Red Green's Beginner's Guide to Women Read online

  There’s an old wives’ tale that people who have opposite personalities and characteristics are often attracted to each other, and while it may work for old wives, I think in general that’s a lot of baloney.

  A woman is not “attracted to” her opposite. She may be “intrigued by” or “curious about” or “too horrified to look away,” but equating that to attraction is a big mistake. It seems unlikely to me that a soft-spoken career librarian would be attracted to an overbearing loud carny who spends his weekends being shot out of a cannon into a vat of yogurt.

  Sure, you may take special notice of a person who is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, but that has more to do with the instinct for self-preservation than it does with your innate need for adventure. In the short term, a couple who are radically different from each other will have some interesting experiences together that they may even regard as fun, like the way you remember the first time you rode a mechanical bull or ate haggis, but over the long haul their chances of compatibility are incredibly slim.

  That’s because the differences are not superficial, they’re deep. It’s not that one person went out and discovered helicopter bungee jumping and the other person didn’t. They were both aware of the same activities. One said no. The other said yes. This is not a trivial difference. This is about fundamental life choices. Or death choices. While it may be kind of sexy to be married to a guy who jumps out of airplanes with nothing but a cape and an air mattress, this is probably not the person you want making key family decisions. That’s what ruins it.

  The kind of person you are determines the kinds of decisions you make. Most people are happy with their decisions. If they’re not, they change them. So when you meet someone who makes totally different decisions than you do, it’s pretty much impossible that you agree with those decisions. Sometimes these adventurers don’t even make decisions, they just never say no. To anything. In my experience, sooner or later people who never say no end up saying goodbye. Sometimes to everybody.

  So if you think you’re attracted to somebody who’s the opposite of you, stop and think for a minute. Is it actually envy? Jealous of a person who makes much braver choices than you do? Don’t be fooled; these may not be brave choices for them. Maybe they don’t even think about that. Or about anything. Maybe you’re angry that stupid people seem to have more fun. Whatever it is, it probably isn’t love.

  You’re way better off to find someone who makes the same kinds of decisions you do. Go back to the library, where you’ll be able to find a soulmate. The adventurer will find his in the emergency room.

  BREAKING UP WITHOUT BREAKING DOWN

  It’s very unlikely that the first girl you date is going to end up as a lifelong love connection. Compatibility is not that easy. She’s going to have things about her that you don’t like, and we all know you have things about you that nobody likes. At first, the things you like about each other dominate the other stuff. But over time, you take the good things for granted, which makes the bad things really bug you.

  So eventually the time comes when you need to break up. It’s tricky. It has to end, but the goal is for it to end in a way that allows each person to get on with their lives. That requires a little extra care in the way the breakup is handled. You also need to consider what level of breakup this is, because the depth and duration of the relationship very much affects the game plan for blowing it out of the water.

  Let’s start with the easiest breakup of all. This is the one where you’ve had one or two lacklustre dates and you’ve got the feeling that this girl never wants to go out with you again because after the last date, she said, “I never want to go out with you again.” So there’s no point in trying to save this relationship. However, you need to save face. You don’t want your friends to think you’re a pathetic loser. Hopefully, it’s not too late. You need to wait until the girl is standing with a bunch of her friends, and then walk over with a bunch of your friends and casually break up with her. Say something like “I can’t do this anymore, Samantha. I need to be with somebody who cares about me. And it’s clearly not you. So get stuffed.”

  Don’t say it exactly that way, especially if her name isn’t Samantha. But the idea is you’re pre-empting her. She may have been polite by breaking up with you privately, but now you get the last laugh by breaking up with her publicly. Both your friends and her friends will think you’re something. Maybe even something good.

  The next level of breaking up is when you’ve been dating for a while and it’s been getting more serious and to the untrained eye, like hers, it might even have looked as though you were on the path to marriage. This one is a little trickier. It’s going to be hard for you to come off well. She thought she was the one. Now she’s not even one of the ones. You’ve got to break up with her in such a way that she ends up feeling good about it. You don’t want her to hurt herself, and you sure don’t want her to hurt you.

  Some people will advise you to tell the truth. I’m not one of them. However, I would say you should avoid a really bad lie. Avoid clichés of any kind. Don’t ever say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” That’s not true. It’s not you, it’s her. If she were somebody else, somebody nicer and better-looking, you wouldn’t be breaking up. And don’t say, “You’re just not ready.” Okay, maybe it’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth, either. You’ll never be ready. Not for her.

  I should mention that if you’re moving to another country and never coming back, you could tell her you’re gay. Just don’t expect her to be surprised.

  But if you’re planning on staying in town and seeing other people, you need a clean break with no carry-over. My advice is for you to tell her that you have always dreamed of meeting a girl who means everything to you, that you would do anything for, that you would die for, and that you know there’s somebody out there who will feel that way about her, but it’s not you. Bummer. Then hang up.

  If you’re at the third level of ending a relationship, you have to take your game up a notch or two. At this point, you’re engaged. That means you’ve made a commitment and plans have been made based on that commitment. Wedding plans. Housing plans. Parenting plans. And the person who’s made those plans is going to want to kill you. That person is your fiancée’s mother. Your fiancée’s father won’t give you any problems at all. He can understand why a man would change his mind about getting married, and your breakup is going to save him 50 Gs in wedding costs. However, his support will only hurt him and not help you.

  You’ve really complicated the issue because you’ve let this go way too long. You are now trying to return after crossing the point of no return. No one does that. That’s why they call it the point of no return. Your only realistic explanation of your change in heart is the “pursuit of happiness.” At this moment, nobody gives a rat’s butt about your happiness. However there will be pursuit if you try to weasel out of the wedding. The bride is so committed to this thing, she’d rather marry somebody who didn’t love her than call off the wedding or return the shower gifts.

  This is not a time for rational explanation. This is a time for radical action. You put a lot of effort into proving to this girl and her family that you were worthy to ask for her hand. Now you have to put at least that much effort into convincing them of the complete opposite. This is a time to be irrational and unreliable. Quit your job. Max out your credit cards and go to Sandals by yourself. Stop returning phone calls and emails from your girlfriend. Find pictures of men in compromising situations, then Photoshop your head on their bodies and post the photos on the Internet. Ask the girl’s father to lend you $500,000 to start a singles’ club and then send him a strip-o-gram to sweeten the deal. Recommend him and his wife as potential Amway dealers. You need to focus on making their family life a living hell so that they will force their daughter to call off the wedding and all of them will feel like they dodged a bullet. You.

  THE 18,000-NIGHT STAND

  Men like to brag to each other about their s
uccess with the ladies. They like to describe every detail of their latest conquest, even if it’s imaginary. That’s because men equate their manliness to their sexual proclivity. And they don’t mind implying that a woman found them attractive enough to qualify and yet was still sober enough to be aware of what she was doing.

  We’ve all heard of the track records of big movie stars—and of professional athletes, with their ability to do most of their scoring long after the game is over. It seems the more one-night stands you’ve had, the more of a man you are. It doesn’t carry the same badge of honour for a woman. That’s probably a sign of inequality, but I don’t think it’s fair for women to change now that I’m long past my Don Juan phase.

  In any case, I have a whole different perspective. You might think it’s impressive for a guy to have had 18,000 one-night stands in his life, but I think it’s a lot more significant to have one 18,000-night stand. That’s a fifty-year marriage. To the same woman.

  Spending 18,000 nights with the same woman has got to be a lot harder than spending one night with 18,000 different women. They never find you boring or repetitive. You can surprise anybody one night at a time. I’ve even heard guys say that after a one-night stand they’re anxious for her to grab a cab and get outta there. If she stays for the weekend, that really puts a strain on things, and if they go away for a week together, they run out of things to do and say. They’d never be able to tough it out for fifty years.

  It’s hard not to run out of new things to do and say. In fact, it’s impossible. My wife and I ran out about twenty years ago. Thank God for news, sports and weather or we’d be sitting in a rubber room talking along with each other by now.

  At this point we’ve said it all and done it all. Is that boring? Yes. But boring is not necessarily a bad thing. Nobody ever stubbed a toe or broke an arm or threw out a back from boredom. Sure, they might have done those things from their reaction to boredom, but it wasn’t the boredom itself. As you get older, you will begin to embrace boredom. It’s quiet and peaceful and it doesn’t expect you to do anything.

  What I’m getting at here is your ability to discover, and subsequently enjoy, a comfort level with that special person in your life. You don’t get that from a one-night stand. A one-night stand may give you excitement, maybe pleasure, maybe even pride, but not comfort. There’s no comfort in a one-night stand, especially if she stays for breakfast.

  Comfort is the long-term prize, and to get it you’ve got to go way past a one-night stand.

  There are a lot of women in this world who will excite you, but there are probably only a couple that will make you feel comfortable. Grab one of them and string as many one-night stands together as both of you can stand together.

  COUPLING

  If you look at the human body, you’ll notice that everything is supposed to be symmetrical. You have two of almost everything—eyes, ears, arms, legs, etc.—and there’s one on each side. If you only have one of something—nose, mouth, belly button, etc.—it’s in the middle, unless you’ve been in an unfortunate accident or have very bad posture. So it’s natural for each of us to try to find symmetry in other parts of our lives.

  That’s why, when you go from being a single person to becoming a couple, it is no longer okay for you as a couple to hang out with a single person, no matter how much you like them. Because it’s awkward. The math doesn’t work. Somebody’s outnumbered. The balance is gone. When you and your wife go out for lunch with one of her girlfriends, do you let them just talk about girly stuff while you sit there making up cartoons in your head? Are you allowed to talk at all? Can you make jokes? What kind of jokes? Surely not those double-entendre sexual references, like saying “under the covers” after every item on the menu, that you and the guys find hilarious. No. No way. Because you have no backup. No other guy there to laugh and get you off the hook, or at least share the disgust.

  And can you just lean over and kiss your wife if you feel like it? No chance. Not with her girlfriend there. What’s she supposed to do? Look away like it didn’t happen? And if there’s a band playing, can you get up and dance with your wife? She’s not going to go for that. That’s being rude to her girlfriend. So are you supposed to dance with the girlfriend? No, you’re not, and I can vouch for that. I guess if it’s a Greek restaurant you can dance with both of them at once, but that will be more attention than you want.

  And what about when the bill comes? Do you split it with the girlfriend? Do you each pay for your own? Or do you just pick up the tab for everyone? Of course you do and you’re gracious about it, but you sure don’t feel gracious about it. That’s because couples and singles are like oil and water. They don’t mix—one kind of floats on top of the other and nobody feels like going swimming.

  And it’s not any better when you, your wife and your buddy go to a ball game. Your wife is uncomfortable. She feels like an outsider. Sure, you can have her go to the snack bar to get you and Bob a beer, but that gets old after the sixth or seventh trip. After a while she will stop even trying to be part of the conversation and will refuse to do the wave.

  And it’s not the event. A couple and a single socializing together just plain does not work. Singles need to be with singles. Couples need to be with couples. It’s nature’s way. It doesn’t mean that once you’re a couple, you can’t see your buddies and she can’t see her girlfriends. You just have to isolate the activities. The two of you need to realize this.

  Once in a while she needs to just be with her girlfriends and you need to just be with your buddies. And those things need to happen simultaneously. That way you turn a potential negative into a welcome break from each other that allows you to renew your relationship. Just make sure the one who needs the break the least gets to decide on the frequency of these timeouts. If your wife is happy to see her girlfriends three or four times a year but you want to spend every Sunday with your buddies, that will be a problem. Initially it will be her problem, but eventually, as it grows in size and intensity, it will be your problem.

  Just accept it. You’re a couple now. Look up couple in the dictionary and you won’t see you and your buddy at the Super Bowl. You’ll need a thesaurus for that.

  I know this is tough for you to hear, but there is a silver lining in this for both of you. If you can’t find a couple that you want to spend time with, maybe you can build one. Just imagine if you could hook up your favourite single buddy with your wife’s favourite single girlfriend. Would that not be the greatest solution ever? You’d have the best of all possible worlds. You’d be seeing each other as couples and as single friends, all at the same time. Okay, maybe it’s a long shot that they’d find a love connection, but so what? Even if they’re barely compatible, you’ve got to convince them to get married. That’s what friends are for.

  TRYING TO MAKE WORK RELATIONSHIPS WORK

  In the old days, most men would meet their life partners at high school. There are plenty of reasons for this: there were lots of girls there, and most of them weren’t married; it was easy and convenient (and so were some of the girls); and the guys who spent seven years or more in high school had that much more time to meet a bride.

  But times have changed. People don’t get married young anymore, largely due to a general rejection of shotgun weddings. So now men have to look elsewhere to find that special woman. Yes, you could meet a woman at your favourite bar, but then you’d be marrying someone who has the same character flaws as you, and that’s not how a species evolves. The other tempting location to find a life partner is at your place of work. You see the person every day. You can start with short conversations, maybe bring them a coffee at break time, eventually have your lunches together and then let it escalate from there.

  Let me just say from the outset that this is a huge mistake. When you date someone from work, one of you will eventually have to find another job. There are just too many obstacles and too much togetherness. For most marriages, the only way to keep people together is to keep them apart.
But even putting the too-much-togetherness issue aside, there are so many other things that can happen at work that will put the relationship at risk. Let’s say, for example, that both you and your girlfriend have similar jobs at the company. What if you get a promotion and she doesn’t? Or more likely, what if she gets a promotion and you don’t? What if she becomes your boss? How would you feel about sleeping with your boss? Okay, maybe that’s a bad example, but you get the idea. And how would the other workers feel about your wife being the boss? She wouldn’t ever be able to give you a raise or a commendation. She’d have to just reward you at home. Okay, maybe that’s another bad example, but you know what I mean. It’s just way too complicated when the two of you work at the same place. Even if you’re in completely separate departments. Every company has a grapevine, and your wife would find out right away that you were caught sleeping in the back of the warehouse. But sometimes I know it just happens where you meet the person at work and it’s magic and you both fall in love and want to be together forever.

  As the man, you’re the one who’s going to have to step up. Explain to your fiancée that working together will put the marriage in jeopardy and hurt both of your careers and you just couldn’t live with yourself if you did that. So instead, you will quit your job and stay home to look after the kids who may or may not come along one day. It’s a big sacrifice, but you might just be man enough to do it.

  WIFE WANTED

  If you’re having trouble finding a wife and you’re getting frustrated because you think it should be easy, it might help you to step back and take a look at what you’re asking for and what you’re offering in return. To help explain what I mean, I’ve prepared the following job description. Take a look at it and imagine it as a job posting at your local employment agency. If you were a prospective bride, would you be interested?