my nephew went back to portland this morning, and since i was in charge of driving to the airport, rob & his roommate jason (red) joined us for the trek. so after all the have-to-do things were out of the way, we ate lunch at the sports bar. yes, the sports bar. the one that they hang out at like all the time. i'm not knocking sports bars outright - i mean, i've been to this same sports bar myself on more than one occasion to watch some hockey. my point is that i wouldn't hang out at this place on any sort of a regular basis. actually, that's not even my point at all.

i met some guy (forgot the name) who is a manager or something - rob & red know him because as i said, they go there a lot. so i don't even remember how it came up, but this guy says something to the effect of "i don't care who it is. if you say 'let's go get some porn', any guy will be into that." huh? sheesh. i tried to get rob & red to come up with a similar stereotypical statement that could apply to women, something like "if you say 'let's go shopping', any woman would be into that." or something equally stupid. they never did, though. they just said nonsense like "all women are bad drivers" and "all women commune with the mothership nightly." bollocks to them. and if anyone communes with the mothership at night, it's most definitely the male sex.

so are men unable to evolve beyond that established set of conventional male 'laws'? more importantly, why do some men pretend to be not of that mold when they're around females, yet devolve as soon as they're in the company of other males? how retarded is that? i can't imagine telling men "i hate shopping!" and then getting around some females and suddenly being all "let's go shopping! i love to shop!"

red mentioned something about "wanting what you can't have" and i interpreted that one way - mentioning guys who don't want it while they have it, but when it's not there anymore, then they want it back. he said that wasn't really what he meant, he was saying more that the chase is what's thrilling for guys. oh bloody hell. let's all read the rules and follow them, shall we? yes. let's go back to the golden days of playing mind games. let's re-learn how to be women, because apparently we've gone off track. we're just trophies, remember?

listen to some of this stuff from customer reviews:

• Sadly enough, men still want the thrill of the chase - all men, even the good ones. This book addresses a basic fact of life, and tells you how to get what you want, no matter what is politically correct, the proper "feminist" thing to do, and etc.
  what you say?! 'even the good ones?' that doesn't sound very good to me. 'a basic fact of life?' that only reinforces my snarky remark about men being incapable of evolution.
• The rules are outta sight!!! Some of them common-sense, like when they encourage women to look reasonably feminine, you'd think this would be so obvious, but so many women who want a loving relationship are missing this basic mark.
  oh yes. very important. what? those clothes aren't comfortable? too bad! you don't like them? too bad! ok. i have to admit that this one just pissed me off because i'm nearly always wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and i also love my overalls. i've had more than one person in my life (all men, however) tell me that i should dress more 'feminine' if i want to catch a man. a) i don't want to 'catch' a man and b) if he can't deal with me in the clothes that i'm comfortable in, then i'm sure we'd have a multitude of other problems anyway.
• The final thing I want to mention about The Rules is that, despite all appearances, it is NOT a book about how to manipulate men. NO. It is a book about how to manipulate YOURSELF so that you will not throw yourself at some hapless fellow, who might, God willing, turn out to be YOUR Mr. Right.
  sheesh. does that one even need a comment? i think not.

anyway, i should shut up about that because i haven't even read the stupid book. i just don't understand the whole 'chase' thing, so i went off on a tangent. i can completely understand the excitement, or the thrill, whatever. i've always loved the lyric nothing quite like the feel of something new, because i mean - there isn't anything like that. it can apply to many different things. if i take this train of thought, however, and apply it to a man - of course it's exciting at first. you don't know all of their faults. you haven't heard all of their stories 50 times. i think that a lot of the time both people are subconsciously putting up a facade, so it all seems lovely. if i've made beyond that point with someone, though, it's because i wanted to. there's still something there. so if i'm with a guy i've been with for 5 years, of course it's not all exciting and new (like the love boat) anymore, but that doesn't mean it has to just suck and be boring, either.

hmm. i guess this is why i'm still single, eh? probably so. i do realize that there are men out there who aren't completely daft, but i'd say the chance of me finding one and developing a lasting relationship with him is quite slim. i guess i'm just headed for spinster-ville.