Eventually I realized men are different. Eventually I realized it's no coincidence females are called "wo - men".

Putting the worn and dirty Nike on the other foot, however, I stopped sharing some of my my feelings with John early in our marriage. I stopped after sharing my feelings about the china figurine his mother brought me from London. I didn't like it, it wasn't me and I didn't know where to put it.

That's when I realized men don't deal with feelings - they deal with problems. John solved the problem by giving the figurine back to his mother. Yes, that solved the problem; but having me appear like an ingrate to my new mother-in-law caused more problems - which I didn't share with John.

Getting men to dress up is a problem, unless it's for a wedding or a funeral. The rest of the time they want to be casual to the point of embarrassment and it's often the "barrassment" that's the problem. John has retrieved shorts from the rag bag. He wears a rag and I rag on.

We can drive on and on before John will ask for directions, but I figured out why. Men never get lost. They just take longcuts.

It's all a matter of perspective. Put barbecue tools in a man's hands and he's not cooking. He's preparing the kill he hunted.

Then there's my perspective on men's preoccupation with sex. Wrong. Now I believe what men say - it's a man thing. I also believe that this man thing was one of the things God wanted to fix by creating women.

Men, also known as couch coaches, create jock images - even if they never were one. Even when their memories start to fade, they remember athletic achievements that never happened.

If you ask a woman to describe herself, the first thing she says is wife, mother or marital status. If you ask a man to describe himself, the first thing he tells you is his job. Eventually that changes. When a man retires, he becomes his wife's job.