LAUGH LINES : Men and Food: It’s a Match Made in Heaven

I took my kids to the pool the other day and caught a glimpse of myself in the lifeguard’s sunglasses. (A babe, I might add, so I was actually trying to suck in my stomach.) It was appalling. I was so bald, so fat, so white, I looked like the underside of Free Willy.

Why do middle-aged men get so sloppy? I think it stems from the way men eat.

Men eat foods that come in slabs.

Slabs and mounds. A slab between two mounds, often yellowy mounds--either by design or age.

This eliminates everything green, everything that swims and everything that might keep you alive past midnight Wednesday.

It’s easy to buy food for a man: Just buy something with a large bone in it he can wrestle with, gnaw on, then walk away from the table with barbecue sauce and flecks of char stuck on his cheek.

Women are not like this.

Women dread it when a man says, “You wanna go for ribs?”

That’s the last thing women want--to be on display sucking sauce off their fingers and picking corn from their teeth.

Women are like cats: Eat a little bit, then leave the rest for later.

Men are like dogs. They eat everything in front of them. Men don’t even taste the food. They simply want to finish as quickly as possible.

“Hey, Eddie, what was that thing you just ate, that thing that looked like a piece of fried stuff?”

“I don’t know. It was brown, right?”

It is a waste of time for a waiter to recite any of the day’s specials to a table full of men. Whenever the waiter gets to the last special, say, “fresh sea bass, lightly battered and sauteed in a balsamic vinaigrette, with cilantro and basil, and a bouquet of garden vegetables almondine,” a man, realizing he has run out of choices, will say, “Good. Gimme that, and put some nacho cheese on top, OK? And fries.”

When men are finished with their food, they pause for a second--so you’ll understand that they are trying to act polite--then they go around the table and eat the food from the women and children.

“You done with that?” a man will ask, grabbing your plate and eating your food with your silverware!

Women get their revenge by mixing their foods together.

Men hate this. God, how they hate mixed foods!

Men eat one thing at a time. Every man has a different order, but all men eat sequentially. Women eat randomly. They order premixed things, like risotto, then mix in more things. They comingle; they create. A woman’s plate looks like an artist has painted it. A man’s plate looks like Rin Tin Tin has licked it.

At a cocktail party, a woman will take something from this tray, something from that tray, put all these things on a small plate and nibble for the rest of the party. A man will go straight to the swinging doors and camp there, toothpick in hand, picking off whatever comes out on a tray. He will put nothing on a plate--he isn’t even holding a plate. Get him a shovel!

Women know this. And still, women care about how they look eating in front of men.

“Women don’t eat at all on the first date,” my friend Annie told me. “We don’t want a guy to think we’re pigs. We order something we can pick at; psychologically we’re trying to show him that we’re picky with food and we’re picky with men--also we don’t want to give him the impression that if he stays with us, he’ll wake up one day 20 years down the road and see he’s married to Bossy the Cow. A woman never orders spinach on a first date, because it sticks to your teeth, and it’s always there when you smile; never garlic or onion. Never order dessert either, or take a bite when he orders two.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” I asked.

“Starving!” Annie said. “The moment he drops you off, you head straight for the Haagen-Dazs and sit there in a housecoat, stuffing yourself just like . . . “

A man.