That's men for you: I was wandering around a garden centre the other day when I spotted a little selection of plaques for sale with jokes on them about men.
You know the sort of thing:
"Most mornings I wake up feeling grumpy, but sometimes I just let him sleep."
Or: "Q: What do you call a man with half a brain?
A. Gifted."
Or: "Q. What did God say after creating man?
A: I can do better."
I got to wondering why you don't see plaques like that with jokes about women on them in your friendly garden centre.
Could it be that the emancipated sisters can dish it out but cannot take it?
It is not that women do not like jokes, or even dirty jokes. I have seen some of the jokes they text each other and they would strip the paint off the walls.
I realise, I even applaud, the fact that women are getting their own back in the jokes department after many decades of tolerating stupid sexist jokes.
Naturally they are retaliating, not by developing nice girlie jokes, but by making stupid sexist jokes about men.
Jokes like: "Q: Why did God create man?
A: Because vibrators can't mow the lawn."
Holy Goddesses!
Can you imagine the reaction if you were to make and publish a similar joke about women? (And, no, I have absolutely no idea what a similar joke about women might be.)
Well, I am not going to turn around now and retell a bunch of sexist jokes about women.
Still, in the spirit of the above, I thought I might bring to a wider public the following dozen hints and tips for women seeking to understand their men.
I assure you that if women could just manage to observe this wisdom, life would be so much better for everybody. Here they are:
1. Girls, please learn how to use a toilet seat. After you're finished, leave it up, not down.
2. Learn to live with the fact that we are not always thinking about you.
3. Don't ask us which pair of shoes goes best with your dress. We don't know and, more importantly, we don't care.
4. If you tell us about a problem and we give you a solution, don't start banging on about our lack of empathy. If you want someone to cry with you and to bang on endlessly about whatever it is, go out with the girls.
5. If we said something unpleasant to you six months ago and if we've already had the row about it, you are not allowed to bring it up again. We have served our sentence and have paid our debt to society.
6. You can interpret our jokes in a way that makes you laugh or in a way that makes you angry. Kindly understand we meant the first, not the second.
7. In those cases where you know best how to do something, please save us all a lot of trouble and do it yourself. We understand this means you are going to be a very busy girl but, hey, that's the price of perfection!
8. If you have something important to say, please condense it to a statement that can fit in between the commercials.
9. There is no need to demand that we keep telling you we love you. We told you the day we got married. What more do you want?
10. We don't know the difference between the colour you put in your hair today and the one you had in it this morning which differs from it by one-millionth of a shade. We know all your female friends will squeal with delight at this minuscule change but, trust us, we really, honestly don't know - it's the way our brains are wired up.
11. We cannot read your mind. Unless you tell us what you want, we cannot give it to you. Honestly.
12. You cannot read our minds. You do not know what we "really" meant. Honestly.
pomorain@irish-times.ie
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.