Those rules are great, Raptor, and they list a lot of the reasons why I find a fair percentage of my own sex extremely irritating a lot of the time. Silly women, fussing endlessly over trivia, make me ashamed to be female ! I agree with you, pdc: It has dawned on me, too, that men really *are* that simple and straightforward, and that's why I love them and much prefer their company to female company. You know where you are with men. Women (even though I am one myself, and a heterosexual one too, in case anyone wonders) are the ones who are more of a mystery to me.

I have never understood those "all girls together" kind of events or groups (Church Ladies' Circle; Women's Night at the Gym...that kind of thing). The idea of *choosing* to spend any length of time with a group of women exclusively is totally abhorrent to me. This is something I'm not looking forward to about getting old: given the different life expectancies of men and women, there are far, far more old women than men. I hope and pray that whichever Twilight Home I end up in, there will be some scruffy old bloke in the corner, watching the horse-racing and scratching where and when necessary, who I can sit with and exchange monosyllabic jokes - only during the adverts, of course !

- jeanie