Is it ever that simple.  It's like dating is this game in which only the female players get a rule book.  Men are forced into a place where we have to be ambigous about good things, and forceful about bad things.  Why? Because if we say we are going to call you at 6:00,  that all of a sudden becomes a binding contract in which you think you are entitled to some type of remedy even if circumstances render it impossible for that call to be made at 6. Get over it. So now, I've been trained to say, I'll talk to you later.  Oh, the ever so profitable ambiguity that gives my mind peace. 

But any ambiguities in something negative get disregarded.  So when it comes to telling a friend, they are just a friend-- and will forever remain a friend-- it requires being blunt, sometimes painfully so.  Why does it have to be this way? Why if a man is nice to a woman for any extended period of time, she is mentally picking out wedding dresses? I will never understand.

But women have this coded language that even they themselves don't understand, and despite reading pages upon pages and endless arguments and discussions.  I feel no closer to understanding in fact, I feel farther away.  Example-- how do you know a woman is not interested.  If you get referred to with any sibling like nickname, and/or compared to her female friends-- you are dead in the water. Pack it up, game over.  Perhaps ther are exceptions to the rule-- but let's be honest-- short of coming into some serious cash, or finding anothr girl u treat so well, that she ends up feeling stupid and jealous, or a total makeover (all of which most times do nothing for you being "just like a lil brother,") she will be doing her hair whenever you ask her to go out, or on the other line whenever you call her, saving she has a problem w/ another guy she wants to pour on to you.

But for the most part, She's just not into you. Is almost identical to-- she is really into you.  The external behavior is almost the same-- but what's going inside who the hell knows?  It was an okay movie-- but really who wants to be anyone in the film-- relationships-- things we all seem to be fighting for can't be oversimplified and wrapped up in a neat lil' kiss wherein he leans in, and she tilts her head to the side, both eyes closed envisioning this invariable, wedded bliss. But I was glad to see the flick was not overly Disney-fied, and did bear some semblance with reality:

The milk dries up when you buy the cow, if he lies to you about little things dont put it past him to lie about bigger things, ultimatums work-- for a short time, their is always someone prettier than you, don't be insecure about it he probably doesn care,don't ever assume a guy likes you, especially if you like him, because now the lens ur viewing evrything he does with is drastically obscurred, women's intution is a bitch-- she probly knows ur guna do something wrong before you do.  Marriage is nevr the cure, but cud very well be the problem.

I feel women are insatiable.  I feel as soon as I get one thing down.  A new complaint stems from it.  I think there is an eternal tight rope that men are expected to walk, jog, or run across on the whims of a woman.  Because afterall a woman wants what she wants. And if it so happens that she wants the impossible, it is up to that man, or in this case, this man, to make the impossible happen or hear about his shortcomings. 

Now I do alot for a relationship. And yes for a relationship. Money, time, energy, sleep all sacrifices I have been ready and willing to make in order to make things work.  But my question is always-- will it ever be enough?

More and more on television, in music, I see the theme that women want EVERYTHING.  And I am better than what I was before. But the push to be this prince charming is still being made... and I am no prince charming. In fact, I think I am closer to the frog.

I can talk about the positives I have.  I love women in general. The way they walk, talk, smell... taste.  I can be a true gentleman or a savage.  I open doors and I don't mind all the domestic crap.  I'll take out garbage, wash dishes, shovel snow-- because my mom had to do all of that stuff, and the fact my father did not, made him less of a man in my eyes. 

But the negatives (trust me, a much more numerous list) include:  I don't like the mushmush.  Maybe all it took was that first heartbreak. Maybe I'm just over it.  Maybe I don't think it makes a difference. Maybe it's one of those things where it just hurts too bad to have it criticized.  So you won't hear me saying things like I love you gooberpop, sugarplum, pumpkintit.

And I guess the tension comes from, who wants to be with a woman who you feel like is unsatisfied? Especially when she did seem MUCH more satisifed before she got the thing she wanted more than anything-- the title and exclusivity. I remember when I believed just that would be enough to keep her happy. Dumb right.  

I just don't see why I have to change.  If I do more than what I am doing now, won't it just feel like work? Like wearing a uniform.  Showing up, clocking in, and never...ever clocking out.  When we were just friends I got her a bookbag and she practically lit up.  I got her perfume and she loved it. I bought a diamond necklace, and while she appreciated it, the first thing she noticed was that the card wasn't heavily inscribed.  And again I can't be mad at that. She's always been the type of girl where sentiment weighed more heavily than materiality.  But the sentiment was there. I don't know who wants to keep trying and keep failing? Especially if each thing feels like a gamble.  And you sit there and see if maybe you've got a winner... and you don't.

But I guess I don't know where these requirements settled into the relationship. And although most people wouldn't call them requirements I don't know what else to refer to them as. 

You don't call enough.

You don't say I love you enough.

You don't write to me anymore.

You don't treat me like a queen.

But, I guess it's hard not to feel like the emphasis is always on what I don't do. Rather than what I do-do, my dooties (said with a Chandler giggle).  But guess can only try harder right.  Just wish women came with a handbook, becomes sometimes it just feels like a fight with the impossible...