The Manual: A Girl Guide for Guys

I have been referring to this book all my adult life: “Read The Manual”, I’d urge, after some bewildering or exasperating encounter with a man. I searched high and low for a user’s guide to bestow to the befuddled male at Christmas or on a birthday, but having never found what I was looking for I decided to write it myself.

My relationships with men encompass the usual diversity - father, brother, friends, boyfriends, two husbands ( sequentially, not concurrent ) and a son - all good men ( well, no, two of them were assholes ), intelligent and well-intentioned, but all at one time or another uncomprehending, delusional, or bizarrely misinformed.

As I put pen to paper, and began the task of displaying and interpreting all those female peculiarities, I marvelled at what complex creatures we women are. Men seem relatively straightforward by comparison ( that impression I grant you, could arise from a position of complete ignorance, but as a woman I’m bound to regard that interpretation as highly unlikely ).

I also felt a surge of sympathy as I disentangled femininity and came to the ineluctable conclusion that women are bonkers ( but, we’re also gorgeous and wonderful and will immeasurably enrich your lives ).