Men vs. Women Some subtle (and some not so subtle) differences

October 18, 2007

Handwriting:

Men: To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken-scratch.

Women: Women use scented, colored stationery and they dot the “i” with circles or hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in the “b” and “g”. It is a pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she’s dumping you, she will put a smiley face at the end of the note.

Groceries:

Women: A woman makes a list of things she needs, then goes out to the store and buys those things.

Men: A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a beer. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett’s car on Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the express lane.

Relationships:

Women: When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled “All Men Are Idiots”. Then she will get on with her life.

Men: A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the break-up, at 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, he will call and say, “I just wanted to let you know you ruined my life, and I’ll never forgive you, and I hate you, and you’re a total floozy. But I want you to know that there’s always a chance for us.” This is known as the “I Hate You / I Love You” drunken phone call, that 99% of all men have made at least once. There are community colleges that offer courses to help men get over this need.

Sex:

Women: They prefer 30-40 minutes of foreplay.

Men: They prefer 30-40 seconds of foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place part of the foreplay.

Maturity:

Women: They mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults.

Men: Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

Magazines:

Men: Men’s magazines often feature pictures of naked women. Men are turned on at the sight of a naked woman’s body.

Women: Women’s magazines also feature pictures of naked women. This is because the female body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is lumpy and hairy and should not be seen by the light of day. Most naked men elicit laughter from women.

Bathrooms:

Men: A man has six items in his bathroom — a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn.

Women: The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 437. A man cannot identify most of these items.

Shoes:

Women: When preparing for work, a woman will put on a wool suit, then slip on Reebok sneakers. She will carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When a woman gets to work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes later, she will kick them off because her feet are under the desk.

Men: A man will wear the same pair of shoes all day. Let’s not talk about how many days he’ll wear the same socks.

Cats:

Women: Women love cats.

Men: Men say they love cats, but when women aren’t looking, men kick cats.

Children:

Women: A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams.

Men: A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

Dressing Up:

Women: A woman will dress up to: go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail.

Men: A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals.

Laundry:

Women: Women do laundry every couple of days.

Men: A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants (the ones that were hip about eight years ago) before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the Laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the Laundromat. This is a myth perpetuated by reruns of old episodes of “Love American Style.”

Eating Out:

Men: When the check comes, each man will each throw in $20 bills, even though it’s only for $22.50. None of them will have anything smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back.

Women: When the girls get their check, out come the pocket calculators.

Mirrors:

Men: Men are vain and will check themselves out in a mirror.

Women: They are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface: mirrors, spoons, store windows, bald guys’ heads.

Menopause:

Women: When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of these changes varies with the individual.

Men: Menopause in a man provokes a uniform reaction – he buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather driving gloves, and goes shopping for a Porsche.

The Phone:

Men: Men see the telephone as a communication tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people.

Women: A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.

Richard Gere:

Women: Women like Richard Gere because he is sexy in a dangerous way.

Men: Men hate Richard Gere because he reminds them of that slick guy who works at the health club and dates only married women.

Madonna:

Same as above, but reversed. Same reason.

Toys:

Women: Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest.

Men: Men never grow out of their toy obsession. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive, silly and impractical. Examples of men’s toys: little miniature TVs. Car phones. Complicated juicers and blenders. Graphic equalizers. Small robots that serve cocktails on command. Video games. Anything that blinks, beeps, and requires at least 6 “D” batteries to operate.

Cameras:

Men: Men take photography very seriously. They’ll shell out $4000 for state of the art equipment, and build dark rooms and take photography classes.

Women: Women purchase Kodak Instamatics. Of course, women always end up taking better pictures.

Locker Rooms:

Men: In the locker room men talk about three things: money, football, and women. They exaggerate about money, they don’t know football nearly as well as they think they do, and they fabricate stories about women.

Women: They talk about one thing in the locker room – sex. And not in abstract terms, either. They are extremely graphic and technical, and they never lie.

Movies:

Women: Every actress in the history of movies has had to do a nude scene. This is because every movie in the history of movies has been produced by a man.

Men: The only actor who has ever appeared nude in the movies is Richard Gere. This is another reason why men hate him.

Jewelry:

Women: Women look nice when they wear jewelry.

Men: A man can get away with wearing one ring and that’s it. Any more than that and he will look like a lounge singer named Vic.

Conversation:

Men: Men need a good disagreement to get talking. For instance, “Wow, great movie.” or “What are you, nuts? No REAL cop would have an Uzi that size.”

Women: Women, not having this problem, try to initiate conversations with men by saying something agreeable: “That garden by the roadside looks lovely.” “Mm hmm.” Pause. “That was a good restaurant last night, wasn’t it?” “Yeah.” Pause. And so on.

Leg Warmers:

Women: Leg warmers are sexy. A woman, even if she’s walking the dog or doing the dishes, is allowed to wear leg warmers. She can wear them any time she wants.

Men: A man can only wear leg warmers if he is auditioning for the “Gimme the Ball” number in “A Chorus Line.”

Friends:

Women: Women on a girls’ night out talk the whole time.

Men: Men on a boy’s night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are “Pass the Doritos” or “got any more beer?”

Restrooms:

Women: Women use restrooms as social lounges. Women who’ve never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends. Women also go to the restroom in packs, at least two women at a time excuse themselves to use the restroom.

Men: Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Men in a restrooms will never speak a word to each other. And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, “Hey, Tom, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?”

children have to cope with the trauma of divorce

October 7, 2007

Over the past 15 years the number of divorces in the Czech Republic has increased by a third. The Statistics Office predicts that this year the Czech Republic’s divorce rate should climb to a staggering 50 percent. The vast majority of marriages that break up, do so between their third and sixth year – usually at a time when small children are involved. Socially, the stigma of divorce is long gone but for the children caught up in it, the pain and confusion is as strong as ever.

Every fourth child in the Czech Republic comes from a divorced family. The vast majority of them live with their mothers, because in 90 percent of cases it is the mother who is awarded custody. Dr. Alena Cerna works at a family counselling clinic. She says that there are two main reasons why this is so – social stereotypes and economic pressure:

“Partly this is due to social stereotypes which say that the mother should take care of the children and the father should be the bread-winner. But the truth is that a father who would like to take care of two small children would have very little possibility of finding an appropriate job and making a living. Economical factors play a big role. But it is not just that. It is the whole arrangement of the society where it is expected that the mother will keep the kids.”

As a result, half a million children in the Czech Republic only get to see their father a few hours a week – if that. There is no conceivable reason why fathers should not ask to get custody of their children, or agree on joint custody with the children’s mother. However few of them are in a situation where they are able to provide full-time care. Although the concept of paternity leave is slowly catching on – employers do not have much patience with the demands placed on working single fathers. And while children over 10 are increasingly consulted about whom they wish to be with, these practicalities often limit the space for manoeuvre and the final court settlement. Dr. Cerna says that in such cases the best kids can hope for is an amicable divorce – where the divorced parents can spend time together or at least agree on an optimal holiday schedule.

“From the children’s point of view it is ideal that they do not lose contact with either parent. I would be glad if I could say that joint custody is the best solution but it also has its problems. If the children are spending alternately one week here and the next somewhere else then you could say that they have no real home. For a child a home is not just their parents it is the whole place – their toys, their friends, the house – which give them a feeling of stability and safety.”

A survey conducted among children aged 11 to 15 suggests that although they are unhappy about their parents divorcing, they see no reason why they should stay in a dysfunctional marriage. Although many of the answers appeared to be exceptionally mature, Dr. Cerna says that deep down the pain and uncertainty remains – to surface when they themselves enter into a serious relationship. So is the Czech Republic caught in a vicious circle – where parents pre-determine their children’s future happiness or unhappiness in married life? Dr. Cerna again:

“I always ask people / who are getting divorce counselling/ whether they are from a family where the parents divorced and very often it is so. Of course, some divorcees grew up in families which were complete and happy so there is no rule to say that such a child’s future is pre-determined. But I would say that children from divorced families have a more difficult start in life.”

Warning to Women “Get Rich or Die Trying”

September 26, 2007

More independent the modern day woman becomes, more she becomes thoughtless of the culture of the society. There has been a sharp rise in the number of divorce cases being filed in the Indian Courts month after month. The point to ponder upon is that most of the couples fall under the age group of 28 to 34.

To add to the despair, greed has taken up a big space in the plot of Law. When the 498a was being drafted, I don’t think that the learned people must have had the slightest of notion that this tool to protect women in India would turn out to be a sharp weapon to satisfy a woman’s greed to grow rich overnight. We will talk about it a little later, meanwhile…..

Let’s look at some of the possible reasons for the people falling under the age group of 28 to 34, opting for divorce:

 

1.                  High profile Career aspirations: There has been a massive economic growth in India over the past 20 years or so. The globalization of markets and the invasion of foreign brands have seen India Rise, rise and rise. This complemented with innumerable opening up of uncountable career options and opportunities. When a simple graduate today can earn more than what he or she had ever dreamt off, at the mere age of 20 something, he or she starts aspiring for more and more. One starts building a virtual road map of becoming a millionaire from a pauper in the least possible time. The desire of owning a Bungalow at 25 and a BMW at 28, drives one crazy at an immature age. In midst of all these thoughts, taking responsibility of a family bites the road map out. Hence the thought of divorce.

 2.                  Financial Insecurity: Taking point 1 into consideration, there is always a financial insecurity that surrounds the “High Aspirer”. What if I loose my job? What if I loose all my money? I won’t spend money on my spouse. All these thoughts crop up and lead to the wild thought of being independent. 

3.                  A Stage between immaturity and maturity: 28 to 34 are an age, which is a stage of transition from immaturity to maturity. It is during these years that one starts feeling bigger than what others are. During this period there are a lot of immature decisions taken thinking that they are mature.

4.                  Over confidence: A thought that one can lead one’s own way, leads to self-destruction. When one thinks that one can win the world without a weapon, one is wrong. Over confidence has crept in the attitudes of the Gen X today. This takes us back to point number 1.

 5.                  Non-compromising nature: People become self reliant and a feeling of “I know all” comes in. This feeling gives birth to another feeling, “I can do without you”. When it comes to a husband wife relationship, separation is inevitable. There are a lot of instances in life where one has to compromise with the spouse. But this has been invaded by the feeling of “why should I?

6.                  Independence: Our Generation has a willingness to live alone and independent. If not alone then with a partner who would be there for a relationship with no strings attached. You so your own stuff and I do mine. Independence is a result of nuclear families. Joint families, in this context, used to develop a supportive nature amongst co dwellers.

 

Coming back to where we had left…. The greed…. Yes we were taking about the greed that has crept into the minds of the modern day woman. “Women have always been oppressed” that is what the feminists Scream to the top of their voices “and its time that the men should pay back the debts”… Which Men are we talking about?

If the feminazis can prove that all the women of India have been suppressed or oppressed in the past, then I shall say that all men today should pay their debts. Was Rani Laxmi Bai ever oppressed?? I don’t think so. Anyways, lets leave it on them to decide.

 

I have but a question here: fine agreed that the women were oppressed till yesterday, but are the women today, really getting help out of the 498a and the DV?

 

Yesterday, I saw a slum dwelling man beating up his wife on the road. And there was no one to stop him until I did. Now when I tried stopping him, his wife pounced on me as if I was the culprit and I was trying to get in their family matters. I looked around to search for our great Feminazis but no one was there. Where was the DV Act then ?

 

Then in the evening I heard that a feminist NGO, had invaded the house of a businessman in one of the posh localities of my town, and had beaten up the husband because he came drunk the precious night and had abused his wife. I was zapped. I am sure the feminazis must have then suggested the wife to file a DV against the husband.

 

Now this woman will approach a lawyer suggested by the feminazis and will file a 498a against the husband. Then the businessman husband, fearing a fall in reputation, will pay a huge ransom to the wife. The wife will then distribute the promised share to the Police and the Feminazis.

 

One minute, I forgot to mention that the father of the wife will play a big role in fixing the amount of money to be extorted from the businessman son(a)-in-law. “remember, he will pay less if his parents are not convicted. So what if they do not stay with him. Who cares to investigate?” 

 

Another minute please, I also forgot to mention that all this time the little 4-year-old daughter of the couple was going through a trance seeing her parents fight and the feminazis attack. During this extortion race, the little girl will slowly stride towards oblivion, I guess.

So this is where the Desire to Become Rich Overnight is leading the society. Broken families, lost and spoilt children, unethical practices, and the list goes on….

 

Yes, you guessed it right. The above is a stolen story from every home. There is nothing creative or new in it. People, I am not an author and why should I be? I don’t want to become modern Salman Rushdie or become infamous like Tasleema Nasreen.

 

Have you seen that movie ? “Get Rich or Die Trying”… NO!!! watch it today.

 

Editors, Please don’t publish this article. I don’t want to face shoot at sight orders, nor do I have time to receive hate mails.

   

Content Couples are Positive Parents

September 25, 2007

Parents want children to grow up to be happy, healthy and well adjusted. Most children in various types of families grow up without problems. But children thrive best when raised by their married parents in low-conflict relationships. A happy marriage is a great source of emotional stability and good physical health for children. Benefits to children include:

Better school performance, lower truancy and dropout rates
Better relationship skills
Fewer emotional and behavioral problems
Lower rates of substance abuse, criminal activity and delinquent behaviors
Fewer sleep and health problems
Lower rates of teen births
Adults in healthy marriages also benefit from better physical and mental health, greater wealth and satisfying intimate relationships. How can adults create and maintain healthy relationships? Regular Relationship Maintenance

Ups and Downs Are Normal. Relationships vary over time. Sometimes things are great and other times a relationship might need a tune-up to keep running smoothly. Becoming parents and raising children are often stressful for couples. Many couples find their conversations decline and conflicts increase when children arrive. It can be helpful to know that changes are normal and don’t necessarily mean your relationship is in trouble.

Effort pays off. The tools for a healthy relationship can be learned. When couples are interested and motivated they can make their relationship better. It’s a bonus that building your skills can benefit your couple relationship and also help your children thrive.

4-C’s for Content Couples
Although there are many ingredients in a happy relationship, four are especially important: commitment, contentment, communication and conflict resolution. Here are information and tools to strengthen the four C’s in your relationship.

· Commitment–Ties That Bind
A strong relationship includes a commitment to the children in the family, as well as to the couple. There is a sense of “we” instead of “me.” Committed couples feel like “we are in this together, and I can count on you.” When couples plan to be together for a lifetime, they are more likely to take care of the other person and the relationship.

Develop Rituals or Traditions. Doing things over and over again in the same way starts a tradition. These build a feeling of closeness

and belonging. It doesn’t have to be a major

event, but you will know “This is how we do things.” Ideas include goodbye and welcome back hugs and kisses, sharing a cup of coffee on Saturday mornings, or writing down and talking about the special things that have happened each year on your anniversary.

Keep a Long Term View. Remember when you first got together. What attracted you? Think about how you felt? Talk about your plans for the future. What fun things do you want to do together when you are retired?

· Contentment–It Feels Good
When asked what they want most from their relationship, many people answer “a best friend,” or a “safe haven”. People want partners who will listen, give comfort and emotional support, and lend a helping hand with all the chores and responsibilities.

Show your appreciation. Think about the things you appreciate about your spouse and tell him or her. Start your conversation with:

“I really feel loved when you…You really helped me get through…One thing about you that makes me proud is…”

Have fun together. It may be true that the couple that plays together, stays together. Pick activities that are fun for both of you–so the

time is really positive for each of you.

· Communication–Let’s Talk
Make the time to talk. Not just about who is paying the electric bill or picking up the kids after school–but discuss something you care about, your dreams, joys, or frustrations. It’s not the sheer amount of communication that is important, but the quality or nature of the communication. Positive communication is respectful and involves compromise and humor.

Don’t give advice, just listen. Listen without trying to solve the problem. Look at him or her and respond so your partner knows you have heard what’s been said.

Respect his or her opinion, even if you disagree. Listen with the intention of understanding their viewpoint without blame.

· Conflict Resolution–Acceptance
People disagree and face problems. According to John Gottman, a leader in marriage research, most marriage conflicts never get resolved. Conflicts generally occur because of basic personality or lifestyle differences between the couple so they are unsolvable. He suggests learning to cope with many problems by talking about them, and accepting your partner’s faults and limitations. That will free you to work on problems that have solutions.

Arguments don’t have to drive couples apart–it’s how you argue that makes a difference.

Have a time-out rule. Stop fights before the conflicts escalate out of control. When one partner does not want to continue the discussion say, “Time out.” Knowing this option is available will keep you from feeling trapped.

Set another time to continue the discussion so the issue isn’t left hanging indefinitely. It gives you a cooling off time before things get too hot, then you can come back and resume the conversation calmly. Don’t completely avoid dealing with a tough problem before it gets out of hand.

Healthy couple relationships require work but are a worthwhile investment for children and for adults.

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September 24, 2007

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