Tim Allen - Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

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A guy knows he's in love when he wants to grow old with a woman. It's when he wants to stay with her in the morning. It's when he doesn't want to leave the house. He starts calling sex "making love," and afterward he wants a great big hug. He loses interest in his car for a couple days.

It's that simple, I swear it. So he does what any decent guy would do. He starts, however tentatively, to think about marriage. And that's when it gets really scary.

The hardest thing about marriage is staying married. It's got nothing to do with sex. It has to do with money and power. Mostly power.

My mother‑in‑law made me get married. I'd been living with my wife for eight years and one night "mom" says, "I guess you guys are never gonna get married. I mean, you've been through jail together, you're living together, but. . oh, forget it."

"Oh, well," I said, "put it like that and I'll marry your daughter tomorrow."

Actually, I don't know what we were waiting for, except that for a guy it's never the right time to get married. In this case, I think we were both stalling. I'm also a bit suspicious of any two people who don't struggle with that decision. For instance, I can't imagine meeting someone and getting married days later. I don't know how these movie stars do it! Marriage is a big decision. Big enough to procrastinate almost a decade.

Part of my problem was that I was still lusting in my heart after other ladies. But somehow I knew that I wasn't going to find another woman remotely as great as my soon‑to‑be wife. It's a good thing my mother‑in‑law finally spoke up.

I finally gathered my courage one day when we were having a picnic, and popped the question. I also gave my wife a big tourist pamphlet about Switzerland. I wasn't taking any chances.

She said no.

It killed me. I felt sick to my stomach. I lost my appetite. Our dog just stared at me, thinking, "If you're not going to eat your lunch, I will." Finally, I said, "But the Switzerland trip is yours if you marry me."

"Switzerland," she said, "is filled with precise, humorless people.

"Maybe I should have suggested Paris?"

For a minute it seemed as if my change in travel plans would rate a solid "maybe." But she said no again.

When we woke up the next morning, she told me that she'd slept on my proposal. "I guess I was a little rude to you last night," she explained. Meanwhile, I'm figuring I'm off the hook for this marriage thing for at least another eight years. I could afford to be generous.

"I asked, you said no. It's okay," I said. I might have looked a little too relieved because later that day she gave me a little box. Inside was a gold watch. On the back was inscribed: "Yes. I've reconsidered."

I liked the watch, so I did the right thing.

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A lasting marriage is like a job. But here's the problem with jobs: They're great when you first get them. Then about a week into it you realize, "There are a few problems here." Then they get repetitious and boring. And pretty soon you think that the guy in the next cubicle has a much better job, which would suit you just fine.

The trick is to get past this.

The first time I dated my wife I envisioned us very old, sitting side by side on a couch. I've kept that picture in my mind forever. When you're old and ugly you're not really in the mood to go barhopping. The person you're with is about all you're going to get. Believe it or not, this can be a comforting image.

Sometimes the urge to merge with someone else really struggles to get the better of a guy. The urge is not unusual. It's not wrong. It's biology. The male drive to inseminate as many young and attractive females as possible before he passes out from skipping lunch is responsible for the rapid spread of our species and its survival. The trouble is that if you're married and you fool around, and your wife finds out, citing Scientific American works about as well as saying the guys in your bowling league all did it, too. Either way, you can end up sleeping in the front yard.

"But, honey, I did it for the sake of mankind."

"I got your mankind right here," she'll say, motioning at her ovaries.

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A woman I once dated told me stuff I never wanted to know.

"It was just one football team and it was just one Sunday afternoon."

"Why did you tell me that?"

"I just feel better telling you," she said.

"Right. You feel better. You fool around, you live with it."

"But it's the seventies. We shouldn't have secrets from each other."

"I guess you're right. Here's a few secrets I've been meaning to tell you: I never liked The Partridge Family. I hate the cheesy powder‑blue leisure suit you bought me. And, by the way, we're through!"

I think the lesson here is clear: Football isn't such a dumb game, after all.

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I love spicy, rich food. I avoid it because it makes me feel both bloated and about to explode. Similarly, I don't believe that monogamy is a biological truth, particularly for men. But I still don't fool around because my wife would put a grenade in my pants. That's feeling bloated and about to explode.

I think about sex all the time. Still. That's the difficult thing about marriage. And that's why I love discouraging young people with a clear picture of marital reality: "If sex is the reason you're getting married, then you shouldn't be getting married. I wouldn't get married just to have sex with the same person forever. You get married to have a family."

Monogamy is possible. Painful, but possible. After a fast, torturous transition period, during which a guy has to sort out all these issues for himself, things get better and suddenly extramarital excursions are no longer an issue. This happens when we're about eighty. Earlier, if you count the side effects of the antidepressants or blood‑pressure medicine. Either way, this stuff is tough for every man. The lunatic wants to stay loose. But by this age we know the lunatic well. It lives inside us night and day. The lunatic is tired of not having his way. The lunatic just wants to make trouble and noise. The lunatic wants to push us as close to death as possible, and pervert our last few drops of morality for its profane purposes. (Personal reminder: Call Stephen King.)

Now, quick! Get out your pencils and index cards. Here's my secret recipe for fidelity. First: I begin by telling myself I can do anything I want to do. That way, I don't act like a child and do something stupid just because I've been told "no." I don't curb my desire to murder people, either. I just don't do it. I add just a pinch of control, feel the feelings, let them simmer and evaporate. Never let your oven get too hot. Second: If and when sexual temptation is added to the mix, I can see clearly the right course of action without having my decision cluttered by my natural disrespect for authority. It helps if you season to taste with a woman who can accept that these feelings exist in a man, and if she can coexist with him and not make him feel bad about who he is. Fini! You can serve her that healthy, delicious relationship she thought only existed in cheap romance novels.

But be careful that she doesn't want you to wear blousy pirate shirts and change your name to Rafe.

Speaking of cheap romance, I always thought it would be great to live like an ancient Chinese warlord and have multiple wives. That would solve a lot of problems. If one makes you mad, you run to the other. On the other hand, what if you made them both mad? You're a warlord, for crying out loud. You run to another.

"Honey, I'm home from a hard day slaughtering barbarians."

"Don't talk to me, you armor‑plated goon. Go back to your hordes."

"Fine. Be that way. I'll just go over to Gladys's or Helen's, then."