Gender Jokes

The REAL Difference Between the Sexes

Let's say a guy named Rob is attracted to a woman named
Carol. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a
pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to
dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see
each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them
is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought
occurs to Carol, and, without really thinking, she says it
aloud, 'Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing
each other for exactly six months?'

And then there is silence in the car.

To Carol, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to
herself, "Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that.
Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship. Maybe
he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation
that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

Rob is thinking, "Gosh. Six months."

Carol is thinking, "But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this
kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little
more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really
want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward
. . . I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep
seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading
toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a
lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment?
Do I really even know this person?"

Meanwhile Rob is thinking, "So that means it was . . . let's
see . . . February when we started going out, which was right
after I had the car at the dealer's, which means . . . lemme
check the odometer . . . Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil
change here."

Carol looks at Rob and thinks, "He's upset. I can see it on
his face. Maybe
I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from
our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment. Maybe he
has sensed, even before I sensed it, that I was feeling some
reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so
reluctant to
say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being
rejected."

Rob is thinking, "I'm gonna have them look at the
transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's
still
not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on
the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87
degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a damn garbage
truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600."

Watching Rob, Carol thinks, "He's angry. And I don't blame
him. I'd be
angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this,
but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure."

Rob is still on his train of thought. "They'll probably say
it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're
gonna say, the scumballs."

Carol wonders, "Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a
knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting
right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being
with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to
truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my
self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy."

Rob is thinking, "Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give
them a damn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it
right up their...."

'Rob,' Carol says aloud.

'What?' says Rob, startled.

'Please don't torture yourself like this,' she says, her
eyes beginning to brim with tears. 'Maybe I should never
have...Oh God,I feel so....'

(She breaks down, sobbing.)

'What?' says Rob, thoroughly confused.

'I'm such a fool,' Carol sobs. 'I mean, I know there's no
knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight,
and there's no horse.'

'There's no horse?' says Rob, perplexed.

'You think I'm a fool, don't you?' asks Carol.

'No!' says Rob, glad to finally know the correct answer.

'It's just that... it's that I... I need some time,' Carol
says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Rob, thinking as fast as
he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he
comes up with one that he thinks might work.)

'Yes,' he says.

(Carol, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

'Oh, Rob, do you really feel that way?' she says.

'What way?' asks Rob.

'That way about time,' says Carol.

'Oh,' says Rob, 'Yeah, sure.'

(Carol turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes,
causing him to become very nervous about what she might say
next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she
speaks.)

'Thank you, Rob.' she says.

'Thank you.' Rob replies, unsure what else to say.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a
conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when
Rob gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns
on the TV, and
immediately becomes deeply involved in a re-run of a tennis
match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny
voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that
something major was going on back there in the car, but he is
pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what,
and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it.
(This is also Rob's policy regarding world hunger.)

The next day Carol will call her closest friend, or perhaps
two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six
straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze
everything she said and everything he said, going over it
time and time again, exploring
every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning,
considering every possible ramification. They will continue
to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months,
never
reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored
with it, either.

Meanwhile, Rob, while playing racquetball one day with a
mutual
friend of his and Carol's, will pause just before serving,
frown, and say: 'Ross, did Carol ever own a horse?'