by Matt Groening

RELATIONSHIPS

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First of all, a man does not call it a relationship - he refers to it as "that time when me and Suzie were doing it on a semi-regular basis." When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled "All Men Are Idiots." Then she will get on with her life. A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the break-up, at 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, he will call and say, "I just wanted to let you know you ruined my life, and I'll never forgive you, and I hate you, and you're a total floozy. But I want you to know that there's always a chance for us." This is known as the "I Hate You / I Love You" drunken phone call, and 99% of all men have made it at least once. There are community colleges that offer courses to help men get over this need; alas, these classes rarely prove effective.

SEX

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Women prefer 30-40 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer 30-40 seconds of foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place part of the foreplay.

MATURITY

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Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

MAGAZINES

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Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked women. Women's magazines also feature pictures of naked women. This is because the female body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is lumpy and hairy and should not be seen by the light of day. Men are turned on at the sight of a naked woman's body. Most naked men elicit laughter from women.

HANDWRITING

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To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken-scratch. Women use scented, colored stationery and they dot their "i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their "p's" and "g's". It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note.

COMEDY

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Let's say a small group of men and women are in a room, watching television, and an episode of the Three Stooges comes on. Immediately, the men will get very excited; they will laugh uproariously, and even try to imitate the actions of Curly, man's favorite Stooge. The women will roll their eyes and groan and wait it out.

BATHROOMS

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A man has six items in his bathroom-a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

GROCERIES

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A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a beer. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett's car on Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane.

SHOES

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When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, then slip on Reebok sneakers. She wil carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When a woman gets to work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes later, she will kick them off because her feet are under the desk. A man will wear the same pair of shoes all day.

GOING OUT

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When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is ready to go out. When a woman says she is ready to go out, it means she WILL be ready to go out, as soon as she finds her earrings, finishes putting on her makeup...

CATS

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Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

OFFSPRING

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Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

LOW BLOWS

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Let's say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match on TV. One of the boxers is felled by a low blow. The woman says, "Oh, gee. That must have hurt." The man groans and doubles over, and actually FEELS the pain.

DRESSING UP

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A woman will dress up to: go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals.

LAUNDRY

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Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the laundromat. This is a myth perpetuated by re-runs of old episodes of "Love, American Style."

WEDDINGS

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When reminiscing about weddings, women talk about "the ceremony." Men talk about "the bachelor party."

SOCKS

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Men wear sensible socks. They wear standard white sweat socks. Women wear strange socks. Socks that are cut way below the ankles, that have pictures of clouds, that have a big fuzzy ball on the back.

NICKNAMES

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If Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle go out for lunch, they will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle. But if Mike, Dave, Rob and Jack go out for a brewsky, they will affectionately refer to each other as Bullet-Head, Godzilla, Peanut-Head and Useless.

EATING OUT

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... and when the check comes, Mike, Dave, Rob and Jack will each throw in $20 bills, even though it's only for $22.50. None of them will have anything smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their check, out come the pocket calculators.

MIRRORS

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Men are vain; they will check themselves out in a mirror. Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface: mirrors, spoons, store windows, bald men's heads.

MENOPAUSE

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When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of these changes varies with the individual. Menopause in a man provokes a uniform reaction-he buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather driving gloves, and goes shopping for a Porsche.

THE TELEPHONE

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Men see the telephone as a communication tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.

DIRECTIONS

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If a woman is out driving, and she finds herself in unfamiliar surroundings, she will stop at a gas station and ask for directions. Men consider this to be a sign of weakness. Men will never stop and ask for directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all the while saying things like, "Looks like I've found a new way to get there" and, "I know I'm in the general neighborhood. I recognize that 7-11 store."

ADMITTING MISTAKES

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Women will sometimes admit making a mistake. The last man who admitted he was wrong was General George Custer.

RICHARD GERE

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Women like Richard Gere because he is sexy in a dangerous way. Men hate Richard Gere because he reminds them of that slick guy who works at the health club and dates only married women.

MADONNA

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Same as above, but reversed. Same reason.

TOYS

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Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest. Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and silly and impractical. Examples of men's toys: little miniature TV's. Car phones. Complicated juicers and blenders. Graphic equalizers. Small robots that serve c---tails on command. Video games. Anything that blinks, beeps, and requires at least 6 "D" batteries to operate.

PLANTS

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A woman asks a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The man waters the plants. The woman comes home five or six days later to an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens.

CAMERAS

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Men take photography very seriously. They'll shell out $4000 for state of the art equipment, and build dark rooms and take photography classes. Women purchase Kodak Instamatics. Of course, women always end up taking better pictures.

LOCKER ROOMS

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In the locker room men talk about three things: money, football, and women. They exaggerate about money, they don't know football nearly as well as they think they do, and they fabricate stories about women. Women talk about one thing in the locker room -sex. And not in abstract terms, either. They are extremely graphic and technical, and they never lie.

GARAGES

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Women use garages to park their cars and store their lawnmowers. Men use garages for many things. They hang license plates in garages, they watch TV in garages, and they build useless lopsided benches in garages.

MOVIES

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Every actress in the history of movies has had to do a nude scene. This is because every movie in the history of movies has been produced by a man. The only actor who has ever appeared nude in the movies is Richard Gere. This is another reason why men hate him.

JEWELRY

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Women look nice when they wear jewelry. A man can get away with wearing one ring and that's it. Any more than that and he will look like a lounge singer named Vic.

SPORT ARENAS

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Simply put, men can always find their way around stadiums and arenas. The women usually end up following men.

TIME

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When a woman says she'll be ready to go out in five more minutes, she's using the same meaning of time as when a man says the football games's just got five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or replays.

CONVERSATION

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Men need a good disagreement to get talking, e.g., "Wow, great movie," "What are you, nuts? No REAL cop would have an Uzi that size," "Well, maybe he got it because he knew about those Mafia guys," etc. Women, not having this problem, try to initiate conversations with men by saying something agreeable: "That garden by the roadside looks lovely." "Mm hmm." Pause. "That was a good restaurant last night, wasn't it?" "Yeah." Pause. And so on.

FRIENDS

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Women on a girls' night out talk the whole time. Men on a boys' night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are "Pass the Doritos" or "Got any more beer?"

RESTROOMS

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Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges. Men in restrooms will never speak a word to each other. Women who've never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends. And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, "Hey, Tots, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?"