Inspiration in the form of a plush rhino

Continuing to delve into the female psyche.

It's a scary place, but someone has to venture in there and report back to the masses, right?

This was all prompted by my dinner this evening. A female friend called me this afternoon and said "OK, I went to the bar where he was at on Friday, and now I need to talk about what happened and what it means. Margaritas in twenty?" This conversation got me thinking about how most girls (note: most. Not all think like this--some do the complete opposite, some do a modified version, some just don't think. Period.) react to just about anything a guy does until the words "I want to be exclusive" are spoken.

Girls are weird.

Seriously--we're total freaks. Guys seem to think they have us pinned insofar as our quirks are concerned--we show abnormal levels of attention to dates on the calendar, we have a list of things that you must do to stay on our good sides that we'll never actually reveal to you, the fits we throw over something as mundane as you calling an hour late would make you think that we had just been told that the world is ending. Or Nordstrom is closing. Something like that.

But gentlemen, you really have no idea how deep-seeded these issues and freaky hang-ups are.

Do you know that a female has analytical skills that would make most engineers cry?

We don't reveal these often, and rarely to a male. You see, we seem to focus on one area of our lives to overanalyze.

The love life.

It goes something like this.

Boy meets girl. Girl and boy decide that they are reasonably attracted to each other, and that they think they can stand to be around each other for several consecutive hours without anyone else around to save them from bad conversation and awkward silences. Boy and girl go out. Boy and girl talk. Boy kisses girl goodnight.

Boy goes home, goes to bed, and thinks "wow, I had a great time." the next day. Boy goes to lunch with a friend on Monday, and might mention "I think I'll call her again--the date went well."

Then boy will return his attention to his food and say something along the lines of "So, isn't the boss being a dick today?"

Girl goes inside after boy kisses her goodnight, and the calamity starts.

First, girl begins a conversation with herself in her head:

"When we were at dinner, he looked at me. I mean, he looked at me. What does that mean? He brushed my hand three times when he was reaching for his water glass--was that accidental? It had to be on purpose, right? I mean, three times. Three times means that it's gone beyond being accidental. He said 'I had a great time.' Does that mean he wants to have a great time again? Was that just his way of politely thanking me for the date while he was really thinking 'Not a snowball's chance in hell'?"

Girl goes to sleep. The next day, girl calls her girlfriends. Girl has a specific set of girlfriends that she will call, and each will serve a specific purpose.

Girlfriend #1 is the pessimist. Girl calls her for the worst-case scenario breakdown. Girlfriend #1 tells her that he was probably spacing out when he looked at her, that his water glass was right next to where her hand was resting on the table so of course it was an accident that he brushed her, that having a great time was probably the nicest thing he could think to say because he didn't want to blatantly be an asshole.

Girlfriend #2 is the optimist. Girl calls her to boost her ego and get her hopes up. Girlfriend #2 tells her that he couldn't help but stare at her because he is obviously falling in love with her, as evidenced by the fact that he brushed her hand three times on purpose. Girlfriend #2 explains that "I had a great time" is as serious as he can be on the first date without scaring Girl away, and that he wanted to say more if only he could have.

Girlfriend #3 is the realist. She will laugh at Girl for the fact that she is succumbing to the female overanalyzation dilemma and tell her she's an idiot and that she should find something else to think about. But then Girlfriend #3 will tell her that he looked at her because he was having fun, that the hand brushes were most likely accidents but perhaps subtle ways for him to guage whether she was physically attracted to him, and the fact that she didn't move her hand would have signified that. Girlfriend #3 tells her that "I had a great time" means exactly what it sounds like--that he had a great time, and that Girl should just be content with the fact that she made his evening a good one, and that the odds are in her favor for having another chance at doing that.

Now, don't start thinking that Girl is a psychotic marriage-seeker who wants to throw Boy down on one knee as quickly as possible, grab him by the nuts, and smother him with a Relationship.

The truth is that Girl probably wants to move at whatever speed they are both comfortable with, and that if Boy never called her again she'd be disappointed because she had a good time, but it would be fleeting. This is a fundamental difference between guys and girls, and I think that it's a lot of the reason that guys get freaked out and think that girls are getting too serious too quickly.

For some reason that I can't explain (and I wish I could, because I would be obscenely rich), girls think in black and white. If Boy tells Girl that he likes her, but that he wants to take things very slowly, Girl will (99.9% of the time) say "OK. All I needed to know was where you stood, and now that I do, I can go with that." Girls need to have definitions, girls need to know where the guy stands, girls need to know where the girl stands. This doesn't mean that a girl isn't laid back--the fact that she's going with whatever flow works for both of them suggests otherwise.

The funny thing is that girls do this even when the roles are reversed, so to speak. Case in point: A friend of mine had a very casual "relationship" about six months ago. She wanted nothing more out of this pseudo-dating scenario than to have a good time, have someone she could call when she was bored, and (let's be honest) have a good old fashioned booty call with no obligations or strings.

And yet, my friend still had to deal with this stuff. This time, it was the opposite--Girl spent her time anlyzing whether the guy was interested--same scenario, different spin. This time, Girl was concerned that he was interested, because Girl didn't want him to be. It's like we can't escape this inclination, even when we actually want nothing more out of the guy than the use of his penis and a chance to let ourselves go.

It just means that we're wired differently. So don't freak out if a girl seems to be seeking definition--she may just need you to say "I like you, and I like seeing you, and I just want to take it one hanging out session at a time" in order to take a deep breath and say "cool." Needing definition does not equate to "I need to be with you 24/7 and move my toothbrush into your bathroom and have clothes at your place in case I spend the night on a weekday". It just says that females need more reassurance than males.

posted by K @ 9:41 PM