Dave Barry's Guide to Marriage And/or Sex by Dave Barry
Authors: Dave Barry
Tags: Humor, General, Family & Relationships, Social Science, Sociology, Self-Help, Health & Fitness, Mate selection, Essay/s, Marriage, Marriage & Family, Topic, Form, Dating (Social Customs), Relationships, Sexual Instruction, Sexuality, Comic Strips & Cartoons, entert_humor
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Why Men and Women Have Trouble getting Along
At the risk of generalizing, I would say that the basic problem can be summarized as follows:
WHAT WOMEN WANT: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held.
WHAT MEN WANT: Tickets for the World Series.
So we can see that men and women do not have exactly the same objectives in mind. Which is why, as a rule, the only time you see two people of the opposite sex who have achieved true long-term stability in a marriage is when at least one of them is in a coma.
This is strange, when you think about it. I mean, look around at the other species. Most of them are much stupider than humans are, not counting humans who pay to watch automobile races, yet they have their male-female relationships all worked out. Take squids. Squids may have tiny little brains, but they know exactly how to have relationships. The female squid goes into heat at exactly the right time, and all the male squids come around and wave their tentacles in exactly the most attractive way, and she picks out the one with the biggest suckers, or whatever and they mate. And they know exactly how to mate, the same way that squids have been mating for 46 million years, without any kind of formal instruction whatsoever.
Wouldn’t that be great? I don’t mean having sex with a squid. I don’t recommend that unless you get truly desperate (see “The Singles Scene,” in Chapter 1). I mean having everything all worked out between the sexes; having a procedure, where everybody knew what to do and what to expect, and nobody ever felt guilty or inadequate.
Yet here we are, humans, the most sophisticated species on Earth, having evolved over the course of millions of years to the point where many of us have satellite dishes on our lawns, and we have less savvy, in terms of our relationships, than invertebrates.
People say: “Well, if you want a marriage to succeed, you have to work at it.” And I say: Why? It isn’t fair! The other species don’t have to work at it! They don’t even have to think about it! Can you imagine a female snake agonizing about why a male snake never pays attention to her? Or a male cockroach nervously asking a female, after sex, if it was Good for her? Of course you can’t! Cockroaches can’t talk! But you know what I mean. I mean we have a problem here.
To date, the efforts to solve this problem have consisted mainly of articles in women’s magazines, the ones that always have the following general lineup of articles:
21 Fun Drapery Possibilities
5 Common Mascara Blunders
10 Quick and Easy Mayonnaise-Based Entrees
14 Ways to Tell If Your Child Is Shooting Up
11 Exciting Pudding Concepts
6 New and Extremely Dense Chocolate Desserts
147 Weight-Loss Ideas
Somewhere in there they always have an article with a title like “12 Tips for Getting Some Quantity of Romance Back into Your Marriage,” featuring advice such as: “TIP NUMBER THREE: Try not to blow your nose during sex.”
These articles are fine, except for one thing: Men don’t read them. Men read the sports section, or action adventure novels where the main characters are males who relate to each other primarily via automatic weapons. True, sometimes there are women in these novels, but only for the purpose of having firm breasts.
Clearly what is needed is some kind of book that women and men would want to read, a book that could bring the sexes together and help them reach some common ground by means of a straightforward, common-sense discussion of all aspects of finding the right mate, falling in love with this person, getting married, and living happily ever after. This was exactly my goal, when I set out to write this book. Unfortunately, as you’ll see, I failed completely, but what the hell—you already bought the book, so you might as well read it.
A Thoughtful Word of Advice Before You Get Started
You
At the risk of generalizing, I would say that the basic problem can be summarized as follows:
WHAT WOMEN WANT: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held.
WHAT MEN WANT: Tickets for the World Series.
So we can see that men and women do not have exactly the same objectives in mind. Which is why, as a rule, the only time you see two people of the opposite sex who have achieved true long-term stability in a marriage is when at least one of them is in a coma.
This is strange, when you think about it. I mean, look around at the other species. Most of them are much stupider than humans are, not counting humans who pay to watch automobile races, yet they have their male-female relationships all worked out. Take squids. Squids may have tiny little brains, but they know exactly how to have relationships. The female squid goes into heat at exactly the right time, and all the male squids come around and wave their tentacles in exactly the most attractive way, and she picks out the one with the biggest suckers, or whatever and they mate. And they know exactly how to mate, the same way that squids have been mating for 46 million years, without any kind of formal instruction whatsoever.
Wouldn’t that be great? I don’t mean having sex with a squid. I don’t recommend that unless you get truly desperate (see “The Singles Scene,” in Chapter 1). I mean having everything all worked out between the sexes; having a procedure, where everybody knew what to do and what to expect, and nobody ever felt guilty or inadequate.
Yet here we are, humans, the most sophisticated species on Earth, having evolved over the course of millions of years to the point where many of us have satellite dishes on our lawns, and we have less savvy, in terms of our relationships, than invertebrates.
People say: “Well, if you want a marriage to succeed, you have to work at it.” And I say: Why? It isn’t fair! The other species don’t have to work at it! They don’t even have to think about it! Can you imagine a female snake agonizing about why a male snake never pays attention to her? Or a male cockroach nervously asking a female, after sex, if it was Good for her? Of course you can’t! Cockroaches can’t talk! But you know what I mean. I mean we have a problem here.
To date, the efforts to solve this problem have consisted mainly of articles in women’s magazines, the ones that always have the following general lineup of articles:
21 Fun Drapery Possibilities
5 Common Mascara Blunders
10 Quick and Easy Mayonnaise-Based Entrees
14 Ways to Tell If Your Child Is Shooting Up
11 Exciting Pudding Concepts
6 New and Extremely Dense Chocolate Desserts
147 Weight-Loss Ideas
Somewhere in there they always have an article with a title like “12 Tips for Getting Some Quantity of Romance Back into Your Marriage,” featuring advice such as: “TIP NUMBER THREE: Try not to blow your nose during sex.”
These articles are fine, except for one thing: Men don’t read them. Men read the sports section, or action adventure novels where the main characters are males who relate to each other primarily via automatic weapons. True, sometimes there are women in these novels, but only for the purpose of having firm breasts.
Clearly what is needed is some kind of book that women and men would want to read, a book that could bring the sexes together and help them reach some common ground by means of a straightforward, common-sense discussion of all aspects of finding the right mate, falling in love with this person, getting married, and living happily ever after. This was exactly my goal, when I set out to write this book. Unfortunately, as you’ll see, I failed completely, but what the hell—you already bought the book, so you might as well read it.
A Thoughtful Word of Advice Before You Get Started
You
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