to what’s really important;

dinner. Actually, I haven’t had anything to eat yet and I was getting hungry. No, what’s

important is for each of us to understand how men and women differ from one another. It

is often revealing to focus upon those things that men and women naturally think about

differently. Learning about these differences can, to a great extent, help our partners

understand why we do what it is we do. While this certainly won’t explain everything

(why does he save his earwax?), it should cover most of your concerns. Here are some of

the things which men and women look at differently:

Shoes. For men, shoes are almost strictly utilitarian. Sporting equipment such as

ski boots, bowling shoes and flippers aside, men usually have two types of shoes.

They typically have work boots (these are for working) and tennis shoes (these

are for pretty much everything else). When our shoes get dirty we wash them off

with a hose and let them dry in the sun. Women, on the other hand, see shoes as

an extension of their bodies - the feet portion of the body primarily. One which

can be dressed-up with all sorts of different styles and colors and, oh, the new

fashions are coming out this fall and on and on and on.... Say what you want but

when I see a woman trying her best to walk in something that looks like someone

stapled a leather strap to a block of wood, it occurs to me that they have once

again become foot bound. Only this time, it’s their own idea.

If you watch women in a crowd, such as might be found in a mall or supermarket,

they will always look at the shoes of other women who pass by. Women judge

one another by their shoes. They can tell everything they need to know about

another woman by her shoes. Men do not know this, whereas women understand

it implicitly. Dogs smell each other’s butts, women look at each other’s shoes,

men don’t have a clue about one another. I once had a girl friend who stated that

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she could look at a woman's shoes and from that tell what she likes in bed. If only

this were a skill which could be taught, or bottled. Women typically have more

than two dozen pair of shoes, most of which seem to be specifically designed for

events which do not actually exist like cotillions and anniversary parties.

Chocolate. I could hardly find a better candidate than chocolate to illustrate how

men and women think about certain things differently. For men, chocolate is

simply a dessert item to be dealt with in relatively small quantities after a filling

meal of steak and potatoes. For women, chocolate means so very much more.

Chocolate acts on a woman’s brain in a physically detectable manner. It releases

endorphins (or some such mysterious thing) which is similar to being in love.

That’s probably more accurate; men like chocolate, women love chocolate.

If a man wants a piece of candy it could just as easily be a heavily salted peanut-

based candy bar (whose idea was that) as something with chocolate in it. A

woman will almost always go for the chocolate. And the more pure, sensually

resplendent dark the chocolate the better. I’ve noticed that at certain points in my

girlfriends cycles chocolate is not just a good idea, it’s the difference between a

pleasant evening with the person you love and one which ends in televised police

action.

Children. Men relate to children better than they relate to cats, but not much.

They have a certain level of tolerance for the little critters running about, but only

to a point. Men, of course, feel differently about their own kids than others. Their

own they can spank or leave at a truck stop without the worry of a subsequent

lawsuit, usually. Men typically don’t know much in the way of detail concerning

their kids. Nicknames, basic age ranges, annoying habits - these are the sorts of

things a man would know about his kids. Women will pretty much take care of

everything else.

Men actually like having children for the same reason that the ancient Pharos

liked having slaves. Yes, in his mind he has created his very own slaves. It seems

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to be the only way in which to procure slaves anymore, have them yourself. So as

soon as they can walk, even before that in some cases, men will put these little

slaves to work. Pulling their own weight as it were. I, too, was trained as a slave

when very young. Actually, I was just helping my uncle deliver newspapers, but I

was only 5. My uncle would pay me a quarter each day I would help him. But

wait a minute, you say. You got paid, I thought you were bitching about being a

slave. Well, let me finish. After my Uncle gave me my quarter he told me to put

it into my “bank”. My bank was the floor heater in my Grandmother’s house.

Once I deposited my earnings into my bank, my Uncle would go into the

basement and, uh, make a withdrawal. I think he just used that same quarter over

and over for years.

Women tend to treat all children as their own to a great extent. I’m not sure if it’s

some sort of motherly instinct, but I’ve noticed that women will usually take the

time to help a lost, crying child, while a man would give it a wide berth fearing it

might need to be burped or changed or something. Women know everything there

is to know about her children and, as such, are the sole repository for this

knowledge. Thus, if a man wants to know something about the kids, ask the wife.

This makes sense because if you both were to retain all of this information,

problems could develop.

What would you do, for example, if your husband was certain that it was your

daughter who swallowed the nickel when she was 5, and your son who put Sugar

Babies up his nose while you remember it differently. See the problem? If there is

only a single repository for this information, then everyone can agree that is was

the husband who both swallowed the nickel and put the Sugar Babies up his nose.

It’s like having more than one clock in the house, you never really know what

time it is. My parents have 38 clocks in their house. They couldn’t get within 20

minutes of the actual time if their lives depended on it.

Personal space. If you watch people at a counter, such as one might find at a

bank, you will notice something interesting about the use of Personal Space. At a

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bank counter (or in any locale which one might encounter a counter) people have

a certain amount of predefined personal amount of space defined by the bounds

of the counter itself. So, let’s first look at an example of how a man would utilize

this space. A man will walk up to counter, putting down maybe at most his keys,

present his paperwork to the teller and wait patiently with his hands folded in

front of him. Perhaps a simple checkbook, if that, might join his keys on the

counter next to him. Men realize that they are temporarily borrowing this space

and that they will soon be vacating. They don’t want to have to go through a long

process of packing things up once they are ready to leave. When it’s time to get,

we pack-up and get.

The typical female will approach the counter and immediately claim it as her

own, metaphorically planting a flag on the hilltop by setting her purse on the

counter and taking virtually everything out of it. She will tell you that she does

this in order to retrieve what she needs which is always at the bottom of her

purse. This is not true, she is staking out her territory. Simple as that. Although

she understands on a certain level that her presence here is temporary, it doesn’t

seem to make a difference. It’s a nesting thing, this is a woman’s personal space.

In public this space extends out from her body half again as long as her

outstretched arms. She will claim and use this space in any manner she sees fit

and for as long as she needs it. Are there any questions? Good, I didn’t think so.

Arguing. Men see arguing as a means to an end, but only if arguing with another

man. If arguing with a woman then all bets are off. Arguments can lead to

physical confrontation between males, but this is usually a rare occurrence. This

is, of course, unless a female is watching. Then physical confrontation is likely

since, in the male mind, it will be the victor of this confrontation who will mate

with the female. She, of course, probably won’t want either of you two

knuckleheads after such a childishly idiotic display. I feel safe in saying that, over

the millennia, men have settled more arguments with brute force than with an

impressive display of logic, if only because of the existence of women. They

make us do stupid things.

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Women consider arguing similar to making love. It’s an emotional connection for

a women. Men wonder why women like to argue. It’s for the same reason they

like making love to you, you idiot. It’s an emotional connection which

strengthens the bond between you two. It’s not necessarily that she’s angry with

you, though she may well be, so watch yourself, but rather that she desires the

experience of that connection with you in a very tangible manner. If, however,

she is pissed at you and an emotional bond is the last thing on her mind, then

you’d best find the section in this book concerning the fine art of arguing and

why it would be a really good idea if you, the man, avoided it at all costs.

Driving. Men, being goal oriented, drive in order to reach a destination. While

not exactly tunnel vision, a man will expend every effort to not detract from this

goal. This is usually because there’s a game soon on which he doesn’t want to

miss. Any mention of a side trip, unplanned excursion or spur-of-the-moment

spree, therefore, should be quickly dealt with in one of the following ways;

♂ Ignore the comment and attempt to change the subject.

♂ Say there’s no time since you need to get home to feed the [dog, kid, bird].

♂ Say that you were just there last week.

♂ Say it’s getting dark and statistics have shown that there is a greater danger

of an accidents occurring when driving in the dark.

♂ Say it’s raining and statistics have shown that there is a greater danger of

an accident occurring when driving in the rain.

♂ Say it’s Sunday and it’s a day of rest.

One of the biggest time wasting activities one can engage in while driving, from a

man’s perspective, is sitting in a car not going anywhere. Such a scenario might

take place while looking at a map or asking for directions. These sorts of

activities are not in any man’s plan. Can you picture it, your man saying, “Well,

let’s just go for a drive and we’ll stop along the way to ask for directions.” It’s

not going to happen. A man will drive to the ends of the Earth and back again to

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get where he’s going before stopping to ask for directions. Thankfully, he will

usually need to stop for gas at which point the woman can hop out and simply ask

someone for directions while the man pretends to be occupied with the petrol and

whatnot.

Women, being more process oriented, enjoy the trip along the way in a manner

which is completely foreign to a man. She is more than happy to linger, peruse,

saunter, mosey, and basically spend time on the journey, arriving eventually at

the appointed destination. A woman will think nothing of stopping to ask for

directions several times during an excursion. This is the reason that, as opposed to

what y’all might think and everything else being equal, men and women tend to

get to their respective destinations in about the same amount of time. It’s simply

because men will spend the additional time driving around lost, while a woman

will use that extra time to shop for shoes.

Sports. Some small percentage of both men and women actually enjoy engaging

in sporting and athletic activities. They are the ones most of us watch on TV. The

lion’s share of us, however, do not raft down rivers, skydive from 2 miles aloft or

ski off of steep cliffs. Most women couldn’t give a fig one way or the other about

sports. They get all of their exercise by doing everything for everyone all the time

anyway. For most men, however, the bulk of their exercise results from flipping

off someone on the freeway, reclining on the couch, waddling to the refrigerator

or changing the TV channel using the remote. It is important for the woman to

understand just how vital sports are to a man. Much of his outlook on the future

has little to do with your relationship, potential financial status or his children’s

budding abilities. It is actually based upon the fortunes of his particular sports

team. The ebb and flow of a man’s life are intimately tied to how well his team is

currently doing in the standings. If you understand this, you have a good chance

of understanding men.

Women do not usually care about or watch sports on TV. The glaring exception

to this rule are the rabid female football fans in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This is a

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scary bunch. I have noticed, however, that some college-aged women seem to be

very interested in Curling (I knew a broom-man, uh, woman once, uh, twice) and

they will even watch reruns of the latest Curling highlights on TV. This seems to

be an emerging trend - stay tuned for further developments.

Marriage. Most men are secretly happy to get married, even though they may

appear otherwise. From their perspective they now no longer need to exercise,

they now have someone to feed and pick-up after them and they now get more or

less regular sex. All things which had been missing in his bachelor life. This is

the mind set of the average man entering into marriage. It is not complicated and

is relatively straight forward to understand. Women, however, even when faced

with a veritable mountain of evidence, refuse to believe this about their men. She

wants to believe that he feels the same way that she does. Trust me, he doesn’t.

The woman is entering into the marriage in about the same fashion as the original

engineers approached the building of the Panama Canal. This is going to be a big

job. She’s got ideas, project plans, scale models. Your den has been designed,

wallpaper patterns have been picked-out and matched to bedspreads, the garden

visualized 4 years hence and on and on and on. To a woman, a marriage means

that the work bell has rung, it’s time to put down that coffee cup, roll-up your

sleeves and get your ass to work. This is why woman make great project

managers. To a man, that same bell means that it’s time to clock-out, relax, kick

the shoes off, loosen the belt, turn on the TV and have a few brewski’s.

Hair. Men will typically deal with their hair just once in the morning by toweling

it dry and combing. That’s pretty much the end of it. Hair care products for a man

are limited to shampoo and perhaps the occasional use of Rogaine®. Although

this is the simple ritual of the man with hair, the man without will feel as though

he is walking around all day with his zipper open. Men, for the most part, feel

very exposed without a full head of hair to protect his delicate scalp. This is why

they will spend thousands on those ridiculous hair plugs, toupees and the like.

Men, being the incredibly self-conscious critters they are, would be just as happy

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if they could simply wear a hat all of the time. Since they cannot, their hair

becomes all the more important.

Women will spend a great deal of time and money on their hair. As important as

hair is to a man it is even more so to a woman. The number of hair care products

which are used by the average woman is staggeringly mind-boggling. I have spent

a great deal of time studying the many and varied hair care products used by

women. This is because I had a girlfriend who would not allow any reading

material into the bathroom, and so I was relegated to reading whatever was at

hand. Two of my favorites over the years have been “Sea Mudd” which had the

bouquet of a well used rugby shoe and “Hair Salad” which provided me with

loads of humorous material - until she up and left me that is. Before she left,

however, the following event had transpired which I’d like to relate to you:

Years ago, back when I was dating, a hair-raising event took place

which I had attempted to purge from my memory, but alas cannot.

This was at a time when I did not own a car, and so my date was

coming to pick me up. Long blond hair, young hard body, head full of

hearts, butterflies and sparkly things she arrived skidding to a stop in

front of my apartment. Seeing her reach up to close her sunroof, I

rushed back into the bathroom to douse myself with an additional pint

of the cologne I had purchased at the local gas station. I didn’t know

whether to crap or pass-out as I waited in the bathroom for her to

knock on the door. Hyperventilating I was still waiting for that knock

some minutes later. Some wondering about the lack of her presence, I

went over to the front window and saw that she was sitting in her car

honking her horn. So, I went out to see what was up. Her door was

open. I said, “Hi, what’s up?”. It was then I noticed her car keys on the

ground next to my feet. Looking up I then noticed a fistful of her long

blond hair caught in her closed sun roof. She had apparently closed

the sunroof on her hair by accident and, startled by the tug when she

tried to get out, dropped her car keys just out of reach. This was a new

one. Let me give you a bit of advice here; doing anything in this

situation other than rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically would

probably be acceptable. Whether because of embarrassment or anger,

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she simply drove off once I had retrieved her keys for her, never to be

seen again.

Tools. Men love their tools. And the more tools the better. With their tools they

can do anything, build anything, fix anything, break anything. A man would

rather settle things with tools than with conversation. It would be safe to say that

just as language and conversation are useful tools for women, tools are useful

tools for men. Wow, I think I need another beer. So, in order to understand a

man, you’ll want to understand his tools. You will be able to tell how a man will

care for you by observing how he cares for his tools. Doesn’t that suck? Well,

yes, but then again you’re dealing with men here, so be thankful that he cares for

anything at all. Now, getting back to his tools, observe; does he leave them just

lying around on the workbench all greasy and unwashed after using them

(where’s the afterglow dammit)? Or, does he lovingly wash and clean them after

use and place them back safely and carefully into their storage areas?

Here is how women think of men’s tools. I was fixing a cabinet door one

Saturday morning when my sweetie came sauntering over and, for whatever

reason, stuck her face into my toolbox. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever done

that before. She arose with a grimace and declared, “Your toolbox stinks”. I could

not believe what I was hearing. This is something a man would have never

considered. I stuck my face in there and guess what, my toolbox stunk! It smelled

like a boat-load of 3-day-old mackerel heads. While this may be interesting, I’m

just not sure what, if anything, to do about it. Empty my toolbox and wash it out?

Absurd! Spray some deodorizer in there? I think not. Tools are tools, what can I

say?

* Men *

The following exercises were designed to help you men cope with things that you could

probably cope with just fine on your own if you had the inclination. It is quite likely,

however, that you do not which is why we’re doing this. I’m talking about your home

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environment as well as your woman. The problem as women see it is that men just aren’t

usually interested in what’s going on in his local environment. That, unfortunately often

includes her. But the truth is that women just don’t understand.

Men are looking at the big picture, they don’t have time to deal with the details. Men are

worrying about big issues like global finance, space exploration, the mysteries of the

deep sea. They don’t have time for the more mundane such as their Children’s birthdays,

your wedding anniversary or the household budget. They have only so much room in

their heads for useful information and so reserve that space for things like the lifetime

batting averages for all of the New York Yankees through the 2003 season. If this were

not the case, these exercises would not be necessary. Sadly it is, and so they are.

Exercise 5.1 - Listening

Why do you, a man, need to listen to your woman? The short answer is so

that you will know when you’re in trouble. The long answer is so that you

will understand your woman better than any man has understood any woman

ever before. Yeah, right. Just try to pay attention here. Listening to your

woman is very important. The reason is that women love to talk. This is the

manner in which women not only communicate verbally but communicate

their feelings as well. Men can barely communicate verbally let alone

effectively transmit anything associated with their feelings. That is, of

course, unless they need to punch someone who really needs punching. In

this manner, men feel comfortable in communicating their feelings to one

another.

However, as important as listening is, often observing can be an even more

fruitful endeavor. The art of observation will allow you to understand what

your woman needs, in addition to what she says she wants. And what she

generally wants is jewelry. Are you listening? Another reason why the art of

observation is often more fruitful than listening is because often you, the

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man, will not know what she, the woman, is talking about. There could be

many reasons for this but some of the more common are discussed below:

Focus. You’re not paying attention. This is usually the case 99% of

the time when you cannot understand what she is saying. You can

determine if this is the problem by making an effort to pay attention

to her and see if that helps. If it does then focus may have been your

problem. For example, right now your probably thinking about the

sword fighting scene with the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts.

Yeah, those skeletons. See, this is what I’m talking about; focus.

Message garbled. She understands what it is she wants to say, it’s

just that sometimes it doesn’t come out the way she’d intended.

While a man may be completely lost in this sort of conversation,

another woman will usually understand what is being said without

ambiguity. An example of this paradox is a conversation which

occurred between two female co-workers in my office some years

ago. One had just put an interoffice mail envelope addressed to HR

into a mail slot outside our office door, when the other said she

needed an envelope to send the same generic form to HR. The first

then said to her, “I just put my thing in the thing, you can put your

thing into my thing if you want”. She then went out and put her thing

into the thing. I was lost.

They hit pause. Some truly remarkable women have the ability to

begin a conversation at one point in time, get side tracked for awhile,

and then return back to that original conversation without missing a

beat. Now, while this may not sound like anything special, consider

the possibility that the period of time between the point at which the

conversation had initially paused and then had subsequently

continued again could be days or weeks. If you are in a relationship

with a woman such as this, then you’ve got your work cut-out for

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you. As soon as she begins talking to you, your first few seconds are

going to be spent going back in time to see if this is a continuation of

some previously unfinished conversation, or simply a new one.

Eventually you’ll get really good at this and she won’t have to wait

for you to catch up.

As I’ve said, it is very important that a man learn to listen to his woman. It is

imperative that you not only listen, but pay attention and try to understand

what she is saying as well. Women occasionally demand this - paying

attention to them that is. What does it mean to pay attention to someone? It

means to focus on what a person is doing or saying. If you don’t understand

all of what she’s saying (and this does happen to us guys, sometimes we only

get part of it), then make her start again and try to pay attention this time.

She’ll be pissed, but in the long run it’s better than misunderstanding what

she’s saying.

Given that you have a large number of important things on your mind (why

didn’t they just kill Gilligan and be done with it?) the question can be asked;

while she’s talking to you, just how intently should you focus? Depends upon

the conversation. For example, you’re on the couch watching the game and

she is busy wrapping something and talking about a wedding present for

some distant relative of hers. It doesn’t matter if anyone is listening or not,

she is still talking away. It’s a good thing that she is talking, it’s a very good

thing. In this situation you probably don’t need to do much in the way of

listening. Occasionally smiling in her direction and saying, “Yes darling, I

think that would be a wonderful idea”, would probably be just fine.

However, if she is hell bent upon discussing something along the lines of

your relationship then you’d better be paying attention. You might want to

try to really make an effort. Here’s a tip; pretend that her eyes are breasts.

That usually works for me. What you want is something just this side of

burning a hole in her face with your laser-like, unwavering attention. I know

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this will be difficult, but you’re going to have to try and understand

everything she is saying regardless of the rate at which it’s being conveyed.

If she’s pissed, it’s going to be like drinking from a fire hose.

Exercise 5.2 - Shopping

She doesn’t necessarily want to shop, it’s that she must shop. That is just the

way it is. Just as a shark must swim to live so must a women shop. Watching

a man shop is like watching a polar bear riding a bicycle. Yeah, they can do

it, and initially it might be entertaining, but you just know that this is not

what nature had intended. Men, being the goal oriented critters they are,

always have a destination in mind when they go to the store or, God forbid,

the Mall. They are usually very direct in their approach toward shopping.

Once in the store, and knowing what they want to buy, they locate the

appropriate department and head off toward it looking neither to the right nor

to the left at whatever merchandize may happen to be displayed.

If it is clothing he is after then simply looking at the size on the tag is

sufficient in order to determine whether or not the article of clothing will fit.

All men’s clothing are of standard sizes (xsmall, small, medium, large ,

xlarge, xxlarge, etc.). All men’s clothing can also be washed together in hot

water so you don’t need to worry about the various colors or materials. Just

find something that suits your fancy (like yet another bright orange and green

Hawaiian shirt to be added to your collection), find the right size and buy the

sucker. No sense trying the thing on, it’s a waste of time. A woman may buy

your socks and underwear in this manner, but little else. I don’t know about

shopping for bras and panties, nobody will talk to me about it. Just as well I

guess.

When women go shopping they have many things in mind and cram in many

more as the shopping experience continues throughout the day. They know

that shopping is a marathon, not a sprint. Women can shop for hours. Men

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can watch sports for hours. Neither can figure out how the other does it.

Much of the shopping experience for women is shopping for clothing.

Women love to shop for clothes in the same way that men love to drink beer

and watch football. Both are very satisfying and fulfilling experiences, for

those involved. The difference, of course, is that after shopping what does a

woman gain from the experience? Clothes? Food? Household goods? Whose

measure of fulfillment does this satisfy? Now in a man’s world, if your team,

for example, has just beat the crap out of your best buddies team, then for the

next week or so life is just not going to get any better. This is fulfillment

man-style.

Exercise 5.3 - Getting Ready in the Morning

If you can help her get ready in the morning by staying out of her way, you

will have done good. Whoever she is and whatever she does, she will have a

morning routine. It may begin by making and drinking 3 cups of coffee the

color and consistency of 30 weight motor oil, but it’s her routine and likely

does not involve you. In the morning she is pressed for time and the last

thing she needs is you underfoot. In her view, anything you do in the

morning is a potential problem for her to deal with, so if you can just sit

quietly, watch TV and not make a mess, everything should work out just

fine.

If she asks you to do something for her in the morning; make breakfast, pour

juice, crush-up 4 Mydol and stir into a tall glass of gin, it is your job to get it

done without bothering her with lots of stupid questions. If she has to spend

time going over every detail with you, she may as well just do it herself.

Figure it up in your own head why don’t you? I still remember (or more

accurately she will not let me forget) the morning I put the wrong type of

lotion on her back. She couldn’t believe what I had done, “I’ll be itchy all

day, what the hell is wrong with you?” I didn’t know what the hell was

wrong with me. She had to take another shower and was late for work.

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Beware, the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions made all the

more slippery with the wrong type of lotion.

Exercise 5.4 - What Does She What From Me?

What does she want from you? Oh nothing just your undying love, your

unwavering fidelity and your everlasting soul. Actually there is a real answer

to this question. And it’s not all that complicated. Above all, a woman needs

to respect her man. If you have already lost her respect, well then I’m not

sure how to help you there except to say that you’ve clearly screwed-up

somehow along the way. I know that’s not much help but it’s all I got. A

woman wants someone she can learn and grow with, someone who she can

trust completely, love deeply and can show-off to her envious friends. Think

that’s difficult, try this: What she really wants is for you not to screw-up any

of her hopes and dreams, but rather to make them all come true.

I've heard it said that a woman wants one man to satisfy all of her needs,

whereas a man wants all women to satisfy his one. I think that either desire is

just as unrealistic as the other. The problem is neither gender will admit it.

Men we know about, they’re all dogs. But women are more subtle. Women

say they want a stable man with a good job and prospects for the future, but

invariably end-up riding off into the sunset on the back of a Harley with the

guy who doesn’t have a checking account. Go figure.

* Women *

There is only a single exercise in this section for you women. There is really not much to

do in this exercise other than to try your best to understand why men do those things they

do. The reason is simple; it’s in their nature. You may as well ask why gophers have to

dig holes in the ground and eat your garden. It’s in their nature. It is why the scorpion

stings and the vampire bat sucks blood, that’s just the way it is. You can try to hold back

the ocean or you can learn to live with what may seem like insane behavior. So, if you

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have decided to give insane behavior a go, then the following information may give you

some insight into the dusty and cob-web encrusted recesses of the male psyche.

Exercise 5.5 - Why Men Do What They Do?

It is a thumb-sucker isn’t it? A head-scratcher if there ever was one. Men

seem to do the strangest things for no apparent reason. Notice I say “seem”.

While this may seem the case to the uninitiated, let me assure you that there

are very good reasons for each and everything that a man does. Good, valid

reasons. Yeah, very valid. So, sit back and relax while I take you on a tour of

some of the more important events in a man’s world. Hopefully this will

throw some kindling on that fire which has no doubt been smoldering in your

brain for many years now.

Watching Sports. After the hell of working all week long in the salt

mines (this works much better if you do, in fact, work in a salt mine)

a man needs to unwind and relax. This period of relaxation,

colloquially known as the “weekend”, is that uninterrupted span of

time which allows a man to recover from the previous work week and

prepare for the one quickly approaching on its heels. In order to

properly unwind a man needs to watch sports on TV.

For the woman who is contemplating this man-like behavior she may

ask herself if the same would not apply to her? She is in need of R&R

as well but the question remains, just what it is she would do all

weekend? Watch sports and eat Cheetos? What kind of life is that?

Well, from the male perspective it’s a great way of life. Pretty much

what we pictured the Pharos doing in ancient Egypt on a Sunday

afternoon. You need to realize that men are very visually oriented. So

much so that each weekend, while his keester is parked in front of the

TV, it is really as if he is out there playing along side of his sports

heroes. He imagines himself tackling running backs, running the

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bases of the baseball diamond, catching those passes falling just out

of reach of the worlds greatest receivers.

It would be a sight to behold, no? Your 54-year-old, 192lb husband,

who has not done a lick of exercise since the President’s Physical

Challenge back in '74, running down the field, his pasty white legs

glaring in the sunlight dodging hoards of tacklers the size of Buick’s.

Dodging left, leaping right, looking like the super star he imagines

himself to be, he plays both offense and defense the entire game.

Afterwards he is, once again, carried off the field on the shoulders of

his teammates and awarded the game ball. You know however, as

you look down at him sleeping on the couch, Cheeto dust powdering

him a light orange from stem to stern, that he’s good for maybe 7

minutes or so, then he’s off to sleep as soundly as a newborn.

I don’t need no stinkin' help. He’s right - he don’t need no stinkin'

help. He can break it all by himself. This is what men do, they work

on things. They fix things that do not work and they break things that

do. This is what men do, and he would prefer to do it all by himself.

In the unlikely event that a man should need help then he’ll ask for it

by either turning blue or by leaking blood. Women have a difficult

time with this concept as they prefer to do things with others, in

groups.

Now lots of men don’t mind another guy watching while he’s

working. That’s a guy thing. Men, however, do not typically enjoy

women watching as they feel that there’s a criticism just awaitin' to

be leveled. Guys enjoy learning on their own, which means that

mistakes are just part of the process and, as such, are no big deal.

That’s what plaster, paint, wallpaper, paneling, tape, bondo, siding,

mastic, band-aids, stitches and glue are for. They’re for learning.

Women don’t get this, they would rather have a plan, a design. They

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would rather do it right the first time. Well what the hell do you

expect to learn from that? Planning like that is not likely to result in a

lost finger tip or a missing eye brow. Before you can learn to do

something right, you need to experience all of the ways to do it

wrong. That’s what it means for a man to learn. If it’s good enough

for my dad then it’s good enough for me.

Stand behind me woman, I'll protect you. Men protect their

property and their women. That’s another thing that they do, they

protect. If you’re his woman, then it’s his duty to protect you - even

if it’s nothing more than running just a bit slower than you while

trying to escape a pack of hungry wolves. Men enjoy the concept of

protecting their home and family, but when it comes to the practice of

protection it may be a different matter. It depends on the possibility

that he may own a gun. Men love guns - most men, most guns. He

may love his gun, but the real question here is if everyone wouldn’t

be much safer if he just had a baseball bat. Though the sight of your

protector of a man sneaking around the house in his boxers sporting a

baseball bat may deter a would-be thief, remember that there is

nothing like to noisy dog to get the job done right.

Dinner? Most men can manage with both breakfast and lunch (or

what y’all in the south call dinner). Although they would usually

prefer something along the lines of biscuits and gravy, ham and eggs,

potatoes, juice and coffee, men can scrounge around in the fridge and

come up with something for breakfast. The same is often true of

lunch. This is because almost all men have had to live on their own at

some point in their lives, and when needed that old bachelor

imprinting kicks-in once again. His concern, first and foremost, is the

question of who’s going to make him dinner. His expectation is that

you, his woman, will be there in the kitchen just a-cookin' away. He

wouldn’t at all expect you to be lounging your lazy butt around like

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he’s doing all weekend because if you both are laying around ain’t

much feedin' a-getin' done. This will likely result in a number of

problems which are best avoided.

From my vast experience as a bachelor, and having lived with many a

pathetic bachelor in my time, I have amassed a wealth of knowledge

as to what is edible and what is not. I will, thankfully, not delve into

the subcategory of that which is temporarily edible. It may be

interesting to note that at one point in my life I was very poor. I was

attending college at UC Santa Cruz and at times literally had no

money. Though I did always have a roof over my head, having a

decent meal each day was often another story. I remember

particularly one 3 week stretch during which I had nothing to eat but

what I had grown in a small garden. Fortunately I had, some months

earlier, planted Swiss chard, green onions, rhubarb, brussel sprouts

and turnips. Imagine living on this bill-a-fare for 3 weeks, it was

horrible. So, as my gift to the women out there, I give to you the

standard secret bachelor menu for any man, for any meal, at any time:

♂ Ketchup on crackers. This is the basic bachelor breakfast

when you’re a college student on financial aid and don’t have

pickles. This is fast, filling (if you eat enough) and will keep

that waistline of a 14-year-old girl on you much longer. Don’t

skimp on the quality of the Ketchup. Trust me on this one.

♂ Mustard with relish on crackers. This is usually for special

occasions such as a wedding. Get the little packets of mustard

and relish when you buy a $0.99 hot dog at your local fast

food oasis. Make sure you fill all of your pockets with the

packets. These packets do not need to be refrigerated, they last

virtually forever, they’re easy to transport and are filled with

flavor.

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♂ Ketchup soup. This is simply ketchup and hot water, but may

be flavored with bread or small hard lemon-flavored candies.

It has kept may men alive, but not for long and not happily. If

you are really down to nothing but ketchup soup be aware that

there are many other things which can be dissolved in water

and, thus, make soup. Experiment, you’ll be surprised.

♂ Peanut butter on crackers. This is a special occasion food, a

rare treat indeed. Peanut butter is actually real food, not just

the makings of real food. As such, it is not cheap and so

cannot be a daily undertaking. Also, peanut butter will require

that you drink something while eating. This is an added

expense at a point in time when pennies may be all that you

have because of college tuition, alimony or child support.

What you really want is a food that supplies its own liquid,

like a tomato or a orange. As my Asian roommate once stated,

“One stone, two bird”.

♂ Cheese on crackers. Although relatively inexpensive, cheese

can only be eaten in quantities which may be insufficient to

satisfy your hunger. Of course, you can woof down a hunk of

cheese the size of your head if you really want. But if you do,

you’re not likely to crap again until the sun becomes a lump

of coal about the size of the hunk of cheese you just ate. So,

that’s why this has been labeled as one of our ‘occasional

delicacies’.

♂ Bread and crackers. These are interchangeable with respect

to what can be put on or between them. Pretty much anything

can be wrapped in bread and made into a sandwich. I have

seen sandwiches made out of spaghetti and meatballs, space

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food sticks, dry potato spuds, frozen spinach, ½ stick of

butter, Chinese food, oatmeal, unflavored cracklings, an Aba-

Zaba and 12 broken taco shells. Bread and crackers can also

be eaten by themselves, but they don’t provide the sensory

satisfaction that something like, say Ketchup soup with

pickles, does.

♂ Bread with chocolate. This is usually not within the domain

of the typical bachelor as he would not likely have chocolate

in the house. The belief is that if there is chocolate in the

house then there is probably a woman somewhere in the

vicinity as well. So, this is usually something to which a man

must resort if his wife or girlfriend has simply gone to visit

her sister for a few days and there is nothing else to eat. This

also applies to chocolate cake as well since it is essentially

bread, eggs, milk and chocolate anyway.

♂ Cup of Noodles. If you’re really on a budget, Cup-O-Noodles

is definitely the way to go. Solid food pieces and a pasta-like

material mixed with a relatively yummy liquid, makes for a

very satisfying and economical meal. You can live for years,

up to 4 it would seem, on nothing but Cups-o-Noodles. There

are many varieties and flavors, they travel easily, the

packaging also becomes the bowl. Clearly, I just can’t say

enough.

♂ Macaroni and Cheese. Macaroni is a seemingly magical

substance. When you combine macaroni and cheese you are

inexplicably able to eat as much cheese as you’d like without

ill effects. This is what I seem to remember anyway, or maybe

I just dreamt it. I was going to test it out for you, but since

I’ve not been single for sometime I’ve not had the opportunity

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to eat as much as I want. Sort of ironic that I couldn’t eat as

much as I wanted to when I was unmarried, because I was

poor. Now I can’t eat as much as I want because I’m married.

I do, however, now get to have macaroni with two different

kinds of cheeses when I do get to have macaroni and cheese.

Pure heaven.

♂ Inedibles. There are some items that are sold in the markets

which are actually inedible, but single men will actually

attempt to eat. The only explanation for this habit seems to be

that men, like many primates, will attempt to eat a great

variety of things found in his environment simply to find out

what can be safely ingested. Men quickly find that many items

which can be purchased cannot, however, be eaten. For

example; vegemite (which is just yeast and 3 different kinds

of salt), tofu, spam, anchovy paste, green apples, sardines,

beef melts, raw horseradish, beef tongue, okra, beef brains,

silver cake balls and tripe have all been found to cause severe

gastric distress and should be avoided.

Laundry? In a word, no. If you don’t know why by now, you will

soon find out. You’ll want to keep men as far away from the laundry

as possible. It’s not that men don’t know the difference between an

article of clothing and an article in the newspaper, they don’t. It’s that

given any two pieces of clothing, he would not have the ability to

determine which one is clean and one which is dirty. Though his

sense of smell is as good as anyone’s, the problem seems to be in the

interpretation. Often something which is clean might smell worse to a

man than does something which is not. This is another paradox of the

male mind, don’t ask why let’s just deal with the issue.

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Now if by chance he does get the idea into his head to go and do the

laundry, you just know it’s going to be a disaster. First of all, there is

no concept as to the separation of white and non-white clothing. In a

man’s mind, clothes go in, soap goes in, clothes get washed, clothes

get dried, clothes get folded, job is done. This includes sweaters as

well. What you will end-up with is a light pink or gray wardrobe for

your Barbie-doll collection. Note that, for men, this same basic

concept is applicable to dishes in the dishwasher as well. Dishes go

in, dishes get washed. What didn't melt in the process gets put away.

Finally, for men there is a distinct lack of understanding with regard

to the uses of hot and cold water with respect to the laundry. Men

believe that to truly get clothing clean the hottest water possible

should always be used. Enough said?

Cleaning the house. Men know all about house cleaning, or Spring

cleaning as we called it back in Bachelor training, and are actually

fairly good at it. Cleaning will occur each Spring or just prior to

moving out of an apartment. Particularly if we were required to put

down a significant cleaning deposit. So, what men will typically do is

to start by buying a pony keg and some cleaning supplies as he may

not have had these beforehand. Next he’ll call some friends to get

together for a kegger.

You may wonder where this is going, but stay with me here. Men

will begin this effort by getting all liquored-up (this, of course, is

how many a man-adventure begins) and then get into the cleaning

supplies. Any small voice in his head warning him about the

possibility that things could get out of hand has long ago been found

floating face-down at the bottom of his beer glass. They are there to

have fun, and what fun they will have. Picture it: Drunk,

unsupervised men. The concept is disconcerting to say the least.

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Several hours later a quick inspection will reveal quite a bit of paint

rubbed off of the walls, large areas of bleached-out carpet, several

broken windows, a cracked toilet bowl, a goat where there had been

no goat before, a small smoldering fire, and a hole in the ceiling

through which you can now see stars. This is what I mean by things

getting out of hand.

The Three Stooges. Finally I would like to say just a few words

concerning the mystique surrounding a man’s fascination with the

Three Stooges: Woo-woo-woo, nyug-nyug-nyug, a-cha-cha-cha. Hey

Moe! You knucklehead! Ok, I just had to get that out of my system.

What can I say, I'm a guy. The Three Stooges embody all that is good

in a man’s world: Guys working together and slapping each other

around. I don’t think it gets any more complicated than that.

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Habit #6

Synergize, then Compromise

I remember back when I was young my Mom saying to me, “Get out of the damned

bathroom. What are you doing in there day and night? Give someone else a chance why

don’t you.” Wait, no that wasn’t it. It was my Dad who said, “Son, remember this;

women are crazy and men are stupid.” And I have remembered that, pretty much at the

expense of everything else, ever since. So, being a male I must then ask myself, am I

stupid? If I was, how would I know? Plenty of past girlfriends would, I’m sure, attest to

the fact that yes I am. But what makes them experts? How would they know anyway,

they’re crazy!

Is this, indeed, true? At some basic level are women really crazy, and are men really

stupid? I would say, based upon a page full of numbers I just wrote down here in two

relatively neat columns, that yes these statements are true when it comes to relationships.

Knowing this about your partner may give you a bit of insight into their mannerisms,

mood swings, phobias, unique customs, off-beat habits and nervous tics. This insight can

also help you and your partner to live in close proximity without killing each other. True

Prozac is easier and a TV cheaper, and they will both accomplish the same thing, but

they lack that 'personal' touch.

If you intend to spend your life, or what remains of it, with your partner then learning to

work together is imperative. This is where ‘synergy’ comes in. To synergize means to

work together for the mutual benefit of both parties. This is not an easy thing to explain

let alone accomplish, but the benefits certainly outweigh the effort expended in

perfecting this habit. It has been said that a relationship begins with two people looking

at each other and at some point they end-up looking in the same direction. Nice, eh? But,

of course, none of this can take place without proper communication. The problem with

communication is that it works just fine until someone begins talking. Then all bets are

off. Though talking can solve many problems it can also lead to much confusion. Much

of the confusion is rooted in the fact that there is usually no prior agreement of terms.

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This, I believe, is the basis for most misunderstandings between men and women. The

fact that each simply use language differently. To each gender, words or phrases may

have different meanings.

So, in order to promote better communication between the sexes, I have developed a set

of “Male / Female Translation Tables” which were designed in order to help each gender

understand the other. To use these tables, simply find the appropriate word or phrase for

your situation on the left, and find its likely meaning on the right. Note that there are

often two possible meanings, their use dependant upon the situation. The likely meaning,

which is the one used most of the time, will be accurate for almost all conceivable

situations. There is also a less likely alternative meaning which is often reserved for those

rare occasions in which one partner wants to confuse the crap out of the other.

In the tables below only those words and phrases which are most often misunderstood by

the other gender are included. This list is constantly being revised and updated, so if

there are additional words or phrases which I may have missed or translated in error

please do not hesitate to notify me and I’ll make the necessary changes.

When a Woman says... She probably means... But, she could also mean...

No. No. Hell No.Yes. Yes. Maybe.Maybe. Yes. No.You idiot. Why did I marry you? You idiot.Where were you last night? I already spoke to a lawyer. I already threw out your clothes.Do you love me? Where were you last night? I'm pregnant.I'm pregnant. Marry me. You might be the father.We're pregnant. We're getting married. You're the father.You're in big trouble. I'm pregnant, you're the father

and you should tell my husband.Someone else is pregnant and you're the father.

My parents are coming over. Stock-up on the Alcohol. Find a movie to go to so I can tell them you're at work.

Your parents are coming over. Stock-up on the Prozac. I'll find a movie to go to.I Love You. Marry Me. Buy me things.Marry Me. I Love You. Buy me things.Buy me things. Buy me things. Buy me things.I'm going on a Business Trip. I'm going on a Business Trip. I'm going to the Islands to hang-

out with Sergio the cabana boy.I'm leaving you. I'm leaving you, unless you shape

up mister.You've had you're chance, I'm gone like your future paychecks.

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And now for the men. Yes it’s true, men don’t always mean what they say either.

Though not nearly as complex as the woman’s translation table, this has its surprises as

well. So, it is to be used in the same fashion, find the word phrase which best reflects

your situation in the left hand column and its likely meaning on the right.

When a Man says... He probably means... But, he could also mean...

No. No. Hell No.Yes. Yes. I'll ask my wife.Maybe. I'll ask my wife. No.I didn't know. You should have told me. I guess I should have known.Where was I last night? Come-on brain, you can do it. Where are my clothes?Do you love me? Let's have sex. Let's have sex.You're pregnant? Bye. Bye.We're pregnant? Wake-up, wake-up, wake-up. Who’s the father?I'm in big trouble? I'm in big trouble! I'm in big trouble!My parents are coming over. I'm outta here. I hope they bring Alcohol.Your parents are coming over. I hope they bring Alcohol. I'm outta here.I Love You. Let's have sex. Let's have sex.Marry Me. Let's have sex. Let's have sex.Let me buy you things. Let's have sex. Let's have sex.I'm going on a Business Trip. I'm going off to have an affair. I'm going to Reno to hang-out

with Cindy the Keno waitress.I'm leaving you. I've got a younger chick who's

too dumb to see through my crap.Come with us and we'll live like Hippies in a commune.

Synergy. It comes in many forms and might be found in places you’d never thought to

look. In the past I’ve had the privilege of living in an area where mushrooms where

plentiful during the rainy months. Love them mushrooms, I do. Growing in that area

were many examples of trees and mushrooms growing together, side by side. They had

formed symbiotic relationships which was a benefit to both life forms. In fact, these

relationships allowed both to thrive better than either might have done separately.

Fungus aside, in most people-based relationships these sorts of co-operative partnerships

are of great benefit not only to both parties involved, but to the relationship as a whole.

This is all well and good, you say, but how does one actually go about accomplishing this

sort of thing? I mean, how do you go about forming a synergistic relationship with

someone who thinks that chewing tobacco is an appetizer or that shopping for shoes is

the pinnacle of personal fulfillment. Well I’m glad you asked because, it’s exercise time.

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* Men *

These exercises are not easy in that they involve actually interacting with your woman. I

know that for we men it’s much easier (and far more preferable) if we can just go off by

ourselves and ponder the mystery’s of the universe, solve them, and then at some point

come back a wiser and more enlightened person. Not so with these exercises. Here we

will be going against that basic nature of man. In these exercises you will get to do things

together. Go on, tell me this isn’t going to be fun. I know you can’t wait, so let’s get to it.

Exercise 6.1 - Doing Things Together

If you are to actually achieve some sort of synergistic relationship then it is

imperative that you do things together and that you not wind up killing each

other as a result. Every time I remember my mom and dad attempting to wall

paper our kitchen together back when I was a youngster it gives me

nightmares and sets my therapy back by about a year. All I recall was a blur

of shouting and wheat paste resulting in a functionally unusable kitchen for

some period of time. My advice would be to simplify the entire concept of

doing things together and just go shopping with her.

Shopping. Go shopping with her. I don’t know any better way to

ease you into this subject. There is no more useful time you can spend

with her than shopping. You will learn everything there is to learn

about your woman by going shopping with her. Now as far as men

need to be concerned about there are only two types of shopping.

Shopping for food and shopping for clothing. To her it doesn’t matter

what she’s shopping for, she loves shopping. You probably see

shopping as a necessary evil. This is going to be difficult unless you

appear to change your attitude about shopping. Notice I said ‘appear’,

nobody expects miracles to happen here.

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Now I wouldn’t expect you to actually enjoy shopping since it’s not a

natural state for men. Killing something rather than pulling it down

off a shelf is more in keeping with what a man would consider a fun-

filled afternoon. Regardless of how you feel about shopping, you’re

going to need to appear to enjoy it, because if you do not, then she

will not want you to go with her. While this may sound like the best

of all possible worlds it is not, trust me. She would really love it if

you enjoyed shopping as much as she does, which is not going to be

possible but it’s a nice thought. So, let’s go through each type of

shopping experience so that you will know what to expect. It’s the

Devil you don’t know, that's the one you have to worry about, right?

♂ Shopping for Food. Note that she might call this “Going to

the store” as opposed to using the word shopping. Often the

term shopping is reserved for anything other than food,

which is usually going to be clothing or shoes. Food

shopping is the best that the shopping experience will get for

a man, and most men don’t even realize it. What I think most

men fail to realize is that supermarkets are absolutely great!

It’s because that’s where all the stuff is; the beer, the chips,

the dips, all the Bar-B-Que makin's and fixin's. Everything

you could ever want and it’s all in one convenient place.

Wow, my eyebrows are sweating just thinking about it.

But there’s a catch here. If you go shopping with her, and

start piling the kind of crap you really want into the basket,

she will make you put all of that stuff back on the shelves

and wait for her in the car. So, consider another approach.

When you’re walking down an aisle and come upon

something that you really want (say the potato chips with

extra salt and real fat), pick it up looking skyward and say to

her, “You know, we haven’t had your parents over for a

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barbeque in quite a while.” She will be stunned for about 10

seconds during which you can quickly put the bag of chips

into the cart. You need to quickly follow this up with

additional planning for the meal with beer, ribs, dips, potato

salad, etc. etc. Get the idea? You can pretty much have

whatever you want as long as you say it’s for something that

will really please her.

♂ Shopping for Clothes. This is real shopping. If you have

never gone shopping with a woman who is shopping for

clothes, then brother you haven’t lived. Here is what’s likely

to transpire when you go clothes shopping with a woman.

You will get into the store of her choice in which half of the

clothing looks like it’s made of burlap and the other half

from an old leather couch. You may see a sad cadre of men

sitting or lingering waiting impatiently for their women, but

more often than not there will only be other women in the

store. If they notice you at all, it will only be to admire the

woman to whom you belong.

To begin with, do not comment on any article of clothing

unless she asks you for your opinion. If she is not wearing it,

ask her to try it on. She will love this as it’s a good indicator

of your interest. You need to remember that much of what

she’s picking out will be in hopes that it’s something you will

like. It’s important that you like what she thinks you’ll like.

Realistically, you probably don’t care about her wardrobe as

long as she doesn’t leave the house looking like a hooker.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, she can look like a hooker. She just

can’t leave the house.

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You need to know up front that going shopping with her for

clothing will be an all day excursion. Don’t expect to get

back for that 1:00PM kick-off or even the 6:00 game. That’s

right, you’re going to not only be with her the entire day, but

you’re also going to spend a large part of it discussing her

wardrobe. While shopping, make sure that you don’t whine

and complain. If you do go with her, make sure it’s a

pleasant experience for you both; get that in your head up

front. To quote one of the greatest movies of all time,

“You’re going to get your mind right.” Yes, this is quite the

sacrifice on your part, but the good part is that she will

understand this and will, in some uniquely female fashion,

reciprocate.

I would again like to suggest that you try not to engage in doing too much

together other than shopping. My Ex and I used to do things together. Quite a

few things in fact ranging from skydiving and rafting to arguing and fighting.

It was almost always fun and exciting. Yeah, fun. Let me relate to you an

event which occurred some 8 years ago.

During that impetuous decade of the 90's, we all said and did

some crazy things. I was no exception. As I was losing my hair

anyway, I decided to spend most of that decade bald. Yes, I had

no hair. I enjoyed the ease with which hair care could now be

accomplished, and my Ex liked the look. Plus she had some

interesting and unexpected uses for a bald head. I can’t relate the

specifics of that here, but if interested you can always pick-up my

new Sex Manual for Real Couples called, “Ouch, get off my hair!”.

So, back to the story. The way in which I would achieve this

baldness was through a synergistic process in which we could

both share. She shaved my head in the shower. Though this was

not a time consuming process, she quickly tired of the fun and

suggested an alternative. Her idea, which now looking back in

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retrospect still sounds good, was to wax my head. Wax my head?

Sure, she did it all the time on her legs and arms. It was no big

deal, just a little hot wax and off comes the hair - no problem.

Well, it sounded good to me. I mean, a little hot wax? Come on I

was a man, I could take the pain of a little hot wax. Particularly

when here was this petite little woman, barely 100lbs. if that, who

had certainly endured so much more pain than this all in the name

of vanity, modesty or fashion.

OK, hot wax out of the microwave, towel over shoulders, head

over sink. Smelled and looked a bit like honey. She spread it on

the top of my head with what appeared to be a thick Popsicle

stick. It was very hot, but not agonizingly so. I had let my hair

grow for about 12 days prior to the wax being applied. My Ex said

that the wax needed something to grab onto. Sounded like solid

logic to me. So, now the wax had been applied and it was time to

gently peel it off. “No, you don’t peel it off. You rip it off”, she

corrected. I couldn’t quite picture what she was saying and was

about to begin to ponder the position I had gotten myself into

when she added, “...and we’d better hurry because the wax is

cooling.” Christ!

She grabbed my head in one arm, latched onto some of the wax

with the other hand, and yanked with all of her 100lb might.

Approximately 4 hairs from the front of my head actually came

out. The remainder staying firmly implanted in my scalp which

may, I think, have separated from my skull. At least that was how

if felt. The cold, hard wax felt heavy on my aching head. If there

were feathers it would have been like getting tarred and

feathered. I had to scrape the wax off of my head under warm

running water using my fingernails. It took hours. My Ex laughed

so hard she peed her pants. This is synergy.

Exercise 6.2 - Thinking about Her First

There are always struggles in every relationship. These often take the form of

power sharing strategies, most of which are selfish, self-serving and

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ultimately destructive. Following the advice of these questionable

philosophies, ones life ends-up being in a never-ending and unfulfilling

power struggle. Well, what if we changed that strategy? What if both parties

in the relationship tried thinking about one another first. Quite the concept,

eh? Imagine the relationship resulting from this type of interaction.

This is very difficult initially, as there is quite a bit of trust involved. You

need to trust that your partner will be thinking of you and your needs first

while you are, in turn, thinking of theirs. Though it takes a while to get into

this, it will actually keep things in balance quite well. It actually only works,

however, if you really love and trust one another. It doesn’t work well

otherwise and the results often involve legal teams bearing writs and torts

and other such annoyances.

Her Birthday. Do not forget her Birthday. This is something you

don’t want to screw-up. Consider the following: I remember it like it

was yesterday. We were camping one summer; June as I remember.

After a day of fishing, water skiing and swimming my Dad, Sister

and I were sitting outside the camper waiting for dinner while Mom

was in the camper cooking. There were few trees there and my Sister

was complaining about how hot it was, when from inside the camper

we heard an odd noise. We couldn’t quite place it at first, then it grew

louder until we realized that it was Mom crying inside the camper.

My Dad ran into the camper and the sobbing quieted down after a

few seconds. After several minutes he came out of the camper,

walked up to my Sister and I, pointed a stubby finger at us and said,

“You forgot your Mother's Birthday”. And so we had. Though, it’s

not possible to apologize for that particular transgression, time does

heal all wounds. Did she ever forgive us? Yes, of course. Does she

laugh about it now? Absolutely. Will she ever forget about it? Never.

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I need to repeat this once again: Do not forget her Birthday! I would

suggest that you tattoo her birth date on the inside part of your ankle.

We’ll deal with what to do about the tattoo, should you two

eventually break-up, at another time. Also, make sure that you get her

something romantic for her birthday. Do not, and I want to make this

very clear, do not buy her an automatic garage door opener for her

Birthday. I had to learn that one the hard way. This book is pure gold

isn’t it?

Your Anniversary. As romantic as your birthday present is expected

to be, the anniversary present should be even more so. Something

along the lines of a trail of red rose petals leading to the bedroom

where chilled champagne in a silver bucket and (really expensive)

jewelry on the pillow await, would be sufficient. Just as in the

birthday segment, let me issue a warning here: You’re going to want

to make sure that you put a lot of thought into the gifts for her. Gifts

such as; a lawn mower, a humidor, sheepskin seat covers, drill press,

bag of golf tees, or a hand-made coupon drawn in Crayola for “Some

Real Lovin” from her oh so thoughtful man, would only serve to

make your life a living hell. Is that what you want? I didn’t think so.

Let’s begin by taking a deep breath. We don’t want to panic here,

women can smell fear. What you’re going to want to do is to prepare

for your upcoming anniversary. Fortunately, what will probably

happen is that several weeks prior to your anniversary, your woman

will begin hinting around for something specific which she would

like as an anniversary present. Pay attention! You’ll never know

when it will come or what form it will take, but that hint will likely

be there somewhere. Your only job is to listen, pay attention and

purchase you’re best guess as to what it is she really wants (make

sure you keep the receipt). Note: don’t come out and just ask her what

she wants. This will only demonstrate to her, all too clearly, that you

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in fact know nothing about her. Your life will become a living hell

until the Grim Reaper finally releases your tormented soul. Those

who say that life is short had never forgotten an anniversary gift. It

can be long, very long.

Birthdays & Anniversaries. This section involves the birthdays and

anniversaries of other people, such as relatives. You are, fortunately,

not required to memorize anything of this nature, this is pretty much a

given. This is good news for you as you’ve got more important things

to worry about anyway. Usually she will have a calendar somewhere

with this information written down on it. If you do find this calendar,

you’ll find it’s probably chocked-full of information concerning, not

only birthdays and anniversaries, but also upcoming events in which

you are likely to have to participate. While you may not be

responsible for knowing the details of birthdays and anniversaries,

you will be required to participate in the thoughtful gift selection.

This is so much fun for the woman, men simply have no idea. Here’s

what will happen. She has already decided on the gift you two are

going to give for some upcoming event. Let’s say it’s a birthday for

Aunt Rose. She’ll be 72 on Tuesday. Your woman mentions to you

that Aunt Rose’s birthday is fast approaching. Your first thought is,

“Who the hell is Aunt Rose”? But you don’t get a chance to ponder

that as she then asks you what you think Aunt Rose would like for her

birthday. You barely have a clue as to what’s happening in your own

life, let alone what a 72-year-old woman would want for her birthday.

But you are willing to make an effort and so you offer a meager

attempt at an answer and stammer something like, “Maybe a toaster”.

That’s it – you’ve screwed-up. It’s all downhill (or perhaps uphill)

from there. You will now be required to defend your ridiculous gift

selection. This is not what you want to have happen. Never offer an

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actual idea for a gift. What you want to say is something along the

lines of, “Darling, you know her so well. Why don’t you pick out

something she’d love from the both of us. You have such wonderful

taste. I love you. Your hair looks wonderful.” Is that good or what?

She’ll never see through this clever ruse.

Valentine’s Day. This is, for most men, a thoroughly forgettable

holiday. Were it not for the occasional commercial and the surprising

quantity of red and white hearts and flowers at the market, men

would likely not remember this holiday at all and would, thus, spend

the next two weeks wondering why his women is angry. Women

typically would not remind a man that Valentine’s Day is quickly

approaching. They long for a romantic evening with the man of their

dreams. So make it happen, you fool. You don’t have to deal with

this but once a year, One would think that you could put the remote

down for the time it takes to order flowers and make dinner

reservations. Anything beyond this from her man would be almost

too much for most women to comprehend, given that they know their

men better than they know themselves.

Notice New Things. This is going to be difficult, you’re not going to

like it and you’re probably not going to practice anyway. I don’t even

know why I bother. Anyway, if you can possibly manage it, try to

notice and remember things about her. Her hair style, her shoes, eye

shadow, moles dresses, scars, whatever you can think of. If any of

these things change and you happen to notice, you might casually

mention to her that you think the change is wonderful (even if it’s

not). This may seem like a small thing to do, but you would be

surprised how much these seemingly simple acts mean to her.

She will feel that you are taking notice and paying attention to her.

These are good things for her to think. She wants to be the most

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important person in your life and your taking an interest in her will

go a long ways towards instilling these feelings in her. Again, this is

not going to be easy, I know there are just so many things you’re

going to be able to notice let alone remember. Just do your best,

she’ll understand. She knows you probably don’t even remember

what you had for breakfast this morning and will just be thrilled at

your attempt to take a greater interest in her.

Exercise 6.3 - Why do we do it?

If we take this relationship concept to an extreme we may find ourselves,

how shall we say, married. Just exactly how we get ourselves into this

position is never very clear to the man who finds himself standing at the

alter. His head is a swirling, foggy cloud of buzzing bees that won’t let him

think straight. He feels nauseous and the last thing he can remember is being

in bed with someone (this woman next to him?) saying, “I love you too”.

And now he’s standing next to her about to say, “I do too”. So, why do we

do it? Why do men actually go ahead and get married?

A man will marry a woman in the hope that she won’t change. She will. Why

is this the case do you think? Well, I think it has to do with the way in which

a woman sees herself in the marriage. She now has responsibility. Lot’s of

responsibilities - while a man, as soon as he becomes a husband, thinks to

himself, “This is great, someone to do all the housework and cook and sew

and sweat and toil and, not to mention, all that free sex.” First of all let’s get

something straight buster, as far as a man is concerned sex is never free. In

one way or another, you’ll pay.

The second thing I’d like to point out is that women are not likely to be of

the same opinion as to their upcoming role in the marriage. From the female

perspective, marriage is a partnership. The union of two people who will be

working toward the same goals, with the same hopes and desires for a shared

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future. This means that there's work to do. Lot’s of work. Especially for you,

you lazy good-for-nothing. Her mother always said you would never amount

to anything. This is important as your woman will do whatever it takes to

prove her mother wrong, even if it means she has to take you apart and

completely rebuild you into something of which her mother would approve.

Sound insane? Well, now that you’re married it’s time to impart a bit-o-

wisdom to you. I waited until you’re already married because this wisdom

has sent many a man heading for the hills and now you’re legally bound to

stay. While it may seem that women are at times somewhat irrational, the

fact is that just below that thin outer layer of lunacy is a very solid

foundation of rationality. A rock solid foundation of logical granite it is.

That foundation, however, was seemingly constructed on an unstable gravel

pit of insanity which, if even slightly jarred, will reveal its true nature by

swallowing your pride and self-worth like a lioness on a sick gazelle.

So, one of our goals once we’re married would be to not jar this gravel pit

of whatever in any way at all. One way in which to accomplish this would

be to make sure there is never an appearance or hint of any word, action or

deed which she could misconstrue as “not being on her side”. Though as

crude as that statement may be, I don’t think I could put it any more

succinctly or accurately. I can’t underestimate the importance of always

appearing to be with her, on her side. This is especially true in any public

setting.

Years ago I ate fast food. Lots of fast food. I did this not only

because I was poor, but because my girlfriend worked at Burger

King and could get loads of food for free. I had no idea that this

stuff was clogging my arteries and would be lodged in my colon

until the Clinton is back in office. One day she and I decided to get

ourselves some free burgers. She dropped me off at the front as I

really had to use the bathroom. Once I came out of the bathroom I

noticed everyone looking out of the front window.

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Looking out there as well I saw Leslie, my girlfriend, standing next

to her newly dented Le Car. She was arguing with a very large guy

standing next to a very large truck cover with lots of small

confederate flags. I ran out there to see what I could do, which

hopefully was nothing. Leslie immediately sized my arm, shoved

my face into the redneck’s huge chest and said, “Tell this stupid

ass that I didn’t hit him!” Well, alrighty then. Now we have a

memory in the making. There are precious few times when one

knows that no matter what happens within the next few seconds,

you’ll remember it for the rest of your life. That is provided, of

course, that you will be able to remember anything at all.

So, here’s what I did. I apologized. Yup, that’s what I did. If my

knees would have been able to bend I would have been down on

them, but they wouldn’t and so I wasn’t. I did, however, ask this

very large man’s forgiveness which was received in the form of a

disgusted smirk, a mispronounced expletive and a cloud of

exhaust. I attempted to explain to Leslie afterward that not only

had I not seen the accident, but that I had no desire to have my

dental work mucked with. This worked about as well as you’d

imagine it would have worked which was not at all. She said that I

should have agreed with her regardless of whether or not I had

seen the accident. She said this while packing stuff to leave. I

noticed that it was my stuff she was packing as I wondered where I

was going. As it turned out it didn’t much matter to her where I

went as my mutinous self was no longer welcomed. At that point

in time I didn’t understand. A few nights at the “Y” cleared things

right up for me.

* Women *

You’ve had yourself a fairly good life. Things were going fine, you had friends, hopes

for the future, dreams of a better life to come. Then from out of nowhere this big lug of a

guy comes into your life and, BAM, instant project. Your place is now a mess, you find

empty milk cartons in the fridge, you have no time for any of your friends, there’s a new

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yellow stain on the bathroom floor, clothing is always cast about without regard to

cleanliness, you’ve taken up drinking in the early afternoon and you’ve only been

together for three weeks now. It will get better, trust me. That is, it will as long as you

get up off of your butt and properly train this thing which now lives in your house. So,

get yourself a rolled-up newspaper and a shock collar and let’s get to work.

Exercise 6.4 - What Have I Done?

A woman will marry a man with the hope that he will change. He won’t. He

can’t. He has no idea he should change and, even if he wanted to, doesn’t

know how. Nagging will only reinforce bad behavior and that’s not what we

want, is it? No, it isn’t. What we want is to turn this guy into something you

can take out into public, someone with whom you would be happy to share

your life. Now to be fair, it is likely that many of the things about him which

you now find annoying or unacceptable might have been perfectly fine prior

to being married. So, anything involving change will be a foreign concept to

a man since, in his opinion, you wouldn’t have married him if he had not

been perfect in the first place. Funny little man, isn’t he?

The first thing you’re going to have to do is to decide just what it is about this

guy that you want to change. Now realize, that once you really get into the

details of this, you may find that it's just easier to start over rather than to fix

this one up. That decision is yours to make, but remember: “The devil you

know is often preferable to the one you don’t”. But before we get into the

specifics of your man, let us delve a bit more into this generic thing called

Man. Men, for the most part, are incased in a thick layer of uninformed

rational foolishness. This essentially means that they think they know what

they’re talking about, but of course they really don’t. Even if proven wrong

they don’t usually care, and that’s typically what makes men stupid. Bottom

line is that men think they know, but they don’t really know and as a result

will resist any attempt at change.

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With respect to change, men don’t respond well to frontal assault. It’s much

more effective, not to mention more fun, to get them to adopt new behaviors

by virtue of your clever tactics and subterfuge rather than hitting them over

the head with kitchen implements. However, as my Grandma once said to me

while brandishing a flour covered rolling pin, “This here’s all the therapy Pa

ever needed”. So, it would seem that there is some merit to tackling these

issues head-on, but this would require a great deal of effort, arm strength and

practice as hitting a moving object with a rolling pin is not as easy as one

might think. So, assuming that you’ve decided to deal with your mans issues

in a more subtle fashion, lets take a look at some examples of changes you

might like to see in your man, and how we might go about installing these

updates.

His Hygiene. This is a real problem for some guys. If you have one

of these, one who has somehow missed the basics and fundamentals

of self preservation, then it’s up to you to correct this situation. Take

some time out of each day to go over some of the more complex

tasks with him like cutting and cleaning his finger and toenails (most

men don’t know about the cleaning part), keeping his hair washed,

the use of a very strong deodorant, using mouth wash before

brushing (he does brush doesn’t he?), and dealing with the ancient

mysteries of ear wax. Don’t let up on him here or he will quickly

and happily regress back to the state of someone living under an

overpass.

His Friends. He has had his friends longer than he’s been with you.

His friends will remind him of this fact when they’re at a bar and

he’s drunk. He will sluringly agree with them. His friends will say

things to him like, “Let’s go find us a couple of low mileage pit-

whoopees and 'em help build a memory.” Although he may not be

certain of the exact meaning, in a drunken haze this will sound like a

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good idea to your man. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is

to remind him of just how useless his friends really are.

You might consider getting this point across to him in a rather direct

manner, if you get my drift, while in bed together. Here is my

advice. You might consider doing something special for him,

something that I know you thought you wouldn’t have to do

anymore once you were married. It’s either that or continue to deal

with his friends. It should take no more than a few minutes of your

time and should result in your having no further problems. Also note

that it would be rare to find that any of his friends are married.

Married men have single men as friends, if only to remind them of

what they had when they were single, which was Ketchup on

crackers with a side of pickles, if I remember correctly.

His Bachelor Stuff. This is his dowry, the stuff that came with him

into the marriage, which included his collection of Flintstone Jelly

drinking glasses, his collection of NFL drinking glasses, his

collection of glasses with beer logos on them, his matchbook

collection, 8 tons of car parts, a stuffed and rotting armadillo, a

stuffed and rotting moosehead, a stuffed and rotting fish, 12 small

green and blue rocks, 3 gallons of barbeque sauce, 3 horseshoes, a

deck of 50 playing cards, a broken toilet bowl and a brown towel.

You were expecting perhaps a yacht, or maybe a helicopter spiriting

you away to your mansion in Tenerife? No doubt those illusions

were shattered as was his collection of NFL drinking glasses soon

after being married.

It is important to understand that men love to hang onto things. A

man never knows which of several thousand rusted and corroded

nuts and bolts might just fix something important. That’s why men

keep all sorts of things in the garage hidden away in jars, small

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drawers, boxes and bottles. Men know instinctively that as soon as

they throw away some seemingly unimportant bracket, bolt or spring

they will need it a week later. This has happened to every man, so

over the years they have developed a simple mechanism for dealing

with this problem; they save everything.

His Sanctuary. This would usually be either the garage or a

workshop. This is the place where he can go when he needs to think,

when he needs to get away, when he needs to break something, when

he needs an airtight room and an idling car. Regardless, this is his

sanctuary. Look upon this area like his American Embassy, his

Guantanamo, and understand that usually your presence is by

invitation only. Other men can come and go into other men’s

garages and workshops with impunity, it’s a guy thing. Women,

however, are another matter. They are usually not welcomed and are

often treated as spies without regard to the possibility that they are

probably not. There are not many places he can call his own, so you

need to give him this one. Everyone needs a place to go when

they’ve got nowhere else to go.

His Mom. Oh Lord, where to begin. If his Mom is at all an issue in

his life then you’ve got bigger problems than I can realistically deal

with here within the bounds of this book. At some point he will have

to realize that it’s either his Mother or you, his woman. He can’t

have both and we don’t even think about it if he could. Know that

whatever he is, good or bad, is due in large part to his Mother. So,

hate her if you must or praise her if you will, but best to do either

from a safe distance. There is nothing like a large distance separating

him and his mother to help him focus on what is important in his

relationship; you and your needs.

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Having bashed mom around sufficiently, let me say that his mom is

going to be a wealth of useful information relative to the sorts of

foods he likes and dislikes, ways in which to get him to do things he

doesn’t want to do, and the locations of all those emotional buttons

which moms do love to push. Moms know the locations of these,

since they were instrumental in their installation. Yes, if utilized

correctly, his mother can be a wealth of useful information. So, get

to know her. You never know, you might just like her. Yeah I know,

probably not.

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Habit #7

Sharpen the Saw, But don’t get Cut

The idea of this habit is that practice makes perfect. This applies to the exercises

discussed within this book so far, as well as those to come in this, our final Habit.

“Nobody was never born good at nothing 'cept cryin' and crappin'”, my Grandma use to

say. And it appears she was right. In order to become proficient at anything, a great deal

of practice is often required. There is, however, a significant difference when it comes to

practicing something like, say, a musical instrument and practicing these exercises in a

real relationship. Clearly, when it comes to music you have the benefit of practicing

alone until you feel you are good enough to be heard by others. While in a relationship,

though there are some things you can certainly practice alone, you pervert, you are for

the most part pretty much out there on the stage, in the limelight, on your own.

In a relationship, your screw-ups will be known by everyone. Well, everyone who

matters that is, which means your woman, your family, your friends and everybody else

that she tells. You, as a man, barely have a grasp on what you need to do just yourself

from one day to the next, and now you’re expected to be an instant expert on

relationships as well. Good God, could it get any more difficult? No, you don’t think so?

Ha! You haven’t seen the exercises yet.

* Men *

As I’ve said, the key to the exercises in this, the final section, is practice. You’re not

likely to get good at anything unless you practice. That goes for sex as well, of which

I’m certain you will soon attempt to convince your woman. The Catch-22 with sex is that

if you’re not already good, you're not likely to get in much practice, at least not with

anyone else that is. Anyway, getting back to this section, there are a variety of issues to

reflect on here. Issues such as you, you bumbling fool. How do you think, for instance,

she feels when you touch her? Is she thinking, “Hey, just what are your intentions here,

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Buster?” or is she thinking, “There’s the soothing and comforting caress of my loving

mate.” I’m guessing that your intentions will be called into question more often than not.

Exercise 7.1 - Reach Out and...

If you take nothing else away from this book, listen closely to the following.

Learn to touch and caress her often in a comforting, non-sexual manner. One

of the biggest complaints heard from women is, “He only touches me when

he wants sex.” Sad but true. This is not something which will come naturally

to a man, particularly one who has played some college football; it’s going to

take practice. Holding hands, a light tough at the waist, a simple caress of her

cheek tells her how you feel about her with your having to actually say

anything. Trust is slowly built up in this way. Though it may not mean much

to you, it will to her and you’ll be surprised at just how much closer you two

will become.

This is something both you and your partner are going to have to practice.

Only after concerted effort will any of this come naturally. The practice of a

comforting touch may seem like a lot of effort for something which most

men just consider foreplay anyway, but it’s vital for guys to understand just

how important this is to women. Something as simple as this can make a

huge difference in the comfort level of a relationship. A good place to start

are massages, particularly foot massages. Women love foot massages, so you

might think about reading up on how to give one properly. In fact, taking a

course in massage is a great idea. What could be more relaxing than you and

your partner sharing the gift of a soothing massage? Well yes, this while

sipping champagne on the deck of your Yacht in the Canary Islands might be

more relaxing, but it’s likely not within your price range. So, a massage it is.

Exercise 7.2 - Should I Cry?

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Don’t cry. Women say they like men who cry, but they really don’t. Only cry

if it’s really something worth crying about, like the death of a loved one, or

Dallas losing another damned game. Some men think that crying

occasionally in front of a woman will show her how sensitive you are. This is

a fallacy. They will not fall for this ruse. They know that the only sensitive

spot on you is located somewhere below several inches of dirt and brine.

Heck, you didn’t even cry when your buddy lodged that treble hook deep

into your thumb while fishing, though you did chip a tooth on the whisky

bottle when they were cutting it out with that dull buck knife. Good times.

This brings up the issue of injury and the associated pain it may cause. A

good rule of thumb here is that if the bone has broken through the skin, then

your buddies are not going to say a thing if a tear or two comes to your eyes.

Remember Burt Reynolds in Deliverance? He had a compound leg fracture

and never cried a lick. He didn’t have many lines after that injury other than

screaming and moaning, but he didn’t cry. If, however, you find yourself in a

situation in which there is a reason to actually cry, then make sure you cry

like a man. What do I mean when I say you should cry like a man? Well

here’s a short list of the different types of crying which exists out there:

Babies. Babies cry, primarily, to annoy their parents. Picture their sad

situation. They were doing just fine in that dark little room of theirs

for month after month; playing games, singing songs, writing their

names on the wall. And then suddenly, for no reason whatsoever,

they are pushed from this warm, cozy world into a cold, loud

frightening environment in which alien beings prod, poke and

otherwise annoy them. You would cry too if this happened to you.

You probably did.

Woman’s. A woman’s cry can depend on the situation. If she’s

pissed at you, the situation we like to concern ourselves with here in

this book, then she will likely be sobbing. This is meant to impart the

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belief that she is at her wits’ end and can do nothing but breakdown

and cry. My girlfriend used to say that when she was sobbing, “I’m at

wits’ end with you” This implies that it is now up to you, the guy

who probably screwed things up and got her all upset in the first

place, to fix or otherwise solve the problem. How you might

accomplish this is up to you. However, you will know that you have

succeeded in solving the problem when she stops crying and is happy

once again. Well, probably not happy, but at least not crying. Note

that this transition can take place in as little as 15 seconds or as long

as, well, forever.

There is another type of crying women have in their repertoire of

relationship weaponry. This is more vocal than simply sobbing

because you’ve once again screwed something up. This type of

crying is usually reserved for something truly tragic, like the death of

a loved one or that you’ve used one of her shoes to pound a nail into

the wall. If this is the case then all you will be able to do is to be

there for her. You will, during these times, have the ability to be

comforting in no other manner. The truly gifted women will have the

ability to take a hearty cry to a full fledged wail, such as might be

appropriate at a funeral. This becomes even more effective if the

woman attempts to crawl inside the casket with the loved one as well.

Man’s. A man’s cry is not dependant upon the situation - it is always

the same. Picture this: The man will stand, or sit if preferred, stone

still and stare off into the distance. Slowly a small tear will form in

the corner of one eye, and then the other. Once the first tear has

dripped down his cheek, the upper lip may quiver slightly. A deep

breath may be taken here if the reason for crying in the first place is

particularly emotional. Men do not usually like to talk during this

difficult period, but if required to do so it is important to make sure

you have a drink in your hand. You can direct your conversation into

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the glass so that your words will bounce off the cubes, making them

particularly icy.

Random Crying. There is a category of people who will cry for

reasons which, though may be valid, escape the sensibilities of most

of us. They cry for their own pathetic reasons honestly, deeply and

without reservation. This group includes; little girls who feel they’re

not getting their fair share, TV evangelists who’ve been exposed,

exiled politicians, deposed heads-of-state, jockeys accused of doping,

Chicago Cubs fans, Boston Red Sox fans, Danny Ange, indicted

CEO’s, and all mothers whose children have disappointed them (this

would include all mothers whose children who have either not

become Doctors or have not married a Doctor).

Exercise 7.3 - Standard Man Things

Above all, let us not forget about the Standard Man Things for which you

are, and will always be, responsible. And let me tell you, that’s a lot of

responsibility. Fortunately, there is a place, a sanctuary where you can go to

accomplish most of the Standard Man Things; the garage. Although there

may not always be something to fix, or break, you can always go into your

garage (or better yet a workshop where you can smoke cigars until you get

into trouble) and pound away on some piece of metal with a hammer until

everything works itself out. And with a big enough hammer, it will. The

garage should be setup exactly the way you want, so that she won’t be able to

find anything.

The Standard Man Things are understood by women to be those things which

she does not want to do and furthermore wants you to do. That’s what they

are. The broad, but certainly not complete, list of these things would include;

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Outside stuff. Anything which is located, or needs or be done,

outside is your responsibility. This would include everything

associated with trash, clippings, refuse, rodents and garbage in any

and all forms. It’s all yours buddy. The garage is also included within

this category as it is located outside as far as she’s concerned. The

exception here may be a garden which will be her area of concern. If

this is the case, you will still be expected to participate in it’s

cultivation and maintenance by composting, mulching, digging,

hauling, chopping, weeding, turning, and the never-ending tilling

until you can’t till no more.

Spiders. Spiders are great because they can make you appear to be

“The Great Protector” without your really having to do much. The

only exception here is if you happen to be afraid of spiders. In that

case, asking your woman to kill the spider would be considered

something less than manly. In fact, it’s probably just a notch above

having a pedicure while discussing the fall fashions with the ladies

and drinking chamomile tea.

Be aware that there are many spiders which can jump, leap or

otherwise scurry about very quickly. If you happen to be startled by

the sudden movement of a spider you’re about to kill (for example, it

jumps on you, attacking viciously, which is what happened to me one

time) and you, without thinking, scream at the top of your lungs like

a 5 year old girl, don’t expect your wife not to tell people. Also, don’t

expect to have sex with her for awhile. I’m just warning you up front.

Tight lids. Here’s another big win for the expenditure of relatively

little effort. Make sure though, that when you do open the lid of the

jar, or whatever, that the crap in the bottle doesn’t fly out all over the

place. This will quickly cast you from a hero to a villain in one swell

foop. If you cannot actually open the lid, then bang it on something

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until you can open it, or it breaks. If possible, don’t let her know that

you can’t get the lid open. She’ll be forced to try herself, open it

easily, then you’ll never have sex again. Hint: When doing anything

of a physical nature for her, grunt. Women love that.

Putting things together. This is usually only of value on or just prior

to Christmas. This is also something which should probably be done

in the garage in which spills, rips, gashes and other mishaps are not

likely to piss her off. However, you’ll want to make sure that she sees

just how handy you are with your tools, which in your mind translates

into your also being good in bed, while in her mind translates into

your fixing the kitchen cabinet doors next weekend. It is important

that she see you working on your project during the complicated

middle phase in which stuff is strewn hither and yon, and not during

the final phase in which you will be required to exhibit something

functional.

The Mattress. The turning of a mattress may not be an easy thing to

accomplish on your own. Particularity if you have one of those very

large, East Coast king-sized mattresses. Or maybe it’s the West Coast

variety which is the larger, I can’t remember. Regardless, she will, for

whatever reason, believe that you have always done turned the sucker

on your own in the past and so you should be able to do it again now.

You can try to explain to her that you’ve never successfully

accomplished this task without the timely application of the jaws of

life, but she’ll just scoff and tell you to do it anyway.

Since you’ve foolishly decided to take this on, you may want to put

some thought into exactly how your going to accomplish this task as

it is quite possible that you will wind up underneath the thing

requiring help to get out, again. Unfortunately, your wife will be

laughing so hard that she will neither be able to help you nor to dial

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911 and so, in this unfortunate case, you’re likely to expire.

Hopefully, you don’t as I’m not sure that this sort of thing would be

covered under your home owners insurance policy, whereas had you

been crushed I think it might have been.

The Vehicles. Anything having to do with the vehicles’ maintenance-

wise is your responsibility. Upkeep is the big thing here. If she is out

somewhere and something happens to her car mechanically, you will

be blamed. I was once blamed for an accident a girlfriend of mine

was in because her windshield was dirty and there was no water in the

windshield wiper reservoir when she tried to clean the windshield,

which smeared and so she couldn’t see the lake and...well, you get the

idea. So, it is important that you take care of your woman’s car with

the same fervor that you take care of your woman. Maybe more.

There is also a subtle benefit resulting from your working on the cars

during the weekend. Women love to look out the window and see her

man working on something. Preferably on something which really

does need to be worked on, but usually it doesn’t matter to her. He’s

taking care of her by taking care of her car. Ah, hearts and butterflies

fill the air. So, make sure the vehicles are taken care of, simple as

that.

Miscellaneous. This involves doing pretty much whatever she wants,

whenever she wants it done. Don’t argue, just get the requirements

and get to work. Often a women will have you do something only to

complain later that you didn’t do what she wanted. When you point

out that even if you didn’t do what she wanted, you did in fact do

what she asked you to do, my friend, will go straight to relationship

hell. You will not pass “GO” nor will you collect $200. Have you

learned nothing? She is always right.

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The problem may be that you had probably screwed-up the project by

not asking enough specific questions up front. You need to find out,

in detail, what it was she wants you to do. I’m sorry guy, there’s just

no other way. Realize that asking questions up-front is likely to piss

her off somewhat (maybe even a lot), but it won’t compare to how

pissed you both will be when you have to do it all over again.

Exercise 7.4 - Being Decisive

Don’t be wishy-washy, women hate indecisiveness. Pick a direction and

boldly go; go to where no man has gone before. Even if it’s moving west in a

covered wagon directly into the heart of a desolate snow-covered wilderness

in 1857. Even if it’s into the depths of a Baby Shower because you forgot

your golf shoes. Even, God Bless this great Country of ours, even if it’s into

the heart of downtown Baghdad! Oh, sorry, where was I? Ah yes,

decisiveness. Again my point is, don’t be wishy-washy. Women hate that.

So, once you’ve decided what it is you want or need to do, then go boldly

forth. That is, unless she says otherwise. If she changes your mind for you,

saving you from the bother of having to do it yourself, then you might want

to hold off on that boldly going forward thing for a minute or so. Now is the

time for discussion. Don’t give in immediately. If you do, this will give her

the impression that she can walk all over you, when in fact you want to make

her realize that there are only certain parts of you which she can walk all

over. Once you’ve discussed the alternatives rationally and have both calmly

decided to do what she says to do, then you can boldly go forth into the

desolation....

* Women *

The single exercise in this section is simply an introduction into those things outside the

realm of the home which are important to a man. This is, essentially, a collection of

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important activities and events which extend a man’s world beyond his domestic life. Ok,

here’s the deal. He’s going to do all he can for this relationship. But don’t expect

miracles. Just the fact that he’s trying should count for something. So, although not

strictly required for maintaining the health of a relationship, you might find that taking

an interest in some of his activities can help by bringing you closer together.

If so inclined, you can learn to participate in those activities which he finds interesting or

fun; dull, insipid or uninteresting as they may actually be. One important caution here,

however, would be to make sure not to invade his space if he is participating in some

activity with a man-friend. This is the rarely observed male bonding during which little is

said, but much accomplished. This is an important event in a man’s life and one which

should not be tampered with, or if necessary, tampered with in a very subtle manner. If,

on the other hand, he is engaged in some outside activity with a female-friend of his

(which should never under any circumstances exist) then there is a problem here. A big

one and a severe ass-woopin' all around would not be out of line.

Exercise 7.5 - His Interests

Ok, ladies you’ve gotten off pretty easy until now. This, however, is where it

gets tough; this is where the rubber meets the road. The concept here is that

you’re going to want to show him how much you love him by taking an

interest in, as well as participating in, some activities of interest to him. What

this means is that you need to identify what sort of guy you’ve got there. Do

you have a guy who sits on the couch watching sports every weekend, in

which case your participation will involve eating large quantities of Cheetos

and drink beer while watching the game? Or do you have the kind of guy

who likes to get out there and get into it hisself?

If you happen to have a more sedentary sort of man, then this should be easy.

Watching the game with him and asking questions is good because guys just

love to explain the subtleties of whatever game happens to be on to his

woman. And the more technically subtle the question the sexier. For

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example, if you were to ask about the “Infield Fly Rule” during game 7 of

the World Series, he would instantly be mired in a quandary as to whether to

finish watching the game or to ravage you in the bedroom. While the chances

of this one weigh heavily in favor of game 7, a question like “What's a

safety?” during a regular season football game would have little against

which to compete.

Now if he’s an outdoors kind of guy, chances are good you knew this going

into the relationship. It’s probably not as if your geek of a software engineer

husband came home one evening and said. “Honey load up the shotguns,

duck season’s open tomorrow and weeze goin' huntin'”. If he is an outdoor

kind of guy, and you’ve got an engine hanging from a tree in your front yard,

his wallet hanging from a chain on his belt and a well worn leather skirt and

tube top hanging in your closet, you don’t need to read this section as there’s

nothing you’re going to learn from me. If, however, your idea of the great

outdoors involves hotel reservations, clean sheets and dinner at a nice Italian

restaurant, then you’re going to want to pay close attention here.

Bowling. Men love to bowl because they can drink beer while they’re

doing it. Bowling is a relatively simple pastime and most men, pretty

much regardless of their physical condition, can participate at

relatively high levels of competition. This is another big plus for male

bowlers, absolutely no exercise is required. Bowling leagues, are also

a great way to participate in something enjoyable together. Mixed

leagues (males and females) are fun and people of all ages and

abilities can compete. There are only three things you’re going to

need to remember about bowling, besides just getting up there and

heaving the ball down the lane.

The first involves leagues; if you are in a league make sure you bowl

poorly for the first 5 or 6 games. This is where they will determine

your handicap (don’t ask, just trust me on this one). Of course, after

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that you’re going to have to get your act together and get really good

because men love competition and the competition must be crushed

into a moist paste in the ground. The second thing to remember is to

let him keep score. Men love to demonstrate their mathematical

skills, which will likely not exist beyond adding up a beer tab, by

keeping score. Men also love to count things. As far as counting goes,

the last thing to remember is that he’ll go through about 2 beers per

game.

Hunting. Men love to hunt because they can drink beer while they’re

doing it. Men will say they love to kill things, but when it comes

down to it they really don’t. Hunting involves going out into the

wilderness, wearing camouflage with a bright orange hunting vest

over it so that you don’t get shot, drinking large quantities of beer and

shooting at anything that is not wearing a bright orange hunting vest.

This is what occurred on the one hunting trip on which I was a

participant. Others have said, though, that there is more to it than that.

Some people carry guns into the wilderness in order to shoot and kill

real animals. Realize that, while this is a sporting activity for many

men, it was in the past an actual means of survival. Men, retaining

some of this old imprinting, may feel a sense of having to provide for

his family by dragging home a shot-up stop sign. If this happens, try

to see it for the sincere offering to you that it is. Your participation in

the male hunting activity would be to cover your ears with your

hands when he shoots at something (don’t worry he couldn’t hit the

ground with his hat) and to get him another beer once he’s finished

with the one he has in his hand.

Fishing. Men love to fish because they can drink beer while they’re

doing it. Fishing, as far as women are concerned, is just a bit more

humane than hunting, but still that would put it just below clubbing

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baby seals to death. But many woman don’t mind fishing as long as

they don’t have to deal with the bait. Women don’t realize that for the

most part, real fishermen use plastic lures rather than live worms or

something that smells like 6-month-old cheese (which is usually 6-

month-old cheese). This is often a problem as the use of a lure

involves some level of skill with the rod and reel.

This skill is quite different than the simple bait fishing of days gone

by where you dropped the worm down to the bottom, or better yet,

used a bobber. Using a lure involves casting the lure out into the

water as far as you can, and then reeling the lure back in. If you do

this 6 or 7 hundred times, then you may just catch something. This

activity is intended to entice a fish into snapping-up the lure,

provided that the lure looks like something a fish would consider

snapping-up in the first place. The problem is that casting and

subsequently reeling in a lure requires practice in order to become

proficient.

If you, the female, attempt to engage in this activity with your

partner, and have not previously practiced the art of casting, you are

quite likely to sink a treble hook deep into his ear lobe. This may

cause your man to drop his beer, and then there’s going to be trouble.

So, unless you are already proficient at this sort of fishing experience,

I would seriously reconsider bowling. If you have really made up

your mind to go fishing with your mate, then prepare yourself for the

full experience: Long periods of beer-drinking boredom interspersed

with exciting bursts of unhooking garbage and other crap from your

line.

Camping. Men love to camp because it’s something they can do

while drinking. For a man camping is getting back to nature at its

absolute best. In a big-ass Winnebago with a warm bed, refrigerator

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stuffed with beer, microwave, DVD, satellite TV which gets porn

stations, shower, toilet and all the electricity you could ever want. But

of course, this is simply for occasional comfort and that’s not really

what camping is all about is it? No, it isn’t. It’s about you and your

mate being together in the great outdoors. It’s about sharing the

wonders of nature with the person that you love. It’s about this next

story:

Back in the days when you could leave all of your stuff

unattended in your campsite without concern, my parents

would take my sister and I deep into the wilderness and

leave us without concern. No, actually they would stay as

well and we would all camp for two weeks each summer.

On one particular trip, my dad had sold a large outboard

motor to someone and so was lugging around some

heavy bucks. He decided to hide it somewhere in the

camper so that nobody would find it, should we be robbed

by bears. So, he scurried into he camper alone only to

emerge a few minutes later grinning from ear-to-ear. Well,

of course, this was a challenge. My sister and I scoured

the camper for hours but to no avail, couldn’t find the

dough.

Later that night we were all eating dinner around the

campfire. My dad happened to remark about how hot and

bright the fire was that evening. I don’t remember much

of the intervening conversation until the part where mom

said that the empty cardboard paper towel tube was also

burning there in the fire. My dad seemed to immediately

lose interest in dinner once that information had been

revealed. So, guess what was in the paper towel tube?

That’s right, my college fund up in smoke.

Sports Events. There are really only two events with which you will

need to become familiar. The football finals known as the Super

Bowl, and the baseball finals known as the World Series. From your

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perspective the only difference between these two is the outfits that

the players wear. Let’s take this from the top. The entire day will be

dedicated to this one event - it doesn’t matter which one, both will be

treated in the same manner. We’ll start early with the fixin’s like beer,

beef ribs, chips, burgers, more beer, hot dogs, potato salad, more beer,

pork ribs, dip, more chips and more beer. Now we’re not idiots mind

you, we don’t just start drinking beer first thing in the morning. We

mix it with tomato juice.

If there are other people at this event as well, then your participation

can be limited to making sure that nothing in the house gets damaged,

or at least gets damaged beyond repair. Understand that you will have

only so much control for the better part of the day, so you may as well

just rationalize it away however you need to right now. This will only

occur twice each year, so you can just suck it up soldier. And you can

also forget about saving your carpet. If, however, others are not

involved and it’s just you and your sweetie, then your participation

can be much more hands-on. While this scenario will require more of

your participation, you will have better control of the overall spill and

crumb situation. So, good with the bad.

Drinking. Men love to drink.

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Afterward

I think that the best thing I can say at this point would be to practice the exercises. Not

that this will necessarily work mind you; even my expertise is no match for natural male

stupidity. Let me tell you about my evening last night. My fiancée and I were in the

process of getting ready to go out to dinner when she asked me, innocently enough mind

you, how her new slacks looked on her. Taking my own advice I immediately replied

that they looked great and then, for whatever brain-damaged reason, added that I also

loved the “panty lines”. Why I did this I have no idea other than the aforementioned

observation that my brain had been somehow damaged. Well, you can easily imagine that

the evening quickly went skittering downhill from there. Rather than immediately

apologizing, which is what I should have done had I remembered my own advice, I

stated that I liked panty lines because they were actually like the frame around a picture.

I might just as well have kicked a puppy right there in front of her for all the good that

comment did me. She looked at me as if I were insane, which I think I may have been. I

can’t imagine any other explanation for that comment – I mean really, a picture frame? I

ended the evening by stating that the dessert (yes, we did somehow actually make it out

to dinner) was “too chocolaty”. Now this is a phrase that has likely never been uttered by

any woman at any time in history, but leave it to me to come up with a comment that

both blows and sucks at the same time. It was at about that point when I started drinking.

That’s about all I remember of last night until this morning when I woke-up on the

couch.

Hope this helps.

Bye!

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