For most of my life, I was a Single Sally. Literally, for the first 29 years of my life, I was single for almost all of it. When I was 21, I was madly in love with my boyfriend, we were together for 9ish months, but then he cheated on me, broke up with me without telling me, kissed another girl in front of me the day after we ended, and then got me fired. From that moment on, I was self destructive when it came to selecting mates. I’d be infatuated with men who clearly weren’t into me, I’d have no interest in men who actually liked me (that would have been perfect boyfriends), and I’d go back repeatedly to complete losers over and over and over and over again. I mean, not all of my bad men decisions were done because of this moment in my life. I was pretty awful when I was really young too. All that mattered when I was a teen was that I wanted to date the most popular guy and no one else would do. I ruined a lot of good potential relationships and was ALWAYS single because of my need to validate myself through the popularity of others.

Anyway, because of all of this history, I thought I knew it all when it came to dudes. Like that they like to date brunettes and ‘do’ blondes. This fact, I know is not true, they like to ‘do’ all shades of hair and date ‘non-crazies’, hence why I was single for so long (I may be a wee bit crazy). I also, would often try the friend approach to get to dudes. What’s that all about? The friend card is a foolish way to lay your hand. You can’t help them pick up other women, if you’re the one you want them to be with…dummy.

Now however, for the past year I’ve finally, for the first time in my life, been in something wonderfully healthy. And because of this, I’ve spent most of my time with Mr. Opposite, and he, in turn, has taught me a lot about what men are actually like (before I just made assumptions). So far, here’s what I learned from his MANY opinions and our experiences:

• There’s no such thing as harmless flirting. Apparently, men think that if you rub their arm or make jokes that they actually have a chance to slip it in. Yes, they think they can make ‘sex’ with you. In fact, months before Mr. Opposite and I got together, we met at a party. We talked all night and he thought he had a chance with me. I on the other hand just thought it was great that someone was nice to me. Perception is everything. Needless to say in the last year, I’ve toned down my natural friendliness and am much more conscious about how I converse with the male species.
• Small gestures matter. It’s not in their nature to just ‘pick something up’ for you. If they do this, praise them, as it was really unnatural for them to think about doing that unprompted. Plus, it means that they were thinking about you when you weren’t around – how sweet!
• They think about doing other girls…all the time. Not kidding. Even if you read this to them and they say ‘no baby, I never think about that, I only think about you’. They are lying. They check out every hot girl that walks by them and when we’re not around, they sit around and talk about all the birds they would nail and how.
• Straight men want to make out with their girlfriends/wives all the time. Having been on hiatus from straight men for a while, I forgot what it was like to be with someone who found me attractive. It’s nice.
• They worry about what they look like. I always just thought guys just jumped out of bed threw something on and walked out the door. Nope, not that easy. Their hair matters, their clothes matter, their weight matters, it all matters. Hair especially matters. There’s always a chance that one day they could go bald so if there’s any thing that seems odd, it sends them into a panic.
• Dudes (single or not) when on the prowl don’t care if you say you have a boyfriend/husband. Actually, they either just glaze over this fact, or they take it as a challenge. When men want to get laid, they will do whatever they can to ensure this happens. And, if you give them any slight opening (whether on purpose or not), they will take it. This goes back to my point above about flirting…they think they have a chance when they clearly don’t – dummies. I always assumed most people were like me, when you see the ring or hear the ‘partner’ reference, you cut your losses and move on – however, this is not the case. You need to be really firm with men when you’re taken. I think the problem is that when men are on the hunt, they are thinking with their other brain (you know, their penises), so when you are trying to talk to their real brain it takes a lot to break through their idiocy.
• We annoy them. Maybe it’s our high pitched voices (or my high pitched voice), but our inherent differences get on their nerves. This however, does not mean that they don’t love us and that sometimes they find our annoyances charming. It’s just that when you spend so much time with one person, you’re bound to annoy each other. So either, take a break from each other (example, go for bevies with your ladies and he can go play vids with his buddies) or talk it out with out being too sensitive about it.

The thing is, men and women are terribly, inherently, ridiculously different. Really, we don’t actually have all that much in common. Men are actually from Mars, fact. And us women…well, we’re perfect *wink!