Put women on bagels: proposing a new theory

Sex in the Suburbs

Men have been fascinated with women since the dawn of time. Things were much easier back then. Nowadays, it would be judged a serious social faux pas to grunt at a woman and drag her back to your cave. Men have been forced to become more understanding with their romancing tactics.

"Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" is a book that has been hailed by many as a relationship bible. In his book, John Gray tries to provide some answers to common problems the sexes face. "Men mistakenly expect women to think, communicate and react as men do … as a result, our relationships are filled with unnecessary friction and conflict," Gray wrote.

During a telephone call last year with a girl I was courting, I experienced something of an epiphany … or, maybe I was just hungry. Nevertheless, my realization helped explain how men and women approach relationships differently.

To men, women are like cream cheese. As unflattering as that sounds, bear with me. A man approaches his relationship with a woman much in the same way he enjoys this popular breakfast spread.

The man, looking for something to spice up the monotony of his everyday existence, reaches for this creamy topping to add some pizzazz to his social life. He enjoys the cream cheese for a while, but soon becomes bored and considers other options.

The sugary, sweet jelly is a frequent temptress. Some men even enjoy cream cheese and jelly together. This complicates things and, for the sake of this analogy, I will not address the issue of two spreads — or women — at once.

Choosing to move on, the man carefully selects a Tupperware container for the cream cheese, and it gets pushed to the back of the refrigerator. The man experiments with other relationships, trying to find a perfect match. Then one day, the man remembers the joys of yesteryear — waking up and enjoying the ingredient that makes cheesecake so glorious. He returns for the cream cheese, reminding himself it was fresh last time he used it.

Much to the man's dismay, when he opens the long-lost Tupperware, he discovers that the cream cheese has spoiled. The man expected the feelings the woman once had for him always to be there. In reality, the woman's feelings changed, just like the cream cheese changed.

Moving out of the dairy section and back to reality, one of the reasons this concept is so hard for men to grasp is because a much different phenomenon takes place within the psyche of the modern male. He, on the other hand, is not like cream cheese. The male is like the quintessential little black dress — timeless.

I ask that the men reading this column side step their machismo and hang in there until the end. After a long day of shopping around the strip mall that represents our lives, the woman finally sets her eyes upon what she sees as the perfect dress. She is very proud of her latest find, and soon her friends see her wearing it almost all the time.

Well, like the attention span of a 6-year-old on a car trip to Disney World, the woman's interest wanes. Once again, she returns to the shopping mall to see what she may have missed the first time around. Time passes, as it has a tendency to do, and the woman goes through a number of different styles and colors of dresses.

There is the smooth-talking, cool-customer red dress, the slinky dress with the dashing demeanor, the puffy aquamarine dress — that no one understands why she bought — and the skimpy one-strap, just begging for a good time dress.

One day, frustrated with her wardrobe, the woman approaches her closet and, after a furious search, she finds her little black dress. She smiles and remembers the good times the two of them shared and casually slips into its reassuring fit. She smiles and proudly strides out to face the world.

Men are like that little black dress because, if they had feelings for a woman once, his feelings lie in the back of her closet — like the little black number does — awaiting their chance to be plucked out of the pile. When the woman's affection shines on him, all of the man's feelings come rushing out. It is almost as if nothing changed.

"The generalization is that women are feelers and men are thinkers," said Celeste Thomas of the Counseling and Student Development Center.

"If [women] are not feeling their feelings being reciprocated, they have tendency to move on."

When men put a relationship on the back burner, a women is hurt and, as a result of being hurt, they are less likely to return in the future, according to Thomas.

"It is the communication style that makes it appear the woman is moving on," Thomas said.

The black dress analogy helps to explain how men and women perceive their relationships and handle emotions from past relationships differently — as disparate as cream cheese and a black dress.

This insight into the mind-set of a male helps to explain why men are so confused and disappointed when trying to return to an old girlfriend who has moved on.

This also helps to alleviate a woman's bewilderment when she receives three phone calls from three different guys — usually around Valentine's Day — asking for one more chance on the bagel of our lives.