by Jeff Mac
If you ask most women what they want for Christmas, for example, it seems that she wants her man to have spent some time and energy on whatever it is that he's going to do for her.
And (and this is where we lose you) what the gift actually is doesn't matter that much, as long as we really put some thought into it. Yeah, even as I write that, I have a hard time following along.
We do about as well with “It's the thought that counts” as we do with “It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.” We don't want to just get an A for effort—we want to get you the right thing. In the game of getting you a gift you love, we want to win.
So should you drop hints or not? Well, yes. But just so you know, saying something like, “My friend was wearing these really cool earrings the other day,” is not a hint that we will pick up on. Probably not even if your boyfriend really, really cares. As far as he knows, that is the beginning of a really uninteresting story. You're going to have to really harp on it, or he'll never even realize you've given him a clue.
Barring some really clear, helpful direction on your part, what happens next is that as the holiday in question approaches, he will panic, desperately trying to remember what it was that you said that time… something about what your friend had and… aw crap, I'm screwed.
One Man's Solution to Gift Panic
Listen, I thought I was smart when I began to keep a running list on my computer of possible gift ideas for my woman. Every single time I thought of anything that even might be a good gift idea, I put it into this list—so when it's the second week of December, I don't have to wet myself for the next week and a half, trying to figure something out. But when I heard the ingenious plan that follows, well, I was mightily impressed.
A friend of mine, who we'll call “Ace” (at his request, seriously), apparently has had a long history of buying disappointing presents for his wife. Ace will try to do what we all know we are supposed to do—i.e., pay attention to stuff that she says that she wants. Great, right?
Well, being a man, he can't always tell the difference between a “hint” and “casually mentioning something you maybe sort of want.” As a result, he has ended up buying her, oh, I don't know, say, gardening tools for her birthday. (I'm wincing in sympathy, my man.)
Now, I have no doubt that she told him she might like those gardening tools when they were at Home Depot one day. No one is disputing that. But evidently a woman doesn't want to receive utilitarian things like tools, cooking utensils, etc., as a gift from the man to whom she shows her vagina. It just doesn't play.
Now, Ace can understand that this was a mistake, but only after the fact. So—and here is the genius part—he has decided to invent for himself a safety net holiday.
A couple days after her birthday, Christmas, Valentine's Day, or what have you, is an optional holiday called “St. Stanislaw's Day.” This day is not celebrated every year, just when Ace screws up. And he can then give her all the things that he didn't realize that he should have given her until after he gave her whatever dumb thing it was that he got.
This is true genius. And if you think about it, supreme thoughtfulness. Not only does it acknowledge the fact that, look, I am going to screw this up. Like, a lot. But also, by the time St. Stanislaw's Day rolls around two days later, he knows that she will have given away all kinds of useful intel about how what he should have gotten her in the first place. She might be momentarily annoyed, but at least she will now be clear enough about what she wants to clue him in. She gets the kind of gift she wants, and he gets to win.
God help me, I love this plan. Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Better Gift Giving through the Almighty
Power of Manslation
So where does all this leave us? How can you make sure that gift giving is as fun, loving, and free from nausea as it should be?
Before anything, you should acknowledge that it is very possible that you and he think differently in this area. If all you want is for him to put some thought into a present, you have to know that when you tell him that, what he hears is, “Okay, okay, she knows what she wants, but she's not going to tell me. She wants me to figure it out. Crap, crap, crap!”
You're going to have to tell him, “Seriously, I don't care if the gift is useful to me in any way other than that it tells me that you love me.”
And here are a few quick tips to remember:
Buy him stuff that does stuff. He will love it. Whatever he's into—whether it's computer games, tools, golf—if it does something cool that he is currently unable to do, he will be so psyched about it. Does this mean that you shouldn't go find him something really meaningful, like a framed print of the place where the two of you first met? Not at all. But if you can get him a GPS device as well? You will be the greatest girlfriend of all time.
Drop real hints. Ones that he can actually understand.
Note: Sitting at your house, thinking super hard about that beautiful pendant that you saw when the two of you were window-shopping at that town by the shore? Not a hint.
“Hey! You! See that pendant? Boy, I bet that would sure make a really great Christmas present for some lucky lady…” (insert eyelash batting, winking, and nudging here). Now that is a hint.
Cut him some slack, okay? If he cares about you, he probably really is trying. But just like that cat bringing you the dead mouse as a gift, his idea of “perfect” might not make any sense at all. But hey, he was trying, right? Isn't that, in its own way, thoughtful and meaningful?
So that does it for this chapter. If you are really mad because you wanted to hear some super cool hints on how to treat your man on Arbor Day, well… don't throw a tree at him. How's that? Now that I think of it, that's great advice all year long.
Happy Holidays!
__________________
* I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't dress like that. In fact, I am begging you to dress like that. Just understand the situation you're initiating. If you wear it, they will come. It's the circle of life.
* Fine, fine, I said it. I don't like football. It's un-American, I realize. Deport me to Russia; make me wear a Hello Kitty costume; do what you have to do.
CHAPTER 10
manslations to the top thirteen
male conundrums, or real-life
problems crushed to dust by
the power of manslation
APPLYING WHAT WE HAVE
LEARNED UP TO NOW
This section is all about Applying What We Have Learned Up to Now. (That's why it's called that—I wasn't being cunning with the title.) I'll give you a few of the fairly common “confusing” situations that seem to frustrate many of the women who come to my website, www.manslations.com. Since you've come this far, you should be able to manslate most of them on your own. And if you can't, I'm-a tell you. Just think how much better you'll be than those other women who foolishly have been procrastinating on buying this book. Exciting!
I saw my man totally checking out another woman's boobs!
Do nothing. Let it go. Look, there's all kinds of nonsense out there about how if a man's eyes are wandering, it's because he's considering cheating. I'm here to tell you that if a man's eyes are wandering, it's because they are attached to his head. (And if they're not, he's got enough problems without you yelling at him about this.)
As you well know by now, this means nothing. It doesn't mean that he's going to cheat on you. It also doesn't mean that he's not going to cheat on you. If you think that he's doing this because he wants to have sex with that woman, you are right. In fact, the only reason that you didn't see him checking out every other woman on Earth was that you just happened not to be looking when he was doing it. But this doesn't mean he's in any way interested in physically acting on it.
If you don't want to have to see him do this, though, it's totally fair to say, “Listen, if you're going to check out the waitress's cleavage, please just don't let me notice it, okay? It bothers me to see
it happen.” But try to get used to the idea that all men will always do this forever—and not just the jerks. In and of itself, it doesn't mean a thing. Let it go.
There's this guy at work. He is constantly looking at me and “flirting” with me. I give him no encouragement, but he will not take the hint. How do I get him to understand that I am not interested?
Well, you've got a few choices. One, get a really great boyfriend and introduce the two of them at some point, and have your boyfriend chat with him for a little while. This usually freaks out the creepsters, because then they see how different they are from the guy you actually like.
If that's not possible (and hey, I know you can't always go out and just do that), you're going to have to tell the guy to stop. Sorry about that. See, we are very, very used to getting a cool-to-cold response from you ladies, even when you like us. We just don't know if you're playing a game or not.
Also, our “trying to get laid” brain is fantastic at denial. It is able to see past any obstacles to the goal, even if the obstacles include “she's not even nice to me.” The only way that some men will stop going after you is if they lose interest (sounds like this one isn't happening) or if they understand directly that there is no way the sex will ever happen. Well, also if one of you dies.
I caught my boyfriend cheating on me, and when I called him on it, he started screaming at me like it was my fault!
Ah, yes. The old Anger Smokescreen. Ugh. Sorry about that. Most guys learn to do this maneuver fairly early in our dating lives. It goes like this: You catch him doing something wrong; you have all the evidence; and yet he flips out as if you're the one being outrageous. He's banking on you not being confident enough to defend your point in the face of furious anger. So what he'll do is this: He'll get twice as mad at you as you are at him. His hope is that you'll suddenly wonder if it isn't all your fault after all. Just like with the Fade, this is yet another male attempt at the Jedi mind trick.
We all know this trick, though most of us grow out of it at some point. Usually the guys who are heavy into this one date women with terrible enough self-esteem that it actually works—he can actually convince these ladies that it's all their issue and he's the victim. Oftentimes they will even apologize to him! For catching him cheating! Seriously, it happens.
Here's how you can tell that this is all crap. Let's say you caught him cheating. You know what you know. If anyone is going to be angry right now, it's you. So anytime you feel that a man's attempting to convince you that you have no business feeling how you do and you're just lucky that he's such a great guy to put up with you, feel free to say, “Wow. Thank you. I feel lucky. Thank you so much for cheating on me. And I'm sorry, you're right. I don't deserve you. Please, please let me make it up to you by returning the favor.” And then go out and sleep with his best friend. Actually, don't pick his best friend—do you really want to get with a guy who's friends with that douche? Sleep with his worst enemy. That'll learn him.
Remember, the Anger Smokescreen only works if you have so little confidence in yourself that you actually believe him when he tells you that you're being unreasonable for hassling him about, for example, keeping his online dating profile active even after you move in together. (Yes, that one really happened.)
He's cheating. How do I get him to stop?
This is a rough question, and it comes up all the time. It's one of the most common Google searches that brings women to my website: “Can a man stop cheating?” The real answer? You can't “get” a guy to stop cheating. You also can't get him to start cheating. He makes these kinds of decisions himself. He's a big boy. (At least he'd better be, or you're going to jail, right?)
Seriously, though, here's what I can tell you about fidelity in men. It is possible for a man to make a mistake. One mistake. As in, singular. And women can make such mistakes as well. It happens all the time. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to forgive him or trust him again or anything of the kind. A betrayal is a betrayal, and if that's the end for you, that's totally reasonable. But if you truly believe that this man made a mistake that he would never repeat and you truly want to forgive him, it is possible for a guy to cheat once and then not again.
That said, if a guy is a cheat-ER, as in, for his lifestyle? Yeah, that's not going to stop anytime soon. I'm talking about a guy who chooses to do this over and over again. Why would we think he's going to stop? Could he stop cheating just like the guy who made the mistake? Theoretically, sure he could. But he's not going to. This guy is making a choice. It might even be a choice he doesn't like. He might hate the person he becomes when he's cheating. But for whatever reason, he's doing it.
The only thing that you can do to “get a man to stop cheating” is the same thing that you can do to “get someone to stop drinking.” Tell him how you feel; tell him what is acceptable/unacceptable to you; and leave it up to him to decide whether or not he'll agree to your terms. It's 100 percent up to him, and it's not your job to jump through hoops to get him to do you the big honking favor of not boinking other women. In fact, I'd avoid jumping through hoops for any reason. Unless you're a poodle. Or a circus tiger. (If you're either of those, congratulations on learning to read!)
I've been seeing this guy for about two months, and he won't introduce me to his friends. What's this about?
Well, obviously he either doesn't want you to meet them, or he doesn't want them to meet you. In my personal case, my girlfriend and I spent almost no time with our friends at first because we were having too much fun to want to give up any of our together time. She and I were busy being incredibly happy, we had limited time together, and I didn't want to spend that time with my idiot friends. And again, I say that with love. But dude, priorities.
Now, if your dude is spending a lot of time with his friends, and he meets with you in secret, well, go back to our two questions. Does he think it's going to get him laid? Yep, because, hey, it is getting him laid. Does he think it's going to further integrate you into his life? Nope.
And before you ask the next question, don't bother. No, you can't convince him to want to integrate you further into his life. All you can do is reward behavior you like and refuse to accept behavior you don't like, and see what happens. Just like with a dog… if a dog could leave whenever he felt like it.
Remember, whatever your situation is now, it's potentially going to be like this forever. Ask yourself, would it be okay if you met in secret forever? If it's okay, then great! You're good. If not, tell him. See what he does. Remember, you are not going to blow it with this guy. If he doesn't want you in his life and you want to be in his life, it's already blown. This relationship is already never going to happen. There's never any convincing.
So I'm afraid you're going to have to resort to direct honesty. I know, I know. It's another radical concept. But it actually always, always works in the sense that, whatever happens, you at least know you're then working from the truth. And if you want to work from the truth, well, this is exactly how you will do it.
I want my boyfriend/husband to come shopping with me so he can tell me if I look good in stuff, and that way, I can buy things he likes. Why is that such a problem?
Well, first of all, you assume that he pays attention to your clothes, which he mostly doesn't. You could wear the same pair of earrings, for example, for the rest of your relationship. Literally. If you don't tell him, he might very well not know. Yes, I know that your ex-boyfriend noticed all the time, but he likes boys now, doesn't he? Right.
But why can't he just tell me what he likes and what he doesn't like?
Why can't you tell him which flat-screen TV looks better?
Because that's just a TV.
Right. That's what we're talking about. Different things interest us.
Also, when you ask a man for his opinion on clothes, he has no idea what you're really asking him.
But all I want is his opinion.
Well, no, not really. Not if his opinion is, “You look really overwei
ght in that.”
Well, no, but I want to know what he likes.
Uh-huh. Just not what he doesn't like. See, we're screwed when we get this kind of question, and we know it. We never know if you really want to know the real answer, if you just want us to tell you it looks great, if you're feeling insecure that day and need us to say you look great, if you really want this item but you promised yourself you shouldn't spend any money this month but, oh man, you really want those shoes…
How are we supposed to know what's going on there? By default, we usually just assume you want us to tell you that you look great. But then you try on eleven things, and after a little while, it becomes clear that we're telling you it all looks great. And then you get mad because we're not being helpful.
This is a close cousin to the times when you ask us whether or not you look fat. We know that the answer is never, “Wow. Yes. Yes, you really do. I am so glad you said something first because I did not know what to do about it anymore. Thank you. Thank you for being a big enough person (ha ha) to allow me to be honest about it.”