How to Think Like a Man

The art of acting like a lady while thinking like a man

I. First Things First

A few days ago I sent my mother one of my latest articles. Within minutes she texted back: “Dang, Son, your comments section is a girls’ pow-wow! You only got female readers or what?”

Mama then told me to “love who loves you back.” And since I’ve been on Medium, from the comments to claps, most of the love shown has overwhelmingly come from the females.

And so, with that being said, what better way to show appreciation to my sisters than by revealing how men think?

Ahem, as for my male readers: Fellas, sorry! I’m on the verge of breaking The Guy Code.

In short, so far as dating is ultimately a game, as “The Master of Those Who Know” once noted:

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then, you have to play better than anyone else.”

— Albert Einstein

Theme song: If I Was Your Girlfriend — by Prince

II. How Men Think — Rule #1

A guy would rather date a woman he loves over a woman who loves him; the opposite holds true for women.

When females break this cardinal rule, in Houston they’re nicknamed “Gravy.” In other words, when a female smothers her meal (guy), as if he were chicken in a pan, she’s called a Gravy.

Please, dear reader, don’t be a Gravy!

Nothing turns a guy off more than feeling smothered. Exchange numbers with a Gravy in the morning and by night time she’s already calling you “Bae.”

I once had a buddy whose girlfriend was such a Gravy that, while the Houston Texans game was on, she interpreted his staring intently at the TV as googly eyes.

“Oh, hell to the naw!” she boomed from the kitchen. “Next time I catch you drooling over those Texans cheerleaders like that, I’m canceling that lil Sunday package of yours.”

Needless to say, after a few months those two turned into a banana — and split!

Men are hunters by nature. And so, when a woman makes him feel like the prey, he can’t help but pray to escape the situation. Sheesh!

Too many texts + too soon in the relationship = too bad!

“Why is she already FaceTiming me, bro?” a buddy once grumbled. “Damn! I just left her place 10 minutes ago.”

Perhaps grasping this first rule boils down to mastering one of the 48 Laws of Power:

“Raise your Value Through Absence and Scarcity”

— Law #16

Takeaway Insight #1:

“Familiarity breeds contempt,” runs the proverb. And so, because men are wired to value a thing in proportion to its scarcity, master the art of unpredictability.

When he assumes you’re free for the evening, make up an excuse. When he sets the stage for another — ahem — Netflix & Chill session, hit him with the unexpected twist. Say something like: “Babe, let’s try something different tonight, like . . . hmm, watch a video on ‘How to Meditate for Beginners.’ After that, let’s give the new practice a try together.”

III. How Men Think — Rule #2

If he was a player when you met him, the only thing “marriage” is going to do is to convert that old player into a new polygamist.

Oprah once said the best piece of advice her mentor Dr. Maya Angelou ever gave her was this: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time, baby.”

I know . . . I know, every good girl dreams of having a bad boy who’ll be good just for her. I get it. I really do!

But the reality is this: men don’t so much change the way they think as do they learn to disguise the lack of change.

In short, once a player — always a player.

Takeaway Insight #2:

Learn to embrace the mantra — better a painful truth than a comforting lie. And so, if Romeo was juggling five different girlfriends before you magically “converted” his heart to monogamy, chances are that number saved under “Jaimie (my workout buddy)” is indeed — his workout buddy.

IV. How Men Think — Rule #3

“When a girl puts me in the friend zone, bro, I always interpret that as damn — she just doesn’t wanna have sex with me!” — Jay

(My roommate in college revealed how men truly feel about the so-called “friend zone.”)

During a classic scene, Harry mentions to Sally: “You realize, of course, that we could never be friends.”

“Why not?” she wonders.

Sally expects an answer long and sour, but Harry keeps it short and sweet:

“Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”

“The day my penis stops working is the day I’ll start working on having some female friends,” Dave Chappelle once joked. Ah, many a true word is spoken in jest indeed!

For the above reasons, a few weeks ago when a female private messaged me here on Medium, wanting to know why I address all women as “sister,” I explained to her as follows.

Because the greater the sinner, the greater the saint, in my former life before I embarked on this spiritual path — ahem — I was kinda “a ladies’ man.” And I mean it — a real-life “ladies’ man.”

(Shaking my head while sighing.)

As Fate would have it, though, as Sir Isaac Newton once remarked — the price of my “genius” was celibacy. Or to put it another way: years ago when I prayed to a higher power for the answer to my life’s riddle, God whispered in my third ear:

“Son, you can have ANYTHING you want but not EVERYTHING.”

Now that I”m born again and as chaste as a newborn child, I have to perceive all women as “sisters.” I have to for my own purity’s sake. After all, there’s no “reality,” only perception. Hence my perception is my reality! So when I changed the way I saw things, the things I saw changed.

Takeaway Insight #3:

Perhaps we humans sometimes forget who we really are. We forget our closest cousin is named Chimp; so close in fact — we share roughly 98 percent of our DNA with chimps. “Man,” said Darwin, “still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

In short, unless your so-called “friend” is named Gay, Monk or Family — see Dave Chappelle’s quote again, my sister. See Dave Chappelle’s quote again. …

V. How Men Think — Rule #4

9 times out of 10 men impress to undress; 9 times out of 10 women undress to impress.

Back in the day, whenever one of my cousins or aunts would come running to Big Mama (grandma) about guy troubles, her response would always be the same: “Heifer, you think he ’bout to buy that cow now and for months he’s been sipping on that milk for free? Child please!”

Matter of fact, given that Beyoncé hails from my neighborhood, I suspect something about that environment fosters wedding book smarts to street smarts.

Sure, the game is to be sold, not to be told, but if by chance you listen closely to Beyoncé’s music, she reveals how she mastered acting like a lady while thinking like a man.

At one point Jay-Z was hip-hop’s ultimate player. From dating Aaliyah to Rosario Dawson, Jay-Z had quite a reputation.

“I’ve got no passion, I’ve got no patience . . . and I hate waiting,” Jay-Z once bragged on the song “Big Pimpin,” featuring the Houston rap legends UGK.

As Fate would have it, Beyoncé would later do a song with UGK. With Jay-Z in attendance on the video set, she sang: “I’m gon’ make you chase it . . . You’ve got to be patient, I like my men patient!”

But according to insiders, Jay-Z — “Mr. Hit It Then Quit It” — was growing visibly frustrated with how Beyoncé was treating him.

On the song “Lost Ones,” Jay-Z goes so far as to complain that “I don’t think it’s meant to be, B [Beyoncé, double entendre], coz she loves her work more than she does me.”

(Notice how hot under the collar even the coolest guy becomes when a woman masters the art of acting like a lady while thinking like a man.)

Aha! It’s no accident that the very same year Queen B taunted men around the world with the female’s anthem “if you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it,” Jay-Z, well, put a ring on it!

Takeaway Insight #4

“I know what boys like,” the group Waitresses sang; “I know what guys want.” And so, given that the law of supply and demands says “the greater the demand, the greater the value,” for a woman to fork over the most precious commodity in history — in some instances in just one night — comes at the price of woefully devaluing the good(ies) in question.

VI. In Closing

Just as all rivers flow to the sea, all of a man’s thoughts — concerning relationships — flow to these four golden rules.

In short, master the above art and I’ll guarantee this: you may never know what your man thinks, but you’ll always know how he thinks.

Bingo!

Here lies the art of acting like a lady while thinking like a man.

The End.

P.S. Honestly, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be writing on Medium. Once my agent strikes a deal, which seems nearby, it’ll be on to the next adventure. But while I’m here, I wanted to make sure I dedicated a piece to all my sisters, without whom I would’ve never tasted success this quickly on the platform. After all, love is a verb.

In no particular order, this piece is dedicated to:

Daisygwoods (Cocoa Griot), Allison Gaines, Jessica Wildfire, Bernadette DeCarlo, Jamie Golob, Olya Aman, Charlotte Zobeir Ali, Lanu Pitan, Kaia 🌀 Tingley, Lori Brown , Anita Durairaj, Melissa Bee, Tracey Folly, Camelia Baker, Whitney Rose, Vanessa Torre, Kim Petersen, Toya Qualls-Barnette, Louise Moulin, Sneha Mankar, Dona Mwiria, Karmen Jurela, Bebe Nicholson, Nada Chehade, Stylish+Geek, Mariana F., Gina Pacelli, Zul Bal, Valentina Solci, Annelise Lords, Tracy Luk, Sylvia Wohlfarth, Roz Warren, Kat of Magik, Bhavna Narula, Nicole Bryan, Bassey Elimian, Holly Kellums, Olivia Grace, Lauren Shepley, Paige Powell, Sarah Lucy Charlesworth Poe, MS, MPH, Shanna Loga, Eunice Gikonyo, Msc Psychology, Adriana Stein, Carolyn Riker, Adriana Sim, Kitty J, Shea Hulse, Sara Smith, Michelle Middleton, Bradlee Bryant, Kelly Griffin, Mădălina Cătălin, Martina Doleckova, Alison Tennent, Marissa Opal Moore, Rebecca Romanelli, Dr. GeGe Jasmin, Amy Marley, Payal Koul, Sara Eaton, KaylinArt, Roxana Anton, Kiran Yasmin, Miranda Geraskova, Belinda Mallasasime, Deb Clark, Bella Tran 🌷, Rosie Moeller, Gwen Irwin, R Tsambounieri Talarantas, Manasi Diwakar, Jenine Bsharah Baines, Deborah Oyegue, Catherine Caruso, Kate Feathers, Terrinia Tells, Vaishnavi Paliwal, Rejoice Denhere, Lisa Farnell, Evie M., Michele Thomas, Maria Marmo, Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh, Bhavna Narula, Kristina Segarra, Maryam Merchant, Nicole Bryan, Kelly Eden, Kim McKinney, Swati Suman, Harley Christensen, Kylie Craft, Camille Grady, Kim Petersen, Dawn Bevier, Bridget Webber, Caty Lee, Julia Beaudett, Kimberly Fosu, Carolyn Riker, Trista Ainsworth, Summer Simonton, Lisa Farnell, Kate Feathers, Sarene B. Arias