One basic truth: Men and women are different.

Now, this may seem a little simplistic, but the fact
is, for a period of about six months in 1973, it was
very fashionable to believe that we were all persons
first, and members of our gender second.

This, of course, was so much hooey.

We are different -- in our habits, and in the way we
react to environmental stimuli and the way we spend our
leisure time; and we are especially different when it
comes to our attitudes regarding relationships.

My personal observations have uncovered many
significant differences between men and women.

RELATIONSHIPS

First of all, a man does not call a relationship. He
refers to it as a romance, or a period of dating, of
going out, or, in some unfortunate circumstances, "that
time when me and Suzie was doing it on a semi-regular
basis."

When a relationship ends, a woman will cry, and pour
her heart out to her girlfriends, and she will write a
poem titled "All Men are Morons." Then she will get on
with her life.

A man has a little more trouble letting go. For six
months, his ex may not hear from him, but then, at
three on Saturday night/Sunday morning, he will call
and say, "I just wanted to let you know you ruined my
life, and I'll never forgive you, and I hate you, and
you're a total bitch. But I want to let you know
there's always a chance for us."

This is known as the "I Hate You/I Love You" drunken
phone call. Ninety-nine percent of all men past the
age of 21 have made this call at least once. Some men
make a career of these calls. There are community
colleges that offer extension courses to help men get
over this need; alas, these classes rarely prove
effective.

SEX

Women prefer 30 to 45 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer
30 to 45 seconds of foreplay, less if at all possible.
For the man, driving back to her place is considered a
part of foreplay.

MATURITY

Women mature at a much faster rate than men. Most 17
year old females can function as adults. Most 17 year
old males are still trading baseball cards and giving
each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high
school romances rarely work.

HATS

Women look good in hats; men look like idiots.

GROCERIES

A woman knows how to shop for groceries. She makes a
list of the things she needs, and then goes to the
store and buys these things. A man does not shop on a
frequent basis. He waits until the only items left in
his refrigerator are an opened can of Schlitz and a
half a lime. Then he goes grocery shopping. A man
buys everything that looks good. By the time a man
reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed
tighter than the Clampett's car on the Beverly
Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from
going to the 10 items or less lane.

MAGAZINES

Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked ladies.
Women's magazines also feature pictures of naked
ladies. This is because the female body is a beautiful
work of art, while the male body is lumpy and hairy and
should no be seen by the light of day.

Men are turned on at the sight of a naked woman's body.
Naked men elicit laughter from women.

HANDWRITING

To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship.
They just chickenscratch. Women use scented, colored
stationary, and they dot their "i's" with circles and
hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their
"p's" and "g's." It is a royal pain to read a note
from a woman Even when she's dumping you, she'll put a
smiley face at the end of the note.

COMEDY

Let's say a small group of men and women are in a room,
watching television, and an episode of the Three
Stooges comes on. Immediately, the men will get very
excited; they will laugh uproariously, and even try to
imitate the actions of Curly, man's favorite stooge.
The woman will roll their eyes and groan and wait it
out.

BATHROOMS

A man has 6 items in his bathroom: a toothbrush,
toothpaste, shaving cream, a razor, a bar of Dial soap
and a towel from a Holiday Inn. The average number of
items in a typical American women's bathroom is 437. A
man would not be able to identify most of these items.

Most men take only 2-3 minutes to relieve themselves.
Women's Restrooms always have long lines.

GOING OUT

When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is
ready to go out. When a woman says she is ready to go
out, it means she will be ready, as soon as she finds
her other earring, makes one phone call and finishes
putting on her makeup.

CATS

Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when
women aren't looking, men kick cats.

SHOES

When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi
wool suit, and then slip in Reebok sneakers. She will
carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When
a woman gets to work, she will put on her dress shoes.
Five minutes later she will kick them off because her
feet are under the desk. A man will wear one pair of
shoes for the entire day.

LEG WARMERS

Leg warmers are sexy. A woman, even if she's walking
the dog or doing the dishes, is allowed to wear leg
warmers. She can wear them any time she wants. A man
can only wear leg warmers if he is auditioning for the
"Gimme the Ball" number in A Chorus Line.

MIRRORS

Men are vain; they will check themselves out in the
mirror. Women are ridiculous; they will check out
their reflections in any shiny surface, mirrors,
spoons, store window, toasters, Joe Garagiola's head.

MENOPAUSE

When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a
variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and
biological changes. The nature and degree of these
changes varies with the individual. Menopause in a man
provokes a uniform reaction --- he buys aviator
glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather driving
gloves, and goes shopping for a Porsche.

THE TELEPHONE

Men see the telephone as a communication tool. They
use the telephone to send short messages to other
people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two
weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same
friend and they will talk for three hours.

OFFSPRING

Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children.
She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games
and romances and best friends and favorite foods and
hopes and dreams.

LOW BLOWS

Let's say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match
on television. One of the figures is felled by a low
blow. The woman says, "Oh gee, that must hurt." The
man doubles over and actually feels the pain.

DIRECTIONS

If a woman is out driving, and she finds herself in
unfamiliar surroundings, she will stop at a gas station
and ask for directions. Men consider this to be a sign
of weakness. Men will never stop and ask for
directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all
the while saying things like, "Looks love I've found a
new way to get there." and, "I know I'm in the general
neighborhood. I recognize that White Hen store."

ADMITTING MISTAKES

Women will sometimes admit making a mistake. The last
man who admitted he was wrong was General George
Custer.

RICHARD GERE

Women like Richard Gere because he is sexy in a
dangerous way. Men hate Richard Gere because he
reminds them of that slick guy who works at the health
club and dates only married women.

DRESSING UP

A woman will dress up to: go shopping, water the
plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a
book, get the mail. A man will dress up for:
weddings, funerals.

NICKNAMES

With the exception of female body builders, who call
each other names like "Ultimate Pecs" and "Big Turk,"
women eschew the use of nicknames. If Gloria, Suzanne,
Deborah, and Michelle get together for lunch, they will
call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah, and Michelle.
But if Mike, Dirk, Clint, and Jack go out for a
brewski, they will affectionately refer to one another
as Bullet-Head, Godzilla, Peanut-Brain, and Useless.

TOYS

Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they
reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest. Men
never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they
get older, their toys simply become more expensive and
silly and impractical. Examples of men's toys: little
miniature TV's. Car phones. Complicated juicers and
blenders. Graphic equalizers. Small robots that serve
cocktails on command. Video games. Anything that
blinks, beeps, and requires at least 6 "D" batteries to
operate.

PLANTS

A woman asks a man to water her plants while she is on
vacation. The man waters the plants. The woman comes
home five or six days later to an apartment full of
dead plants. No one knows why this happens.

MOUSTACHES

Some men look good with mustaches. Those men are Tom
Selleck and Burt Reynolds. There are no women who look
good with mustaches.

DAVID LETTERMAN

Men think David Letterman is the funniest man on the
face of the Earth. Women think he is a mean, semidorky
guy who always has a bad haircut.

CAMERAS

Men take photography very seriously. They'll shell out
$4000 for state of the art equipment, and build dark
rooms and take photography classes. Women purchase
Kodak Instamatics. Of course women always end up
taking better pictures.

LOCKER ROOMS

In the locker room men talk about three things: money,
football, and women, They exaggerate about money, they
don't know football nearly as well as they think they
do, and they fabricate stories about women. Women talk
about one thing in the locker room -- sex. And not in
abstract terms, either. They are extremely graphic and
technical, and they never lie.

LAUNDRY

Women do the laundry every couple of days. A man will
wear every article of clothing he owns, including his
surgical pants that were really hip about eight years
ago, before he will do the laundry. When he is finally
out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatsuit inside
out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of dirty
clothes to the Laundromat. Men always expect to meet
beautiful women at the Laundromat, but this is only a
myth perpetuated by old reruns of Love American Style.

POLITICS

Men love to talk politics, but often they forget to do
political things such as voting. Women are very happy
that another generation of Kennedy's is growing up and
getting into politics because they will be able to
campaign for them and cry on election night.

WEDDINGS

When reminiscing about weddings women talk about "the
ceremony." Men talk about "the bachelor party."

CHEERLEADERS

Female cheerleaders are cute, sexy, fresh, and all
American. Male cheerleaders are scary.

SOCKS

Men are sensible about socks. They wear argyle socks
or standard white sweatsocks. Women wear strange
socks. Socks with pictures of clouds on them. Socks
that are cut way below their ankles. socks that have
little fuzzy balls on the back.

GARAGES

Women use garages to park their cars and store their
lawnmowers. Men use garages for many things. They
hang license plates in garages, and they watch TV in
garages, and they build useless lopsided benches in
garages.

MOVIES

For women their favorite movie scene is when Clark
Gable kisses Vivien Leigh for the first time in Gone
With the Wind. For men it's when Jimmy Cagney shoves
grapefruit in may Clark's face in Public Enemy.

NUDITY IN MOVIES

Every actress in the history of movies has had to do a
nude scene. This is because every movie in the history
of movies has been produced by a man. The only actor
who has ever appeared nude in the movies is Richard
Gere. This is another reason why men hate him.

JEWELRY

Women look nice when they wear jewelry. A man can get
away with wearing one ring and that's it. Any more
than that and he will look like a lounge singer named
Vic.

THE MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE OF ALL

Colored underwear. Women are allowed, in fact
encouraged, to wear colored underwear. There is no
reason for a man to ever, ever, wear anything besides
solid white.