They are so numerous and obvious that we really should live in separate dormitories.

  Don't get me wrong--I love men.  Especially the guys in my life--my husband and my son.  Sam and Sam.  The older young Sam gets, the more like old....ummm, middle aged Sam he becomes.  Now that the girls are gone, I'm alone in the "men's dormitory."  And the testosterone level really does get opressive sometimes.

Here are some of the major differences that come quickly to mind:

    Women love holidays.  We like the cards, sweets, flowers and romance that accompany holidays.  Men grumble about "another commercial holiday to force us into expressing ourselves."  Females live for the chance to express.  We are dramatic, personal, and they don't know what to do with that.

I also suspect that male and female memory is wired differently.  We women recall the most minute details that our friends uttered, the expressions on their faces, the intonation.  Men recall great sports events from when they were ten years old.  The men in my house are much better at remembering the restaurants, hotels, and other places where we met....ate...celebrated.  I believe that the storage cells in men's brains must look quite different than female memory storage. If we could see a man's brain, it would probably be full of maps and charts tucked into individual geometric cubby-holes.  Women's brains contain a series of fluffy pink boxes.  Open them, and a litter of magic rabbits pop out, uttering phrases spoken by our beloved ones.

     I must concede at this juncture--my guys are very romantic and sentimental about dates and places, while  I treasure every word of our first conversations.  Sam recalls the name of the restaurant and even the booth where we first held hands.  So between us, we conjure up marvelous images of our early courtship.  There are sometimes controversies about whether we even recollect the same event, they seem so diverse through our filters.


     Another glaring difference is mode of conversation.  Men seem comfortable with short bursts of information.  They prefer to simply hit the highlights. Women enjoy analysis, comparison, and even argument more than silence.  We all have a story to tell. Men think that a silent evening is golden contentment.  My guys are perfectly content to pass a 12 hour car trip without anything beyond, "You wanna Coke?"  That's why I often must make phone calls to my daughters when driving in the car with the Sams.  In fact, sometimes Sam#2 says, "When was the last time you talked to Julie?  You should give her a call." 

     One more arena where the gap between guys and dolls widens is the foods that drive us wild.  For women, chocolate is the undisputed supreme aphrodisiac.  No holiday is complete without it.  The buzz we get from it feels like love and  sometimes decently subs for it. I have never seen a man go into sonnets about chocolate, but believe me, we women even dream of the dark, smooth treat.  My men, in contrast, are convinced of my love, either maternal or spousal, when I serve salty, spices dishes such as pizza, chicken enchiladas, or meatball sandwiches.  If I could commission Calvin Klein to create a perfume, Eu De Lasagne would get me  more proposals than any pheromes.
     

    Male-female diversity is nowhere more evident than in the field of humor.  Sam says that gross is funny.  He also loves the Stooges and talk radio hosts, who are almost as boring as talk TV.  Sam #2 still thinks body noises are the most hilarious humorous expression.  I prefer the wit of written humor and  cartoon pages. The Far Side, Cathy, and Zits keep me giggling.   I'm still in mourning over the death of Erma Bombeck.   I used to read excerpts from her column to Sam, and he would look puzzled.  "Is she some kind of feminist?" he asked.
   

On these and so many other fronts our minds fail to meet.  Still, people keep getting married and spending their lives as couples.  We attend their ball games, try to talk the lingo, they accompany us to the art museum and the opera.  (Sam cocks his head to one side and make witty commentary, not knowing what the blazes he is talking about.)  We professional wives try to pass on to our daughters how to understand men even while we're cramming for the exams ourselves. Last night, I had an exercise date lined up with two of my female friends.  At the last minute, Gloria called.  "I can't come.  I have a date with my husband tonight.  We're going out for our anniversary."  There was an unmistakable lilt of passion in her voice.  

     There remains that strange, hypnotic yin-yang attraction that keeps us coming back for a second and third look.  It reminds me of the studies of Mars.  "Look!  They have water, just like Earth.  Only the atmosphere and landscape are completely different."  Women meet frequently to discuss our latest research on men and what we  think they mean when they talk, drive, and romance us.  Clearly, we could use a translator.  And maybe a box of chocolate.