Dialogue: Why can't women be more like men?

By ROANNE PARKER

We were sitting on the floor in front of the fire, eating the best burgers in the world. The conversation was heading down that old cul-de-sac: why is it so hard to understand the opposite sex?

"It's very simple," said bloke one. "I can't possibly listen to everything she says, so I'm not going to pretend that I remember what she told me yesterday. Women use 26,000 words [his number not mine] when a guy would use about 45. Why can't they just get to the point?

"It's even worse with the girls around too [he has two daughters], because then I've got to listen to three times 26,000 and I just tune out, of course I do."

His girlfriend choked on her lettuce.

Bloke number two was at this stage nodding his head so hard in agreement that pieces of beetroot shot out from between his teeth as he pointed at me accusingly.

"You!" He spluttered. "You're a perfect example of that. I remember you telling me that I had to let you take back anything you said because you only meant about a quarter of anything that leaves your larynx."

"That's true," I agreed happily, "I said that."

"And then," he continued, "you told me that blokes always throw things back at you after you've said them, and it's not fair of them to do that if you don't mean what you said in the first place."

It became apparent at this point that he believed my reasoning was flawed and there was no way I was going to make either bloke one or two understand my point. It's quite simple, however, and I will interrupt our story to explain.

Here it is - if you happen to be a bloke yourself, you may want to cut it out for future reference.

A bloke needs to be able to listen to everything, but remember only the bits that we want him to. We may not know ourselves at that point which bits we mean and which ones we don't. No matter.

If he remembers the wrong bits, or forgets the right bits, he is in the very bad books. If he refers in any way, shape or form to any part of the earlier statement we now wish to retract, he is sleeping on the couch. If he rolls his eyes at any point he might as well book an ambulance.

The blokes were warming to this subject. "Why do women," they asked, "lie around yawning all night and then as soon as they get us to bed start jabbering away like a kookaburra? And if we get lucky, woe is us. Men are programmed to go to sleep straight away, to prepare ourselves for the next conquest. Why can't women just roll over and go to sleep too?"

"That's simple," said girly number two (the one who wasn't me). "We do that in the desperately misguided hope that if we keep you awake we might actually get a chance to get some satisfaction. God knows we don't get any during sex, or all day long when you load the dishwasher so nothing fits in it and open the curtains halfway into the next room and leave the bath mat to fester on the floor and take the remote control to the toilet with you and leave stubble all over the basin."

The room went quiet. But she wasn't finished yet. "And why do you need to watch 10 minutes of TV even if we get home at 3 am? And why when you say you'll just stay for one beer does that mean five? And why [she was sobbing now] won't you marry me?"

All right, she wasn't sobbing exactly, but she was close.

The thing is, no matter how many explanations we hear, they all go swiftly out of the window when it comes down to this guy and this girl in this room with this particular error of comprehension. I can't understand why you ... How can you possibly ... ? Why can't you ... ?

It reminds me of the lovely old man I ran into the other day who told me he had seen a nice photo of me in the paper.

Then he scratched his head and said, "I read that thing you wrote and I wondered to blazes what you were going on about. Wouldn't have a clue.

"Still," he continued kindly, "it takes all sorts to make the world go round."

And wasn't he right?