This essay is written for guys. If you're not one, you might want to stop now, lest you be offended. For those of you still with me, I'm about to answer a question that has baffled men for generations: why can't guys understand women? A lot of people say that the reason men and women don't understand each other is because they aren't speaking the same language, but that doesn't explain it. How can a woman say something in perfectly clear English and actually mean something entirely different? No, she's not being deliberately deceptive, and she's not trying to trick you. After years of intense study and careful research, I've finally found the answer: there's a mental block in her brain that prevents one half - the subconscious half that determines her wants, needs, desires and feelings - from communicating directly with the conscious half - the part that communicates and interacts with the rest of the world, including you.

Here's one of my favorite examples. You're out driving, and she says she's hungry. You naturally assume that she's hungry. However, she's not really hungry; she only thinks she's hungry. The subconscious side of her brain is attempting to express a need, and the conscious side of her brain doesn't know what the need is, so it just makes something up. She's not lying to you; she just doesn't know what she wants and assumes she's hungry.

You ask her what she wants to eat, or where she wants to go. Taco Bell? Burger King? Now she's confused. She can't answer this question, because she wasn't really hungry to begin with. But she said she was, so she must want something to eat. But nothing sounds good, because she's not really hungry. She squirms a little, and looks very uncomfortable, and says “I don't know.”

You press the issue, because by now you're hungry too. You eventually get her to agree to something. When you get your food, she just sort of picks at it, instead of eating. She's obviously very troubled, and doesn't want the food, but it's what she said she wanted. You ask her what's wrong, and once again she doesn't know. Now she has three problems: her original need has gone unfulfilled, she's confused as to why she said she wanted this food when she obviously doesn't now, and now you're exasperated with her. Now she's upset.

So what is it that she originally wanted? It varies depending on the situation. One female friend of mine suggested that it usually boils down to wanting sex, but this is not always the case. The better you get to know the woman in question, the more patterns you will see, and the more predictable her behavior will become. You'll be able to form connections between the things she says and does, and the things she needs and wants. In this example, she probably wants her significant other to stop, look at her, say “I love you,” and cuddle for a few minutes. Then you can continue on, and she'll be floating for awhile. If you're her significant other, and if you can recognize what she wants, that's great. It only takes a few minutes, and then you can get back to what you were doing before started saying she was hungry. If you're not her significant other, my sympathies, because unless her significant other is there and can also recognize what's going on, it's going to get really annoying really quickly.

What if she really is hungry? How can you tell? Simple: she'll actually want something. Rather than saying “I'm hungry,” she'll say something more like “I'm really hungry; I want one of those spicy chicken sandwiches.” Or, if she doesn't want something in particular, it'll be “I'm really hungry, but I'm not sure what I want yet.”

The concept of the mental block applies to many other situations as well, although I can't think of any really good examples. The need is not always the same; as I said it varies. Also, one of the questions I haven't yet answered satisfactorily is, how do women communicate with each other? Is it telepathy? No, but I haven't figured out exactly how it works. That will take more study, and I usually avoid listening to groups of women talking amongst themselves, because they're usually talking about subjects I have no interest in. Hanging around them usually makes me uncomfortable, so I usually wander into the other room where the guys are talking about hunting, football and beer, which I'm also not interested, but at least the guys are normal.

I'd appreaciate any feedback on this essay. Please note that one of the rules is that if the rules are ever discovered, they must be immediately changed, so by the time you read this, all this information may already be obsolete. Of course, I heard that awhile ago, so the rule about changing the rules may no longer apply.