Tips for women: How to have a relationship with a guy

   By DAVE BARRY
   Knight Ridder News Service

       CONTRARY TO what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop 
       a long-term, stable,intimate, and mutually fulfilling 
       relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador 
       retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is 
       because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term 
       relationship.

       Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named 
       Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a 
       pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, 
       and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other 
       regularly, and after a while neither one of them is
       seeing anybody else.

       And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought 
       occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it 
       aloud: ''Do you realize that, as of tonight,we've been seeing 
       each other for exactly six months?''

       And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a 
       very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it 
       bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined 
       by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into 
       some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

       And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

       And Elaine is thinking; But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this 
       kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little 
       more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really 
       want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward ... 
       I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing 
       each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward 
       marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I 
       ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this 
       person?

       And Roger is thinking ... so that means it was ... let's see ... 
       February when we started going out, which was right after I had 
       the car at the dealer's, which means... lemme check the odometer 
       ... Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

       And Elaine is thinking: He"s upset. I can see it on his face. 
       Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from 
       our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has 
       sensed -- even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some 
       reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant 
       to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being 
       rejected.

       And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the 
       transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's 
       still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on 
       the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's eighty-seven 
       degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a goddamn garbage 
       truck, and I paid those incompetent thieving cretin bastards six 
       hundred dollars.

       And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd 
       be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, 
       but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

       And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 
       ninety-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the 
       scumballs.

       And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting 
       for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm 
       sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy 
       being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems 
       to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my 
       self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

       And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give 
       them a goddamn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it 
       right up their ...

       ''Roger,'' Elaine says aloud.

       ''What?'' says Roger, startled.

       ''Please don't torture yourself like this,'' she says, her eyes 
       beginning to brim with tears. ''Maybe I should never have ... 
       Oh God, I feel so...'' (She breaks down, sobbing.)

       ''What?'' says Roger.

       ''I'm such a fool,'' Elaine sobs. ''I mean, I know there's no 
       knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and 
       there's no horse.''

       ''There's no horse?'' says Roger.

       ''You think I'm a fool, don't you?'' Elaine says.

       ''No!'' says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

       ''It's just that ... It's that I ... I need some time,'' Elaine 
       says.

       (There is a fifteen-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast 
       as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he 
       comes up with one that he thinks might work.)

       ''Yes,'' he says.

       (Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

       ''Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?'' she says.

       ''What way?'' says Roger.

       ''That way about time,'' says Elaine.

       ''Oh,'' says Roger. ''Yes.''

       (Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, 
       causing him to become very nervous about what she might say 
       next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

       ''Thank you, Roger,'' she says.

       ''Thank you,'' says Roger.

       Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, 
       tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets 
       back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, 
       and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis 
       match between two  Czechoslovakians he  never heard of. A tiny 
       voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something 
       major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure 
       there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he 
       figures it's better if he doesn't think about it. (This is also 
       Roger's  policy regarding world hunger.)

       The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two 
       of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight 
       hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she 
       said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, 
       exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of 
       meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will 
       continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe 
       months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never 
       getting bored with it, either.

       Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a 
       mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before 
       serving, frown, and say: ''Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?''

       We're not talking about different wavelengths here. We're 
       talking about different planets, in completely different solar 
       systems. Elaine cannot communicate meaningfully with Roger about 
       their relationship any more than she can meaningfully play chess 
       with a duck. Because the sum total of Roger's thinking on this 
       particular topic is as follows:

       Huh?

       But the point I'm trying to make is that, if you're a woman, and 
       you want to have a successful relationship with a guy, the 
       Number One Tip to remember is:

       1. Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a 
       relationship.

       The guy will not realize this on his own. You have to plant the 
       idea in his brain by constantly making subtle references to it 
       in your everyday conversation, such as:

       ''Roger, would you mind passing me a Sweet "n' Low, inasmuch as 
       we have a relationship?''

       ''Wake up, Roger! There's a prowler in the den and we have a 
       relationship! You and I do, I mean.''

       ''Good News, Roger! The gynecologist says we're going to have 
       our fourth child, which will serve as yet another indication 
       that we have a relationship!''

       ''Roger, inasmuch as this plane is crashing and we probably have 
       only about a minute to live, I want you to know that we've had a 
       wonderful fifty-three years of marriage together, which clearly 
       constitutes a relationship.''

       Never let up, women. Pound away relentlessly at this concept, 
       and eventually it will start to penetrate the guy's brain. Some 
       day he might even start thinking about it on his own. He'll be 
       talking with some other guys about women, and, out of the blue, 
       he'll say,''Elaine and I, we have, ummm ... We have, ahhh ... We 
       ... We have this thing.''

       And he will sincerely mean it.

       The next relationship-enhancement tip is:

       2. Do not expect the guy to make a hasty commitment.

       By ''hasty,'' I mean, ''within your lifetime.'' Guys are 
       extremely reluctant to make commitments. This is because they 
       never feel ready.

       ''I'm sorry,'' guys are always telling women, ''but I'm just not 
       ready to make a commitment.'' Guys are in a permanent state of 
       nonreadiness. If guys were turkey breasts, you could put them in 
       a 350-degree oven on July Fourth, and they still wouldn't be 
       done in time for Thanksgiving.

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