Manslations (4 page)

What do you do if you want him to come shopping with you? Well first of all, don't want that. If he's anything like me, he will be an infuriating shopper. He's not your girlfriend. He's your man. He won't be very helpful.

However if you
must
take him shopping, you can't nag him into it. It will never work. You have to make him feel like
more
of a badass for coming along than if he had just refused and stayed home. If you can somehow convince him that the very fact that he's doing this stuff makes him
more
of a man than those “sissies who refuse to go shopping with their girlfriends to prove what
men
they are,” you'll have much better results.

Juvenile? Yes. Silly? Probably. Embarrassing? Sure. But it will work better than nagging, “Why can't you ever just come shopping!?” He's heard this before. From his mom. And the moment he heard it was when he first began to suspect that he was never going to be rappelling down anything.

This is just one example of the Jack Bauer Principle. We'll see it again a little later. Just trust me—if you can understand this about your man, you'll be so much happier. So will he. In these moments, let it be a little less like, “Will you stop being such an idiot and just do what I want?” and a little more like, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.” I think you'll be pleased with the results.

Speaking in broad stereotypes, men seem to interpret the world and the stuff in it in terms of what it
does,
or its utility. This is why guys go crazy about tools. They have a function. They
do.
The broad, stereotypical female reaction to a thing is to ask what it
means,
or its significance.

Take, for example, the humble thank-you card. The thank-you card is primarily designed for its meaning, and as a result, men are not the best gender at remembering to send them (though in our defense, we're in the top two). Nor do we really care about receiving them. We just don't get it.

The reason is that they don't do anything. Whenever I get one of these cards from someone, I never know what I'm supposed to do with it. I'm always thinking, “What are we up to here? What is this card supposed to get me to do? She already said thank you in person. So what's this about? What was wrong with
that
thank you? Should I acknowledge this card? Am I supposed to send a card back to her, thanking her for this card that thanked me? When does it stop? Am I in trouble?” And then I need to go to bed.

Now, most women just assume that this is a nice,
meaningful
thing to do, to show someone that you are grateful, that you care, that whatever you're thanking them for
meant
something to you.

For me, and for a lot of men, thank-you cards are like vitamins. I'm not sure what they do; I don't really understand them; but I'm pretty sure I have to use them or else something vaguely bad might happen. (The difference, of course, is that failure to use one of these things might result in someone's feelings being hurt, and in the other case, my gums might fall out or something.)

The next two sections are the biggest, most important things ever. Ever? Yes, ever. If you can really take this stuff in, you're going to cut down on the “
what the hell is he thinking
” part of your life drastically. You'll have so much free time on your hands, you'll be able to knit a twenty-foot image of me and use it as a slipcover for your garage. (Or you could do something not creepy. Your choice!)

On my website, I get all kinds of questions from women complaining that a man is sending them “mixed signals.”

Here are a few examples:

He says, “I had a great time—I'll call you,” but then doesn't.


He says, “No, nothing's wrong,” but he won't spend any time with you.


He says he wants a “real relationship,” but you only hear from him at 3:00 a.m., when he's drunk and wants to come over for sex.


He says noncommittal things or not much at all, but he keeps finding reasons to spend time with you.


He says he's psyched to hang out with your friends but constantly “forgets” what night you're getting together with them and makes other plans.

None of these situations are mysterious to a man. Any man can tell you without hesitation that these signals aren't mixed, blended, or even lightly stirred. In fact, most men wouldn't even know what could possibly have confused you.

Here's the Manslator's Golden Rule, which will solve all of these “puzzles.”

Ready?

Whenever there is any conflict between what a man says and what he does, always, always ignore what he says.

Okay, now read it again. Yes, I do mean “always.” If you can really understand this much about your man, you'll probably know even more about him than
he
does.

See, we males don't always know what's going on with us any better than you do. Hell, when we're talking about how we think or feel, we're barely listening ourselves. A decent percentage of what we say in those situations is going to be a load of crap that we're throwing out there in hopes that by saying it, it will be true. But our behavior? That doesn't lie.

Imagine your dog. Good, now imagine somebody else's dog. Excellent! What a good imagination you have.

No, but seriously, think of a dog when it's happy. Now, is it hard to “read” what's going on with that dog? Not really. That dog might not even know he's happy, but you sure know it. Same with men, except we can talk. Plus we don't pee on the ground. (Most of the time, anyway. Okay, sometimes in an emergency or as a signature in a snowbank.)

I've been in plenty of situations where I've said (and believed) that “nothing's wrong” and I “didn't want to break up,” but my legs (who don't take orders from the same guy that controls my mouth) were already walking, telling me, “Sorry, pally. It's time to am-scray, vamoose, twenty-three skiddoo.”
^*

If you can remember to pay attention to what a man is
doing,
you will never again need to be confused by what he's saying. Behavior tells the truth. There is zero point in using a man's words to figure out where he's at. You might as well ask your dog those questions they have at the end of
Inside the Actors Studio.
^**

So now that we've established that a man's behavior tells the truth, let's talk a little bit about how to interpret that behavior.

If you find yourself wondering how a man feels about you… stop wondering. Just leave your wonderer on pause, because it's obvious how he feels about you. Look at his behavior (and, as we said,
not
his words) and ask yourself two questions:

Might he think
^***
that this behavior will get him laid?


Might he think that this behavior will maximize his time with you?

That's it. These are the two keys to interpreting all male behavior. And yes, you need both, or it's no good. If you've seen as many movies that involve the firing of nuclear missiles as I have (i.e., “all of them”), then you know that they require
two
keys to launch. If only one of the guys uses his key, you can't launch anything. At that point, all you can do is yell at the other guy to put in that second key (which, if he does, will then require Jack Bauer to get there quickly and start punching).
^*

Let's break it down.

If the answer to the Two Big Questions is “no,” then he doesn't like you.


If the answer to number one is yes and number two is no, he wants to have sex with you but doesn't like you that much.


If the answer to number two is yes and number one is no, he's a close relative. Or a woman. Or an itinerant eunuch. Whatever he is, he's probably not your man.

Why these two questions? On its own, the first question is not an indicator of anything other than exactly what it says. Knowing that a man wants to have sex with you doesn't tell you much. It tells you that he thinks that having sex with you might be fun (and who am I to argue with him?).

A lot of women stop here. “He wants me like crazy. He must really like me.” This is a huge misconception, and we'll get deeper into it in the next chapter. But for now, just know that sexual attraction for a man has zero to do with liking you. Any man is perfectly capable of desiring a sexual encounter with a woman whom he actively dislikes. Yes. Any man. That doesn't mean that all men pursue sex with women they don't like. All I'm saying is there's no link between wanting to have sex with a woman and liking anything else about her.

Now, from my experience with telling women about this, I can hear some of you out there right now:

He's generalizing. I don't believe that all men are really like that.

I know you don't believe it. That's how men get you into bed, even when you're way out of their league. That's why you need this book—to keep your bed (and your life) stocked with only the finest, most worthy men.

So if his sexual desire for you doesn't tell you anything, how do we know if he likes you? That's where the second question comes in.

What does maximizing his time spent with you have to do with anything? Answer: A “player” wants to do the opposite. A guy who only wants to have sex with you will spend as little non-sex time with you as he can get away with. He'll put in
exactly
what he believes is the bare minimum of effort required to remove any and all obstacles to humping (i.e., suspicion, sobriety, good judgment, morals, standards, underwear, what have you).

On the other hand, if a guy likes you, if he wants to date you or wants to have a relationship, you'll see him wanting to spend
more
time with you, not less. This (and not just his sexual interest) is how you tell how much a man likes you (the answers vary from “not at all” to “restraining order”).

Anyway, that's it. That's truly, seriously, honestly all you need to know to figure out whether or not he likes you.

Now, once again, I can hear you out there:

No, you don't understand. My situation is more complex.

No. If you are wracking your brains about why a man is behaving as he is, trust me, you are almost certainly wracking the wrong thing.

Let's take a look at one of the most obvious examples from real life where we can apply what we're talking about—the “booty call.”

So let's say that you met a guy at a bar. You flirt, you talk, you laugh. He asks for your number. He tells you that he's going to call you. You go home thinking that you're going to hear from him. But you do not. Not the next day and not the day after that. But then, three weeks later, he calls you at eleven thirty at night and says that he has been thinking of you since the two of you met. He said he had wanted to call you, but he couldn't get up the nerve. But he really liked you, he just hasn't been able to get you off his mind, he wants to see you—and what are you doing right now?

Now, this conversation is never not a booty call. Why?

Is there a conflict between what he said and what he did? Yes, there sure is. He
said
he would call you but
did,
you know, other things that were not calling. He then
said
he couldn't stop thinking about you, blah blah blah. But that still doesn't change the fact that what he
did
was not call you. For three weeks. Until eleven thirty at night.

So given that a discrepancy exists between what he said and what he did, we can follow the golden rule and focus solely on his behavior—the DID part. Here's what he did:

Got your number


Did not call for three weeks (even though he could have at any moment)


Finally called you at 11:30 p.m.


Attempted to get together with you right then

Let's analyze that stuff using our two questions.

Might he think that this behavior will get him laid? Yep. That's certainly the most desirable ending to the evening from his perspective.


Might he think that this behavior will maximize his time with you? Nope. He had your number. If spending a lot of time with you was a priority, why did he deprive himself of you for three weeks? And why did he wait until the middle of the night? The answer is that he wants to spend as little non-sex time with you as humanly possible.