The Secret of Men
Dear Mr. Sarcasm,
What is the inside secret to men? I’m a 25-year-old, attractive woman, and I’m confused. There’s this guy I’m interested in, and although I believe he’s flirting with me, I still have no number or date. (This guy is single.)
In the modern world we live in, do guys really want the female to make the first move? Or should I stick to the traditional rules and wait?
— Single in Singleton
Dear Not Stolen from Dear Abby,
Here’s the fatal flaw in your logic: there is no “secret to all men.” Each man has their own individual secret.
Take me, for instance. I want to be Oprah. And no, I don’t mean “I want to be at the top of a mighty media empire, issuing powerful fatwas to my legions of devoted fans instructing them how to shop, what to read and how to deal with their emotional problems.” I mean that I actually want to be Oprah – specifically, early 1980s, huge Afro Oprah, correspondent for a Baltimore news affiliate. It’s a very specific fantasy that I’ve carried with me since I first laid eyes on that enormous hair all those years ago.
Really, it’s just all about that fantastic head of hair. “Why not secretly yearn to be Marge Simpson,” you may ask, then. Don’t be ridiculous. Marge Simpson is a fictional character. That could never happen.
Let’s look at another example at random – the late founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Now there was a man without any secrets. When he wanted something – no matter how unconventional – he took it. Did you know, for instance, that in the late 1960s, Hubbard assembled a sort of Navy (called SeaOrg) in the Mediterranean, unaffiliated with any particular nation, and proclaimed himself Commodore? Never mind that this was most probably just a tax dodge, or all the crazy science fiction ideals that went with it – the man actually created his own sort of mobile nation of followers and set himself up as absolute ruler!
Now, you may ask what the relevance of that particular example is. Did I just find some oddball fact on Wikipedia that I’ve been trying to shoehorn into this column for weeks now? Perish the thought! No, there was most certainly a point in bringing up Commodore Ron Hubbard and his oddball actions. It’s meant to illustrate just how important it is for a man to have secret desires that he keeps to himself. Let a guy’s impulses go unchecked and he goes on a crazy maritime power trip.
It’s important for us to have our secrets, and for you not to know everything that goes on in our heads. The minds of men are treacherous playgrounds – the merry-go-rounds are one good turn away from spinning off into the sandbox, the swings could snap free at any second and the slide will burn your ass even if you’re wearing long pants. Sure, women may have a reputation for being the more mysterious of the two sexes, but that was just some clever spin-doctoring that turned “occasional inconsistency” into “alluring mystique.”
You guys are actually pretty easy to figure out. You’re just after the basic human needs: food, shelter, companionship. You’re driven by a basic biological need to procreate, tempered by a few thousand years of societal conditioning that says you don’t have to procreate if you really don’t want to, but scratching that biological itch is still mighty fulfilling in and of itself. You want a partner you can trust – someone who complements your interests and capabilities, but isn’t too much like you. In short, you want what every human being wants.
Except all those men, of course. We’re crazy, and there’s no telling what we want. Certainly asking us won’t get you anywhere. I guess you’re just destined to be alone. Hey, you could always try being a lesbian.
Thanks for writing!
