Blog Exchange: An Open Letter to Men

I didn't know anything about men when I was growing up. Oh, I had a Dad alright. He changed diapers, worked a full time job, always displayed open love and affection towards Mom, claimed to be a virgin on his wedding night (age 28, served in WWII, yada, yada), never cheated, encouraged his daughters to succeed academically and that our career ambitions were awesome, never drank, ate only healthy foods, never smoked, picked up after himself, could cook a mean omelet, believed in God but not in the smarmy obnoxious way, wrote beautiful love letters, etc.

So you can see that I really did not know anything about men.

After thirty years of careful, exacting field research, I have enough material on the species. I feel selfish keeping it to myself. So, men, here you go.

The top five things that you men THINK we want:

1. Ripped muscles--Guys, we really don't care about a six pack. Try to keep in shape, and a huge protruding stomach is a gross turnoff to be sure, but honestly, an evening spent cooking dinner for us will pay off quicker and more profitably than an evening in the gym popping protein pills.

2. A ten inch penis--I'm going to be brutally honest here. No, I'm NOT going to say that size doesn't matter. Yeah, you thought that I would espouse the party line, huh? Wrong-o. Ok, I once had a boyfriend who had a slight (ha!) problem in that area. Yeah, it mattered.

If you are grossly underendowed, I encourage you to take advantage of the many caring people on the internet who want to help you with the problem. If not, forget it. Just let nature take its course. Oh, and a cuddle sometimes without wanting more? Yeah. It is nice. Take one for the team.

3. A big ol' honkin job--No. I've dated millionaires. I've dated poor boys. It's not the job, or the salary, it's the fact that you actually HAVE one. Live within your means. Don't borrow money from your woman. Don't work 100 hours a week. Do care about OUR life. Don't think that if you make more than us that you are superior. A person's value as a friend, lover, life partner, etc. does not depend on the size of their paycheck.

4. Hair--Ok, I'm prejudiced. My man is bald. Has been bald since he was a teenager. If you're going bald, just deal. Don't do the combover bit. You aren't fooling anybody. Forget the toupee. If you must get a weave, fine. I don't care one way or the other.

5. Fancy clothes, car, etc.-- You know what? Convertibles are the most overrated thing in the world. It's either too hot or too cold. It's windy. Is it worth going into debt just to drive around the ten days out of the year that the weather is perfect? If you want one, fine. Just don't think that it's gonna get you laid. Um, clothes? Ok, the stained shirt that you bought at Dollar Plus ten years ago isn't a turn on, but you don't have to go all metrosexual either. Clean clothes that fit and are reasonably up to date. I like a man in a white shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, just fyi.

The top five things we REALLY want.

1. I hope you dance. Why are men so resistant to dancing? Why are we women glued to the TV watching Dancing With The Stars? Why don't you want to get up and take a spin on the dance floor with us? You think "people are watching"? You pussy. People are busy getting drunk. Just get up and dance. I don't care how bad you are. And don't make me pump you with liquor to cajole you into dancing. It's no fun if you're so drunk you're stepping on my feet.

2. Write a damn love letter once in awhile. My 8 year daughter found some of my love letters from an old boyfriend. She teases me about it--Is he your boyfriend, mom? Well, not so much, but....they are so beautifully written I can't bear to throw them out. It's all a part of my history, yada, yada. I don't mind if my husband has some old love letters by the way. I think I can literally repeat every love letter I've ever gotten, word for word. They mean that much to me.

3. Two Profitable Hobbies: Guitar-- If you're already employed and all that, you might not have time to take lessons, but I can tell you that a man playing the guitar and singing softly to me makes me want to put on a Victoria's Secret outfit, if you get my drift. If you don't have time to play the guitar, how about photography? Buy a camera and photograph me. That works. Works just peachy keen.

4. A nice guy--Yeah, I've heard all the bitching about how you nice guys get screwed over. Bull!! I'm sorry, but you just might be a nice, BORING guy. I don't like nice boring guys, but I prefer them over mean, boring guys. Truly, what is the alternative? Do you want to torment your woman? Do you get off on that? Come on. Just be decent. Caring. Thoughtful. Honest. Hold a job. Pay your bills. Don't live with your mother. But do be nice to her when she calls.

5. LISTEN. I feel that it's a vitally important and interesting thing that my 2nd grade teacher once yelled at me for picking my nose in front of the class. If you listen to that story, I promise I'll listen to your blow-by-blow rehashment of the latest football game on the telly. Major, major excellent brownie points if you actually remember the story 48 hours later. I do not hold out much hope for this one.

posted by lorrie (21+) & roger (21++)
madeleine (8) & meredith (6)
born in china, queens of carolina

The author of the open letter above is Lorrie, an ill tempered, foul mouthed adopted Southern Belle who adopted two kids from China. She's a reformed lawyer, currently teaches at a community college, and likes to smoke, drink, and blog. Her husband, a man of sterling character and many fine qualities, does not like to dance.

My letter is here:

An Open Letter To Some Of The Men In My Past

Dear Bengt,
You were a Swedish conceptual artist who invited me out on a date and forgot to mention you were gay. You played footsie with me over dinner, then snogged me in a dark alley behind the restaurant. I was a little tiddly or I would have thought that it was a little strange that when you felt me between the legs you said, “Wow, it’s so weird, feeling nothing jutting out there. Weird, but in a good way.”

Thank you for telling everyone the next day that you “just kissed me because I seemed to want it.” Thank you for teaching me that not having a penis is not a crime, unless you are a man. And that getting off with a girl is a little bit stupid if you identify as gay.

Dear Dave,
You were an Australian accountant living in London. We met at a German conversation class, where, you said, you were learning German so that you could converse with your German girlfriend. Did that girlfriend ever exist, Dave? I’ll never know. At the end of each evening class we would all go to the pub and have a bit of a laugh. You were very amusing, for an accountant, and although you wore glasses and your hair was kinky, you were geek-sexy. I realized you were fairly immature when, after everyone had gone home one night, you said you had missed your last train and could you stay at my flat? Okay I said, and put you in the spare room. I suppose I should have realized you were a dick when you came into my room twice during the night and said you were scared of sleeping on your own and could you get in with me? I told you to piss off and then, weeks after the German class ended, you kept phoning me up asking me out. So, in the end I thought, okay fine, and we went out on a date and got blind drunk and had some rather functional sex, like I was a prostitute you’d paid for the night and you’d better get your monies worth. Like, you’d wake me up every hour and just get on top. By the morning I was sober, not to mention a little sore.

When I saw you in the cold light of day, I made the mistake of laughing at your very hairy chest and started rubbing it for fun. And you said, “Can you please stop doing that, you’re creating static electricity.” I thought it was funny that I was generating static electricity, but you’d lost your sense of humor. You were dying to get out of there, even though I’d made it quite clear I thought of you as nothing but a (rather poor) one night stand. Thank you for teaching me, that while there may be twenty-three go rounds, for you, there is only one position in a one night stand. Your ‘girlfriend’ is welcome to you.

Dear James,
I dated you when I was eighteen. I thought you were very deep and meaningful because you listened to the Smiths. We went camping and watched the sunrise on the sea. I didn’t want to go all the way with you, I suppose, because I didn’t fancy you all that much, but it was all very romantic. You wrote me love poems. Then I started at university and started shagging someone else. You might have still had a chance if you hadn’t sent me some stuff copied from a German porn magazine with Emma and James inserted in the text as the protaganists, i.e.

“Oh, shove your great German sausage deep into me,” sighed Emma. “It is so huge and wide and red.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said James, “I am dying to perform the Geschlechtsverkehr with you (bit of info: did you know that sexual intercourse is translated in German, literally as ‘genital traffic'?)

For some reason, this porn letter turned me off you, so I sent you the old dear John letter. Why then did you come up to the University and stick a note on my door asking to meet you at the Cathedral? When I didn’t meet you, why did you phone me a year later telling me you were “still a bit upset at the way things ended between us.”

I can only hope you’ve gotten over me now.

Dear Steve,
Thank you for replying to a personal ad I put up on the Internet. While I appreciated your offer to play naked squash with you (“The grounds are totally secluded, we will have total privacy. You have not know exhilaration until you have played squash naked,”) you must understand that I had a small voice in my head telling me you were a raving lunatic who enjoyed taking young women away to secluded houses and murdering them. You may have just wanted a game of squash. I’m sorry if I judged you unnecessarily, and if your intentions were honorable.

Dear Craig,
I was twenty six and old enough to know better when I met you, a man of about fifty. You said you would take care of me, that I was “a little seed that just needed careful nurturing to grow.” I never seemed to understand why, every time you took me to a restaurant or pub, you seemed to have forgotten your wallet, and I had to pay for everything. I cheered up considerably when you said you had purchased a little love nest for us both on Portobello Road. You told me the number of the flat and when I went to check it out, I found it didn’t exist. I began to realize you might have an ulterior motive for dating me, i.e. robbing my flat, when you asked me to have a key cut for you so that you could “surprise you in the morning with fresh croissants and orange juice and slip into bed beside you before you woke up.”

I got my own back one evening, when I invited you to dinner with my mum and dad, two people who loathe each other and hadn’t seen each other for years. When you turned up your face went white. You probably thought I was getting serious and wanted to introduce you to my dear parents, when in fact I just wanted to get rid of you. My dad was drunk and was having a go at my mum. He is an upper class twit and was yelling, “My dear, you are just a fucking Austrian peasant!” And while they were having a screaming row, you looked like you were going to cry. You’d thought I was a bit of posh who you could get some money out of, but now you were having to deal with her awful dysfunctional family, and you didn’t like it one bit.

Well, I hope it taught you a lesson, you self-deluded old fool.

Click here to check out the other open letters this month, and to get more info on the blog exchange: