Men are always hearing "the rules" from the female side.
Now, here are some rules from the male perspective.
Sometimes we are not thinking about you. Live with it.
Sunday = sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
Don't cut your hair. Ever. Long hair is always more attractive than short hair. One of the big reasons guys fear getting married is that married women always cut their hair... and by then you're stuck with them.
Shopping is NOT a sport. And we are never going to think of it that way.
Crying is blackmail.
Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
We don't remember dates. Mark birthdays and anniversaries on a calendar. Remind us frequently beforehand and don't assume our forgeting one is failing some sort of love-test.
Most guys own three pairs of shoes - tops. What makes you think we'd be any good at choosing which pair, out of thirty, would look good with your dress?
Men believe that yes and no are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
If you won't dress like Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.
If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us and force us to lie for reasons of self protection.
If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
Let us ogle. We are going to look anyway; it's genetic. (It doesn't mean we don't love you anymore. We're hard-wired to ogle.)
You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials... unless it's a sports car commercial.
Christopher Columbus did not need directions, and neither do we.
The relationship is never going to be like it was the first two months we were going out. Get over it.
ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.
If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
We are not mind readers and never will be. Our lack of mind-reading ability is not proof of how little we care about you.
If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but figure you really want to punish us with your inscrutability.
If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.
When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.
Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss the shotgun formation or monster trucks.
You have enough clothes.
You have too many shoes.
Foreign films are best left to foreigners. (Unless it's Bruce Lee or some war flick where it doesn't really matter what they're saying anyway.)
I am in shape. ROUND is a shape.
(Thank you for reading this; Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight, but did you know we really don't mind that; it's like camping.)
NEW!!!
Men are easy to understand. We've been hard wired by a billion years of evolution to want three things because having them maximized our chances of survival or spreading our genetic material: (1) Desiring material possessions (because having lots of food, clothing, etc. meant we were more likely to survive); (2) Power over other people (ditto): (3) lots of young attractive women (young because they are more likely to survive childbirth and less likely to have already been impregnated by another man and attractive because it used to be a primary indicator of health.)
We live in times when acting on these drives is no longer appropriate, but they are still present and influence much of what we feel and do. This isn't shallow or determined by our upbringing, but the imprint of a survival strategy that has carried us to becoming the dominant species on the planet. Women have a similar, though different, set of primal drives. For one gender to look down on another because of them is to ignore how we got where we are.
No matter what we say to protect your feelings, fat (even a minor bulge) is never attractive. Sorry, girls.
When a man sees a woman, "newness" (as in he's never seen her before) is an attraction attribute as concrete as the color of her hair or her figure. This is so strong that can render a less attractive but unfamiliar woman more desireable than a known, more attractive woman. This behavior is perfectly rational from an evolutionary point of view.
You don't need to ask us if you're over weight if half the tops in your wardrobe look like maternity blouses.