I AM CONTEMPLATING YOUR NAVEL.

They're a cute couple, if you ignore the gigantism of the male partner. She is considerably shorter than her man, which makes me wonder what she sees in him. I'm guessing chin.
Either that or a source of meat after the zombie apocalypse.

The only thing that works in his favour, as far as I'm concerned, is that he more than tolerates her favourite habits, actually caters to them. Most men balk at certain things; peculiarity tends to frighten them off. Given that so many males have a completely shallow imagination, any evidence that a woman is not a mere replica of himself tends to cause fits in the average dude.


THE PANIC OF THE INTENDED VICTIM

What's quite apparent is that men and women might as well be two different species. Women will probably never figure out what men want beyond a certain basic instinct, and men don't talk to women the way they do to other men, because doing so is likely to blow up in their face.
Probably why men usually end up with shorter girlfriends.
Less likely to splatter shrapnel in the eyes.
And easier to 'overlook'.
It's ideal.


I know a fair amount about men, seeing as I associate a lot with them.


Plus they're all over, so it's hard to avoid them.


There are differences between men and women other than the obvious one, that being that men think about sex a lot, and women don't.

[NOTES: men tend to be amorous and nurturing, whereas women at their most vibrant often resemble lionesses fighting off rivals for the fresh Louis Vuitton or Prada carcasses out on the African veldt. On the other hand, women talk about their feelings a lot, men almost never do that. Reason being that women aren't thinking about sex but about vicious combat, whereas to a man, "feelings" are too damned close to things one might like to do, behind closed doors if you please, with a person who isn't savagely brutalizing wild game or other women at the time, and who has recently washed off the blood and spatter.]


The main problem with men is that they often find a stand-in subject to think about when sex isn't part of the programme. Women of course don't need that; there is no subject in their mind that can exist in lieu of any other, all issues are related. Sex is neither a subject nor an issue, ergo it is immaterial, and simply not worth thinking about.

Most men will talk about sports or business.

Which are emotional substitutes.

Symbolic issues.


CONVERSATIONS BOTH PAINFUL AND TERRIFYING

Personally, I've always tried to avoid discussing sports with my fellow men, because it's far too much like finding out about their sex-lives, regarding the tenor of which I would rather hear as little as possible. Unfortunately nearly everything else they talk about is also gonadic.

I would talk to women more, except I fear getting roped into one of their madcap schemes to acquire Louis Vuitton or Prada carcasses, while slaughtering all other females who come close. "That's my hunk of decorative dead leather, bitch, step away from the corpse."
There's no percentage in it for me.
I do not engage in violence.


My home is a sanctuary, in which I can take long baths or read with a cup of tea, far away from men and their testicular obsessions, or women and their blood-crazed female relatives discussing the hunt.
Or gossipping about rival members of the pack.

Quiet, safe. At the back of the building.
Perhaps a bit messy, but warm.
A comfortable den.
Secret.


Yes, there are exceptions to those two gender-specific behavioural patterns. That being people who are also hiding out.
We'll probably recognize each other after the zombie apocalypse, when everybody else has been eaten.




AFTERWORD

For some inexplicable reason I still fantasize about ending up friends with a person of the opposite gender. The problem is that it's hard to imagine calmly looking someone in the eye when you know their greatest talent and most recent achievement comprise mayhem and disemboweling.
I rather like my bowels, they've served me well all these years.
Someone only a little shorter would be perfect.
At least up to my collar bone.


Most of the people I know are men.



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