God moves in mysterious ways. That doesn’t surprise me. After all, traditionally God is a man. Men, I do love them. Honestly! Charming, capricious, generous, stubborn, caring, irrational, romantic and sometimes just plain weird, they exasperate as much as they delight. But they do delight.

Granted, women are no picnic either. My mother always taught me that if I wanted to know something I should look it up. Books can supply the answers to many of life’s mysteries – quantum physics, religion or flower arranging. Should you wish to probe any of these topics, a visit to a reputable peddler of paperbacks will supply you with a good grounding in your chosen field. However, if you’re seeking clarification of the opposite sex there’s such an enormous assortment of books that it’s impossible to know where to begin.
Are men and women really that different? After all, we begin life with nothing more than a chromosome to separate us. And still according to the experts, romantic and sexual liaisons are fraught with misunderstanding, miscommunication and mistakes. You’d be forgiven for thinking that negotiating a successful sex life requires precise military tactics. We have sets of rules, advice manuals, suggested behaviour models and pop psychology personality profiles, all dedicated to ensuring we find love and get laid on a regular basis.
Proper order too, if it wasn’t all so confusing.
A huge industry has been founded on identifying, examining and exacerbating male/female differences. A great amount of the disparity is not innate, but is a result in the different ways we are raised. Things may have changed and are still changing, but plenty of double standards are still in operation.
It seems to me that a lot of the confusion arises because we believe that we are different, and thus ascribe the most ridiculous motives to each other’s behaviour. I may not be an expert, but I have many years’ of copious sexual experience with men, and even more years of experience being a woman. On which basis, I have come to some tentative conclusions the human mating ritual.
When it comes to sex, and even love, the opposite sex is not as impossible to understand as the vast array of relationship manuals would have you believe. Have a look at the evidence.

Phone Number Fallacy
Both men and women will sometimes ask for, or give out, a phone number without ever intending to call. There are several reasons for this:

1. Manners. Asking for a phone number at the end of a conversation is similar to asking how someone is at the beginning of it – it’s done for the sake of politeness.
2. Conversational Stop Gap. Having run out of things to say, asking for a phone number allows you to make a gracious exit.
3. Smoke and Mirrors. By obtaining a number, a one-night stand takes on the illusion of being the beginning of a romance. Because of a lingering deep-seated guilt regarding casual sexual encounters, this can be done either to fool yourself – or the other person.
4. Reality Bites. Although overwhelmed by the beauty and wit of someone the night before, in the cold harsh light of dawn you remember that you have a significant other, are leaving the country or didn’t find them that attractive actually.

Number Crunch
Everybody lies about the number of people they have had sex with. Except me, of course, I am the very soul of honesty. It’s generally believed that men tend to exaggerate and women depreciate. This is only so if the man is inexperienced and the woman is not. Young women often up the number of notches on the bedpost to appear more worldly-wise, and men with considerable quantities of exes may downplay their former successes for fear of scaring women off.

Love Lies
Men, the sneaky devils, will say almost anything to persuade a woman to sleep with them. These include lying about their ages, jobs and feelings. Sometimes women will fall for these lies; more often, we pretend to. Professing to be in love with a woman may backfire badly. Many women will avoid men who bandy about the L-word, for fear it might be true. On occasion it is.
Female liars tend to hit full stride after the fact, as women do not have to lie to persuade men back to their gaffs. These lies tend to be of the “I’ve never felt so comfortable with anyone so quickly before” variety. Then again, sometimes these romantic clichés may be true.
Neither sex has the upper hand when it comes to sexual honesty, so unless your bullshit-o-meter is on red alert, it’s better to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

Sex versus Love
We are told that men want sex and women want love. This is not true. Being greedy, human beings want both, although not necessarily from the same person. Sex and love are different desires and different needs. On the rare occasions they occur together, its pretty phenomenal. But even when they don’t, it’s still damn good. As Woody Allen said, “Sex without love is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.”

Oral Agreement
Almost everyone agrees that oral sex is great. Both men and women like being on the receiving end. Both men and women like being on the giving end too. And if you can be on the giving and receiving end at the same time – why that is pure, unadulterated heaven. Some strange men and women like neither, but we won’t worry about them.
With the pressures of modern living we have very little free time. Those precious few hours should not be spent trawling through the dire prose and spurious reasoning of most relationship guides, analysing behaviour over bottles of cheap Chianti or drowning romantic disappointments down the local. Save it for the important things in life – saving rainforests, dancing and shagging.
Yes, men and women are different, but not very different – just enough, in fact, to make it really interesting.