We all know men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Men get a kick out of farts humor without words (but hey, I was born with a frat boy’s sense of humor, much to the chagrin of my father, so I’m with the men on that one); women enjoy movies that make them cry. Men can go to the bathroom by themselves and be out in two shakes; women must go in groups and admire the wallpaper border the establishment was thoughtful enough to put up. Men don’t worry about if their double cheeseburger is going to their hips; women don’t worry about if their favorite draft beer will be on tap at the restaurant on their date. In short, I’m aware of the inherent differences between men and women.

But I have a question.

What’s up with married men and their Guy Thing? For example, my husband had a particular dislike for the now ex-girlfriend of one of his bowling buddies. She apparently wore the same skin tight black pants every week to visit her then-boyfriend at the bowling alley; she had a horrid laugh; she was psycho jealous over everything Bowling Buddy Boyfriend did that didn’t have to do with her; and she was a horrible drunk, short tempered and sharp tongued about even the most innocuous of conversations. During one particular conversation with Mike where I pretended to be the Bowling Buddy Stupid Girlfriend Complaint Department and he spewed forth his frustrations about the Bowling Buddy’s Stupid Girlfriend, he said, “And besides, she comes to our bowling league EVERY WEEK! I mean, c’mon! It’s supposed to be a Guy Thing.”

That’s all well and good, and I understand he just didn’t want her around so he’d say nearly anything to justify telling her to buzz off (he never did and his patience paid off a couple months later when his bowling buddy broke up with Stupid Girlfriend over the jealousy business). As for me, I never go to the bowling league night except on rare occasions when Mike’s thrown a ball (bowling) and split his pants, his junk (not bowling) visible for all 100 lanes (oh he’s going to kill me for publishing that on the Internet, but it’s a test to see if he’s still reading), or when he’s been otherwise unavailable in the evenings and Gabe’s particularly missing him, so I don’t really have to worry that much about breaching the Guy Thing of Bowling Night. The duration of my visits has never stretched beyond half an hour, and that includes stopping for ten minutes at Mike’s dad’s lanes for Gabe to say hi to his grandpa. I may not understand the Stupid Girlfriend’s desire to sit with a bunch of guys who let the crude humor hang out, but I sorta felt bad for her. She had four kids (still does, I’d imagine) and she was lucky enough to have a mother who loved to have the kids over one night a week. Now, why Stupid Girlfriend didn’t pick a different night so she could have Bowling Buddy Boyfriend all to herself I don’t understand but I suspect because of the jealousy she chose Bowling Night so as to keep an eye on him whilst there were other females bowling a few lanes over. Mike has never once begrudged me the chance to come up to visit for a short while, but I know that I could wear my welcome out attempting to visit too often or stay for too long. I’m always greeted warmly, offered a chair and a drink should I want it, but I never take them up on it. His Bowling Buddies are some of my friends, too. They’ve been over for dinner. They’ve come to holiday parties. We’ve ridden all together on trips. But I know Bowling Night is sacred, and a Guy Thing, even if it’s more adamantly enforced to exclude certain females than others. On Bowling Night, I totally get the Guy Thing. Girls often have a Girl’s Night Out (maybe not as regularly as a bowling league) so what’s the harm every now and then?

What I don’t get is that these same buddies are constantly going on Guys Only trips, for college homecoming football games, for bar hopping, to casinos for a gambling night, to a sports bar to watch important games (GO Cardinals!). And I’m not allowed, regardless of how much I’d like to go.

“But I thought Bowling Night was your Guy Night Thing,” I’ve sputtered in (mock) anger.

Mike just shrugs and says sheepishly that he’s not the one who said guys only. Then he proceeds to talk me out of wanting to go by pointing out the more raucous behaviors I’ll encounter from the guys if I go: the yelling, the sloppy eating, the swearing, the yelling, the dirty jokes, the yelling, being in a smoky environment, the sexist jokes, the yelling, and the yelling. Sometimes I take it in stride, agreeing that I couldn’t stand one more boob joke and I tell him to have fun. Sometimes I get ticked that he doesn’t fight nearly so hard with the Guys to include me if I really adamantly want to go, but that’s a battle I pick only when I really am sick of being excluded.

So here’s my question: (OMG FINALLY! Spit it out already! you’re shouting from the gallery) How much is too much Guy Thing time? When is it okay to say enough is enough, and quit excluding me because I’m a frat boy in disguise and I’ll take you on in a fart contest? When should I be worried about him wanting to spend so much alone time with his Guys, wink wink?

I guess that more than one question. Obviously I know the answer is whatever works for the couple, and that’s true here. I guess I just need to vent a little, since no one likes being excluded on a regular basis. And that last one? I know that answer is never. I just couldn’t resist (see, I’d be fun to sometimes hang out with the guys).

I’ve had a couple of Mike’s unmarried friends tell me that if they find a girl to spend eternity with, they’re sending her to me to get a lesson in being cool with the Guy Thing. Apparently I’m very tolerant of the time Mike spends out without me. And lemme be clear, other than Bowling Night, it’s not like he’s out every night, or even every week. But maybe a few times a month, give or take, and I never complain (because then I can watch chick flicks without hearing him whine that I’ve seen them before or that they’re stupid, or spend some good one-on-one time with Gabe and do fun stuff for the two of us; I can write, or read after Gabe goes to bed. I can eat nachos for dinner ~ not that I wouldn’t do that anyway if Mike were home, but it’s also Me & Gabe time, and after bedtime, it’s ME time). I’ve told the buddies that I’m only cool with the Guy Thing (to a point, because even I have a limit) because Mike gives me no reason to doubt what he’s doing. If he says he’s going to a sports bar to watch a game, he goes there. He brings me home an appetizer from that very bar. He calls to tell me if they change venues. He calls to tell me when he’s on his way home. He calls to check on me sometimes. He’s responsible, and I trust him implicitly. That and I pay all the bills, including cell phones and credit cards and the debit card is in my name, so I’d know if he’s doing irresponsible and untrustworthy Guy Things.

There are times when I’m not so gratuitous to his Guy Thing outings. I don’t feel like being left behind. I put my foot down, and it’s either take me or don’t go at all. I just get so aggravated sometimes that I come off like the bad guy because I’m stomping on the Guy Thing freedom. It’s not always a good alternative to have a Girl’s Thing on the same night, because it’s not always that I don’t want to be alone; it’s that I want to be with Mike. To Mike’s credit, he has never turned me down when I’ve said I want to spend time with my girlfriends, but the ratio for Guy Thing to Girl Thing is very lopsided. My girlfriends and I just don’t do it that often. Granted we’re usually pretty booked so a Girl’s Night Out takes some planning and it can’t be thrown together at the last minute usually, but I’ve never been denied simply because he didn’t want me to exclude him. He’s never guilted me into staying home (though I hate sometimes that he says I guilt him into it), and if the subject comes up, he’s usually prodding me out the door (he’s much more of a social person than I am, so getting me to voluntarily go out warms his heart, so he says).

Maybe it’s that he and I are just different creatures socially and I’m perfectly comfortable spending an entire weekend at home while he’d pull his hair out one strand at a time with tweezers. Maybe it’s because my hobbies are fairly sedentary (reading, writing, cross-stitch) and he starts to act like a cat stuck in a pinball machine being chased by a pit bull if he’s cooped up for too long. Maybe it’s that I’m not a guy and will never totally get the lure of the Guy Thing and the need to regularly make fools of themselves where their significant others aren’t watching. I tried to turn Bowling Night into a girls’ night with the significant others of the Bowling Buddies, rotating whose house we went to, bringing snacks and having dinner together and our kids playing together. It lasted about a month, and it was just me and one other wife. I do tell Mike that I like having my own night every week when he’s bowling to do something special with Gabe or just plain take it easy myself while Gabe plays with his toys. But I also tell Mike sometimes that when the Guy Thing happens too often (far less regularly now than before we had a child, but still sometimes too much), I find myself standing at the window waving sadly as he pulls out of the drive on his way to have a good time without me, and in those moments, I hate the Guy Thing.

Pop already.

Your presence is making me twitchy.  If you must turn the valley of my cheek into a mountain, please do me the courtesy of erupting so the mountain can return to a mole hill.  You have withstood every size-mic monitor I’ve thrown at you and you still continue to grow.  Just get it all out of your system. 

You’re making people look at me funny.  The stares I’m getting rival the stares I got when I was nine months pregnant (and come to think of it, your size is beginning to rival the baby bump also, but on my face instead). 

You’re making it hard for me to keep my hands at my side.  I had to let my hair fall in my face today (something I hate) just so there would be some blockage of the view of your peak.  With my nervous tendencies, it’s taking everything I have not to reach up and just squeeze you in punishment for showing your slopes on my face.  Makeup would only make the obvious more painfully obvious, not to mention spreading your borders like Kilauea in Hawaii forming more coastline.  Just get it over with already.  Your devastation is already at its pinnacle now, so eruption would be a welcome release of the pressure, quieting my hands and eye rolls at my reflection.

Considering I own the real estate on which you’ve sprouted, I can say with utter and complete authority, you’ve been evicted.  Think of this as your official notice.

I suffer from Buyer’s Remorse like nobody’s business, and nothing tickles my guilty bone quite like clothes shopping. I’ve already talked about why I hate shopping. Couple that with my near crippling guilt over buying anything that costs more than $25 and you’ll find a pretty sad wardrobe in my closet (which is surprisingly crowded for how little I shop). I am a retailer’s worst nightmare. I’m a hard sell, and unless it’s an item on sale, I can’t make myself buy it unless I REALLY want it. I throw up a little in my mouth if I have to pay full price. I just can’t do it.

This problem stops with me. I have no trouble getting clothes for my family. Fortunately, Mike is as frugal as I am when it comes to shopping (I prefer to call it frugal rather than just hopelessly out of style because I don’t want to pony up so regularly to stay in style) so when he needs clothes, he tends to look for clearance, or even (oh the horror!) wholesale items. But guy’s clothes are different. A guy can get away with three pair of the exact same pants, just a slightly different shade of khaki. A guy can get away with such simplicity when it comes to style, so Mike’s closet, while probably having the same carbon dating as my side, still works for him.

What’s weird is that I’m a shopping voyeur. When other people buy things, I love to look at what they got, hear about the deals, and especially if there’s haggling involved. So imagine my surprise, when I’m the one trekking for goods, how much I loathe it. My back starts to hurt, my feet twitch and I regress into a nine year old girl at a craft fair with her mother, whining about being hungry and bored and wanting to go home to watch TV. Case in point, last night.

I need jeans. Or seat covers to protect the public from my Great White South when I’m not at work. They didn’t necessarily need to be denim, though I did want at least one pair of jeans. I went to Kohls. Normally, their clothes are not so trendy that I’ll be outdated the second I swipe my card, but they don’t sell tapered leg, over-the-belly-button jeans either. Well, they do, but those are one rack compared to ten or so racks that I would be caught dead in. Or so I thought. I looked and looked. They didn’t have as many racks as I remembered and what styles I would wear were on the twig side of the Women’s department.

Which brings me to a tangent. Aren’t we as Americans in the midst of an obesity epidemic? I’ll admit I’m far more overweight than I’m comfortable with (and will absolutely divulge no details because in my case, bigger isn’t better). But I’m not alone. In fact, I’d say it’s about half and half, the ratio of women I know who are skinny versus overweight. So why, pray tell, is it that stores have only one rack of plus sized jeans to every ten racks postage stamp sized jeans, instead of half and half, which is the reality? I’m in no way advocating we just look the other way as a nation to the fact that our people are growing horizontally. But clothing is a need, and supplying what fits people of all sizes without forcing the bigger of those people to traipse all over creation looking for just one item in their size isn’t necessarily enabling gluttonous behavior. Or is the idea to get us to walk more and take some weight off? Sneaky. Very sneaky. But seriously, health care would be a bit improved if plus size people didn’t have to search so hard for their size, because otherwise there will eventually be a lot of fat naked people walking around, which is bound to increase the country’s need for psychotherapy and medication. Not to mention the right sized jeans will help combat the muffin top problem that seems to be blooming with the obesity numbers. Whew! That was quite a tangent!

But at Kohls, I found the rack of Mom Jeans, and I refuse. Just no. So I traipsed across the parking lot to the Old Navy store, where I have been fortunate enough in the past to find my size in one or two styles that I would be caught dead in. Given that Old Navy is targeted more to teens and twenty-somethings (even though I’m still a twenty-something and will hold onto that designation tenaciously for another 6 months and 26 days), I wasn’t as surprised to see most of the jeans in tween sizes. However, again I was foiled, finding not one item in my size in either place. Discouraged, I schlepped out to the parking lot and loaded Gabe back in his backseat throne, heading home where I could shop in the comfort of my own house and not be constantly reminded that my ass is the size of two asses.

Even online I had some difficulty, for I am at a difficult size. I’m right at the upper cutoff for most regular stores, and I’m too small for the specialty plus sized stores. What’s a girl to do? I searched, and searched. I Googled and found some really cute clothes. That I couldn’t force myself to pay for. I might have been able to spend $70 on a pair of jeans when I was in high school, but not now, not when Mike might not get paid again for several weeks with the start of his new job. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, no matter how cute the clothes. Not to mention that the models for the plus sizes? Really shouldn’t be a size negative six. Give me a plus sized model to SHOW me that the tummy tuck panel in those pants works. That twig? Has no stomach to speak of. She looked concave. Her belly button was scratching her spine. She really should have that looked at by a medical professional. Or, you know, she should eat a sandwich, because there’s healthy skinny, and then there’s sallow. She probably could have cut a steak with her cheekbones. Except she wouldn’t know a steak if she saw one. Oh, look at me, being mean to the skinny girl. I shouldn’t do that, contributing to a double standard that it’s okay for fat people to pick on the skinny people but not the other way around. I’ll buy her a meal if I see her in person, just to make up for it.

So I found some pants in my size, that were somewhat within my budget, but it still made me cringe. The only thing saving me this time from my buyer’s remorse is that I have ONE pair of jeans that fit. That and I’ll be going through my closet to get rid of the clothes that I don’t wear anymore, and I’ll donate them. But those jeans I paid $70 for back in college, that are the size I would like to get back down to? I’m keeping those. I need some motivation.

Next on the agenda? A jacket. My current repertoire of outerwear consists of my winter coat, and three jackets that either a.) have holes in them somewhere, b.) were bought either in high school or college, or c.) both. It’s about time, I think. So bring on the remorse, because I don’t think I could find a decent jacket for Midwestern fall for under $30. God help me.