Excerpt From "Ten Terrible Truths About Men"
A Self Help Book for helpless women who have, up until this point, read only relationship books written by smarmy Size 6 bottled blondes—finally, the man’s unvarnished point of view regarding how to succeed in relationships, with neither censorship nor mercy.
Below absorb an excerpt from the chapter about Spending and Shopping
CHAPTER FIVE:
WHAT DOES, AND DOES NOT, IMPRESS HIM
OR,
THROW PILLOWS, AND THE END OF ROMANCE
“Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.”
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“American women are pretty and charming: little oases of elegant unreasonableness in a vast desert of practical common sense.”
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan
“If a woman can’t make her mistakes charming she is only a female.”
Oscar Wilde “In Conversation”
“I don’t know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it.”
Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband
****
So deluded. So misguided. So mistaken.
Wrong about it, in monolithic proportions.
Most women are, and that’s the truth of it. When it comes to WHAT IMPRESSES MEN.
This being true, it logically follows that women are also woefully ignorant re: WHAT DOES NOT IMPRESS HIM. As in, those attempts to impress him which actually backfire, and drive him away. Send him running for the safety of baseball fantasy camp, and the company of other guys who “get it”. Whom he can, dare I say it, relate to?
It is astonishing how women can have remained so completely in the dark about this issue of what does and does not impress a man. And after much analysis, I can only attribute the confusion and ignorance to:
1.) Females mostly having lunch with other females, and not having enough male friends. AND
2.) The Capitalistic system.
Women seem to think that there is a direct link between purchasing things, and finding happiness with a man. This could not be further from the truth. MONEY PROBLEMS are one of the three main reasons that couples divorce. And because so many of the men who are ready to behave like decent grown-up human beings have a divorce or two under their belts, it only makes sense that a woman with a propensity for spending money unnecessarily will become LESS ATTRACTIVE TO A MAN, NOT MORE ATTRACTIVE.
And yet you women blindly spend on, spend on, spend on, actually believing that you impress a man with your designer purses, your little love nest crammed full of catalogue bric-a-brac, your ambiance, your aromatherapy candle collection, your Bed, Bath, and Beyond What You Can Possibly Begin To Justify Putting On Your Already Overburdened Credit Card, and more stuff, and more shopping bags, and more accessories, and tastefully decorated bathrooms crammed with God Knows What’s in those bottles, placentas and yak urine and pit peeling masques, and always, always, a vast arsenal of lipsticks in shades of pinks and purples and oranges and reds and umbers that not even the Old Masters could mix.
What is the deal with one pair of lips needing so many dozens of lipsticks?
And the names, oh, the names of those lipsticks, what a hidden agenda those monikers convey to the Cousteau in us males: “Pouting Pink.” “Dizzy Blonde.” “Duwop Shades of Venom.” “Philosophy Coloring Crayon for Lips.” (Yeah, like the babe who buys that knows anything about ontological inquiry or “Being and Nothingness.”) “Vision for Lips.” “Wisdom for Lips.” “Bad Attitude Red.” “Xerox.” “Hate.” “She Wolfe.” “Threesome.” “Break-up Brown.”
These are real names of lipstick shades, that I had a girl I know look up on the internet, because if anything happens to me, I don’t want people going into my computer and seeing that I surfed girlie-girl cosmetic sites. Everybody is so ready to think the worst. But what I am getting at is that these are actual names of colors that your kind have dreamed up, and others of your kind purchased.
What point, exactly, are you trying to make with these names? Here is where you women need to think more like men. Give those mouth paints regular, human sounding colors, like Bruise Burgundy and Ketchup Red and Skinned Knee Mauve and Fishbait Silver and Salem Witch Burning Orange and Spam Pink and Single Man Apartment Carpeting Beige and so forth.
Those are names you can glom onto, you see, and I guarantee you that with clear, concise tube titles like these, you would never have to traipse back to Needless Markups to return another make-up because it’s not the color you expected, no not never ever again.
Anybody, even a dumb guy who knows nothing about cosmetics, can look at just the name on the lipstick tube (if tubes were titled by males), and automatically know that Roto Rooter Umber is not the same as Homeless Man Tawny which is a hint darker than Toejam Taupe, which is not to be confused with Leftovers Brown. Just as he will immediately grasp that Sears Tool Box Red is a markedly different hue than Rosy Recurring Rump Rash (inspired by the more autumnal Festering Fungus Fuchsia of last season), which is also quite separate from Gitmo Torture Scarlett, which is not quite the same lovely shade as Geneva Convention Violation Vermilion.
These are all names that leave nothing to the imagination, and darlin’, you don’t want to be too imaginative, when imagining what color you want your lips to be, to attract a man.
Trust me on this.
****
“A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.”
Oscar Wilde, In Conversation
Where was I?
Ah yes. The ways women wantonly waste their hard earned money. And our hard earned money.
Bottom line, harsh truth:
Most of what you think is impressing your prey will either go unnoticed by him, or it will be noticed in the wrong way. Not that there is anything wrong with buying or owning dozens of shades of lipstick or nail polish. If you are rich, and can’t think of anything more charitable or practical to spend your money on, then go ahead, buy armies of little bottles.
But just don’t do it for our sake. Don’t do it to impress a man. You are not impressing your fella.
Similarly, he is not impressed by:
Designer purses.
Designer shoes.
Designer dresses.
Designer suits.
Designer jeans.
Designer anything.
Jackie Gleason makes a great comment about this modern obsession with haute labels in the movie “Nothing in Common” when he chides his son, Tom Hanks, (whose character is an advertising executive, and therefore something of a male label whore), about the whole “designer jeans” thing. Quips Gleason, “These days, you need some designer’s name on the ass pocket of a girl’s jeans, to get turned on. In my day, we just needed an ass.”
Here is the bald truth: (And just ask any honest male friend you know, if you don’t believe me:)
You can strut down the street in a Chanel suit, wearing your Manolo Blahnik shoes, carrying a Fendi bag, sporting a hot new color-and-cut from Rodeo Drive Salon and Day Spa, with three hundred dollars worth of color coordinated make-up on your face and hands and toes, all of this accented by a five carat tennis bracelet and matching Tiffany diamond stud earrings, and you can think you are the hottest thing to hit the Strip since they put the Stars on Sunset Boulevard.
You notice the men eyeing you…
…And then you realize that what they are actually staring at is the Daisy May look-a-like behind you, wearing faded cut-offs, a tank top, and old flip-flops at the end of her long, shapely, tanned legs. The priciest thing about her is the fistful of quarters she has for the parking meter, but the guys are all looking at her, not at you. Why?
Three little words:
Tits and ass. She is revealing more of it.
So, your attempts at “haute” were a failure. (Also, she’s obviously lower maintenance.)
None of this should depress you, by the way, meaning, the whole Daisy May thing. Just because we stare at her, rather than you, doesn’t mean we wouldn’t rather end up with you—if you weren’t trying so hard. No guy really wants to end up with Daisy May, just maybe he wants to flirt with her a little when he’s away from the home fires, out on one of his secret sorghum runs. But we always find our way home to our Good Wife.)
What else is he not impressed with?
Most of your jewelry. (Unless he is a thief, which is always a possibility.)
Cellphone cases that match your designer outfits.
The fact that you are wearing “this season’s color.”
The fact that you used to be a size eight and now you are a size six. (In fact, depending on what insane diet you were on, it might have stripped much of the fat from your breasts, causing them to sag and your bra size to be reduced. Your diet may well have backfired on you, because, more than likely, we would have preferred your breasts larger.)
And, when you finally lure him into your web, he is further UNIMPRESSED BY:
Your new queen bed comforter with matching shams and contrasting color coordinated dust ruffle.
Your personalized fingertip towels.
Little soaps he might mistake for candy and eat.
Potpourri bombs planted around your apartment like land mines in a war zone.
Bric-a-brac, in general.
Your collection of Hummel Figurines, your collection of statuettes of children with large eyes, your collection of ballerinas, your collection of angels, your collection of unicorns, your collection of frogs or ladybugs, your collection of refrigerator magnets, your collection of Franklin Mint dolls who look like famous great dead ladies; i.e. Marilyn Monroe, Lady Di, Jackie O., etc. In fact he is singularly unimpressed with a female’s collection of anything: snow globes, salt ‘n pepper shakers, pigs, potholders, trivets, dishtowels from all over the world, and anything from Hallmark.
What he will notice is your push-up bra collection.
He will also be impressed by your collection of dildos. There is still some confusion about why this is true; chatroom research suggests three possible theories.
1.) It suggests to him that the woman is highly sexed, and that means he will be getting laid a lot.
2.) The collection suggests that she has not yet found a man who can truly satisfy her, and the notion that he might be that sexual dynamo is a thrill to his ego.
3.) The sight of females pleasuring themselves is a thrill to many men. This, of course, is a circular and unsatisfying explanation, begging the question of why that should be so.
Perhaps because he knows from experience that it takes dames a helluva lot longer to climax than it takes him, and he reasons that her impressive collection of sex toys means that the Guy can use her to satisfy himself, and then be back to watching ESPN seven minutes later, while She hunkers down to the grunt work of achieving her own elusive female orgasm.
Quickly, then, what else impresses him?
Collections of beer bottles.
Collections of Bobble-heads of famous sports icons.
He will also be impressed by cars, if you collect those, but women don’t, so the point is moot.
He will be impressed by the fact that you have no credit card debts.
He will be impressed if you own property.
He will be impressed if you own a dog that does not fit in your purse. Men love dogs, but not the breeds that are smaller than a cantaloupe.
This is what does not impress him:
Painting your dog’s toenails to match yours.
Outfits you buy for your dog.
Anything in your breakfast nook except coffee, and perhaps a spare bag of pretzels or jerky. (“Nook” is not even a word men understand or use.)
Seasonal houseware or kitchen items.
Potholders too pretty to use.
Placemats that match, well, anything else.
Things that match, period.
Your new napkin rings.
In fact, your entire napkin ring collection, it basically annoys him. It may, in truth, annoy him deeply:
Your seashell napkin rings.
Your Zimbabwe napkin rings.
Your faux pearl napkin rings.
Your ladybug napkin rings.
Your unicorn napkin rings.
Your napkin rings you got for a steal off e-bay.
You harvest turkey napkin rings.
Your nautical motif napkin rings.
Your tropical island motif napkin rings
Your Precious Moments napkin rings.
Your Mount Rushmore souvenir napkin rings.
Your down on the farm animal napkin rings.
Your angel napkin rings.
Your Seven Wonders Of The World Napkin Rings. wherein the dopey artisans had to make an Extra Hoover Dam Napkin Ring so it would add up to eight rings, the traditional size of a dinner set.
Your whimsical I Love Lucy napkin rings where Fred’s skull is chipped and Ethel’s nose is broken, but when there’s just the two of you, you can still use Lucy and Ricky with the matching dinnerware.
Your safari motif napkin rings.
Your Celtic napkin rings.
Your personal coat-of-arms napkin rings.
Your retro plastic 50’s napkin rings.
Your Martin Luther King napkin rings.
Your Gilligan Island Napkin Rings, featuring Gilligan and the Skipper and the Howells and the Professor and Ginger and Maryanne and the Minnow, the collector’s edition that you ordered from tvguide.com.
Your napkin rings that match your throw pillows.
Why do none of these glamorous napkin rings, not one single set, impress him nary at all?
That is easy to answer. Because men think napkin rings are Stupid. One could artfully argue, in fact, that napkin rings, ARE stupid.
You see, men are problem solvers, who worship The Functional, and they cannot see, in any way, shape, or form, what function napkin rings serve.
A napkin ring appears to be designed to hold something together, but a napkin is in no danger of falling apart. There are rings used in plumbing and construction and automobiles and space shuttles that serve very useful functions in clamping assorted tubes and hoses and pipes together; men get this, and they are OK with these rings. In fact, it would be a touching sight to see a man trying to impress a woman by cooking her dinner, realizing at the last minute that he owns no napkin rings, running to his tool box, and fetching some of these unattractive but functional plumbing or automotive rings to wrap around the paper napkins he bought as linens for the romantic dinner he is preparing.
What makes napkin rings seem particularly absurd to men is that the rings remain circletted around the napkin for such a fleeting moment. Oh, yes, they may be around the actual napkin for hours, if the hostess has set the table early in the day, knowing she will need those last precious few hours for the more urgent matter of cooking the meal. But the whole point is, as far as the man can figure, nobody is there to see the napkin ring and admire it, if there is anything admirable about a napkin ring in the first place. Nobody is around the dinner table for lo those long hours; then, when the guests do arrive, they are invariably ushered into the living room, to enjoy cheeseball and chitchat, while meal prep is in its final stages.
Then, just seconds before one is to eat, the guest is ushered into the room where the dinner table is, at which point everybody sits down, and, if they have any kind of manners at all, (even a male knows this,) they put their napkin in their lap, which of course requires removing the damnable ring, which thereafter, in the guy’s eyes, only clutters up the table.
The entire napkin ring experience is, all in all, a very baffling and annoying experience for a man. And yet women continue to collect them, by the dozens, nay the hundreds.
Curious, I halted my rabid indictment of napkin rings long enough to Google the phrase “largest napkin ring collection in the world,” to see what came up. (My mood, as of this napkin ring condemnation, was somewhere between whimsy and fury, that women constantly make such dense and dim choices re: how to spend their money.)
Do you know what comes up when you Google that phrase, “largest napkin ring collection”
Elton John’s napkin ring collection.
Enough said.
(Now don’t get me wrong; I dig his music, and I grew up rockin’out to “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and “The Bitch is Back” and “Pinball Wizard”, just like so many of you. But a man’s man, he ain’t. He is a guy with the biggest napkin ring collection on the planet. Like I said, enough said.)
Well, no, enough has not been said, I think, because I am sure that there are women who will continue to cheerfully support the napkin ring industry, even after reading this chapter. Like Lady Lemmings, they will march on, march on, march on, scampering blindly, one behind the other, into Crate & Barrel, and Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Pier One, searching frantically for napkin ring collections which they do not yet have in their nest.
LET ME STATE IT IN BALDEST TERMS:
Either your napkin rings annoy a man, or he is a queer.
(Oddly, what may impress him are your Elvis napkin rings, or your napkin rings shaped like little penises. Actually, now that I think of it, he may like the Gilligan’s Island rings, but he still will find them ridiculously impractical and without purpose, although God knows The Professor could probably figure out how to lash them together to the matching bamboo placemats and make a pontoon that could get everybody off the Island.)
What else annoys a man? Even more than the napkin rings?
YOUR THROW PILLOW COLLECTION:
Your new throw pillow from Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Your very old throw pillow. Your throw pillow shaped like a heart.
Your throw pillow shaped like a piglet.
Your throw pillow shaped like a star.
Your smiley face throw pillow.
Your throw pillow shaped like a bolster.
Your throw pillow shapes like the Pyramid of Giza.
Your throw pillow which is quilted and made of pieces of your baby clothes.
Your throw pillow festooned with genuine Belgium lace imported from there which you know because you hand carried it from there yourself.
Your throw pillow shaped like ladies’ lips.
Your throw pillow shaped like a lady’s shoe.
Your throw pillow which doubles as a purse.
Your “Welcome to Florida” pillow shaped like an alligator.
The throw pillow you crocheted yourself when you were ten in the Brownies.
Your throw pillow shaped like Betty Boop’s head.
Your seasonal throw pillow shaped like Santa’s head.
Your coveted throw pillow from the Oprah Show gift bag when you were there for her “Favorite Things” episode.
Your throw pillow shaped like a throw pillow.
What may impress him, inexplicably, is a throw pillow shaped like a penis, or a throw pillow shaped like a football.
Now, granted, there are a few men who actually are impressed by hand crocheted throw pillows, not because they have the least appreciation for the aesthetic nuances of such handiwork, but merely because if they have been married, they have learned that women, when engrossed in their needlework, are silent for long periods of time.
Ah, bliss!
EXPLAIN THE THROW PILLOW THING
Why my obsession with throw pillows, you may ask? What did throw pillows ever do to me, that I speak of them with such vitriolic vituperation? Did I have a traumatic experience with throw pillows as a child, you may ask, that I hurl such hatred at these benign and beautiful objects that are meant to cause comfort?
Well, I might very well throw the question right back in your face, ladies. What is YOUR obsession with throw pillows? How many pillows does one person need?
HERE IS HOW THROW PILLOWS RUIN THE ENTIRE ROMANTIC DYNAMIC BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN:
(Substitute napkin rings, shoes, nail polish, etcetera:)
When you (meaning you, a FEMALE) walks into another female’s apartment for the first time, and you see a large and lovely collection of throw pillows on the living room sofa or adorning the davenport, you
gasp and say “Oh, what a beautiful collection of throw pillows you have!” and then, bafflingly enough, you ladies will then probably choose to discuss them at length.
Of all the urgent and hilarious things under the sun that two humans could talk about, you and she are actually going to engage in dialogue about throw pillows: where you got this one, how this one is from some foreign land, how this one was handed down through the generations, how you made this from a kit you got at Kit Galaxy but now you’re more into latching hook rugs, how your teacup poodle threw up on this mauve one here, but you had it dry cleaned and now you can hardly see the stain.
Yes, you ladies may see fertile grounds for dialogue, but we see Trouble:
Why?
Because when you look at throw pillows, you see, well—throw pillows.
BUT. AND THIS NEXT POINT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE, SO GRAB A HIGHLIGHTER:
When a man sees a neat row of pretty throw pillows, he does not see throw pillows.
WHAT HE SEES IS A PROPENSITY.
He sees your propensity for buying things you don’t need, and what he further sees is a mind that is not practical or functional or logical.
(And you can show me the prettiest damned throw pillow in the whole world, I dare you, whip out your best antique festive heart shaped crushed velvet hand sewn needle pointed Americana vintage whatever fancyfringeass pillow you have, you CANNOT deny that it is NOT:
practical
functional
logical.
Oh, I do realize that there are those of you touchy women, who also fancy yourselves clever, who will try to argue that pillows are at least functional. After all, how many folks can savor a good night’s sleep without a comfy pillow, you say to me challengeingly?
But I am not fooled. My personal history with throw pillows is long and sad, and here is what I retort:
One: Throw pillows are not comfortable and therefore not functional. A comfortable pillow has down feathers in it, or some equally appealing filling, but the very nature of throw pillows requires a certain unforgiving rigidity in their stuffing or filling or whatever the craft jargon is, so they can keep that whimsical shape of a heart or a star or a rhomboid or whatever.
Secondly: Throw pillows are too small to be of any real use. A guy wants a bigass pillow that he can sink his big arrogant head into at the end of a hard day, and that he can wake up and punch into a comfy new position in the middle of the night, when he has awakened screaming from his nightmare of taking it up the butt in Debtor’s Prison, where he has been dragged to because he can no longer pay off the huge credit card bills that his wife has charged to the max in her frantic quest to comb the city buying every new throw pillow she can hunt down…
Thirdly: You never let us put our heads down on your precious throw pillows, anyway. Before we can put our ass on your sofa, or crawl into your bed, what first has to happen, always, is this annoying and lengthy ritual wherein all the throw pillows are removed from the bed to some special new place where they will spend the night, onto some fainting couch or bay window or hope chest, which we find ironic, because if you didn’t constantly annoy us with your throw pillows, you might actually have some hope of using the crap in your hope chest.
So don’t try to win this debate by claiming that throw pillows are functional, logical, practical, or at all worthy.
Because of your obsession with throw pillows, two huge problems emerge. And I mean HUGE. If problems were tits, these would be 44 Double D’s.
1.) Your throw pillow collection has immediately told us that you are not logical or practical. And you are probably dysfunctional as well, else why would you waste your hard earned money on so many things that serve no function like throw pillows and napkin rings, when you could be spending your hard earned money on worthwhile stuff like NFL Bobble-Head dolls and faux endangered species skin fur car seat covers?
AND HERE IS THE BIG GRAIL SECRET, LADIES: Virtually every problem that a guy has, (he will be quick to explain,) has to do with living in a world that is not logical or practical or even functional. It follows without saying that most of these problems with the dysfunctional, impractical, illogical world we live in are caused by WOMEN, because certainly every guy the guy knows is pretty down to earth, or they wouldn’t be friends.
Do you see where I am going with this?
This guy walks into your love nest, this guy who you think might be The One, he might be the love of your life, and suddenly he is standing in the Museum Of The Inane, assaulted by napkin rings and novelties, pillows and potpourri, samplers and statuettes, curios and congeries and collectanea, twee trouvaille and mauvais gout and omnium-gatherum, gewgaws and gimcracks, knick-knacks and bric-a-brac, give your dog a bone, . .and these all purchased by a woman who has a stack of bookmarked catalogues in the corner which clearly indicate that she is poised to pounce on even more bric-a-crap, YES, all this, AND a parapet of shoeboxes which, when stacked all in a row, rival the Great Wall of China.
Why on earth would he want to be permanently around someone who wastes, wastes, wastes their money, and who has no logical or practical sense? (This is setting aside for a moment the Other Problem, which is that we see no room for us in your cote pocket, nor is there any space for our precious crap.) It’s not that the throw pillows are ugly, it’s that he does not want to have to deal with your ugly credit history, or an ugly psyche that is so illogical and impractical, when dealing with the weighty and practical decisions that must be made in a marriage. A man needs a logical, functional, practical brain to match him in the trials and travails of marriage. And your physical environment has proved you to be the opposite of that.
What a man really wants to marry is another man, but with big hooters and a tight vagina.
But there is something more dire and serious going on here, than just the twisted and twaddled nature of your feminine brain, as revealed in your decor.
Let’s back up a bit: I said it before, and I’ll say it again. When you look at throw pillows, you see, well—throw pillows.
When a man sees a neat row of pretty throw pillows, he does not see pillows. HE SEES A PROPENSITY.
A propensity to shop.
Not just to shop, but to blindly, blithely spend money on stupid, inane things. And keep in mind that financial issues may well have been part of his troubled history, particularly if he is divorced. Seriously, ladies: both your accessories and your ambiance may be broadcasting exactly the wrong message necessary to win his heart. You are driving him away, with your very efforts to make yourself and your home look attractive and inviting.
“Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.”
--Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband
Keep your shopping minimal and private.
He does not want to hear about your trip to the mall. He does not want to hear about what this season’s fashions look like. He doesn’t care what hemlines are doing, or what colors are “in.” No matter how impressive your purse is to you, it will elicit no reaction from him, unless he has occasion to actually look inside it, in which case, if it is like most ladies’ purses, it will frighten him. What famous General was it who said that you could have dropped two women’s handbag over Hanoi and Haiphong, and the North Vietnamese would have fallen to their knees in surrender? (“Oh, the Humanity!”) Dame Edna refers to her purse as “the handbag of Hieronymus Bosch.”
More than anything else, he does not want you to EVER take him along to the mall to shop for clothes. And if you EVER actually make him sit in that pathetic little chair in the women’s clothing section and hold your purse while you try on clothes, you can be sure that the relationship is over as of that moment. Oh sure, he may be a gentleman and drive you home from the mall, but unless you have a legally binding paper between you, never expect to see his face again after that. (Alternative route: he pretends like everything’s fine, but first chance he gets, he’s online researching divorce lawyers and how to get out of his side of the pre-nup and deciding how he can get custody of the dog.)
Again, repeat after me, “no taking Loverboy shopping at the mall.” The only thing you can do that is worse than this, is to ask him the infamous no-win question, ‘Do these pants make me look fat?
No ladies. It is not the fault of the slacks. I’m betting it’s the size of your rump.
It is time for a big change, ladies. All those things you thought were impressing him, aren’t. And it’s not enough to just hide the collection of Hallmark Merry Miniatures or Franklin Mint Faeries Of The World when he comes over. Sooner or later, like all dark secrets and skeletons in closets, they will be revealed, and he is bound to catch on. Remember—it does not matter what YOU think of your nest, or your collectanea. You are not trying to date yourself or get yourself to propose marriage; that is the whole reason you are reading this book, isn’t it? You are sick and tired of your own company. You want a Guy in your life.
Ladies, it’s time to choose: The boy or the bric-a-brac.
The nookie or the napkin rings.
The Prince or the Pillows.
****
“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
--Oscar Wilde, “In Conversation”
“You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You have lost life’s secret.”
--Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance”
Here ends the Sneak Preview for “Ten Terrible Truths About Men.”
Below absorb an excerpt from the chapter about Spending and Shopping
CHAPTER FIVE:
WHAT DOES, AND DOES NOT, IMPRESS HIM
OR,
THROW PILLOWS, AND THE END OF ROMANCE
“Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.”
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“American women are pretty and charming: little oases of elegant unreasonableness in a vast desert of practical common sense.”
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan
“If a woman can’t make her mistakes charming she is only a female.”
Oscar Wilde “In Conversation”
“I don’t know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it.”
Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband
****
So deluded. So misguided. So mistaken.
Wrong about it, in monolithic proportions.
Most women are, and that’s the truth of it. When it comes to WHAT IMPRESSES MEN.
This being true, it logically follows that women are also woefully ignorant re: WHAT DOES NOT IMPRESS HIM. As in, those attempts to impress him which actually backfire, and drive him away. Send him running for the safety of baseball fantasy camp, and the company of other guys who “get it”. Whom he can, dare I say it, relate to?
It is astonishing how women can have remained so completely in the dark about this issue of what does and does not impress a man. And after much analysis, I can only attribute the confusion and ignorance to:
1.) Females mostly having lunch with other females, and not having enough male friends. AND
2.) The Capitalistic system.
Women seem to think that there is a direct link between purchasing things, and finding happiness with a man. This could not be further from the truth. MONEY PROBLEMS are one of the three main reasons that couples divorce. And because so many of the men who are ready to behave like decent grown-up human beings have a divorce or two under their belts, it only makes sense that a woman with a propensity for spending money unnecessarily will become LESS ATTRACTIVE TO A MAN, NOT MORE ATTRACTIVE.
And yet you women blindly spend on, spend on, spend on, actually believing that you impress a man with your designer purses, your little love nest crammed full of catalogue bric-a-brac, your ambiance, your aromatherapy candle collection, your Bed, Bath, and Beyond What You Can Possibly Begin To Justify Putting On Your Already Overburdened Credit Card, and more stuff, and more shopping bags, and more accessories, and tastefully decorated bathrooms crammed with God Knows What’s in those bottles, placentas and yak urine and pit peeling masques, and always, always, a vast arsenal of lipsticks in shades of pinks and purples and oranges and reds and umbers that not even the Old Masters could mix.
What is the deal with one pair of lips needing so many dozens of lipsticks?
And the names, oh, the names of those lipsticks, what a hidden agenda those monikers convey to the Cousteau in us males: “Pouting Pink.” “Dizzy Blonde.” “Duwop Shades of Venom.” “Philosophy Coloring Crayon for Lips.” (Yeah, like the babe who buys that knows anything about ontological inquiry or “Being and Nothingness.”) “Vision for Lips.” “Wisdom for Lips.” “Bad Attitude Red.” “Xerox.” “Hate.” “She Wolfe.” “Threesome.” “Break-up Brown.”
These are real names of lipstick shades, that I had a girl I know look up on the internet, because if anything happens to me, I don’t want people going into my computer and seeing that I surfed girlie-girl cosmetic sites. Everybody is so ready to think the worst. But what I am getting at is that these are actual names of colors that your kind have dreamed up, and others of your kind purchased.
What point, exactly, are you trying to make with these names? Here is where you women need to think more like men. Give those mouth paints regular, human sounding colors, like Bruise Burgundy and Ketchup Red and Skinned Knee Mauve and Fishbait Silver and Salem Witch Burning Orange and Spam Pink and Single Man Apartment Carpeting Beige and so forth.
Those are names you can glom onto, you see, and I guarantee you that with clear, concise tube titles like these, you would never have to traipse back to Needless Markups to return another make-up because it’s not the color you expected, no not never ever again.
Anybody, even a dumb guy who knows nothing about cosmetics, can look at just the name on the lipstick tube (if tubes were titled by males), and automatically know that Roto Rooter Umber is not the same as Homeless Man Tawny which is a hint darker than Toejam Taupe, which is not to be confused with Leftovers Brown. Just as he will immediately grasp that Sears Tool Box Red is a markedly different hue than Rosy Recurring Rump Rash (inspired by the more autumnal Festering Fungus Fuchsia of last season), which is also quite separate from Gitmo Torture Scarlett, which is not quite the same lovely shade as Geneva Convention Violation Vermilion.
These are all names that leave nothing to the imagination, and darlin’, you don’t want to be too imaginative, when imagining what color you want your lips to be, to attract a man.
Trust me on this.
****
“A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.”
Oscar Wilde, In Conversation
Where was I?
Ah yes. The ways women wantonly waste their hard earned money. And our hard earned money.
Bottom line, harsh truth:
Most of what you think is impressing your prey will either go unnoticed by him, or it will be noticed in the wrong way. Not that there is anything wrong with buying or owning dozens of shades of lipstick or nail polish. If you are rich, and can’t think of anything more charitable or practical to spend your money on, then go ahead, buy armies of little bottles.
But just don’t do it for our sake. Don’t do it to impress a man. You are not impressing your fella.
Similarly, he is not impressed by:
Designer purses.
Designer shoes.
Designer dresses.
Designer suits.
Designer jeans.
Designer anything.
Jackie Gleason makes a great comment about this modern obsession with haute labels in the movie “Nothing in Common” when he chides his son, Tom Hanks, (whose character is an advertising executive, and therefore something of a male label whore), about the whole “designer jeans” thing. Quips Gleason, “These days, you need some designer’s name on the ass pocket of a girl’s jeans, to get turned on. In my day, we just needed an ass.”
Here is the bald truth: (And just ask any honest male friend you know, if you don’t believe me:)
You can strut down the street in a Chanel suit, wearing your Manolo Blahnik shoes, carrying a Fendi bag, sporting a hot new color-and-cut from Rodeo Drive Salon and Day Spa, with three hundred dollars worth of color coordinated make-up on your face and hands and toes, all of this accented by a five carat tennis bracelet and matching Tiffany diamond stud earrings, and you can think you are the hottest thing to hit the Strip since they put the Stars on Sunset Boulevard.
You notice the men eyeing you…
…And then you realize that what they are actually staring at is the Daisy May look-a-like behind you, wearing faded cut-offs, a tank top, and old flip-flops at the end of her long, shapely, tanned legs. The priciest thing about her is the fistful of quarters she has for the parking meter, but the guys are all looking at her, not at you. Why?
Three little words:
Tits and ass. She is revealing more of it.
So, your attempts at “haute” were a failure. (Also, she’s obviously lower maintenance.)
None of this should depress you, by the way, meaning, the whole Daisy May thing. Just because we stare at her, rather than you, doesn’t mean we wouldn’t rather end up with you—if you weren’t trying so hard. No guy really wants to end up with Daisy May, just maybe he wants to flirt with her a little when he’s away from the home fires, out on one of his secret sorghum runs. But we always find our way home to our Good Wife.)
What else is he not impressed with?
Most of your jewelry. (Unless he is a thief, which is always a possibility.)
Cellphone cases that match your designer outfits.
The fact that you are wearing “this season’s color.”
The fact that you used to be a size eight and now you are a size six. (In fact, depending on what insane diet you were on, it might have stripped much of the fat from your breasts, causing them to sag and your bra size to be reduced. Your diet may well have backfired on you, because, more than likely, we would have preferred your breasts larger.)
And, when you finally lure him into your web, he is further UNIMPRESSED BY:
Your new queen bed comforter with matching shams and contrasting color coordinated dust ruffle.
Your personalized fingertip towels.
Little soaps he might mistake for candy and eat.
Potpourri bombs planted around your apartment like land mines in a war zone.
Bric-a-brac, in general.
Your collection of Hummel Figurines, your collection of statuettes of children with large eyes, your collection of ballerinas, your collection of angels, your collection of unicorns, your collection of frogs or ladybugs, your collection of refrigerator magnets, your collection of Franklin Mint dolls who look like famous great dead ladies; i.e. Marilyn Monroe, Lady Di, Jackie O., etc. In fact he is singularly unimpressed with a female’s collection of anything: snow globes, salt ‘n pepper shakers, pigs, potholders, trivets, dishtowels from all over the world, and anything from Hallmark.
What he will notice is your push-up bra collection.
He will also be impressed by your collection of dildos. There is still some confusion about why this is true; chatroom research suggests three possible theories.
1.) It suggests to him that the woman is highly sexed, and that means he will be getting laid a lot.
2.) The collection suggests that she has not yet found a man who can truly satisfy her, and the notion that he might be that sexual dynamo is a thrill to his ego.
3.) The sight of females pleasuring themselves is a thrill to many men. This, of course, is a circular and unsatisfying explanation, begging the question of why that should be so.
Perhaps because he knows from experience that it takes dames a helluva lot longer to climax than it takes him, and he reasons that her impressive collection of sex toys means that the Guy can use her to satisfy himself, and then be back to watching ESPN seven minutes later, while She hunkers down to the grunt work of achieving her own elusive female orgasm.
Quickly, then, what else impresses him?
Collections of beer bottles.
Collections of Bobble-heads of famous sports icons.
He will also be impressed by cars, if you collect those, but women don’t, so the point is moot.
He will be impressed by the fact that you have no credit card debts.
He will be impressed if you own property.
He will be impressed if you own a dog that does not fit in your purse. Men love dogs, but not the breeds that are smaller than a cantaloupe.
This is what does not impress him:
Painting your dog’s toenails to match yours.
Outfits you buy for your dog.
Anything in your breakfast nook except coffee, and perhaps a spare bag of pretzels or jerky. (“Nook” is not even a word men understand or use.)
Seasonal houseware or kitchen items.
Potholders too pretty to use.
Placemats that match, well, anything else.
Things that match, period.
Your new napkin rings.
In fact, your entire napkin ring collection, it basically annoys him. It may, in truth, annoy him deeply:
Your seashell napkin rings.
Your Zimbabwe napkin rings.
Your faux pearl napkin rings.
Your ladybug napkin rings.
Your unicorn napkin rings.
Your napkin rings you got for a steal off e-bay.
You harvest turkey napkin rings.
Your nautical motif napkin rings.
Your tropical island motif napkin rings
Your Precious Moments napkin rings.
Your Mount Rushmore souvenir napkin rings.
Your down on the farm animal napkin rings.
Your angel napkin rings.
Your Seven Wonders Of The World Napkin Rings. wherein the dopey artisans had to make an Extra Hoover Dam Napkin Ring so it would add up to eight rings, the traditional size of a dinner set.
Your whimsical I Love Lucy napkin rings where Fred’s skull is chipped and Ethel’s nose is broken, but when there’s just the two of you, you can still use Lucy and Ricky with the matching dinnerware.
Your safari motif napkin rings.
Your Celtic napkin rings.
Your personal coat-of-arms napkin rings.
Your retro plastic 50’s napkin rings.
Your Martin Luther King napkin rings.
Your Gilligan Island Napkin Rings, featuring Gilligan and the Skipper and the Howells and the Professor and Ginger and Maryanne and the Minnow, the collector’s edition that you ordered from tvguide.com.
Your napkin rings that match your throw pillows.
Why do none of these glamorous napkin rings, not one single set, impress him nary at all?
That is easy to answer. Because men think napkin rings are Stupid. One could artfully argue, in fact, that napkin rings, ARE stupid.
You see, men are problem solvers, who worship The Functional, and they cannot see, in any way, shape, or form, what function napkin rings serve.
A napkin ring appears to be designed to hold something together, but a napkin is in no danger of falling apart. There are rings used in plumbing and construction and automobiles and space shuttles that serve very useful functions in clamping assorted tubes and hoses and pipes together; men get this, and they are OK with these rings. In fact, it would be a touching sight to see a man trying to impress a woman by cooking her dinner, realizing at the last minute that he owns no napkin rings, running to his tool box, and fetching some of these unattractive but functional plumbing or automotive rings to wrap around the paper napkins he bought as linens for the romantic dinner he is preparing.
What makes napkin rings seem particularly absurd to men is that the rings remain circletted around the napkin for such a fleeting moment. Oh, yes, they may be around the actual napkin for hours, if the hostess has set the table early in the day, knowing she will need those last precious few hours for the more urgent matter of cooking the meal. But the whole point is, as far as the man can figure, nobody is there to see the napkin ring and admire it, if there is anything admirable about a napkin ring in the first place. Nobody is around the dinner table for lo those long hours; then, when the guests do arrive, they are invariably ushered into the living room, to enjoy cheeseball and chitchat, while meal prep is in its final stages.
Then, just seconds before one is to eat, the guest is ushered into the room where the dinner table is, at which point everybody sits down, and, if they have any kind of manners at all, (even a male knows this,) they put their napkin in their lap, which of course requires removing the damnable ring, which thereafter, in the guy’s eyes, only clutters up the table.
The entire napkin ring experience is, all in all, a very baffling and annoying experience for a man. And yet women continue to collect them, by the dozens, nay the hundreds.
Curious, I halted my rabid indictment of napkin rings long enough to Google the phrase “largest napkin ring collection in the world,” to see what came up. (My mood, as of this napkin ring condemnation, was somewhere between whimsy and fury, that women constantly make such dense and dim choices re: how to spend their money.)
Do you know what comes up when you Google that phrase, “largest napkin ring collection”
Elton John’s napkin ring collection.
Enough said.
(Now don’t get me wrong; I dig his music, and I grew up rockin’out to “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and “The Bitch is Back” and “Pinball Wizard”, just like so many of you. But a man’s man, he ain’t. He is a guy with the biggest napkin ring collection on the planet. Like I said, enough said.)
Well, no, enough has not been said, I think, because I am sure that there are women who will continue to cheerfully support the napkin ring industry, even after reading this chapter. Like Lady Lemmings, they will march on, march on, march on, scampering blindly, one behind the other, into Crate & Barrel, and Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Pier One, searching frantically for napkin ring collections which they do not yet have in their nest.
LET ME STATE IT IN BALDEST TERMS:
Either your napkin rings annoy a man, or he is a queer.
(Oddly, what may impress him are your Elvis napkin rings, or your napkin rings shaped like little penises. Actually, now that I think of it, he may like the Gilligan’s Island rings, but he still will find them ridiculously impractical and without purpose, although God knows The Professor could probably figure out how to lash them together to the matching bamboo placemats and make a pontoon that could get everybody off the Island.)
What else annoys a man? Even more than the napkin rings?
YOUR THROW PILLOW COLLECTION:
Your new throw pillow from Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Your very old throw pillow. Your throw pillow shaped like a heart.
Your throw pillow shaped like a piglet.
Your throw pillow shaped like a star.
Your smiley face throw pillow.
Your throw pillow shaped like a bolster.
Your throw pillow shapes like the Pyramid of Giza.
Your throw pillow which is quilted and made of pieces of your baby clothes.
Your throw pillow festooned with genuine Belgium lace imported from there which you know because you hand carried it from there yourself.
Your throw pillow shaped like ladies’ lips.
Your throw pillow shaped like a lady’s shoe.
Your throw pillow which doubles as a purse.
Your “Welcome to Florida” pillow shaped like an alligator.
The throw pillow you crocheted yourself when you were ten in the Brownies.
Your throw pillow shaped like Betty Boop’s head.
Your seasonal throw pillow shaped like Santa’s head.
Your coveted throw pillow from the Oprah Show gift bag when you were there for her “Favorite Things” episode.
Your throw pillow shaped like a throw pillow.
What may impress him, inexplicably, is a throw pillow shaped like a penis, or a throw pillow shaped like a football.
Now, granted, there are a few men who actually are impressed by hand crocheted throw pillows, not because they have the least appreciation for the aesthetic nuances of such handiwork, but merely because if they have been married, they have learned that women, when engrossed in their needlework, are silent for long periods of time.
Ah, bliss!
EXPLAIN THE THROW PILLOW THING
Why my obsession with throw pillows, you may ask? What did throw pillows ever do to me, that I speak of them with such vitriolic vituperation? Did I have a traumatic experience with throw pillows as a child, you may ask, that I hurl such hatred at these benign and beautiful objects that are meant to cause comfort?
Well, I might very well throw the question right back in your face, ladies. What is YOUR obsession with throw pillows? How many pillows does one person need?
HERE IS HOW THROW PILLOWS RUIN THE ENTIRE ROMANTIC DYNAMIC BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN:
(Substitute napkin rings, shoes, nail polish, etcetera:)
When you (meaning you, a FEMALE) walks into another female’s apartment for the first time, and you see a large and lovely collection of throw pillows on the living room sofa or adorning the davenport, you
gasp and say “Oh, what a beautiful collection of throw pillows you have!” and then, bafflingly enough, you ladies will then probably choose to discuss them at length.
Of all the urgent and hilarious things under the sun that two humans could talk about, you and she are actually going to engage in dialogue about throw pillows: where you got this one, how this one is from some foreign land, how this one was handed down through the generations, how you made this from a kit you got at Kit Galaxy but now you’re more into latching hook rugs, how your teacup poodle threw up on this mauve one here, but you had it dry cleaned and now you can hardly see the stain.
Yes, you ladies may see fertile grounds for dialogue, but we see Trouble:
Why?
Because when you look at throw pillows, you see, well—throw pillows.
BUT. AND THIS NEXT POINT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE, SO GRAB A HIGHLIGHTER:
When a man sees a neat row of pretty throw pillows, he does not see throw pillows.
WHAT HE SEES IS A PROPENSITY.
He sees your propensity for buying things you don’t need, and what he further sees is a mind that is not practical or functional or logical.
(And you can show me the prettiest damned throw pillow in the whole world, I dare you, whip out your best antique festive heart shaped crushed velvet hand sewn needle pointed Americana vintage whatever fancyfringeass pillow you have, you CANNOT deny that it is NOT:
practical
functional
logical.
Oh, I do realize that there are those of you touchy women, who also fancy yourselves clever, who will try to argue that pillows are at least functional. After all, how many folks can savor a good night’s sleep without a comfy pillow, you say to me challengeingly?
But I am not fooled. My personal history with throw pillows is long and sad, and here is what I retort:
One: Throw pillows are not comfortable and therefore not functional. A comfortable pillow has down feathers in it, or some equally appealing filling, but the very nature of throw pillows requires a certain unforgiving rigidity in their stuffing or filling or whatever the craft jargon is, so they can keep that whimsical shape of a heart or a star or a rhomboid or whatever.
Secondly: Throw pillows are too small to be of any real use. A guy wants a bigass pillow that he can sink his big arrogant head into at the end of a hard day, and that he can wake up and punch into a comfy new position in the middle of the night, when he has awakened screaming from his nightmare of taking it up the butt in Debtor’s Prison, where he has been dragged to because he can no longer pay off the huge credit card bills that his wife has charged to the max in her frantic quest to comb the city buying every new throw pillow she can hunt down…
Thirdly: You never let us put our heads down on your precious throw pillows, anyway. Before we can put our ass on your sofa, or crawl into your bed, what first has to happen, always, is this annoying and lengthy ritual wherein all the throw pillows are removed from the bed to some special new place where they will spend the night, onto some fainting couch or bay window or hope chest, which we find ironic, because if you didn’t constantly annoy us with your throw pillows, you might actually have some hope of using the crap in your hope chest.
So don’t try to win this debate by claiming that throw pillows are functional, logical, practical, or at all worthy.
Because of your obsession with throw pillows, two huge problems emerge. And I mean HUGE. If problems were tits, these would be 44 Double D’s.
1.) Your throw pillow collection has immediately told us that you are not logical or practical. And you are probably dysfunctional as well, else why would you waste your hard earned money on so many things that serve no function like throw pillows and napkin rings, when you could be spending your hard earned money on worthwhile stuff like NFL Bobble-Head dolls and faux endangered species skin fur car seat covers?
AND HERE IS THE BIG GRAIL SECRET, LADIES: Virtually every problem that a guy has, (he will be quick to explain,) has to do with living in a world that is not logical or practical or even functional. It follows without saying that most of these problems with the dysfunctional, impractical, illogical world we live in are caused by WOMEN, because certainly every guy the guy knows is pretty down to earth, or they wouldn’t be friends.
Do you see where I am going with this?
This guy walks into your love nest, this guy who you think might be The One, he might be the love of your life, and suddenly he is standing in the Museum Of The Inane, assaulted by napkin rings and novelties, pillows and potpourri, samplers and statuettes, curios and congeries and collectanea, twee trouvaille and mauvais gout and omnium-gatherum, gewgaws and gimcracks, knick-knacks and bric-a-brac, give your dog a bone, . .and these all purchased by a woman who has a stack of bookmarked catalogues in the corner which clearly indicate that she is poised to pounce on even more bric-a-crap, YES, all this, AND a parapet of shoeboxes which, when stacked all in a row, rival the Great Wall of China.
Why on earth would he want to be permanently around someone who wastes, wastes, wastes their money, and who has no logical or practical sense? (This is setting aside for a moment the Other Problem, which is that we see no room for us in your cote pocket, nor is there any space for our precious crap.) It’s not that the throw pillows are ugly, it’s that he does not want to have to deal with your ugly credit history, or an ugly psyche that is so illogical and impractical, when dealing with the weighty and practical decisions that must be made in a marriage. A man needs a logical, functional, practical brain to match him in the trials and travails of marriage. And your physical environment has proved you to be the opposite of that.
What a man really wants to marry is another man, but with big hooters and a tight vagina.
But there is something more dire and serious going on here, than just the twisted and twaddled nature of your feminine brain, as revealed in your decor.
Let’s back up a bit: I said it before, and I’ll say it again. When you look at throw pillows, you see, well—throw pillows.
When a man sees a neat row of pretty throw pillows, he does not see pillows. HE SEES A PROPENSITY.
A propensity to shop.
Not just to shop, but to blindly, blithely spend money on stupid, inane things. And keep in mind that financial issues may well have been part of his troubled history, particularly if he is divorced. Seriously, ladies: both your accessories and your ambiance may be broadcasting exactly the wrong message necessary to win his heart. You are driving him away, with your very efforts to make yourself and your home look attractive and inviting.
“Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.”
--Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband
Keep your shopping minimal and private.
He does not want to hear about your trip to the mall. He does not want to hear about what this season’s fashions look like. He doesn’t care what hemlines are doing, or what colors are “in.” No matter how impressive your purse is to you, it will elicit no reaction from him, unless he has occasion to actually look inside it, in which case, if it is like most ladies’ purses, it will frighten him. What famous General was it who said that you could have dropped two women’s handbag over Hanoi and Haiphong, and the North Vietnamese would have fallen to their knees in surrender? (“Oh, the Humanity!”) Dame Edna refers to her purse as “the handbag of Hieronymus Bosch.”
More than anything else, he does not want you to EVER take him along to the mall to shop for clothes. And if you EVER actually make him sit in that pathetic little chair in the women’s clothing section and hold your purse while you try on clothes, you can be sure that the relationship is over as of that moment. Oh sure, he may be a gentleman and drive you home from the mall, but unless you have a legally binding paper between you, never expect to see his face again after that. (Alternative route: he pretends like everything’s fine, but first chance he gets, he’s online researching divorce lawyers and how to get out of his side of the pre-nup and deciding how he can get custody of the dog.)
Again, repeat after me, “no taking Loverboy shopping at the mall.” The only thing you can do that is worse than this, is to ask him the infamous no-win question, ‘Do these pants make me look fat?
No ladies. It is not the fault of the slacks. I’m betting it’s the size of your rump.
It is time for a big change, ladies. All those things you thought were impressing him, aren’t. And it’s not enough to just hide the collection of Hallmark Merry Miniatures or Franklin Mint Faeries Of The World when he comes over. Sooner or later, like all dark secrets and skeletons in closets, they will be revealed, and he is bound to catch on. Remember—it does not matter what YOU think of your nest, or your collectanea. You are not trying to date yourself or get yourself to propose marriage; that is the whole reason you are reading this book, isn’t it? You are sick and tired of your own company. You want a Guy in your life.
Ladies, it’s time to choose: The boy or the bric-a-brac.
The nookie or the napkin rings.
The Prince or the Pillows.
****
“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
--Oscar Wilde, “In Conversation”
“You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You have lost life’s secret.”
--Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance”
Here ends the Sneak Preview for “Ten Terrible Truths About Men.”