80% nice + 20% mean

A woman's heart is like an onion. I could spend the rest of my days peeling back the layers, only to be met with more layers. There is no inner truth, only layers.

Women have been called fickle, but then so has love, but then I'm convinced that love was invented by women. It's our fault for believing the lie when our genitalia tells us otherwise. After all, can you really blame the billboards for being broke and fat or yourself?

I always figured women just didn't know themselves, didn't know their true nature and spent every day trying to change who they were in an attempt to find out or were waiting for a man to tell them.

I could be wrong.

Now, I realize, it doesn't matter. Men don't have to understand women any more than a fisherman have to understand fish. That is to say, we must must understand female behavior and ignore the rationalizations that justify it.

Case in point: I happen to be dating a drop-dead gorgeous blonde who is a little bit of a ditz, a little bit of a child and who complains endlessly that I'm "mean". She asks me why I'm mean to her. I ask her why she would be with someone who is "mean" to her. She thinks about it for awhile and replies, "Well, you're not always mean. Sometimes you're really nice."

She's right. Sometimes, frequently, I am really nice to her. I cuddle with her, give her sweet kisses on the forehead, tuck her into bed, pat her bottom, make her laugh and generally encourage her to do whatever she thinks is best for herself.

But the mean parts are where I refuse to give her what she wants. I refuse to fall in love with her, refuse to call her my girlfriend, insist that I don't want a girlfriend and that I've been honest from the beginning only to listen to her rationalize in the following manner:
"Well, I mean . . . what really is a girlfriend? What is a relationship? Y'know, it's just friends and--"

"No, you know what a girlfriend is and what a relationship is, and right now, I'm just not looking for that."

"But, y'know, I mean, I just like being with you."

"I like being with you, too."

Of course, when she refers to me being mean, she could be talking about the time I spanked her until she cried because she wouldn't tell me what I wanted to know.

So I ask her why she would respond to such treatment. She says that she doesn't and that she responds much better to being treated nice.

I performed a little experiment on the off chance that I was wrong. Here's what I did:

I was really nice and sweet and kissed her and held her and whispered nice things in her ear about how beautiful she was and how good she smelled and so on. I slipped my hand under her skirt and tested her reaction. Think of it as a litmus test of sorts, except most such tests don't get you laid.

Dry as a bone. She might have been aroused emotionally, but not physically.

Then I was mean to her. I bossed her around, twisted her arm and forced her into my arms and kissed her hard on the mouth and bit her chin and turned her roughly around and had her bend over the counter while I checked her underwear.

She was wet.

Have I proven my case? She was ready and that was all the signal and reinforcement I needed.

The fact is you girls respond to a man's aggression, our assertiveness, our possessiveness. Yes, sometimes it's too much and it's a turn off, but even then there's a part of you that likes it.

The hot blonde I'm seeing (who is my age, by the way, and that is kind of refreshing) complains to no end that I think I understand women, but that I really don't. I always respond that I seem to understand enough to get her on her back with legs in the air, and that I've managed to avoid the usual traps that women subconsciously lay for us foolish men.

I'll let you be the judge. You can throw a pie in my face, slap me, throw a drink at me, if you like, and I'll freely admit that I'm not expert at keeping women, but I've never had a problem getting women.

Maybe that's what she means. Maybe the meanness will get her going in bed, but drive her away eventually.

But then, there's the depth. I'm a deep person, a truth seeker, a man open to discussion and learning from his mistakes.

Confusing, no? Not to me, but then I know me and I know what I'm about.

But I'm willing to be publicly educated so I'll put it to you. . . .

Why would a sweet, beautiful woman put up with a man who was mean to her every now and then?