He Meant, She Meant Read online

  HE MEANT:

  vanity n. the sin of loving yourself more than you love me.

  SHE MEANT:

  velvet n. the fabric of princesses, perfect girls with headbands, and formals on snowy nights.

  HE MEANT:

  velvet n. fabric worn by thin women in whiskey ads.

  SHE MEANT:

  victimology n. the science of being a victim. If you’re a victimologist you do things like sue people when you trip. After a while, this gets tired.

  HE MEANT:

  victimology n. the study of whiners.

  SHE MEANT:

  violence n. a tendency toward destruction, developed by men who have not learned to communicate in normal ways. Women aren’t interested, with the exception of certain girl-gangs. Most of us wish the girl-gangs would form girl-groups instead, sing some bebop, and stop reminding us of our disowned violent nature.

  HE MEANT:

  violence n. an abusive phenomenon that will vanish on the day all women shun fighters and fawn over pacifists.

  SHE MEANT:

  virgin n. double standard: you’re screwed if you aren’t, you’re screwed if you are—and then of course you aren’t. Suzanne hoped Tony couldn’t tell she was a virgin just from talking to her.

  HE MEANT:

  virgin n. like a new shirt—nice in some ways, but a bit stiff. It can be embarrassing to admit no one’s worn you. Tony was sure Suzanne could tell he was a virgin just by looking at him.

  SHE MEANT:

  virtuous adj. Archaic: practicing celibacy. Contempo rary: practicing civic volunteerism, bargain-basement shopping, and safe sex.

  HE MEANT:

  virtuous adj. monogamous. Virtue consists of opportunities deliberately lost, as opposed to those you could never have won.

  SHE MEANT:

  vulnerable adj. having a soft, pureelike center. Most noticeable during weak moments such as childhood.

  HE MEANT:

  vulnerable adj. an attribute men learned to fake while women learned to fake orgasm.

  W

  SHE MEANT:

  wait v. to wonder when an event will occur, and think of ways to seem as if you weren’t wondering about it when it does occur.

  HE MEANT:

  wait v. to wonder when an event will occur and think of ways to make it occur sooner.

  SHE MEANT:

  walk n. a deliberate promenade. Melinda and Steve decided they were good for each other while taking a long walk.

  HE MEANT:

  walk n. an ambulatory motion that communicates, whether consciously or not. Steve decided Melinda was good for him while watching her walk toward a tree.

  SHE MEANT:

  want v. to want: to have a tangible desire, best expressed in simple terms. “I want that” is a good start, or “I want you,” or, more subtly, “What newspaper is that you’re reading and have you always been this attractive?”

  HE MEANT:

  want v. to feel lust toward.

  SHE MEANT:

  war n. the bloodiest way to resolve a disagreement. The trouble with war is that it’s hard to be on speaking terms afterward, and speaking is so rewarding.

  HE MEANT:

  war n. the last vestige of male supremacy.

  SHE MEANT:

  wax n. hot boiling material used in medieval torture chambers and in modern beauty salons.

  HE MEANT:

  wax n. one of the many places Elvis lives.

  SHE MEANT:

  we pron. 1. usually refers to self and others. We’re leaving town. 2. can mean “I.” We’re pregnant. 3. can mean “he.” We’re giving up hang-gliding.

  HE MEANT:

  we pron. plural of “I.” A good word to use in an argument, if you like the search-for-common-ground approach.

  SHE MEANT:

  weakness n. 1. characterizes portions of the body or mind that can easily be poked, conquered, or won over. Melinda took Steve to the oyster bar, looking for any sign of weakness. 2. deep desire. Steve, it turned out, had a weakness fir oysters.

  HE MEANT:

  weakness n. a failing in yourself that causes others to love you or hurt you, depending on their mood. Steve had read that Casanova ate six oysters a day; oysters had nothing to do with weakness.

  SHE MEANT:

  wedding n. a time to contemplate the nature of love, flirt like crazy, and consider life choices while wearing uncomfortable shoes.

  HE MEANT:

  wedding n. ceremony through which you promise to trade your fantasy of many women for the reality of one.

  SHE MEANT:

  weekend n. a time when love becomes more important than ever.

  HE MEANT:

  weekend n. a time to do as little as possible.

  SHE MEANT:

  weigh v. to put yourself on a scale in order to gauge your social status.

  HE MEANT:

  weigh v. what you do to the merits of a proposal in order to reach a decision.

  SHE MEANT:

  whatever pron. what to say to show you don’t care about the appointed plan, anything would be fine—when you mean it ought to be dinner and a movie.

  HE MEANT:

  whatever pron. a word meaning “screw you.”

  SHE MEANT:

  witch n. a woman with magical powers. Also a traditional label for any woman with too much power, magical or not, in history.

  HE MEANT:

  witch n. a woman whose evil is obvious.

  SHE MEANT:

  woman n. a most transcendent yet familiar being, who gives life and exudes vitality; who can do any work she wants and still smell good; who leaves an impression wherever she goes; who endorses peace but starts wars by accident just by being delightful.

  HE MEANT:

  woman n. 1. creator and sustainer of pleasure and life. 2. person who wants co-workers to “be themselves” around her, as long as that doesn’t include behaving like men.

  SHE MEANT:

  Women’s Studies n. curricula focused on the sociopolitical role of women, in which one learns that the reason women didn’t dominate Western history was that men made laws forbidding them to do so. This should be apparent to people enrolled in standard history courses anyway, but is nevertheless comforting. Women who take such courses are gathering ammunition for inevitable ad absurdum arguments. Men who take them are trying to get laid.

  HE MEANT:

  Women’s Studies n. a way to get a degree for using a really large vocabulary to hate men.

  SHE MEANT:

  womenism n. the highly unfair feeling that girls are more mature, prettier, and better-behaved than boys.

  HE MEANT:

  womenism n. See WOMEN’S STUDIES.

  SHE MEANT:

  work v. to toil and toil till someone notices and is pleased.

  HE MEANT:

  work v. to toil until you’re done.

  SHE MEANT:

  working out v. going to a health club to try on risqué outfits, meet prospective lovers, and exercise a little.

  HE MEANT:

  working out v. what you are supposed to be doing to a relationship problem, or to a body not yet perfect.

  SHE MEANT:

  wrap v. to adorn the outside of a gift and therefore amuse the person who gets to unwrap it moments later.

  HE MEANT:

  wrap v. what a man wants a woman to do, with a scarf around her neck, or her legs around him.

  X

  SHE MEANT:

  xenophobe n. one who fears people who don’t speak one’s language and who instead speak only the universal language of love.

  HE MEANT:

  xenophobe n. one who thinks foreigners are more likely than neighbors to covet his goods, his job, or his daughter.

  SHE MEANT:

  X-rated adj. describes films that could once harm a woman’s acting career and now can help it enormously.

  HE MEANT:

  X-rated adj. describes films that tell us everything we want to know about another c
ouple’s relationship.

  Y

  “Y” IS FOR YES

  I’m often asked by curious women friends whether men really think about sex as often as we say we do.

  The answer is “Yes”—and more so.

  Why is that a problem?

  Other than work, sex is all we have. Our only connections to the process of life are to fertilize it, protect it, and feed it—you want us to fantasize about feeding?

  Hey, maybe if our nipples worked.…

  We have no blood or milk bond with newborns, and we aren’t bred to connect with them in any other way.

  We don’t hold hands with our friends, and we don’t “relate.” We’re new at this whole crying thing—but frankly, however healthy it may be, it’s not that fun, even when you know how.

  What’s left to make us feel warm? Booze rots the liver, and we grow out of our basketball skills. If we don’t have the faith of the Buddha, there isn’t much left in this cold, hard world.

  Looking at beautiful women, maybe touching a few—how can you begrudge us that?

  The sight of a pretty woman gives life a meaning that needs no explanation. That’s true even if she’s not yours. Sometimes it’s true because she’s not yours. She represents life, and her existence makes you want to participate.

  So don’t worry so much if you see your man looking around, unless he gives you other reasons to worry. It doesn’t matter where he gets his appetite, as long as he comes home to eat.

  —BB

  SHE MEANT:

  yes adv. what women say when we mean no. See SURE.

  HE MEANT:

  yes adv. yes.

  SHE MEANT:

  youth n. a time when one still believes it is possible to do everything and relinquish nothing.

  HE MEANT:

  youth n. a time when one still believes it is possible to do everyone and relinquish no one.

  Z

  SHE MEANT:

  zealot n. a guy too fanatically religious to worship only you.

  HE MEANT:

  zealot n. one who thinks God is in a hurry.

  SHE MEANT:

  zeitgeist n. a prevailing mood; whatever’s on the mental fashion runways of the moment. Suzanne wondered if her disillusionment with her civics textbook was just a personal opinion or part of a cultural zeitgeist common to American teenage girls.

  HE MEANT:

  zeitgeist n. German for “fad.” Tony just smiled, when Suzanne used words like “zeitgeist.”

  SHE MEANT:

  zone n. a postal or temporal district. Tony seemed to dwell in a time zone of his very own, but Suzanne loved him anyway.

  HE MEANT:

  zone n. place of mystical attunement, reachable by concentration or driving on a dark desert highway. When Suzanne smiled without looking away, Tony guessed he’d be zoning by midnight.

  SHE MEANT:

  zucchini n. a phallic squash.

  HE MEANT:

  zucchini n. an inspiration.

  APPENDIX I:

  The Arguments

  THE QUESTION OF FUNGUS

  JL: Bill, don’t you think we ought to cut “fungus”?

  B: (surprised) Why?

  JL: Don’t you think it’s not working? Our definitions aren’t funny.

  B: Oh… But other than that?

  JL: Well—other than that, we don’t need it.

  B: Well—I agree it’s not working. Okay, that’s true. But it could work, don’t you think? I mean, it’s a funny word, isn’t it? “Fungus.”

  JL: Well, I guess it’s a funny word…

  B: But it’s not that funny, huh?

  JL: (Polite pause.)

  B: But I like it.

  JL: (Polite pause.)

  B: Okay.

  (Repeat above, replacing “fungus” with nearly any word not currently present in dictionary)

  THE CASE FOR THE CASES

  JL: We should make the definitions consistent.

  B: What do you mean?

  JL.: I mean the first word of each definition. Capital or lowercase. We should have agreed about it before. How does your dictionary do it?

  B: My dictionary has capitals.

  JL: Mine has lowercases. We should pick one.

  B: Oh, but I think that’s great! The fact that we didn’t discuss it in advance, and came up with different ways of doing it, and I know it’s women who always prefer lowercase, with the exception of e.e. Cummings. I think it’s very good!

  JL: The copyeditors at Warner aren’t going to think so.

  B: Can’t we tell them?

  JL: I don’t think so.

  APPENDIX II:

  The Correspondence

  Jenny Lyn,

  I got the package. Thanks. I’m incorporating the editor’s notes, and will be talking to you soon.

  Take care.

  Bill

  Dear Bill,

  Did you read my note about collapsing “lonely” and “loneliness”?

  I enclose a list of things for us to do, and those outlines I promised a couple of weeks ago.

  all best

  Jenny Lyn

  Jenny Lyn,

  I must tell you something about myself with which I am not pleased, but there it is: I am not capable of taking on new tasks until I am at least almost done with old ones.

  I see the ideas you have for changing words, dropping those which seem redundant, and so on.

  Yet, slow bull that I am, I cannot keep up. I need to keep doing what I am doing, the original task for which tomorrow’s deadline was set, or I will feel frustrated and rudderless. I have a need to finish the task we set last week, before I can respond reasonably to your quite reasonable ideas.

  Please: can we just do what we said last week we would do, and look later at the new ideas you are sending?

  As always, Bill

  Bill,

  Hi. Please don’t fret sweetie—don’t mean to be throwing a lot of stuff at you. I find our miscommunications so funny and genderesque, I wonder if we should excerpt them in the dreaded “methodology” section…

  If you had read the whole list, you would know that the tasks aren’t that great. I am sorry my letters seem “rather extensive”—I think the sight of them unread is much more overwhelming than what is in them. I do not think I’m having sudden new “reasonable ideas” but working on old ones.

  (What makes Me feel frustrated and rudderless is the idea that you are Not reading what I have written to you.)

  Jenny Lyn

  Jenny Lyn,

  Of course you are right these are not new ideas. I do remember talking about them. But they are new to me in the sense that anything other than dealing with editorial comments seems new to me right now.

  That is probably confusing to you. I don’t intend to make you feel rudderless. I do try to read everything you send me, but since I don’t put it into practice right away things start to feel like they’re piling up, and I start picturing you ready to send more, and wondering why I’m not keeping up, and why I am not sending you e-mail of equal length. And then I start to feel guilty in addition to feeling behind. And that makes the work, pleasurable though it undoubtedly can be, seem burdensome.

  Perhaps you are right that this is a gender thing. I keep thinking of Linda Goodman’s analysis of the Libra-Taurus interaction—the way the airy Libra runs mental circles around the slow-moving bull, confusing him but always charming, and nearly always right. And bulls do so like to be charmed, that they don’t even mind being confused. Except once in a while. It’s not easy for me to feel slow; usually I feel rather fast, by comparison to whichever verbal counterpart I am dealing with.

  I am having a productive evening, and appreciate your letter. I suspect the trouble is less anything you are doing and more what I think you are expecting from me in reply. I suspect that is a gender problem. Also a residue of Irish Catholic guilt. I sometimes think my whole life is a residue of Irish Catholic guilt.

  Anywho, take care. Bulls may plod, but
they have a sticktoitiveness that comes in handy (inertia?), and I’m still plugging away—

  Bill

  Bill,

  You don’t seem slow—I feel as if I’m lagging behind too. The thing you said was premature I thought was two weeks late and felt guilty for not sending sooner.

  Your bull-libra imagery is great. I feel metaphorically that you are trying to rebuild our house from the ground up, while I am trying to sand and paint it… you think we can’t sand and paint it until it is finished, and I ask why we can’t do everything at once as we go along—then the house will be painted already when it is built! Of course I am right that we should sand as we go along or we’ll have trouble doing it later, and of course you are right that we should leave some painting till the end lest everything drip on us.

  Jenny Lyn

  p.s. I’ve sent you a list of priorities

  Jenny Lyn,

  I was so happy to receive your letter about the house. It was apropos, and showed you understand the situation perfectly.

  Thanks for the priorities. By the way, don’t you want to get the book in on tirne?

  Bill

  Bill

  Yes I’d love to have it in too. Let’s try not to see this as a delay but an opportunity to give in an even better draft on Monday.

  Glad you liked the house.

  Jenny Lyn

  APPENDIX III:

  The Dream

  There were two women, it seemed a mother and daughter.

  The older one asked, “Would you be interested in a dictionary for men and women—languagelike?”

  And the young one said maybe… if there was a subtext of a young man and a woman—meeting—from two different planets, male and female, and trying to find a common language, because they secretly loved one another. Like they came from different countries.