The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run.
John Barrymore

With every passing day I find that I understand less and less about people. The peculiarities and nuances about relationships are becoming harder and harder to make sense of. I once went out with a woman whom had a long history of a very abusive marriage and several relationships with men who generally treated her abysmally. There came a time when she and I both found ourselves "unencumbered" so we started to go out. I made it my goal to show her what it was like to be with a man who treated her well and respected her.
We dated for several months and had a lot of fun. Around October over dinner one night we had a very intense conversation about how she wasn't ready to get seriously involved with anyone as she needed to decompress from her experience with her most previous boyfriend. But we could continue to see each other until she cleared her head and then perhaps we could work on a relationship. This sounded perfectly reasonable to me so we continued to keep company with this understanding between us.
Then a few weeks before Christmas I discovered that I could no longer reach her. She was never home or didn't answer the phone nor did she return my messages. Finally, I just decided that I'd persist even if it meant becoming a nuisance just to find out what exactly was going on. Eventually she did answer the phone as my persistence paid off. I didn't know what was the problem. That final conversation revealed volumes about what her feelings were - and about her psychology. It seems that she actually resented all of my kindnesses that I had extended to her and she was very angry with me for it.
To say I was stunned and confounded is making an understatement. If being nice is wrong then excuse me for living.
I recently discussed this with a friend who is about ten years older than I am and has longer experience with this. He related that very often, in his experience, just when the man thinks the relationship is getting better, the woman is growing more discontented and actually begins to plot ways to draw the poor man in and then when he's really hooked on her, she drops the bomb and breaks the guy's heart. This is a particularly female brand of maliciousness which he has observed.
He also recounted a case wherein he went out with a woman for about six months and seemed to be having a nice relationship which was headed somewhere. Then on Valentine's Day he goes to her home and finds a man there. She introduces them to each other and this man was her HUSBAND! It seems that somehow she was married all the time and never gave as much as a hint as to his existence. Afterward my friend kicked himself for having been so stupid as not to have seen this coming. But I doubt if he bore much blame in this and shouldn't be too hard on himself for it.
I too had a very similar experience some years ago. I went out with a woman for about two years and it seemed to be a very average dating relationship. We had many of the same interests and had a lot of fun. Then her father died and it set her back quite a bit emotionally. I was very supportive as boyfriends are supposed to be. Indeed, just as a decent human being we should be that way. So I gave her her space and time to collect herself. Months passed and Valentine's Day came around. So I sent her a nice bouquet. This gesture must have set her back as she called me up and said that she was in no mental condition to have a relationship so we should continue to see each other, stay in touch, and once she gathered herself together again we could pick it up from there. I understood and agreed that it seemed like a good idea.
We continued to talk on the phone and see each other at a reduced pace. Then one day months later she called me up and we had a wonderful chat and I held hope that this might be the turning point and we could soon pick up where we left off. Only a few days afterward I picked up my mail and there was an envelope with her return address on it. Only it was shaped like a card and not a letter so I knew that something was up. I nervously opened it and it was, of all things, an ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT! At first I felt a wave of that cold and empty feeling you get when you learn that someone you care about has died, roll through my body. I had really come to care a lot for her. At the time of this writing I'd have to rank her as my second favorite girlfriend of all time. Once I had recovered from the shock I started to kick myself for having been so stupid for not seeing this coming. In retrospect, just as with my friend's experience, I had received no sign that anything was wrong. Not once had she ever mentioned another man or anything which would have given me a notion that something was wrong.
There was another woman, whom was my favorite of them all, who was a bit older than I was but we had so many other things in common that I thought that I had finally found the perfect woman. All was going well until Valentine's Day again (what the hell is it with that day any how?). I gave her a very thoughtful gift, we went out to dinner and had a wonderful talk afterwards. Then there was a pregnant pause in her side of the conversation whereafter she asks exactly how old I was. I told her and she said that she was too old for me and we couldn't see each other any more. Once again I was stunned. I thought everything was fine but she apparently had had something on her mind for quite some time. It seemed like a petty issue to break up over as it was only a seven or eight year difference and because her kids were grown and I didn't want children anyway, I couldn't see what the problem was. Besides all this, why did she wait until after I had invested all that money and emotion in her and then break up with me? Surely if this was on her mind she could have told me before hand. She also added that she'd like us to remain friends.
Why they think this is a kind or appropriate thing to say I will never understand. It's sort of like when you're down and out and seemingly at the end of your rope, someone always says, "You have your health." Good grief, everybody knows that this is just small talk for when you can't think of anything better to say or if there isn't anything else the person has to look forward to.
One friend of mine observes that it's simply amazing that after a woman lets you fall very hard for them and then breaks up with you, and they still expect you to continue on as friends, they must think of the relationship as something like a hobby that didn't work out. He has such a talent for ironic humor and I always laugh when he says these things, but he basically has a good point. Women apparently don't place the same value on relationships as men do. Such statements betray their feeling that they trivialize the value of relationships, or at least that one in particular. By the way, he has concluded that women are just plain evil.
I remember a Phil Donahue program once which was about "Disaster Weddings". One poor man found out that his girl friend was pregnant so he decided to do the right thing by her and marry her. All was fine and they planned an elaborate wedding which cost him a bundle. Everybody was at the church and the Wedding March vamp was being played, and at that very moment just minutes before they were to say their vows, she informs him that the baby probably isn't his. Can you imagine the shock of this poor fellow? They went through with the wedding anyway, probably because he was in such a state of shock he couldn't collect himself quickly enough to put a stop to it. But it didn't last more than a couple of weeks because he had it annulled on the grounds that she got him to marry her under false pretenses.
I don't know if this woman was being malicious, stupid, conniving, or a combination of all three. But whatever the case may be, the poor man was obviously a nice guy trying to do the right thing and got slammed right in the guts at just the time when he probably was very happy about becoming a parent. Nice guys finish last I suppose I could say and I just don't know what else to add to this but that I wish him a lot of luck in the future.
I think that most of these cases clearly show that, among other things, women simply can't say what they mean or mean what they say. They are also incapable of making a commitment and sticking to it - or so it would seem. Many are incapable of being truthful (which is more like withholding the complete details for one's own advantage and different from outright lying). Still other women simply don't know what they want and can't verbalize this message. And then there are the ones who are just plain malicious.
Not all of the problems between men and women come from the diametrically opposed ways of thinking and behaving such as these I've just listed. Others come from things about women which simply defy comprehension. Another friend of mine recently told me of a major conflict with his wife. They have been married about thirteen to fifteen years. He went to a "Victoria's Secret" store and bought her a very nice negligee. He also went to a great deal of trouble to be thoughtful about how she found it. As I listened to this story I was thinking to myself that this was a very nice and thoughtful way of keeping the marriage fresh.
Well, she followed the trail he set and found the gift, but rather than being flattered and seeing the thoughtfulness from whence it came, she literally exploded! She was all upset and very angry because, as she charged, he only saw her as a sex object.
Once again, this is beyond all reason. So what if he sees her as a sex object. After fifteen years I should think she would be flattered that he still held such feelings for her to go to so much trouble to show her. But no, she was outraged.
If anyone can make sense of all this, then please go right ahead. I hope somebody can figure it out. To me, none of it seems the least bit sensible and all of it seems insane. I have one friend who says that he'd just prefer to read a book rather than deal with women anymore. But when I reach this point in the discussion, I must once again retreat to my cry of, "Please beam me out of here somebody!" I wish I could find a nice, quiet, and sane planet somewhere to live.

PART II

BUT THEN, SOME WOMEN ARE JUST PLAIN OUT OF THEIR MINDS

What do women want?
Sigmund Freud

Then again, there are the cases where women are just simply "A few sandwiches short of a picnic." A high school sweetheart was someone whom I also went out with off and on for several years after high school. Then I lost touch with her for a long time until one day I saw her again while I was at work. She went on to tell me that she had gotten married a few years previously but had been miserable since the outset. I listened as a friend and continued to counsel her as best I could. Then one day not long after that she called me to ask to borrow $120 so she could buy a pair of prescription eyeglasses. I was speechless. I just answered that taking care of her medical needs was the responsibility of her husband.
This went on for another six years! I kept saying that she needed to talk to a lawyer and file for divorce. Well, she finally took the step and got her divorce. But the insane thing of it was that she continued to live with the guy for another year! In the mean time she meets another fellow who she then starts telling me about all of his great qualities. The last time I spoke with her she called me at work to tell me that she wanted to move in with the guy but didn't want to have sex with him. I just said that no self-respecting man would ever agree to such an arrangement and besides that, the primary reason why people move in together is so they can have sex on a regular basis. I closed the conversation by saying that I wasn't doing her any favors by continuing to listen to her foolishness any longer. What she really needed was to talk to a psychiatrist. I never heard from her again. I guess she didn't like my answer.
That one was always a bit strange. I always blamed it on a case of arrested development as even at the age of 40, she still read "Seventeen" magazine and other "teeny bopper" magazines. But arrested development doesn't explain everything in her case.
As peculiar as this woman was there is another woman from my past experiences who really was one for "Ripley's Believe It Or Not". I must preface this story by first saying that I had always wondered where those women were who would ask a man out on a date. I had always heard about them but had never actually met any. That is until I met this woman. She started hanging around my office at work on an almost daily basis. It was quite clear what she was up to and I was quite frankly very flattered. After three or four visits she began to tell me her life story and other personal facts about herself (such as she was 40 years old, which was the same age as I was, and that she was on disability due her having diabetes and lupus) and trying to feel me out as to what my interests were. I found that a little bit strange, but not so badly that any red flags went up. Well, we eventually went out for coffee once or twice, at which time she decides to drop a bombshell on me. She tells me that she wants me to help her have a baby. Surprised and taken aback, about all I could say was to ask her what her doctors said having a baby would do to her at her age and with her medical problems. She answered that they advised that it would probably kill her but she still wanted to try.
I simply didn't know how to respond to such a statement. I could only answer her honestly and say that I had never wanted kids and especially didn't want any at that point in my life as I'd have to work until I was 70 to support the kid. Besides that, I had heard of women who tricked their boyfriends into getting them pregnant, so I had taken the precaution of having a vasectomy several years before and couldn't have children. And finally, I wasn't about to help her commit suicide. The last thing I needed at that time in life was a dead wife and an infant to take care of.
I thought these were all very solid reasons, but she reacted with disdain and gave me the evil eye and cold shoulder every time I ran into her for years afterwards.
Another one I’ll relate is the time when I went out with this lady who was as sweet as tupelo honey (as Van Morrison wrote in a song). What’s wrong with that? Nothing, except that a steady diet of it will make you sick too. Plus, when someone is that sweet, it should be a warning that something is up.
After several months this began to wear thing to the point of annoyance. One further thing that increasingly grated against my grain was that, in the first place she had no ambition at all. She “Just wanted to make me happy.” But this gal also owed so much money from raising her family with a total jerk who borrowed them into so much debt that it will take her until she’s on Social Security to pay it all off. But the solution to her problems was in front of her nose. She and her ex had owned a house and ten acres of property, yet in her divorce complaint she refused to even ask for a piece of it. This went against the repeated advice or her lawyer and she even knew that she was entitled to half as it was community property without an argument. If she got this it would bail her out of most of her debt, yet she wasn’t interested. I repeated tried to bring it up and talk her into filing for it. All she did was look out the window and whistle (how annoying that is). Finally one day I pressed the issue to the point that she couldn’t avoid it. She kept saying she didn’t need the money. I said, “You of all people need the money. How can you say that. What do you mean you don’t need it?” Her answer - now get this - “Oh, you’ll take care of me.” That was the limit. I just said that she needed to get herself straightened out and I wasn’t going to even speak to her again until she did something to take control of her life. From there it turned into a regular pier six brawl involving both families. The word catastrophe doesn’t fully measure the gravity of how bad the situation deteriorated.
It doesn’t end there either. Months later I found out that one day (not long before the breakup in fact) one of my old girlfriends called (the one who wanted to move in with the guy without sleeping with him) and asked for me. My then girlfriend told my former girlfriend, “I’m sorry he can’t speak with you because he’s about to get married.” Nice of her to tie me up in that neat little ribbon wasn’t it? It’s a good thing it wasn’t one of the ladies I still cared about.
How can anyone make sense of these cases? In especially the latter one where the subject was obviously a victim of her own chemistry and had been driven crazy by it. An old friend whom I grew up with, recently told me that he's so fed up with dealing with women and their peculiarities (maybe insanities is a better term), that every time he detects that a woman may have an interest in him, he tells her that he was injured in Vietnam and is unable to do anything sexually and that puts a stop to any impending aggravation. He simply can't put himself through all the stress one more time just to have a relationship with a woman. If his were as bad as the experiences of the others discussed herein, who would possibly blame him either for employing this defensive tactic?
Each and every time I rerun these instances through my mind, I think of them as good reasons to promote the celibate lifestyle.
Copyright (C) AJS 2000