A Monday Rant

We women are a pack of fools.

It’s taken a while to reach this stunning conclusion, because I have dozens of women friends, and they seem normal. They are normal. They’re witty, intelligent, beautiful, successful, spiritual, active, and fun women.

Not one of them knows what to make of men.

Don’t get me wrong. You put a handsome, intelligent, kind man in our bed and we’ll know exactly what to do with him there.

Cook him supper. Feed him pie. Offer him coffee. Possibly, if we’re feeling particularly sassy that day, we’ll take advantage of his beautiful body and leave him smiling for the rest of the week. But generally put a handsome, intelligent, kind man in our path, and we’ll find fifteen ways to tell him why he wouldn’t want anything to do with us.

We’re too fat.

We’re too old.

We’re too boring.

We’re too intelligent.

We’re not intelligent enough.

We don’t float in the same circles.

Which in paraphrase for all these excuses, we mean “we don’t think we’re good enough for you because we’ve been brainwashed by society, magazines, friends, ex-lovers, parents, the dog, et al, into thinking we have to be uber-witty-beautiful-successful-and-yet-not-too-intimidating in order for you to want us.” God, we’re stupid.

After all, if we go on a date with you, we don’t dissect you and say, “He was too fat, too boring, and too stupid for me to want a long term relationship.” (Okay, so maybe we do occasionally say, He was too stupid. But that was entirely his fault. He shouldn’t have asked me who Marilyn Monroe was. I mean, who doesn’t know who Marilyn Monroe is?)

No, no, we think, “It just wasn’t there.” Whatever the hell “it” is. I’m not sure I’ve felt “it” since the seventh grade, and even now, I sometimes wonder if it was a real feeling, or if it was some food poisoning undiagnosed and now running my love life through a series of hoops that aren’t even there.

Still, I believe “it” exists. That connection-chemistry magic that sometimes exists when you run into the right person. That elusive sweet something that makes you quit being so hung up on saying the right thing, or doing the right thing—and suddenly you’re just yourself—and that’s perfect. That’s what we want. That’s what men want.

Until they realize that’s boring and generic and they’re totally in a rut—and it’s your fault because you’re not spontaneous enough.

Okay, so maybe it’s George Carlin that’s right.

Women are crazy and men are stupid. And women are crazy because men are stupid.