Manslations (20 page)

Here's where we get to the manslation of this type of man: He is being very clear with you about who and what he is. For this man, the woman will always come second to his job, and there is zero reason to believe it will change. I don't care how much he tells you he's going to “work on it.” Remember, that's just what he “says.” What he does is, you know, stop biological agents from getting across the border instead.

These girlfriends, wives, and what-have-yous have all decided that they are in love with Jack Bauer, if only he will stop being Jack Bauer. This is always a big, big mistake. Because one of two things will happen:

You will fail to change Jack Bauer and end up married to a guy who will run out the door at a moment's notice to kill folks that the president doesn't like. That's one option, and believe me when I tell you that it's the most likely one.


You will somehow succeed in getting him to agree to stop being what he is. And then you've got a neutered cat on your hands. Now, if that's what you're in the market for, well, you are a soul-crushing, selfish, evil person. Why would you want that in the first place? To “break” him?

If you are dating a man who is so committed to his career that he will always choose it before you, you need to ask yourself something: Why do you want to be with him? If you are hoping that one day he will stop choosing the president and punching people in the face and instead choose you… well, why would that ever happen? Or maybe an even more specific question would be, when, exactly, will that happen? On what day do you think this change will take place? Next week? Next month? In five years? Do you have any reason to think he even
wants
to do that?

But that is what I want him to do!

Right, I know—but he gets a vote on that, doesn't he?

But what I want for him is even better than what he wants for himself.

Ah. Now we're in really big trouble. See, you may be right. He might even agree with you. But it doesn't matter in the least. He's still like that, even though you don't want him to be. The question you want to ask yourself is, if he never changed—if I took him at his words and actions as who he is right now—would I be okay with being with him?

If the answer is yes, then accept the situation. If not, the only thing that you can do is to tell him directly, “This is not okay. I accept that you like running around, sticking people with syringes full of your various truth serums and whatnot or shooting them in the face. But I need someone who is going to be around. If you want to do all of that stuff, I respect that, but I can't be with you.”

At that point, it's up to him.

You never have to accept a guy who doesn't put you first. But you are never,
never
going to change a guy who doesn't want to put you first.

I can hear you out there thinking, “He doesn't understand me. I can change this guy.” No, you really can't. You might think you can, and you might even think that you are changing him. He'll choose you first for a while. Great. But it's an optical illusion. That other shoe is going to drop soon. He will get restless and feel the need to go out and save the secretary of defense from kidnappers. It's who he is.

Okay, I'll begin by saying that I have never actually watched this show. However, my girlfriend watches this thing religiously, and she has occasionally felt the need to tell me all about the plot after she has watched it.

Here's what I've picked up from listening to her, in between daydreaming about dive-rolling into a room filled with ninjas.

There are no manslations to be had, because there are no male characters on the show. Not one. There are female characters, and there are male actors playing imaginary men, who have been genetically engineered so that women will watch them on TV.

If you do meet such a “perfect” man in the real world, it's because he has learned that this behavior is the express lane to your pants. It is no more real than the TV show (which… you do know is not real, right?).

This goes for a lot of the men on shows where women are the target audience. They make them into these weird combinations of total badasses and emotional little boys who need women to take care of them. Men who could finally be the man they have always known they could be, if only they could find the right woman (i.e.,
you
).

Men hate all these TV doctor shows, because we know you love them and we know we aren't like that at all. These guys are, for women, the equivalent of the giant, watermelon-sized breast implants in guy movies. They are fantasies. Watch them, have fun, pine away—but just know that real men aren't like that. On the plus side, Dr. McDreamy is never going to take out your trash, no matter what. But we might.

The classic situation we see on TV time and time again these days: The husband is a slovenly, pathetic idiot; the wife is a sage genius, and he's lucky she tolerates him. In these stereotypical situations, he always wants sex, and she doles it out when she needs chores done.

The manslation here is what we discussed in “Having ‘The Talk.’” This couple has really taken to heart the whole thing in which the woman is Mom, and the man is the dopey little scold-able boy, just aching to be grounded. Again, the problem here is not that your husband would refuse the sex. Because he sure won't. The danger is that he'll take it, and then sex is no longer about him being attracted to you. You will have taught him that sex means that he has to figure how much work he has to do around the house before he can get some action.

Not to mention, I mean, sex is fun for you, too, right? If it's only fun in the sense that it is a tolerable compensation for clean gutters, I'm pretty sure you're doing it wrong. Just saying.

Ah, the king of reality programming. Here's the idea. We get a bajillion semi-trashy women and stick 'em in a house together with instructions that they are now to fall in love with the same guy. The women comply; they hate each other's guts; they cry a lot; and the man will attempt to sleep with as many of them as he can before being pressured into proposing to one of them on camera. Great, great television.

On one hand, I can't believe that this one ever got off the ground. On the other hand, any chance you get to hear a guy have to somehow get across the equivalent of, “You are the most special… seven women I have ever known,” you pretty much have to point a camera at that stuff.

This is a situation in which you can really see the disconnect between a man's sexual brain and his relationship brain. This guy is in hog heaven, with metric tons of surgically enhanced women all ready to strangle each other for the opportunity to drop their drawers for him. He doesn't know what to do with himself. And then when he starts kicking some of them off the island (or whatever they do), they are so confused: “But I thought we had so much fun together.” You did. But that doesn't mean that he wants you for his best friend. He might be looking for a soul mate, but that's got nothing to do with whether or not he is
also
looking for a lot of sex. And congratulations, you were it.

The manslation here is that this is a perfect example of the Two Big Questions being ignored. Clearly, it's not enough to know that he wants to be intimate with someone in that house. He wants to be intimate with
every
woman in that house. Hell, when he walks through that door, the freaking cleaning lady better watch her back. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the process of looking for a wife. And since this show doesn't really afford much in the way of “quality time” for the contestants, there's right on the verge of no way to answer that second question. Good for some hilarious television, not so good for helping women understand how men look for love.

This show concept is a stroke of genius. A female super badass. Her specialty? Put on a wig and a sexy outfit, give a terrorist a boner, and then do a spinning kick to his face when he isn't expecting it. She uses the age-old weapon in the female arsenal: If a guy wants to do you, he'll either give you the secret code to the vault or, at the very least, he won't be paying attention when you clock him one.

But here's why the show is such genius. Not only do female viewers finally get to see a totally badassed female character (instead of the damsel in distress that's in all the other action shows), but men get to see a woman who is emotionally wounded and needs to be taken care of—
and
a super hot woman. And it was all in the same woman—such economy!

Why do some men want a “wounded bird”? It's the Jack Bauer Principle and the Pointy-Stick-Problem-Solver Principle right there. Some men like to think that they are the rock, the guy she can count on, lean on.
^*

Plus, she occasionally slugged it out with other hot women. Don't know why men like that one, but they do. I think guys just think, “Well, hell, they're so passionate about punching each other in the face right now. How long before they just start making out?” Sure, the “real” answer is probably “a really long time,” but don't tell us that during the show, okay?

Most guys who watched this show felt like they related to Richie Cunningham at best. The main thing was that, just like all the guys on the show, we all knew we were not as cool as the Fonz, but we wished we were. The Fonz could snap his fingers, and women would just appear and want to go to Inspiration Point with him. He could hit a jukebox and make it play. He could fix cars. This guy could
do
stuff.

Guys want to feel that
capable.
Men love to feel like they can grab the world around them, strangle it, and make it cry “uncle.” The Fonz was the ultimate “Controller of the Universe.” Think about that the next time your man jerry-rigs some weird thing where the microwave can be run by the remote control. If you can react as if he had just snapped his finger and Bill Haley and the Comets came on the jukebox, it would really help. And remember, just like Richie Cunningham, your man doesn't want his woman to think of him as the second coolest guy around. Even if you both know he is.

This is a love story between Rose and Jack, two youngsters on the
Titanic
. They fall in love and then hit an iceberg. Not them personally, you understand. I'm talking about the boat. Did you see the film? Okay, good, you're with me—you know where the iceberg fits in.

Couple of manslations here. In “Men and Their Things” (chapter 6), we talked about man's need to have the biggest toys. Well, here you go. The world's biggest ocean liner: “Unsinkable.” Thanks, dude. No woman would have bothered to do that. She'd think, “Well, what if we made a slightly smaller ship and sailed it responsibly, and then everybody could just have a good time?” And some guy would go, “No, no, no. Don't you get it? Then someone else will just come along and make a bigger one!”

For another thing, if it were the real world, the more attractive Jack was, the less wonderful he would be while he and Rose were deciding who got the honor of drowning. Sorry, ladies. That's just how it is. Just like really beautiful women, really good-looking guys go through life knowing that they are supposed to get what they want.

The big manslation in this movie is to remember that this, like the TV doctor shows, was not written to be realistic to men. Jack at one point draws a nude sketch of Rose, right? And this is romantic? Yeah, see, the whole “draw a sketch” move has never, ever, ever been anything but a “remove panties” lever. And I'm sure it works like a charm. But it's not about the ultimate romance. It's about, “Hmm. Wonder if she'll fall for this one.” I'm not saying that you shouldn't enjoy the movie for what it is. But if in real life a man ever wants to make a sketch of you, just be warned that foreplay has begun.

This is the classic “breakup gone wrong from the male point of view” movie in which Michael Douglas has an affair with Glenn Close, after which she boils his daughter's bunny. She does not appreciate being dumped. The reason why this movie succeeded is that it is one of the nightmares that every man faces when he meets someone. You get in there, and then you can't get out when it's over.

When a man gets all skittish with you, just know that this is what scares him. He is not afraid of how much you made him feel or worried that he might get hurt. He is afraid you aren't going to let him leave, and then you are going to sneak into his house and boil his pet rabbit.

You might see this skittishness after the two of you have sex for the first time. Maybe he won't call quickly enough, whatever it is. You know what I'm talking about. We went through it when we talked about how to break up. The ol' Fade. He's trying to pull a Jedi mind trick on you and act like the two of you really aren't all that close anyway, so you should just let him slip away. He's hoping that you'll catch on, and he won't have to actually dump you.