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"   \u00A0 The question above is one that has stumped thinkers as revered as William Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud and the character played by Mel Gibson in the mediocre romantic comedy What Women Want. And yet, I intend to take a crack at it, right now, on this very page. What, you may ask, qualifies me for so momentous a task? Well, for one, I&amp;#039;ve spent a fair chunk of my 30 years on this planet trying, and failing, to grasp the workings of the female mind. I couldn&amp;#039;t understand the first girl I fancied (she chased me round the playground when we were nine, before inexplicably booting a netball at my face), I couldn&amp;#039;t understand the first girl I kissed (she was French), and I certainly couldn&amp;#039;t understand the first girl I dated (she insisted on us paying money to watch the mediocre romantic comedy What Women Want).\u00A0 These are just a few examples; there are many more - including the time I missed the sexual undertones in a girl&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;My place later?&amp;quot; suggestion, and invited half the club back to hers for an after-party - and all of them seem to suggest that, no, men can never\u00A0really understand women. Or, at least, women they fancy.\u00A0 The reason for this is simple. As adults, we express our feelings through language - spontaneous netball-based violence only works for the under 10s - and the language used by men and women that fancy each other is perhaps the most complicated language on Earth. There&amp;#039;s a great bit in Annie Hall, where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are exchanging banal pleasantries (&amp;quot;Photography&amp;#039;s interesting because it&amp;#039;s a new art form&amp;quot;), while subtitles reveal what they&amp;#039;re really thinking (&amp;quot;I wonder what she looks like naked&amp;quot;). It&amp;#039;s a funny scene, but there&amp;#039;s a serious truth to it; namely, that in those nervous, early stages of flirtation, people will say pretty much anything\u00A0except what they actually mean.\u00A0 Take this story. A few years ago, I went on a promising first date. I texted the girl twice afterwards to suggest further meet-ups, and both times got the frosty reply, &amp;quot;Sorry, I&amp;#039;m busy&amp;quot;. So, slightly deflated, I left it at that. Weeks later, with my self-esteem momentarily rejuvenated by four pints of Guinness, I sent a third text, which yielded a more positive response, and we started seeing each other again. After a couple of months, I asked why she&amp;#039;d been so hesitant at first. &amp;quot;I wasn&amp;#039;t&amp;quot;, she said. &amp;quot;I liked you a lot; I just wanted to see how keen you really were on me.&amp;quot; This - correct me if I&amp;#039;m wrong - is mental. I had apparently been expected to translate &amp;quot;Sorry, I&amp;#039;m busy&amp;quot; to mean, &amp;quot;I am not busy at all and would love to see you again, but first I require you to pass an insanely subtle personality test.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s probably for the best things didn&amp;#039;t work out between us; I would&amp;#039;ve been on the sixth engagement ring before she finally said yes.  \u00A0 Of course, if women are occasionally guilty of overcomplicating, men are equally to blame for missing the screamingly obvious. I&amp;#039;ve got a friend whose new girlfriend recently told him she was worried about gaining weight. What she wanted from him was some kind, caring, reassuring words. What she got from him was a George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine. As a 30th birthday present. Remarkably, they&amp;#039;re still together, although the Grilling Machine was in a charity shop window within a week. So there we have it, right? Men and women: forced to spend an eternity in frustrated miscommunication? Not quite. You see, something changes when you graduate from just &amp;#039;fancying&amp;#039; someone to feeling something more meaningful.\u00A0 I&amp;#039;m not saying falling in love banishes misunderstanding from a relationship. I&amp;#039;ve been with my girlfriend for two years now, and there are still tons of things that baffle us both. I don&amp;#039;t understand how she manages to lose her Tube pass at least once a day, and she doesn&amp;#039;t get how I can leave the house with odd socks on (I wear shoes over them, obviously, otherwise she&amp;#039;d have a point). But the bigger, more important\u00A0things are crystal clear to me now: what she wants from life, what makes her happy, when she needs me, when she needs to be alone, and - perhaps most crucially - when she wants love and support rather than low-fat grilling apparatus. So, no, I don&amp;#039;t think men can really ever understand women. But I think the right man can understand the right woman just fine.\u00A0 Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison&amp;#039;s debut novel, Lobsters, is out NOW.\u00A0 MORE FROM INSIDE MEN&amp;#039;S MINDS: 15 THINGS NOT TO DO IN THE BEDROOOM\u00A0 MOST BIZARRE BREAK-UP EXCUSES FROM MEN HOW TO SPOT A CHEATER "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/love-sex/relationships/advice/a27147/can-men-ever-really-understand-women/>