[pwd72s]

Ahhh hell! Now that this has been moved to off topic, nobody will read the following, but I'm gonna paste it anyway. I got it from RoninLB, and it sure tells some truths about the male/female relationship in a funny manner:



.. between men and women, as told by the story of
Roger and Elaine:


Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a
woman named Elaine. He
asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a
pretty good time.

A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and
again they enjoy
themselves. They continue to see each other
regularly, and after a while
neither one of them is seeing anybody else. And
then, one evening when
they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine,
and, without really
thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that,
as of tonight, we've
been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine,
it seems like a very
loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I
wonder if it bothers him
that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined
by our relationship;
maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some
kind of obligation that
he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure
I want this kind of
relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a
little more space, so I'd
have time to think about whether I really want us
to keep going the way
we are, moving steadily toward... I mean, where
are we going? Are we
just going to keep seeing each other at this level
of intimacy? Are we
heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a
lifetime together? Am
I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really
even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: So, that means it was...
let's see... February
when we started going out, which was right after I
had the car at the
dealer's, which means... let me check the
odometer... Whoa! I am way
overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it
on his face. Maybe I'm
reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more
from our
relationship, more intimacy, more commitment;
maybe he has sensed, even
before I sensed it, that I was feeling some
reservations. Yes, I bet
that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say
anything about his own
feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm going to have them
look at the
transmission again. I don't care what those morons
say, it's still not
shifting right. And they better not try to blame
it on the cold weather
this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees and
this thing is shifting
like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent
thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't
blame him. I'd be angry,
too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this,
but I can't help the
way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's
only a 90-day
warranty...scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too
idealistic, waiting for a
knight to come riding up on his white horse, when
I'm sitting right next
to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being
with, a person I
truly do care about, a person who seems to truly
care about me. A person
who is in pain because of my self-centered, school
girl romantic
fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a
warranty? I'll give them a
warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it
right up their...

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she
says, her eyes beginning
to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have...
Oh God, I feel so...
(She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger. "I'm such a fool," Elaine
sobs. "I mean, I know
there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly.
There's no knight,
and there's no horse." "There's no horse?" says
Roger. "You think I'm a
fool, don't you?" Elaine says. "No!" says Roger,
glad to finally know
the correct answer.

"It's just that... it's that I... I need some
time," Elaine says. There
is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast
as he can, tries to
come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up
with one that he
thinks might work. "Yes," he says. Elaine, deeply
moved, touches his
hand. "Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?"
she says. "What way?"
says Roger. "That way about time," says Elaine.
"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."
Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his
eyes, causing him to
become very nervous about what she might say
next, especially if it
involves a horse. At last she speaks. "Thank you,
Roger," she says.
"Thank you," says Roger. Then he takes her home,
and she lies on her
bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until
dawn.

When Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag
of Doritos, turns on
the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in
a rerun of a tennis
match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard
of. A tiny voice in
the far recesses that something major was going
on back there in the
car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he
would ever understand
what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't
think about it.

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend,
or perhaps two of
them, and they will talk about this situation for
six straight hours.
In painstaking detail, they will analyze
everything she said and
everything he said, going over it time and time
again, exploring every
word, expression, and gesture for nuances of
meaning, considering every
possible ramification. They will continue to
discuss this subject, off
and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching
any definite
conclusions, but never getting bored with it,
either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one
day with a mutual
friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before
serving, frown, and
say, "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"