A Nice Chat Through Gritted Teeth

In a spirit of harmony and goodwill, feminism professor Gina Barreca and I today will conduct our discussion as “a synectic session.” This is a classic tool of weenie management consultants in which both parties are prohibited from being even slightly critical of the other’s ideas, and each idea must constructively build on the previous one. Our topic is ways in which men and women can improve their interpersonal relationships during the new year.

Gene: In this joyous holiday postseason, I would like to begin by respectfully expressing the hope that women discontinue their near-ritual practice of positioning their behinds immediately in front of the TV screen during critical third-down situations.

Gina: Your observation is not only excellent but true. Females often commit this transgression while performing janitorial duties for males, who communicate their understandable displeasure with a courtly back flap of the hand, the way you would keep sea gulls away from your food. Usually this happens in the presence of a television set the size of a pickup truck, which is the heterosexual man’s sole contribution to home decor. That’s my wish for the new year: an end to the large-appliance theory of interior design.

Gene: What’s wrong with big TVs?

Gina: (stony silence)

Gene: OK, I mean, your answer was simply delightful, with fairies dancing on it and everything, but what’s wrong with big TVs?

Gina: Oh, nothing. They look elegant. That is why every time you leaf through Architectural Digest, the focus of the room in the French country manor is the 75-inch Toshiba with surround sound.

Gene: I admit you make a worthy observation, vis-a-vis magazines and women’s higher degree of sophistication. No doubt, this is why all women’s magazines--magazines with no mission other than to nourish the intellectual thirst of America’s women--are entirely about catching a man, keeping a man, losing weight to catch a man, having sex to keep him, and shoes.

Gina: Congratulations! You raise a fascinating point about keeping a man, and the nature of relationships. Studies have actually shown that the average woman who is about to leave her husband or boyfriend wants to first set him up with some other woman. But if the average man intends to leave his wife at midnight, and he is at a party with her at 10 p.m., and some other guy is putting the moves on her, he’ll give the guy a dirty look and, if necessary, punch him out. To men, romance is about possession. It is a contemptible character flaw. Change that, why don’t you? You know, for the new year.

Gene: I compliment you on your clever parody of the hectoring, strident, mannish harridan.

Gina: Good for you. You yourself have broached yet another area in which men need improvement. Stop applying double standards to women. When we raise our voices in anything other than an eye-batting coo, you contend we are being unladylike.

Gene: An excellent argument, except where’s the double standard?

Gina: Good question. Men decry the unladylike only when it suits them. For example, a [certain common yet slightly unorthodox sex act not endorsed or even officially acknowledged by this newspaper] is unladylike, yet I hear no complaints.

Gene: Whoa.

Gina: You bracketed me!

Gene: I didn’t. The editor did.

Gina: He’s a man, isn’t he?

Gene: Yes.

Gina: Naturally. The issue involved intimacy, and he substituted an ambiguous weaselly thought for a straightforward one. When emotions are involved, men have serious communication impairment. You guys need language labs. For example, what if I said, “I love you”? What is the appropriate response?

Gene: Um. . . .

Gina: The appropriate response to “I love you” is either “Goodbye” or “I love you, too.” The appropriate response is not “I know” or “Uh-huh.” Or, for that matter, “Um.”

Gene: Gina?

Gina: Yes?

Gene: I just wanted to say. . . .

Gina: Yes?

Gene: Happy New Year.