Internet descriptions - male

Compared to women, men on the Internet can lie about just about everything. Nothing is sacred - their height, weight, age, looks, hair situation, marital status, complexion, build, financial status, occupation and just about any other trait you can think of. Everything is fluid and can be adapted to woo a particular Internet prey.

As the diagram above shows, it really is caveat emptor* for ladies on-line! Of course there are genuine and/or attractive blokes in cyberspace, but it's hard to find them, outnumbered as they are by the cowboys, chancers, perverts and married guys looking for "fun"!

Some people on the net are lucky that they aren't arrested for fraud! I don't know if the short, bald, fat, old guy thinks the woman won't notice when they finally meet that he isn't young, tall, dark and handsome as claimed. I guess there are insecurities there and the forlorn hope is that she might overlook the "little" lie and see the real man within.

Corny as it sounds, I think that honest really is the best policy on-line. What kind of relationship starts off with a lie? One that's trying to get someone into bed, perhaps! If it's a longer term arrangement that you're after, it's best to use a recent picture and a realistic self appraisal and let the chips fall where they may. After all, you do ultimately want a person to like you for the real you, not an idealised, fictitious version of you.

*Buyer beware!

Internet descriptions - female

Further to the post on Internet dating, unfortunately one really must take profiles on Internet dating sites, chat rooms, social networking sites, instant messaging systems and the like with a large pinch of salt. For men, this means adding about a stone (14 pounds or 6.4kgs) to a woman's claimed weight and usually downgrading their claimed appearance by about one notch. This leads to a lot of disappointment when meeting women off the Internet. Men tend to be shallow, visual creatures, after all.

This is displayed in the mapping diagram above. On the left hand side, the body mappings are shown. Let's face it - a lot of women tell porkies about their weight. Sure, there are gym buffed and honest ladies in cyberspace, but a lot of women seem to be misleading about their actual body type.

The right hand side of the diagram above shows the appearance mappings. Again, this tends to be exaggerated somewhat on profiles, so it's best to be sceptical. Again, occasionally you do see bona fide hot chicks on profiles, but by and large you'd have to question why they need to use the Internet at all. The answer, you'll find in most cases, is to lure you to their web site where they are waiting for you (or more specifically, your credit card!).

If they are over about 35, you might as well add about 5 years on to their purported ages for good measure! I've seen some very suspect "35" year old female profiles in my time, I can tell you! Or maybe I'm just ageing extremely well!

Whether it's self-delusion or deliberate obfuscation, it's never nice to be sold a bum steer! But however bad women may be on the honesty front, they pale in comparison to their male counterparts!

Out of sight, out of mind

Following on from the post on long distance romances, another well known problem with parted couples is the wandering eye. Granted, this is a more of an issue with the male of the species. Indeed, some guys probably jump into Internet chat rooms looking for "fun" when their other half nips down to the shop!

The graph above shows this phenomenon for both males and females. As the distance between the couple increases, the likelihood of one (or both!) of the partners "playing away from home" follows suit. A lot of men separated from their women by a large distance would be at least tempted to avail of an available opportunity. Before you gals get on your high horse, you are not entirely without sin in this regard either. Just watch the film "Up in the Air"* for proof of this!

This is why you should never agree to your partner going on a sun holiday with the girls/lads!


*George Clooney stars in it and it's a good movie, so it shouldn't be too onerous to watch it!

Underwear evolution - women

Unlike their male counterparts, the amount of material used in female underwear has been steadily decreasing over the last number of centuries. Indeed, so much so that, short of going commando, this trend unfortunately can not keep continuing and must level off. Thus, we are left with an exponential decrease, as shown in the graph above. For direct comparisons with men, bras are not included in this treatise, despite the growing number of men who need them!

Back in the middle ages, a potential suitor would need a machete to hack through the layers of chemises, smocks, petticoats and the like that a woman used as underwear. This cornucopia of genital attire possible doubled as a chastity belt of sorts! By the early 1900s, this mercifully had been whittled down to mere bloomers. The trend continued through to bikini style briefs and the g-string - surely the acme of female underwear design!!!

I have noticed that the string nature of modern women's underwear would appear to the untrained male eye to be giving them constant wedgies! While this would seem to be most uncomfortable to a man, the absence of "undercarriage" does have to be factored in! Unfortunately, most of this empirical evidence has been gathered from VPL (visible panty lines) and not, err, investigations in the field!

Underwear evolution - men

The variation in the amount of material used in male underwear (also known as jocks, kacks, smalls etc.) down through the centuries to the present day turns out to be sinusoidal in nature. This is shown in the graph above, where the most popular type of male undergarment from medieval times onwards is displayed.

Back in the Middle Ages, men wore convoluted kacks called a braie. This usually came with a codpiece, which was a zipper of sorts for, err, easy access! Fast forward to the 1800s and you had long johns, a full body suit, again with flaps (front and back this time!) for convenience. In the 20th century, underwear shrank at a rate of knots with boxers first becoming popular in the 1930s. Briefs started at much the same time but became popular later on, thankfully marking the minimum amount of fabric used in popular male kacks (Peter Stringfellow et al take note: g-strings should not be worn by men!).

Funnily enough, boxers and their derivatives have become very popular again in the past number of years, causing the final upturn in the graph above. This is probably due to their reputation for being roomier and being easier to access, although at the expense of support for the two veg! It may be a periodic sinusoid so perhaps we'll have to dust off those codpieces soon!

Who said this blog wasn't educational?!

Mind mapping - male

I know us guys aren't perfect, but at least we're far more straightforward in this respect than our female counterparts. We generally keep things simple by saying what we mean! This is illustrated in the diagram above.

Thus, refreshingly, "yes" means "yes" when asked a question by a woman that involves some sort of sexual activity. And the answer will usually be "yes", as we are only big bags of testosterone after all. Occasionally, if you're strong willed and want to tease or in the lucky situation of being in a short inter-orgasmic period, you might play for time with a "maybe" answer. If the answer is "no", call the doctor because something serious must be wrong with him!

Mind Mapping - Female

Yes, chaps, it's the dreaded "does that no really mean no?" quandary. You've asked your beloved a delicate question, but unfortunately you're none the wiser after her answer. As the chart above shows, her answer could mean just about anything! It is still good manners to ask though, regardless of the confusion that will ensue.

If she said "no" to, say, your polite request of nookie, does this mean "not even when hell freezes over" or "not now, but ask me again in 5 minutes and we'll see"? If she replied "maybe", does this mean she's buying time to safeguard her virtue and with a little more spadework you'll be in there? Or, is it to let you down easier in the not too distance future? Even "yes" answers aren't safe, especially if you've been silly enough to ask a negative question. Sometimes, there's a statute of limitations on "yes" answers you make the mistake of thinking that one little "yes" is a carte blanche thereafter. So guys, best not to assume anything! I think the great man himself, Meatloaf, warbled it best in his song Where the rubber meets the road - "Yes means no means yes means no".

This uncertainty is one of the main reasons men use persistence when chasing women. Every man has had a woman flip on him at some stage, with a "no" magically transforming in to a "yes" and many pleasurable shenanigans ensuing. This is why when a guy comes up against a real "no", the women is often perplexed by his continued dedication to the case. Well, you only have yourselves to blame, I'm afraid!