<p>There are usually at least four or five gag gifts at all of the swaps we go to. One year we brought this mounted rubber fish that sang “Take Me To The River. Drop Me In The Water” and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Another year we brought “William Hong for the Holidays” on CD! It’s really fun when a certain gift gets passed around several times!</p>
<p>Sarasmom, a few years ago H saw this annoying fish thing and thought it was the greatest thing in the world! He was dead serious, and my only salvation was the fact that he was too lazy to go shopping for one!</p>
<p>We had this great tradition at one of my workplaces - christmas sock party, ladies only. Everybody brought a wrapped pair of socks, appetizers and wine, and we had a blast. Too bad the tradition died when the company went out of business:(</p>
<p>I have a deep-thinker husband and 3 sons so I am used to lots of silence. When I am with my 16-year-old’s tennis team and I transport girls in my car, I am simply amazed at all the talking. My ears turn around like satelite dishes trying to hear everything. If I have only boys in the car, they grunt a few words to each other, put their headphones on, and go to sleep.</p>
<p>“My ears turn around like satelite dishes trying to hear everything.”</p>
<p>LOL, newtoallthis!</p>
<p>^Seriously…I get so starved for conversation, I find myself talking to the dog. But, alas, he’s also a male, and I can’t get him to engage.</p>
<p>HAHAHAHAHA. You’re too funny, newtoallthis!</p>
<p>Now that I’m single again, I find I serve a purpose to my married girlfriends. They don’t leave their husbands alone during evenings, but they enjoy LONG telephone chats.</p>
<p>newtoallthis: I totally agree. I also have a husband and three sons. I’m starved for conversation. And I came from a family with three sisters. My husband considers telling me the kind of oil he’s putting in the car as conversation.</p>
<p>3bm103: It’s maddening sometimes. I love my husband dearly, but he comes home from work wiped out which compounds his need to NOT talk, at least for a while. He just doesn’t understand my conversations with friends on the phone that can last an hour! Oh, well…</p>
<p>For a while I called my 17-year old son “The God of Mute”.</p>
<p>He didn’t have anything to say about that…</p>
<p>Not a H story, but a male (my oldest son) one nevertheless…</p>
<p>Toward the end of the summer before my oldest son’s senior year we had planned our first major trip to visit colleges. I cleared everything with him, he had quit his summer job in preparation for this trip, from southern NJ to Boston and CT. He actually packed (which basically consists of him spending 2 minutes throwing some balled up clothes into a bag) for this trip.</p>
<p>We pack the car early in the morning for our 7 hour trip, we pull out of the driveway, he looks at me and asks, dead serious, “Where are we going?”</p>
<p>After I compose myself I reply, “Boston”.</p>
<p>About 10 minutes later he asks, “What schools are we going to see?” (mind you he had picked them, of course, and he had interviews scheduled at 3 of them).</p>
<p>Then he went to sleep.</p>
<p>I am laughing so hard over all of these! So true…</p>
<p>Gotta love the sex differences.</p>
<p>I try to understand though–the way my husband sometimes must feel about my need to talk about people, events, etc. (although he’s very patient if it’s in the a.m. instead of the p.m. after work…) is the way I feel when he starts talking about tools, cars, how to build things, etc. [the Peanuts cartoon of the teacher talking: “whah whah whah.”].</p>
<p>It’s all good though. Let him fix the car & I’ll handle remembering his family’s birthdays, setting up social events for us, etc.</p>
<p>Someone on CC once mentioned a book called, “He isn’t into you that much” or “He’s just not into you” or something like that. Can’t remember the exact title. I was in a bookstore a while ago and looked through it. Supposedly, if a guy doesn’t call you when he says he will, he’s not into you. Well, I guess my husband of 20+ years wasn’t that into me when we were dating! </p>
<p>For those of you who read the book: I haven’t read it, but I’m sure there’s a lot of truth in it too.</p>
<p>Has anyone actually read the whole thing? Does it talk about sex differences?</p>
<p>Not really. A little bit, but mostly just tells women to stop pining over men. It’s hysterical. I’d take it with a grain of salt, but a lot of the advice has some validity.</p>
<p>I happen to have a copy of Greg Behrendt’s “he’s just not that into you”. Each chapter begins with the title, then:
…he’s not calling you
…he’s having sex with someone else
…he only wants u when he’s drunk
…he doesn’t want to marry you
…he’s married
…he’s a selfish jerk, bully, freak</p>
<p>etc.</p>