Women Are Crazy, Men Are Stupid: The Simple Truth to a Complicated Relationship - Softcover

THE HISTORY OF
CRAZY AND STUPID

WHICH CAME FIRST?
THE CRAZY OR THE STUPID?

The main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.
-- GEORGE CARLIN

No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it's only a question of degree.
-- W. C. FIELDS

I drove a woman to an ashram once.

And when I say "drove" I don't mean in a car. And when Isay "ashram" I do mean one of those places where you renouncesex and all your worldly possessions and chant "om shanti om"all day.

I drove her to an ashram. Where she lived for a good manyyears.

According to her I drove her crazy.

And when she says "drove her crazy" she doesn't mean that she was French, we made love by the Seine, and she squealed, "Oooh la la, monsieur! You drive me craaaazeee!" She means it more like "Hello? Insane asylum? Have a padded room and a straitjacket ready. I'll be there by three."

And she wasn't French.

Whether it was really me that drove her crazy or whether she was prone to crazy to begin with is a question we spent a lot of time debating. Perhaps it was just an unfortunate combination of the two. But as my friend Stephen said to me at the time, "I'm gonna give you a bye on this one. But if your next girlfriend ends up moving to an ashram, I'm gonna know it's you." Well, I'm happy to note that none of my subsequent girlfriends (or one ex-wife) have moved to an ashram. At least not yet. But in an informal survey of these women one consistent theme emerges: my stupidity. And when they say "stupidity" it's not my lack of knowledge of state capitals that they're referring to, but more a kind of cluelessness they felt I showed in dealing with them. And their needs. In the end, they maintain it was my stupidity that drove them crazy. Which is interesting, because I always felt that it was their craziness that drove me stupid.

But that's just the problem, isn't it? So what's the answer?

Which came first, the crazy or the stupid?

It's the million-dollar question we all want the answer to. Are women crazy because men are stupid? Or are men stupid because women are crazy? Not surprisingly, the way we answer these two questions divides us quite neatly along gender lines. Because let's face it, we all have a lot invested in the answer. Women maintain that over the course of their lives they are driven slowly and methodically crazy by stupid men. And men maintain that it's impossible for any man to act smartly with a woman who's out of her freaking mind. If we can just prove one came first, the other side will have blaming rights for all eternity.

If only it were that simple.

Yes, there is an answer to which came first, the stupid or the crazy.

And the answer is here.

But I warn you, it offers only cold comfort to all you potential gleeful blamers. As in chemistry, every action causes a reaction, which in turn causes another reaction. Stupid causes crazy, which causes more stupid, which then results in more crazy, and so on. Only by going back and tracing the tortured and confused history of men acting stupid and women acting crazy from its very beginnings can we begin to fully understand the origins of insanity in the age of stupidity. Or the origins of stupidity in the age of insanity.

And as for blaming rights, don't worry, there's plenty to go around.

The history of men acting stupid is a long and varied one that always ends up with some idiot starting another war. But modern male stupidity as it applies specifically to women is far more interesting and relevant to our purposes. It actually has its roots in the playgrounds of our youth. It was there that we first became aware of girls. It was also there that we first realized that we liked these strange creatures. They made us feel funny. But good funny. A kind of warm and gushy funny. Of course in those early years it wasn't acceptable to talk about these new feelings with our peers for fear we'd get rightly harangued about the dangers of cooties. But still, we wanted this five-year-old ponytailed goddess to know that we had a thing for her. So what did we do?

We hit her.

Or pushed her into the mud and laughed at her. (I'm so sorry, Susan Freyberg.)

And here our stupidity begins.

But how could it be any other way? We never had a chance. The hit and the shove (and once again, I apologize, Susie) were the only ways we knew to express ourselves! They were our way of saying, "Hey, I know it's not cool for us to be hanging out 'cause of the whole cooties thing, but I dig you." And that blows up in our faces. She starts crying and we're completely unprepared for that. And she keeps crying until some adult explains to her that we hit her because we like her.

And here her craziness begins.

"Wait a minute. He shoves me into a mud puddle because he likes me? What is he? A five-year-old imbecile? My hamster is smarter than him!"

We're then beckoned into a lifetime of stupidity by some "well-meaning" adult who tells us not to hit but to "use our words." And here the wheels start to come off an already wobbly go-kart. Words are hard enough for grown men, let alone little boys. But still, we come up with a way to express ourselves. Because we just have to be around this fascinating but vexing softer creature. So we start to joke around with her. Like we do with our buddies. And it makes complete sense to us because jokes are words. And jokes are fun! And who doesn't like to have fun?!

Apparently, little girls.

Who, once again, run from the room hysterical, in tears, because they think we're making fun of them. And we are! But only because we like them! This is once again explained to the five-year-old ponytailed goddess (see? it was because I liked you, Cindy Cirello), who once again wonders at her own sanity. "Okay, first the idiot punches me because he likes me. And now he's calling me names because he likes me? What does a boy do when he DOESN'T like you? AND HOW WILL I EVER BE ABLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE?!"

An inauspicious beginning to be sure.

So now, with mistrust, uncertainty, and confusion abounding -- all before puberty even sets in -- both sexes limp back to their respective corners and spend the next few years in relative seclusion from each other. As the seasons of elementary school turn, we stealthily watch the "other" and study their every move.

And boy, do they move differently from us.

We live amongst them but we are not of them. (Kind of like Jane Goodall and the apes.) We observe our parents' relationship hoping to glean a tip or two about the whole sexual divide thing. (More often than not Mom and Dad are an advertisement for what not to do.) We watch television, and that's an even worse distortion of intergender relationships.

But then something happens.

Magically, certain things start to sink in. We learn that boy humor is different from girl humor. We also begin to understand the finer points of conversation. Or at least the basics. It becomes clear that asking a girl about herself and what she likes to do is always a good opener. Around sixth grade we're actually getting somewhere. We're talking to girls. And they're talking back! When we make jokes now they seem to be laughing in all the right places. We've actually taken our first few baby steps to understanding the fairer sex.

Then summer vacation comes.

And when all the girls come back for seventh grade they have boobs.

And everything we've learned up to that point immediately gets knocked out of our heads.

Yes. Done in by boobs. That's right. It was boobs that done us wrong.

What used to be a simple conversation with a girl can no longer be simple. Or even a conversation. "Hi, Boobra! Uh, Barbara! How was your summer, Boob -- Barb!" And of course the girl's actual name was probably something more like Pam Hoberman. (I'm so sorry, Pammy!)

Now when a girl starts to talk, a thick London fog blows over our brains.

Can't think. Boobs.

Can't talk. Boobs.

What's her name again? Boobs.

What's my name again? Boobs.

I'd like to say we're back to square one, but it's far worse than that. Because boobs completely overtake the part of men's minds where "women knowledge" used to be. Nothing can get in. And nothing can get out. And it's almost like we've never learned anything at all. We revert to maturity levels heretofore unseen in our behavior up to this point. In the cafeteria we giggle as we eat chicken breast. In chemistry, we guffaw as we ask a pal to hand us a test boob. And thinking we've discovered clever wordplay, we tell everyone it's called algebra! "Get it? Alge-bra!"

And thus one more log is thrown onto her crazy fire.

And who can blame her? We've checked out on her just as we were starting to communicate. So when she finally cries out, "You're talking to my boobs!" her mind has already started its slow but steady descent into madness. "But it's not our fault! It's the boobs!" we shout after the girl who's turned her back on us. ( Just the first of many women's backs we'll be speaking to over the coming years.) But still, we insist: Men don't make men dumb. Boobs make men dumb.

But we know better. One need only look at the evolution of the word "boob." It is now commonly used to refer to a stupid man. As in "He's a boob!" Or "What a boob that guy is!" When people say "Can you believe the boobs in Washington?" I can assure you they're not talking about Hillary. To paraphrase the great Al Capp: I have seen the boobs. And they is us.

Now obviously, many boys overcome "boob fog" and go on to have healthy, happy relationships. Unfortunately, many other boys turn into paunchy men who sit on the couch all day watching, yes, the boob tube.

It's also interesting to note that something completely unexpected happens at the juncture where boy meets boob. This is the moment where gay men histori...