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a compliment, just ask him for one directly. And don't be afraid to tell us what kind of compliment, either. (“You there. Isn't my new haircut the kind of thing that a boyfriend might want to say looks really cute? It's exactly that kind of thing, isn't it?”) My girlfriend does this all the time, and it works like a dream. Trust me, he'll be only too thrilled to spear the holy hell out of the exact elk that you need speared. Then everybody's happy, and nobody has to get yelled at.
     

MYTH: If a Man Doesn't Cry, It Means He's Not in Touch with His Feelings.
    FACT: If a man doesn't cry, it means that he is not experiencing an emergency situation.
     
    Okay, imagine you're at your job, and one of the women who works with you starts crying right in the middle of the salmon cannery assembly line (hey, I don't know where you work). What would happen? Mmm, nothing much. Everyone would wonder what was wrong, and someone would probably ask her, and it would work itself out in a matter of minutes.
     
    Okay, now imagine one of the men you work with just bursting into tears at work. What would happen? The whole place would go nuts. Everyone would think that something must really be wrong, or else Balthazar (I don't know who you work with, either) wouldn't be crying in public. And everyone would talk about it for years.
     
    For whatever reason, we just don't get to cry in front of people very often. And we don't really want to. Look, until men can find some big upside to crying (i.e., what it does ), we're not going to do it very often. Personally, unless I've just been dumped (or seen the last twenty minutes of The Iron Giant ), it just doesn't come up.
     
    It's the “men who don't cry, don't feel” myth that leads some women to this next one:
     

MYTH: Men Don't Get Brokenhearted in the
Same Way That Women Do.
    FACT: We most certainly do, but it might not look like you expect it to.
     
    A woman wrote to me once wondering if men are incapable of feeling brokenhearted after a breakup. This came up because she heard that her ex was out trying to get laid only days after they had split up. She was understandably hurt that he was already looking for someone else, but I can tell you that there's no reason to think that guy wasn't absolutely crushed. But you're never, never going to see it.
     
    First of all, we've already talked about crying. So you're not likely to see any visible signs that he's an emotional wreck. Not in public. Not unless something really heavy just rolled over his toes.
     
    But what about the “getting laid” part? How could he possibly be ready to be with another woman already? Well, that's the problem right there—you think he needs to get “ready” to be with another woman. I assure you, he's been “ready” since he was, oh, twelve years old. Whatever woman he can corral into his bed has nothing to do with his vulnerable emotional state. The fact is, he is probably out looking to get laid to avoid vulnerability.
     
    I know, I know. Weird and strange, right? Well, no worries. That's what the next chapter is all about.
     
    See? As promised, we've cracked open a ton of the myths about men, and we didn't even have to pretend that the sun was the chariot of Apollo or anything.
     
    Next, we'll tackle myths, misunderstandings, and foolishness about a topic so private, so smoking hot-t-t, so potentially embarrassing, that it deserves its very own chapter. I give you…
     
    __________________
     

     
* When I say “myths,” I'm not talking about the kind that involve Zeus, Thor, or a flying snake with wings that asks Aztecs to do human sacrifices. That stuff is just weird and probably not very useful here. What I'm talking about are the stories told from generation to generation to annoy people who don't know them. They involve stuff that isn't true, such as when people say something like, “No, dude, Bigfoot is real,” or, “I read this Eastern philosophy book that said men can have multiple