Are Women Aliens?

So I was thinking about women the other day. This is a common practice for me and often has no bearing on anything else, but this time I had a reason. Specifically, I was thinking about the book Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars. I'll admit I haven't read the book, per se. But I have given it a few wary glances in the book store. I figure this qualifies me to write my opinion on it. (That is how real journalists do it, isn't it?)

Pulling together the title and the casual blather I've heard about the book, it seems to me it is about how men and women are different. (Geeze, I hope I'm not plagiarizing anything here.) This premise, men and women being different, always amazes me. Like, who feels the need to point that out? Of course they're different!

I remember a while back, one of the major news magazines (Timed or Newsweak), had a cover story about researchers actually concluding that men and women are, indeed, different. I didn't read that one either or I'd tell you about it. But that doesn't mean I haven't formed an opinion based upon a careful review of the cover.

Here are some of my conclusions:

• Women want to know what you are thinking at the damnedest times. It's like they just dropped in from another planet.
• They also need to know what you are feeling. They seldom ask how we are feeling.
• Women need to constantly review their relationships. What do they think has changed it the last 20 minutes?
• Women are deathly afraid of the status quo. The highest praise they ever give a man is that he is willing to change.
• Women can search their purses for their keys for ten minutes every day and never try to find a better place to put them.
• They go from happy to moody to bitchy to happy to bitchy to happy to moody to moody to bitchy to happy and want to know what we are thinking.
• They put on a little weight and obsess over it or gain 40 pounds and pretend it's not there.
• Women have hot button issues that rotate randomly on an irregular schedule.
• They use sex as a weapon whereas we use our weapon for sex.

So are women alien? Definitely! Do they pose a danger? Definitely! But I figure the invasion happened a long time ago so the danger isn't immediate. Somehow we have found a way to peacefully (ahem) co-exist.

I would like to make one suggestion, however. I think there ought to be a baseline to establish normalcy for most discussions. If we do that, in this case, the book should be called Women are from Venus, Men are from Earth.