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Can You Hear Me Now?

Can You Hear Me Now?

Several years ago there was a best seller called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. It was a popular book that attempted to address the vast differences between the sexes using the premise that we just come from two entirely different worlds; that we don’t speak the same language. I didn’t read it.

I’m fairly certain that it was written by a woman. Had it been written by a man, it would have been all of one page long. Women may be from Venus, but men are from their gonads. Or slightly above where those puppies hang. End of story.

Women are unable to fathom the very simple truth that to guys, everything is about their dick. Everything. It’s pretty black and white, pretty cut and dried. That’s the language we speak. Regardless of what we do, what we say, how we act: it’s about our dick. And that’s the major similarity between straight guys and gay guys. Where we use them may differ, but their importance in our life is the same. Our dicks are our reason for being. They are the only thing that matters in our world.

There was an episode of Sex and the City in which the little scrawny ugly one’s latest boyfriend informed the red head (who I always knew was a dyke) that her date  who’d turned down finishing the night off in her apartment but promised he’d call, wasn’t going to because he really wasn’t all that into her. It was a liberating idea to Red. All the other fish insisted that there were multiple reasons why she’d not heard from the guy, that the scrawny one’s boyfriend was wrong, that the missing date would call. Wrong. His dick had decided it didn’t want to go there. Fini. Complete. That’s all she wrote.

Women live for their emotions. They speak with their emotions. Their emotions play the same role as dicks do for guys. They need to feel. And need to talk about how they feel. They need to dissect everything about their relationships. They hang out in groups to be able to get as many possible opinions of what their guy really meant when, for example, he sneezed. When a woman is in a relationship – which means she had a date – she feels a need to share, and get input from all of her friends. Not so much so with guys.

Men are from Mars

When a straight friend of mine is in a relationship – which means he’s knocked off the same piece more than three times – and decides he needs to share, that means showing me a few of the poloroids he snapped of his bitch du jour when she was either asleep or in the shower. The next time in that relationship he’ll feel the need to share is a week or two before their wedding when he calls and says, “Um, you know those pix? Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to ever mention them.” No problemo. I‘m gay. Those images were wiped from my mind within 3 seconds of me being forced to look at them.

When there are problems in a relationship, such as the aforementioned sneeze, women gather their hen pack together for a long ‘guess what he means by that’ session filled with emotional stroking. When one of my straight male friends has a problem in his relationship he too will talk about it. But all he wants is someone to listen to what a cunt the cunt has been. While I think, “I thought that was the attraction.”

Women want advice about what they should do. Men want advice too, but by that point in the conversation a guy will have already told you what advice he wants to hear: either dump the bitch ‘cuz he’s already decided he can land another fish before the week ends, or forgive and forget because even though he knows he can land another fish by the end of the week, he’s addicted to make-up sex.

The most seductive question to a woman is, “What do you think he meant by that?” Their women friends will spend hours helping to decipher the hidden message behind what some guy said or did. If instead they could find a guy who’d be willing to get into that conversation (which we won’t,  because there is nothing for our dick there) he’d tell her that the fact is, for guys, we don’t mean anything other than we say. Unless we are being polite. And then that is the meaning: we’re just being polite. Or lack the balls to come right out and say, “Later, the little guy says we’re gonna take a pass.”

Men are from Mars

That’s why being a guy is so much easier than being a woman. Well, one of the multitude of reasons. The problem arises, however, when one of the guys, possibly both, are gay. I don’t know why, but for some reason, far too many gay guys turn into women when they get into a relationship. They forget it really is always about dick, and instead start trying to figure out what the other guy meant by what he said or did. You’d think their little buddy would speak up and remind them of the facts of life. But their little buddy is usually oblivious, busy plotting his next outing instead.

When I lived in Hawaii, there was a guy whom I dated for about three months. He had the most incredible ass I’d ever seen, tasted, or bounced on. We’ll call him Mike. Because that was his name. My dick really liked Mike. He was fun to be around. Even out of bed. Which was cool with my dick ‘cuz it knew sooner or later we’d be headed back to bed. He had different enough interests to not be boring. And we got along smashingly. For about a month and a half. By then, Mike’s dick had decided it had found the man of its dreams and became complacent, allowing his other head to take over. Bad mistake. His other head worked on a fequency known only to women.

As Mike drew closer, I pulled away. Where he’d been interesting before, mistakenly,  he’d thought by shrinking his world of interests to meld into mine our relationship would be cemented. Clingy and dependent are not positive attributes. Regardless of the ass they are attached to. I probably should have moved on down the road by month two. But my dick was still having a good time; the bloom of our relationship had faded but the attractiveness of his ass had not. By the end of month three Mike was ready to say I do. I was ready to say I don’t.

And did.

So Mike went a bit psycho, acting like a bitch, sending long letters by mail and calling at all hours of the day and night either professing his undying love for me or screeching about what a complete asshole I was. Close. Wrong side of the body at fault, but close.

Seemed to be the closure he needed so I let him rant to get it out of his system. And there is a good example of when a guy really does mean something other than what he’s saying. I’d cared for him enough to allow Mike to flip out as needed. Had it just been about my dick, and his ass, the phone calls would have gone to the machine, the letters thrown away without being opened. Though to be honest, a lot of that probably had to do with my dick twitching in hope for at least one more ride.

Men are from Mars

Three years later I got a call from Mike. He’d finally reached closure, finally come to terms with the end of our relationship, finally had begun his own version of a twelve step program and was calling to share. Unfortunately for me, my dick answered the phone. Mike asked if we could get together to talk, so I met him at my go-to restaurant in Honolulu for breaking up. And yes, that I had a go-to restaurant for breaking up speaks volumes.

My dick, having a one track mind, heard the ‘get together’ but failed to catch the ‘to talk’. Mike started with how much better he was now, how he’d finally pulled himself back together, how he’d finally lost the 40 pounds he’d gained thanks to the end of our relationship. My dick heard the 40 pound thingy and considered how traumatic that must have been to such a fine ass.

Mike wanted to make sure that I too had finally come to terms with the end of what we’d had. I assured him I had, though it had taken me two years, eleven months, three weeks, and four days less than his journey had taken him.  Above everything else Mike had to say – that my dick failed to hear as it had begun to flirt with the studly waiter – was that he needed to know what I really meant when I had told him, “I think we are after different goals, our paths have diverged, and it’s best if we went our separate ways.’

Huh. Seems to me that was not an ambiguous statement. Seems to me that had been pretty clear. Seems to me, coming from a guy, it meant exactly what those words would be defined as if you bothered to look them up in the dictionary. Evidently, I was wrong. Evidently, I’d been communicating in some secret language. Evidently, everything I’d done or said in our brief three months together was rife with hidden meaning. Evidently, I’d been speaking in Venusian.

Unbeknownst to me, I’d pledged my undying love, a lifetime commitment through an act that I had attached no meaning to other than the gesture it was intended as. Valentine’s Day hit during our three month long romance, and he’d planned a romantic evening, a candle lit dinner at a five star beachside restaurant. My dick and I both showed up, and one of us had been thoughtful enough to bring along a Valentine’s Day gift.

I’d got him a large, cuddly, stuffed animal. An elephant. With a big red heart on it. Sweet. Somehow that had translated into a commitment to a long term relationship. Because elephants have long memories. Had I been looking for hidden messages, I’d have gone with something having more to do with an elephant’s long trunk. Silly me.

Men are from Mars

I was glad to hear Mike had lost the poundage, sad to hear he’d still not turned his life back over to the wise counsel of his dick. And didn’t want to hear anymore of his nonsense. Especially since my dick had already figured out it was gonna be a no-go as far as reunion sex went. No problemo. My dick scored the waiter’s phone number and got to play two nights later.

Mike had brought my stuffed token of undying love with him and wanted to return it to me. An excellent exit line, I agreed to meet him at his car to pick it up, hopped into mine and drove home instead. And allowed the subsequent and not unexpected phone calls to go straight to the machine.

I don’t know if the second ending was as traumatic as the first, don’t know if Mike gained back the 40 pounds he’d lost, but do know he had a nice big fluffy elephant to commensurate with. And to talk to. In what ever language he desired. Cold? Possibly. But I’m a guy. And my dick saw no future for itself in carrying that little piece of drama any further. The guy part of me couldn’t understand the woman part of him. And didn’t want to talk further even if we could speak the same language.

Women may be from Venus, but guys are not from Mars. Which planet some gay guys are orbiting is beyond me. But then, there’s Noom.

Noom speaks passable English, and can even be surprisingly eloquent at times. Face to face we communicate well, though a lot of that communication is through gesture, a litany of nods each a definite expression of its own, a lot of eye movement that speak volumes. Over the phone, understanding on both of our parts suffers without the accompanying gestures. But the Thai language relies upon tonal inflections and Noom makes use of those in his English too. So there’s that. Communicating by email sucks. I know it’s a struggle for him to compose written words in English, so we don’t email much. But regardless of how we communicate, we both still speak guy.

The first email I got from him after returning home from our first time together, he used a noble attempt at my name in the ‘To’ portion of the email address. For his own edification, he included some Thai, a word that would remind him who in the hell that email address belonged to. It did not have a hidden meaning. It was not intended as some significant clue. It was just a form of identification for him. But lust was busy working its way into love, so holdong my breath, I bitched out and used Google to translate. The word was sweetheart.

Awwwwwwwwwww.

Um, what do you think he meant by that?

Men are from Mars

Noom’s emails are usually pretty basic content-wise. He’s either doing good, or not so good. It’s either raining or not raining. And work is either busy or not very busy. Most emails are really nothing more than an opportunity to say Hi. But I just got an email from him asking when I was coming back for him.

Not to Thailand.

Not to Bangkok.

But for him.

That could be nothing more than his tentative use of English. That could be nothing more than asking when my next trip will be. He’s a guy, so it probably means nothing more than what it was: a scheduling query. But I want to believe it means something. Something more. Maybe the gay part of me is going Venusian on me. Or maybe, in relationships, the language women speak has some validity after all.