Follow Shell's advice. Jim at Jimspot isn't interested in following these instructions. Probably a good idea; stalkers are so 1999.
Seriously, I can't be a woman, none of this stuff makes me think of "melting" at all. And I can't even think like this -- "Give her the remote"? "Give" me, hell. My fuckin' teevee, Mister, get you're own and play with your own goddamn remote. And I don't use makeup much, and I certainly don't have orgasms over those few shades I like. "Oooh, honey, you got me Satin Plum from Avon! Let's have hot monkey sex right now!" It's not World War 2, whale fat isn't being rationed.
Yes, I know, I'm being cruel to a sister. But geez, why can't we stop perpetuating this Harlequin Romance bullshit? It's destroying more marriages than the cholera killed Bangladeshi children. Take that "Don't try to figure out what is bothering her just hold her" myth. I can tell you right now (and this is not just from my own experience but those of female friends and things I have read and Deep Female Intuition and I am also breaking the rule of the Sisterhood by telling the world a secret of the female psyche so this may be my last blog entry, mwahahaha...) that when a woman is mad -- excuse me, "upset" -- the last thing in the world she wants to hear, see, touch, smell, or taste is the man in her life. Men, if your wife/girlfriend is stewing about something, my advice to you is, if you can't flee to Alaska, to just start a fight. You'll get into one anyway, best to just get it over with. See, if you try to do that figuring out thing -- and you know this -- you will catch forty kinds of hell. But if you take Shell's word and try the cuddly approach, the first thought that will go through your dearest's mind is: "He wants to have sex! When I am so pissed off/depressed/whatever! How could he be so insensitive!" The fact that this is true does not mean that men deserve the resultant tongue-lashing/frying-pan attack for what is, after all, a natural (and otherwise welcome) reaction.
Then there is the laughable idea that men should take their female partners out and select a "fabulous" outfit for them. Unless your husband or boyfriend's last name is Blackwell, you know what that will really mean: a beeline straight to Victoria's Secret. Not that there is anything wrong with that store, but come on. Most men think women look "fabulous" when they are naked, except for a red lace garter belt. I don't think that qualifies as "an outfit." (If his last name is not Blackwell and he uses the word "fabulous," well, ever, then you have a different sort of problem altogether.)
"Always take her side." Great, bring back that old notion that women are basically amoral, emotional creatures with no sense of honor, reason, or accountability. Thanks, Melvin Udall.
"When she's working on something, come up behind her and kiss the back of her neck. Just because." When she jumps and shrieks, and the back of her head hits your nose and breaks it, blame Shell.
"Write a message on the mirror with your finger. When she gets out of the shower, the fog will show it." I don't suggest "Redrum."
"Schedule a professional portrait sitting for the two of you." Oh my god. I would kill anyone, male or female, who did that to me.
"Dry her after her shower." Far from making me melt into a pool of amorous reflection, this sends me straight back to childhood, and my mother rubbing me down with a towel after my bath. In other words, I would feel as if I were being treated like a toddler. "I can dry myself, thank you," is likely to be my reaction.
Shell is a woman Unlike Me, in that she likes that whole being treated like a fragile, delicate thing routine. I on the other hand hate that kind of crap, because it means I have to just sit there and I can't do any fucking thing I want. I'm not five, I'm not at Grandma's wearing my Sunday dress and the white gloves with the warning that I had better not get them dirty and look she's so sweet she's mama's precious angel oh god spew. I can't go on, I really can't. I made it to "read her a fairy tale every night," and I have to stop. Any further that way madness lies.
Posted by Andrea Harris at September 5, 2003 09:35 PMSo what a woman really really wants in a man is...another woman. A really girly woman. Or a gay man.
Ooooookay.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at September 5, 2003 at 11:06 PMWhat Andrea said.
Girly-men must die! (Okay, not really; just stay away from me.)
Posted by: Juliette at September 6, 2003 at 01:35 AMThen there is the laughable idea that men should take their female partners out and select a "fabulous" outfit for them. Unless your husband or boyfriend's last name is Blackwell, you know what that will really mean: a beeline straight to Victoria's Secret.
Dang! I was thinking of a new pair of bib overalls and a flannel shirt. Winter is coming, you know.
Bib overalls with a red satin garter underneath 'em, of course.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at September 6, 2003 at 10:37 AMWell, Andrea, you've been wrong before, and no doubt you'll be wrong again, but I have never seen you be as wrong as you are here, in this post.
Shell's suggestions work on the overwhelming majority of women. They might not work on you, but that only means you're what we in the engineering trade call an "outlier" or a "sampling anomaly."
Theory be damned. Half a century's experience has taught me that most Western women:
-- Actively want to look good and be appreciated for it,
-- Enjoy affection and don't interpret every affectionate gesture as seductive foreplay,
-- Are specially touched when their menfolk temporarily set aside their "guy" agenda and change their behavior for their womenfolk's convenience or pleasure -- and that's at the heart of Shell's list of suggestions.
Is Shell's list therefore a prescription that ought to be followed all the time? Of course not. When it ceases to be exceptional, it ceases to be special. More, most women like their men to be "guys" most of the time. They do have female friends, and see no need to turn their men into women. But Shell's ideas do work, on most women, most times. Smart men know it.
Whoops! Pardon me, dear. Mrs. Curmudgeon has just discovered the new leather minidress I bought for her and hid in her closet, and insists that we have hot monkey sex at once. Back in a bit.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at September 6, 2003 at 11:34 AMI guess I must've married a strange woman, but she insists on going to Victoria's Secret without so much as a hint or a word from me.
She says it's because the panties she spend 16$ on in 1998 or 99 at Victoria's Secret last longer than the 2/5$ panties she can get at the local Wal-Mart.
Maybe Shell actually had an angle on this that some people have missed.
Maybe you could learn from her wisdom, Andrea. Go to a Victoria's Secret when they have a sale, and get some of the "plain vanilla" stuff for everyday use. You do want to save money, don't you?
Posted by: Dark Avenger at September 6, 2003 at 11:54 AMMan, some of you guys just didn't bother to read the whole thing, did you?
Mr. Porretto: I never said this list wouldn't work for "the majority of women." I said this list wouldn't work for me. This was my reaction to the list, and mine alone. I haven't the slightest interest in whether or not other women think all this stuff is just peachy keen. "Shell's suggestions work on the overwhelming majority of women. They might not work on you, but that only means you're what we in the engineering trade call an 'outlier' or a 'sampling anomaly.'" No shit, Sherlock, I thought I said all that. I even used less fancy language.
Dark Avenger: thanks for the patronizing comments. In fact I have nothing against Victoria's Secret -- see where I said "not that there's anything wrong with that store" -- nor do I have anything against men who like to buy stuff for their girlfriends at that store. In fact, I wish I could afford to shop there (and unless you plan to make a nice contribution into my paypal, I can't even afford their sale prices) because they have lots of nice stuff. I was merely pointing out, in sarcastic fashion, that there are very few men who will willingly take their wives/girlfriends out to the mall. Come on guys, how many of you love to go shopping for clothes with your girlfriends? Admit it, most of you find the idea somewhat less attractive than having major surgery without anesthesia.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 6, 2003 at 12:15 PMUmmm... the Gentleman With Whom I keep Company bought me a nice business suit at Talbots a couple of years ago. There were two of them I counld't make up my mind between, and it was almost my birthday. He said, "Well, when you decide, I'll pay for it." We went to Talbots together, and I certainly didn't have to drag him...
Posted by: Sgt. Mom at September 6, 2003 at 03:19 PMYeah, some of these might work on some women some of the time. If enough people think the majority of women would like all of these things, then maybe, just maybe, I should write that corollary book to "Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus" and title it "Women are Bitches, and Men are Assholes." I think it'll be a best seller...
Posted by: cardeblu at September 6, 2003 at 05:34 PMSgt. Mom: lucky you. I was careful to use "most" when referring to male dislike of shopping. I am aware that there are exceptions to the rule.
Cardeblu: since it seems that the majority of women roll over for this stuff, you might as well start writing.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 6, 2003 at 09:09 PMSorry to say, I think you're BOTH wankers.
Shell's list, including many of those you point out, seem to be on the surface basic, every-day considerations of the feelings of your significant other (which is always appreciated) -- with the added distaste of being treacly.
Nonetheless, your comments seem to proscribe certain "sensitivities" based on your personal likes or dislikes.
Here's an idea: You (man or woman) do some things that you know hit the spot with your partner, because you know they hit the spot with your partner (thereby establishing the fact of at least a semi-in-depth relationship). And you DON'T do it for what it can "get you," you do it because you know it hits the spot of your partner. And you like to hit the spot of your partner because you like your partner, and hitting their spot makes 'em feel good.
It really is much simpler than y'all are making it out to be.
Posted by: cj at September 7, 2003 at 01:32 AMWell, jeez...I think CJ's got it down. The List has been boiled down into one paragraph. Let me take a stab at boiling it down even further: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That sounds simplistic, but there's universes of complexity in there if you think about it. Which, to this dumb old male, is really the only reason to get out of bed every morning.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at September 7, 2003 at 05:46 PMOK, buying sexy underwear -fine. Knowing what a woman's favorite perfume is, and buying it - fine. But lipstick, people? Lipstick? What manner of man knows what his wife's favorite lipstick is, and would go stand at a cosmetic counter to purchase it? Is nothing sacred? That's some serious female mojo at that lipstick counter, which a man should rightly fear and respect. (I can just hear the spouse's response to the lipstick thing - "not even with my tinfoil jockstrap on...")
Guy cooties on my lipstick case? Shudder.
Posted by: Moira at September 7, 2003 at 06:33 PMI love buying clothes for women! There's certainly a selfish element in it, in that I am, in some sense, "in power", but I like it very much when women dress (or undress). Lingerie, though, is something I buy only/only/only when asked, with the woman on hand to do the picking. Far to dangerous to do otherwise.
Posted by: Hatcher at September 8, 2003 at 07:29 AMI have been laughing my head off reading both Andrea's and Michele's fisking of Shell's list.
I have not much use for the list, either. For example, I am the one who would be psychotically clicking the remote and while my poor husband begs me to stop. I guess I am not womanly woman.
But I have a basic rule that served me very well all these years of my marriage: I always appreciate chivalry, good manners, and gestures that are suppose to please me. Makes life together so much more fun.
Ahhhhhh...the "wanker" insult. A true comeback if ever there was one!
Posted by: robyn at September 16, 2003 at 07:01 AM