
                                HOW GUYS THINK
                By Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize Winning Columnist



          Today we're  going  to  explore the mysterious topic of How Guys
     Think, which has  baffled  women  in  general,  and  the  editors  of
     Cosmopolitan magazine in particular, for thousands of years.

          The big question, of  course,  is:    How  come guys never call?
     After successful dates, I mean.  You single women out there know what
     I'm talking about.  You go out with a guy, and you have a great time,
     and he seems to have a great  time,  and at the end of the evening he
     says, quote, "Can I call you?" And you  -  interpreting  this to mean
     "Can I call you?" - answer:  "Sure!"

          The    instant  you  say  think,  the  guy's  body  starts    to
     dematerialize.  Within a few seconds you can stick a  tire iron right
     through  him  and  wave  it around:  in a few more  seconds,  he  has
     vanished entirely, gone  into  the  mysterious  Guy Bermuda Triangle,
     where whole squadrons of  your dates have disappeared over the years,
     never to heard from again.

          Eventually you start to wonder  if  there's something wrong with
     you, some kind of emotional hang-up  or  personality defect that your
     dates are detecting.  Or, possibly, foot  odor.    You  start  having
     long, searching discussions with your women friends in  which you say
     such things as:  "He really seemed to like  me" and "I didn't feel as
     though I was putting pressure on him" and "Would you  mind,  strictly
     as a friend, smelling my feet?"

          This  is silly.  There's nothing wrong with you.  In  fact,  you
     should  interpret  the  behavior  of  your  dates  as  a  kind of guy
     *compliment*  to  you.  Because when the guy asks you if he can  call
     you, what he's really asking you, in Guy Code, is will you marry him.
     Yes.  See, your  basic guy is into a straight-ahead, bottom-line kind
     of  thought process that does  not  work  nearly  as  well  with  the
     infinitely subtle complexities of human relationships as it does with
     calculating how much gravel is needed to  cover a given driveway.  So
     here's what the guy is thinking:  If  he  calls  you,  you'll  go out
     again,  and  you'll  probably  have  another great time -  so  you'll
     probably go out again and have *another* great time, and  so on until
     the only possible *option* will be to get married.  This  is  classic
     Guy Logic.

          So  when  you say "Sure!" in a bright and cheery voice, you  may
     think  you're simply indicating a willingness to go out again, but as
     far as he's concerned, you're endorsing a lifetime commitment that he
     is quite frankly  not  ready  to  make  after  only  one  date, so he
     naturally decides he can never see you again.  From that day forward,
     if he spots you on the street, he'll sprint in the opposite direction
     to avoid the grave risk that  the  two of you might meet, which would
     mean he'd have to ask you if  you  wanted to get a cup of coffee, and
     you might say yes, and pretty soon you'd  be  enjoying  each  other's
     company again, and suddenly a member of the clergy  would  appear  at
     the table and *you'd have to get married - Aieeeeeee!*

          (You  woman  think this is crazy, right?  Whereas you  guys  out
     there are nodding your heads.)

          So, my advice for single women is that if you're on  a date with
     a guy you like, and he asks whether he can call you,  you should give
     him a non-threatening answer, such as:  "No"

          Or:  "I guess so, but bear in mind that I'm a nun."

          This will make him comfortable about seeing you again, each time
     gaining the courage  to approach you more closely, in the manner of a
     timid, easily startled woodland  creature  such  as a chipmunk.  In a
     few years, if the two  of  you  really  do  have common interests and
     compatible  personalities, you may reach the  point  where  he'll  be
     willing to take The Big Step, namely,  eating  granola  directly from
     your hand.

          No matter how close you become, however, remember this rule:  Do
     not  pressure the guy to share his most sensitive  innermost  thought
     and feelings with you.  Guys hate this, and I'll  tell  you  why:  If
     you were to probe inside the guy psyche, beneath that macho  exterior
     and  the  endless droning about such things as the 1978 World Series,
     you would find,  deep  down  inside, a passionate, heartfelt interest
     in:  the 1978  World  Series.   Yes.  The truth is, guys don't *have*
     any sensitive innermost thoughts and  feelings.   It's time you women
     knew!  All these years you've  been  agonizing  about how to make the
     relationship work, wondering how come he never talks to you, worrying
     about all the anguished emotion he must have bottled up inside.  And,
     meanwhile, he's fretting about how maybe he needs longer golf spikes.
     I'm sorry to have to tell you this.  Maybe you *should* become a nun.

          Anyway,  I  hope I've cleared up any lingering questions anybody
     might  have  regarding  guys, as a gender.  For some reason,  I  feel
     compelled to end this with a personal note:

          Heather Campbell, if you're out there, I just want to say that I
     had a really nice time taking you to the Junior Prom in 1964,  and  I
     was  a  total  jerk  for never, not once, mentioning this fact to you
     personally.
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