It's True...Well, Most of It

Okay, since I had some spare time today, and since I really didn't feel like reading the book I should have been reading, I read A Practical Handbook for the Boyfriend: For Every Guy Who Wants to Be One/For Every Girl Who Wants to Build One. Not wanting to dig through each page word for word, I mostly skimmed for the good parts.

The book is written by two women and uses great images of 1940s-esque Amazon women and pin-up girls doing things like tearing down trees and otherwise taunting mankind with their wiley female ways.

And, looking at it from the perspective of a woman who has the tendency to be a bit crazy and a bit illogical (at least according to the male perspective), yeah, the book speaks the truth. The authors (one of whom is Felicity Huffman, of Desperate Housewives fame) carefully tell men that they can't really do anything to change women and need to simply understand us.

Yes, they say, we expect you to be on time each and every time you see us, and if you're late, even by fifteen minutes, we will come to believe that you no longer want to be around us, like, ever. But we can be late. For any reason ranging from "my hair just wouldn't curl" to "I didn't feel like driving in the fast lane because there are too many potholes" (I just made those up, but they sound about right), women can be late for an event, and other women will understand, to a point. Yes, we know it's not fair to have the double standard, but it exists. Deal with it.

They describe something called "female math." While a guy's logic looks like 2+2=4 or maybe 12*12=144, female logic looks more like an advanced calculus equation that would have caused you to flunk your test...or the whole class. We are logical, we are just not a man's version of logical.

I have figured out that it's best not to tell WG how I reached a decision, unless he asks, and then, well, he asked for it.

Otherwise, he gets solely the decision.

"You're going to get up early with me, go to Starbucks, drop me off at work and then pick me up."

"Why?"

"Because you want to have coffee with your girlfriend before she goes to work on a Saturday when she shouldn't have to."

"Okay."

Simple, yes? Now, the logic behind this simple decision is long enough for a week's worth of blog posts, and he has no business knowing all of those details.

Women aren't exactly crazy, we just have rules that apply only based on our decision to apply them. One day it may be okay for you to compliment our butts in our jeans, the next, we may accuse you of being chauvanistic.

And our logic is okay with that.

But, then, our logic has an advanced degree in mathematics...