The Thinking Man's Guide to Talking With Women

Life in the land of women can be confusing. You meet a girl and think everything's fine. Then one day you realize you are talking with a creature from another world, somebody who makes noises similar to English but who doesn't really speak your language at all--except when she wants to be absolutely, fully understood. Like when she says "Come to bed," "What's your salary?" or "Go to hell."

And so it passes with every man. Eventually, after lots of hard experience, we all come to see that the life span of modern love is calibrated in three-word sound bites that mark, with complete clarity, the beginning, middle and end of any entangling alliance between a man and a woman:

• Whatcha doin' Friday?

• Have another drink.

• I love you.

• Slower, harder, faster.

• Here's the key.

• Please marry me.

• Let's go shopping!

• Honey, I'm pregnant.

• Gimme a beer.

• We never talk.

• I need space.

• Gotta work overtime.

• We're just friends.

• I want alimony.

Strange, isn't it, how the really important things in a romance can all be hitched to little word troikas? Why is this? Because any conversation between lovers that is longer than three words is subject to wildly different interpretations, conflicts, arguments and meanings.

A knowledge of how women use the language can be terribly handy if you find yourself in one of those modern relationships where you actually have to talk with each other.

So let's start with the basics.

We must speak with them--women, that is--because they are here, among us, and they can't stand it when we ignore them. But, as we have stated, words are the tools of misunderstanding. To be able to speak with women, we must know their language.

The History of Women and Language

There are two distinct linguistic families from which all modern Western tongues are descended. One is Indo-European. The other is girl talk. Indo-European gave us Greek, Latin and Esperanto. Girl talk gave us gossip, Joan Rivers and a bunch of 900 numbers.

Girl talk is a difficult tongue to master. Women, philologically, are the Magyars of our species, speaking a language so obscure that not even other women can always be sure of what they're talking about. Hence, "What do you mean by that?" is the reply given by most women to almost anything said to them by almost anyone.

Contrary to propaganda, women are not more sensitive to the feelings of others than men are. Rather, women are more sensitive to their own feelings than men--or other women--are. So every woman will be extremely sensitive about all the things that you say to her.

In almost every instance, no matter which words--if any--she actually speaks in response, the meaning of her language is always the same: "What do you mean by that?"

The exception: "Oh, grow up," which is what women say to men when men don't behave as women wish them to behave.

How to Say Hello to a Woman

Don't: Howdy; hiya, hiya; enchanté; woo-woo.

Do: Hello.

Most women prefer men to make conversation that is brief and to the point, unless it is about them. Accordingly, women like a straight-ahead approach when meeting a man, since their objective is to find out as many salient facts about you as possible--straight or gay, single or married, employed or broke--and half-baked, cliched wisecracks delivered with a nervous tremor just get in the way. Men, anxious to unroll the story of their lives, seem to lose their ability to articulate when meeting a woman. Consequently, women talk to themselves while men mince around with banalities. They ask: How do I feel about this guy? Does he make me feel good about myself? Is he the best for me he can possibly be? No matter what a woman is saying to you while she is being introduced, there's a simultaneous conversation going on between her and her feelings.

Men don't do this. Men move their thoughts to their shorts when they meet a woman. Alas, often by the time a man has finally said hello, a woman has already said goodbye.

And while we're dealing with basics, how about:

The Truth

In romantic pursuits, as in war, truth is the first casualty. Boy meets girl, boy lies to girl about job, car, money, other girls. Girl lies to boy about job, money, caps and implants.

When the steam runs out of the mad passion that provides locomotive power for the early stages of all romances, it's typically because the truth has reared its ugly head. Once life is seen in terms of mutual problems, you transcend infatuation and enter the orbit of love, where there are only two truths: The truth she tells you and the truth you tell her.

Let's start with you.

You are required to tell the truth--the whole truth and nothing but the truth--in the following circumstances:

• When the answer to her question will influence her ability to believe your other answers. Example: "Before you hide that salami, do you love me?"

• When the answer to her question will influence her in making a critical and life-altering decision. Example: "If we have the baby, will you support all of us?"

• When the answer to her question is necessary to help her avoid being a liar herself. Example: "Can you pick my mother up after her neurosurgery because I promised Billy I'd take him to Little League and I'm afraid to let Mom drive the Chevy with her head in an Ace bandage?"

It may be obvious here that truthful answers piled on top of one another have a way of eventually complicating your life, and soon, half-truths may be just the size of truth you need. Ultimately, this will cause you to re-evaluate your concept of what the truth really is. Thus is born a personal philosophy packed with paradox, for the ugly truth about the whole truth is that the whole truth is sometimes a lie. Examples:

• "Were you looking at her?" Partial truth: No, just her shoes. Whole truth: Yes. But it was because of factors that have little or nothing to do with her enormous reach of leg or that gauzy strip of flax she was wearing as a top. Maybe it was the fact that she was wearing an eye patch and carrying a parrot on her shoulder.

• "Am I prettier than your old girlfriend?" Partial truth: Are you kidding? She was nuts. Whole truth: Most of the time. But now that you bring her up, there was something extraordinary about the way she looked naked and draped over the back of a sofa, just before the surfeit of pleasure turned her into a raving lunatic who lunged about the apartment with a butcher knife in her hand.

• "Were you flirting with that waitress?" Partial truth: No, no. She was just giving me a hard time. Whole truth: Yes. But only because she impaled the back of my shoulder with her silicone scuds.

The lesson here is that you have to be careful with the truth. Among the spices of life, truth is red cayenne. A little bit goes a long, long way.

Women and Truth, With Extra Cheese

Women see truth as a pizza and are careful to dish it out a slice at a time.

Normally, a taste of the truth is enough to give you the big picture. Example: You say, "Who called?"

She says, 'Jim called and asked if we were still dating. I wish he'd leave me alone." There's more truth behind that, of course, but you don't need to know what it is, for the slice you've been given is the one with all the good stuff.

Sometimes you need to eat half the pie before you know what the truth really is. Example: "Who called?"

She shrugs and says, "A friend."

You say, "May I have another slice, please?"

When she really hates you, she'll throw you into an emotional hammer-lock, toss you onto the floor and cram truth, cheese and pepperoni down your throat. Example: "Who called?"

She says, 'Jim. He asked if I was still in love, and I said I was bored out of my mind, so he asked if I'd meet him in the parking lot down at Bowl-a-While and I said, 'Sure, if you'll bring the Colt .45.' " And then, a rotten anchovy: "I'll be late. See ya."

Rule: If you aren't hungry for reality, don't ask for a taste of the truth.

Women, Lies and Kindness

Men blindly pursue love through the black forest of rejection. Sometimes it seems as though every path leads to the painful realization that women find your personality loathsome and look at you as though your face were a bloody, running sore.

Some women don't care that men spend much of their time reeling from one rejection to another. You say, "Gee, how about dinner?" and she says, "With your dog, maybe."

For the most part, women try to upholster rejection in the deep-pile velour of falsehood. This creates another problem, of course. How do you know what she means when she says what she says?

(continued on page 156)Talking With Women(continued from page 124)

Rule One: If your proposal has more intrinsic merit than her reason for refusing, it's a rejection.

Explanation: Every girl learns the I-have-to-baby-sit line early in puberty. It's a nice way of just saying no. If you ask a girl to go to Michael Jackson's house to spin some platters and she says she'd like to but she really has to straighten up her apartment, you can figure she's busting more than dustballs.

Rule Two: Allow for her to have a complicated life.

Explanation: When girls go to college, they learn to color their excuses in various shades of complexity, and each shade suggests a different level of rejection. Two extremes: "I have to study" is a more complete rejection than "I have an appointment with a faith healer who works miracles with problem skin." If you propose a movie and she says she has to study, it's easy to simply ask, "If I ask you to a movie again next Thursday, will you still be studying?" If she says yes, then you're out of there. The faith-healer story is what we call a nonrecurring excuse, so you can assume she really is out to have God do her zits and might like to see a movie with you when her blackheads are exorcised.

Rule Three: The more mature a woman is, the less the likelihood she's telling you a kind lie.

Explanation: Maturity can be measured in terms of self-assurance. If you ask a 21-year-old out for a drink, you might hear anything in response, and it'll take you a while to figure out what her response means. If you ask a more mature woman, say a 31-year-old, out for drinks, she'll gauge her thirst--for drinks and companionship--and give you a simple yes or no. There is value in clarity that can pay off if the relationship moves beyond the bar.

Rule Four: Assume she means what she says--or appears to be saying.

Explanation: Women are quite capable of eliminating ambiguity without your assistance. If you ask a woman to go to dinner and she says, "No, thanks, I have a boyfriend," there really isn't much room for follow-through. But if she says, "I would love to have dinner with you, but I just can't do it tonight," then you would be quite justified in proposing something else. If a woman's response creates honest ambiguity, then assume that ambiguity is what she had in mind, and deal with it. Or don't.

We Never Talk

Part of communicating with women is not communicating with women. Most of the time, you can get around it. But when your girl says, "We never talk," it's the red flare off the sinking ship of true love.

When a woman says those three words, what she doesn't mean is that you never talk. What she does mean is that something is bothering her and you'd better figure out what it is.

Doing this requires a deft manipulation of mood and meaning. It's a well-mined area, however, and one light misstatement can cost you a leg. So before you say anything, make sure you have a road map of all the things you should never say.

Things Never to Tell Your Lover

The we-never-talk thing seems like such an alluring invitation to open up that many men actually say what's on their minds. Then they are taken outside into the dark parking lot of romance, where a bullet is put into their heads.

Here's a list of notions that should never be voiced, the things that will put your love life in a barrel and, in the current of conversation, carry it over a personal Niagara.

This is an extremely arbitrary list, plucked from an almost infinite catalog of sins, vices, fears, perversions, potty rituals that you should not only never tell anyone but should probably not even admit to yourself.

What follows, on the other hand, are the things you might actually say, rather than the ones you should try to repress.

So, here goes:

• "You know, maybe you'd like working out. Just to loosen up. Really," or any variant on the why-don't-you-lose-a-few-pounds theme. No matter what, never criticize your girlfriend's body. It is completely unnecessary. Women always know exactly what their bodies look like: If she's fat, she knows it. If she's skinny, she knows that. If her ass is flat, she's already spent a lifetime twisting like a living pretzel in front of full-length mirrors. She doesn't require your evaluation of her failings. She already knows what they are.

• "Say, did I ever tell you about the way Naomi used to slap me in the face with her giant casabas when she'd gallop on my magic pony?" This really happens: Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl moves in and, suddenly, one day three months into the relationship, boy finds there are two topics he absolutely cannot resist talking about. One is his old cars ("I used to drive a Lamborghini"); the other is his old girlfriends ("When I was at Syracuse, I used to boff a go-go dancer named Cheryl Lamborghini who knew Lindsay Wagner personally"). When men replay this part of their personal history, women roll their eyes and wait for the old "nothing compares to you" routine. Women don't want to know about your ancient case of crabs or your swinging-bachelor past. In fact, the only things women want to know about your old girlfriends is whether or not they gave you herpes simplex--and whether or not you're still seeing any of them. The old girlfriends, that is.

• "Your daddy's poor and your momma's bad-looking." Don't criticize her family. To men, families are a circumstance. To women, they're a context. When you criticize her family--and, to a lesser extent, her friends--you're questioning her own view of herself. Besides, it'll get back to them pronto and you'll be made to answer for it at some inopportune moment--say around a Thanksgiving dinner table in front of the whole hostile tribe, who are certain, probably with good reason, that you're not good enough for her.

• "Without you, I'm nothing." There are probably better ways to instill in your lover a healthy sense of respect for you than to confess and whine continually about your weaknesses and how much you depend on her. This sort of thing is, of course, gross manipulation, a way of putting a price on any sudden decision on her part to blow you off. Naturally, women will be eager to rid themselves of someone with no self-esteem, for here's a simple truth: Women hate weaknesses in men. Women want you to be strong, like Dad, so they don't have to be strong for both of you. The sensitive, weepy New Man, born in the Seventies, is now rightfully ridiculed, since women quickly noticed that his limp sensitivity quickly turned into yet another way for him to avoid manly responsibilities.

Along those same lines, she doesn't want to hear you say, "My father never told me he loved me."

So? Sue him. Get a life. The statute of limitations for psyche crimes committed by unfeeling dads ought to expire at the age of majority, after which time, women have the right to expect men to assume responsibility for their own misfortunes. Women, after all, are already the center of their own self-absorbed universes; they are adept enough at inventing excuses for their own misbehaviors and neuroses. They aren't apt to be sympathetic to you when you try to milk the same cow--mostly because they're busy being mad at their mothers, and women hate competition.

• "I'm sorry I'm such a jerk." Civility is a swell thing and good manners are always in style. But make sure your apologies are for genuine transgressions, not for the state of your own personal cosmic odiousness. Men who wimp around begging for reassurance often lead lives of a deservedly celibate charm.

• "Why is that guy looking at you? Did you smile at him? You did, didn't you? I knew it! Whore." Jealousy is the outer limit for most women, who, unlike many men, don't see it as a measure of affection but rather as a demeaning, highly insulting manifestation of insecurity.

Men set themselves up for jealousy far more often than women do, usually by trying to live one fantasy or another. For instance, some guy will tell his lover that maybe a threesome would be exciting, and--presto--there's the overnight-express man in his boxer shorts making a delivery right there in bed with the guy's wife, who looks up innocently and says, "Gee, Albert, this was a great idea you had."

What You Should Tell Your Lover

• Compliment her.

Say, "I love your body." As noted above, women are always aware of their physical shortcomings. Alas, the converse does not hold: Women do not have a firm grip on their physical attributes. Hence, any discussion about the way your lover looks should always include your comment that you love her body, that you adore it and worship it, that it's what you think about all day and dream about all night, that you think it's so much more than just a way to keep her chin off the floor. Women can't hear this enough.

Amazingly, this doesn't dawn on many men. We seem to take for granted all the swell things they say about us and then never return the favor. So when she says something like, "I love the way your profile reminds me of a young, golden boy god," we mumble back something like, "Thanks, honey. I love you, too." Well, "I love you" is good, but for most women under the age of 80, "I love your body" is better.

• Be romantic.

Say, "Listen to this, darling:

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

Reading aloud heart poems, like this one by William Butler Yeats, is an attractive, gently seductive gesture. Don't think too much about what this particular poem means--it might be a downer or something. But it sounds great recited out loud, especially if you can work in a little crack of emotion after the "pilgrim soul" bit.

Women really do like sensitivity, especially if they think it's been induced by your romantic entanglement with them. So tell her about your hopes and dreams for the future of the California condor and about your ozone worries and how you've never felt like you could talk about them before with anyone else. Confess your fear of bats and how Bach moves you to tears. You tell her these things and she'll tell her friends how sensitive you are.

Beware: Women don't care much for men who express too much sensitivity. They especially despise men who are more sensitive to their own inadequacies, fears and troubles than they are to their lovers'. They don't like it when men confuse sensitivity with confession, and they have a special place in ladies' hell for guys who weep and moan about their insecurities.

• Talk like a provider.

Say, "I got a raise."

Now there's a phrase that's never out of season, one that rings sweet no matter when it's spoken. And if the subject happens to be your paycheck, bear in mind that while most women aren't mercenary wenches, every woman sees a new dimension of power in a lover who's pulling his own weight. Remember, a man's job may be the most attractive thing about him, and his success only adds luster to his image. Why do men think it's jake to lust after women with giant tits but horrible for women to lust after men with giant wallets?

• Embrace spontaneity.

Say, "Let's go away."

Lovers often find that the humdrum grind of daily life can quickly suppress the spark that brought them together in the first place. But choose your itinerary with care: A romantic weekend for two in the country will reinforce that us-against-them, two-lovers-alone-in-a-heartless-world theme that helps make your love affair seem so unusual to you. A weekend for two at a Werner Erhardt seminar or a regional NOW convention won't.

• Say something polite.

Try, "Thanks very much."

Appreciation of small things, evidence of good manners and thoughtful gestures of recognition all help intensify a lover's feeling of worth. A lover too long taken for granted will not only go away, she'll go away mad.

• Talk dirty.

The distinction between vocal and oral sex is a fine one, depending mostly on what you're doing while you're talking. Either way, a good play-by-play man can heighten the general excitement of the match, provided that a few rules are observed:

Keep your opening remarks nonspecific: "I'm just happy to be here. We're going to give it our best shot. I'm excited just to be a part of this." There are a million ways to say this. Choose one. As the play unfolds, use your skills at color commentary to keep the momentum going. Avoid insipid variations on "This is as good as it gets," since your lover hopes it will get a lot better than this pretty quick. Don't be afraid of lapses in commentary, but if you feel silence is dampening the proceedings, try "I love your body," a never-fail line.

In the heat of the action, a little straightforward play-by-play will work wonders. Simply announce, in an urgent but straightforward way, exactly what you're doing to her, along with a scattering of hints about what's coming up next. Use the most direct language you can imagine and eschew euphemisms. Your lover really doesn't want to hear you yell, "Going, going, gone! Boom! Hey, it's outa here!"

Postgame, go from being a grizzly to being a stuffed bear. Let your lover do the talking for a change. Above all, don't ask questions--especially ones that call for her to make an analysis of the plays, since, unlike other ball games, sometimes it isn't over when it's over. Sometimes it isn't over even when the fat lady screams. Remember, you can always play again tomorrow, or, as Ernie Banks used to say, "Let's play two."

How to Talk to Women About Sports

Women actually like to hear men talk about sports. (A few women can even talk with men about sports, but they are scarce.) To make sports intelligible to women, however, keep in mind that your interest in a particular sport, say baseball, is somewhat mystifying to your girlfriend, to whom baseball is only a game. So forget about explaining rules and technical procedures. Concentrate instead on the things that make the sport interesting to you--its ability to stand for the important things in life or its epic quality. For example, if the Orioles are playing the Brewers, talk to her about 1982, when the Orioles fought back to come within nine innings of winning the divisional championship. Talk about how that final game was a match between Don Sutton and Jim Palmer. Explain to her who Sutton is; she'll already know who Palmer is. Make the contest personal, an extension of an emotional conflict. Make it a diamond-shaped soap opera, so you can both work with something you know.

Body Language

It pays to know what a woman is saying with her body. Touching her hair, touching your arm, thrusting out her chest, staring into your eyes, wagging her feet, walking slightly tip-toed--all these are part of what anthropologists call presenting behavior. You can tell a woman is attracted to you, for example, if she faces you, arches her body backward, runs her fingers through her hair while groaning softly, tracing the contour of her figure, pausing briefly at her breasts, and then--while her eyes are still half-closed in ecstasy--tells you she's glad to make your acquaintance. (OK, we've never seen it, either.)

How Not to Talk to Women

Want to start a fight? One little word ought to be enough to do it. As if you needed the help, here's a short list of loaded lingo:

• mother

• children

• menstrual (or hormone, or period, or PMS or any of that stuff)

• Clarence

• Playboy

• girl

• sex

The Ultimate Thing Never to Say to a Lover

"I do."

Well, OK, it's not that you should never say this to your lover. It's just that you should think long and hard first, so you say it to your lover almost never. Like once, to be exact.

"When your girl says, "We never talk," it's the red flare off the sinking ship of true love."