[299] in Humor
HUMOR: Guy Logic Explained
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Tue May 31 14:25:28 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 31 May 94 14:16:51 EDT
Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 16:53:07 -0600
...
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <matossian@aries.colorado.edu>
Forwarded-by: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate)
GOT A HOT ROD FORD AND A TWO DOLLAR BILL
Today we're going to explore the mysterious topic of How Guys Think,
which has baffled women in general, and the editors of Cosmopolitan magazine
in particular for thousands of years.
The big question, of course, is: How come guys never call? After
successful dates, I mean. You single women out there know what I'm talking
about. You go out with a guy and you have a great time, and he seems to
have a great time, and at the end of the evening he says, quote, "Can I call
you?" And you--interpreting this to mean "Can I call you?"--answer: "Sure!"
The instant you say this, the guy's body starts to dematerialize. Within
a few seconds, you can stick a tire iron right through him and wave
it around; in a few more seconds he has vanished entirely, gone into the
mysterious Guy Bermuda Triangle, where whole squadrons of your dates have
disappeared over the years, never to be heard from again.
Eventually you start to wonder if there's something wrong with you,
some kind of emotional hangup or personality defect that your dates are
detecting. You start having long, searching discussions with your women
friends in which you say things like: "He really seemed to like me" and
"I didn't feel as though I was putting pressure on him." This is silly. There's
nothing wrong with you. In fact, you should interpret the behavior
of your dates as a kind of guy COMPLIMENT to you. Because when the guy asks
you if he can call you, what he's really asking you, in Guy Code, is will
you marry him. Yes. See, your basic guy is into a straight-ahead, bottom-line
kind of thought process that does not work nearly as well with the infinitely
subtle complexities of human relationships as it does with calculating how
much gravel is needed to cover a given driveway. So here's what the guy is
thinking: If he calls you, you'll go out again, and you'll probably have
another great time, so you'll probably go out again and have ANOTHER great
time, and so on until the only possible OPTION will be to get married. This is
classic Guy Logic.
So when you say "Sure!" in a bright and cheery voice, YOU may think
you're simply indicating a willingness to go out again, but as far as HE'S
concerned you're endorsing a lifetime commitment that he is quite frankly
not ready to make after only one date, so he naturally decides he can never
see you again. From that day forward, if he spots you on the street, he'll
sprint in the opposite direction to avoid the grave risk that the two of you
might meet, which would mean he'd have to ask you if you wanted to get a cup
of coffee, and you might say yes, and pretty soon you'd be enjoying each
other's company again, and suddenly a clergyman would appear at your table
and YOU'D HAVE TO GET MARRIED....................AIEEEEEEE.
(You women think this is crazy, right? Whereas you guys out there
are nodding your heads.)
So my advice for single women is that if you're on a date with a guy
you like, and he asks whether he can call you, you should give him a
nonthreatening answer, such as:
"no."
Or:
"I guess so, but bear in mind that I'm a nun."
This will make him comfortable about seeing you again, each time gaining
the courage to approach you more closely, in the manner of a timid, easily
startled woodland creature such as a chipmunk. In a few years, if the two of
you really do have common interests and compatible personalities, you may
reach the point where he'll be willing to take the Big Step, namely, eating
granola directly from your hand.
No matter how close you become, however, remember this rule: Do not
pressure the guy to share his most sensitive innermost thoughts and feelings
with you. Guys hate this, and I'll tell you why: If you were to probe
inside the guy psyche, beneath that macho exterior and the endless droning
about things like the 1978 World Series, you would find, deep down inside,
a passionate, heartfelt interest in: the 1978 World Series. Yes. The
truth is, guys don't HAVE any sensitive innermost thoughts and feelings. It's
time you women knew! All these years you've been agonizing about how
to make the relationship work, wondering how come he never talks to you,
worrying about all the anguished emotion he must have bottled up inside,
and meanwhile he's fretting about how maybe he needs longer golf spikes. I'm
sorry to have to tell you this. Maybe you SHOULD become a nun.
Anyway, I hope I've cleared up any lingering questions anybody might
have regarding guys, as a gender. For some reason I feel compelled to end
this with a personal note: Heather Campbell, if you're out there, I just
want to say that I had a really nice time taking you to the Junior Prom in
1964, and I was a total jerk for never, not once, mentioning this fact
to you personally.
