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

What is it with women trying to emasculate men? Is it all women, or just the ones I hang out with? It always starts with small things: how stupid I am, or demeaning my clothes.

"I can't believe you're going to wear that, I can't believe you're going to eat that, I can't believe you leave the seat up. You're so Cro‑Magnon." It's always something I've done.

A woman will bitch and complain about having to do some task, so I'll do it, and then she'll complain about how I did it or that I'm doing something for myself that has no relation to her.

These compulsions are really about a woman's desire to control something. Men, stereotypically, are the breadwinners, so women want to control the household. The cave. Naturally, we let them do it, but they know that if they're not bringing in the paycheck, they don't really control the household. I know. I know. Lots of women do bring in a paycheck. Must we lose everything?

We let them control the kids because, after all, they have them. We also know that if we just slip Junior a couple of bucks he'll do what Dad wants.

Women do control childbirth, which scares the hell out of men and makes us feel so worthless that it explains why we felt we had to otherwise own the world.

- -

With men, being a bonehead is all related to our lack of concentration.

"Gosh, I just wasn't thinking. I totally forgot. I didn't mean to hurt you. That was not my intent."

"Well, what the hell was your intent?"

Every guy's been in this position, and you've just got to learn to ride it out. Sure, women expect us to think all of the time, but who can? It takes a lot of energy that would be better spent trying to find the Makita saw she took and somehow misplaced.

Still, men lapse in and out of consciousness all day long. Women are always conscious. They're always thinking. And as social, responsible beings, they think laterally: "This act would probably hurt that person."

Men think vertically. "What can I do to go higher, get there, move that, acquire this?" Men are on autopilot. We're always comparing ourselves to the next guy and what he's got. That's how we're defined. Within twenty minutes of meeting another guy, a guy will always hear, "So what do you do?"

Women ask the same question.

Actually, it's not such a stupid question coming from a woman these days. If a guy is an ax murderer, a woman should try to find out as soon as possible. If he's an emergency‑room technician or if he handles dangerous radioactive chemicals, it's good to know right away. I know one woman who insists this line of questioning is a North American trait. In other localities, like India, it's "How many cows do you have?"

Here's what also gets under my skin. If men are such boneheads, what are women? It seems to me women get off the hook all the time. My wife's apologies are much quicker than mine. Maybe it's because she's so used to being right. I don't think men are wrong more than women. We just take the blame more than women.

Let me sum it up this way: When you're courting, there's a lot of good behavior on both sides-and you aren't ever going to see it again until one of your parents dies.

- -

I've never gotten over being shocked that someone as physically small as my wife can make me so angry-and get me to believe it's all my fault. My wife is very much like the man. I'm very much like the woman. I'm the one who's always getting punished.

When we're driving, it's crazy. I'm behind the wheel and she's saying, "Turn left!" I'll turn left. Then she says, "No, this wasn't right." So I say, "Why did you tell me to turn left?" I could have driven this route seventeen times and she's going, "Don't. . turn up here!" But I do, and then wonder why. Now I'm lost because I listened to her. Why? It's all about power.

"Why do I listen to you?"

"Well, I don't go that way," she says.

"Fine. But you're not driving," I say. "When you're driving I don't tell you which way to go. I assume you know-and very often you don't, and you'll blame me for not telling you where to go."

And at that point I'd like to tell her exactly where to go.

I have no idea why I listen to her when I already know where fm going. If she had been driving and I'd done the same thing, she would have belted me. When she screws up, she just says, "Aw, well, this was stupid," and then just moves on.

I go, "Hey! Hey!" I wait for these moments. When she's finally wrong, fm ready to bring up all the other times that she accused me of doing the same stupid thing and how I had to humiliate myself begging for her forgiveness.

But she won't cop to anything.

The only time I get an apology is when she's made the same type of mistake I have, close enough to when I did it, so there's no way she can say, with a straight face, that she doesn't remember.

I still felt I wasn't getting my share of apologies, so I got a computer just to keep track of this stuff. It's all cross‑referenced, and I've even got it to print out pie charts of our transgressions as well as cross‑referencing them to argument topics, argument duration, and intensity.

- -

Take heart. Marriage can be fun. Wives are women, too. And they can be lots of fun. I love to travel with my wife. Her female sensibilities are so different that I always see the world in new ways. We're on a trip, we're highly excited, we behave better, the romantic spark that linked us returns, she reads the Autobahn and Autostrada road maps like a pro. (Besides, you can't make any quick left turns at two hundred kilometers an hour, with a big Benz on your tail.) We go to nice hotels, eat great meals, get dressed up, marvel at the wonders of the world. And the wonders of our enduring partnership. If you get away now and then, you can look at your life from a new point of view. It's refreshing. And I'm not just saying this to be nice.

If we hadn't had a child, we'd probably never come home.

Pretty soon we can take her with us.

- -

As I'm sure you realize, I've been speaking in generalizations for comic effect. And I've changed some names to protect the guilty. As Kurt Vonnegut once said in the epigraph of an early novel, the innocent don't need his protection because "God Almighty protects the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine."

In this book, I've said, "Men are like this, and women are like that." But not necessarily. I know many women who are like this. I try to stay away from the guys who are like that. That is not what this book's about.

The older you get, the more you realize there are fewer absolutes in the world and more perspectives. Stereotypes do describe the more common occurrences, but not always.

Life before marriage is a great time of life. Then one day everyone has to join the real world: jobs, love, and settling down. And no more bullshit. The people I knew who didn't settle down are now dead.

"Whatever happened to Joey?"

"Died."

"Marjorie?"

"Went to a commune and died."

Just want to see if you're paying attention.

Imminent death notwithstanding, this doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your ideals. It just means forcing your ideas to mesh with the real world. Once upon a time I thought I could change the world. Now, although I have influenced part of the world we live in, I still come home from work and hope that dinner's on the table. Before the meal, I'll watch TV and gather myself. This is something men do, like the caveman who just stared at the fire after a long day's hunting. We commune long and hard with the electronic embers, not wanting to speak with anybody.

Later, after I've talked to the wife and played with the kid, and helped clean up the dishes, I'll disappear into my garage workshop, where I can manipulate my own little world to my heart's content. And in there it's so nice being married.