HOLIDAYS AND THE MALE

As we gear up for the holiday season, I figured to give you all a little heads up about what's coming in the way of your male behavior and why you should start shopping now.

Psychiatrists have noticed that men mostly get irritable and depressed this time of year, and like most of you having your Thanksgiving traumas with your family, they blame it on The Holidays. They are, of course, wrong. I just tell you this so you know you are not the only smart person to make this mistake.

If you remember what I said back on September 30 , you know that October is the annual high for testosterone and other such prostaglandins in men. These hormones give them a wonderful zest just as the leaves start turning, and romance lurks on every corner, especially around 2 in the afternoon, which is the daily high level of that horny hormone. Think of it as the high tide with the new moon.

Anyway, October, like all good things, passes and suddenly his feel-good chemicals start to go away. We girls can empathize because, what with the ebb and flow of hormones that is the glory of every female, we experience a similar sudden drop every month. The result is called PMS. We have only a teeny bit of that hair-on-your-chest stuff, so our bodies can go cold-turkey. Forty-eight hours later, we're back to our sweet, agreeable selves..

Your poor guys, their withdrawal drags out for weeks. So think of November and December as the male PMS -equivalent, only instead of three days a month, they get their whole five weeks at once. Gals, treat them as you expect to be treated on your three days, twelve times a year.

Howsomever, five or six weeks is still a long time to put up with moodiness, so The Hoidays was invented to lighten things up. Fortunately, your male is not an abstract thinker and can be distracted by beautiful packaging.

For those who doubt this, just look at the basic male visual response. A bit of blonde hair catches the light, or a ponytail goes swaying down the street, and a man forgets his name and life history in the eternal now of Her. This is why he carries identification with his name and address on it.

Or take what I call the 'Baywatch phenomenon.' No man cares if the contours he sees on the screen are biologically 'real.' They are in front of his eyes and that is enough for him. But turn off the TV, and any man worth the name knows to the depths of his objective, manly self that the pair of breasts in the bed next to him are the most beautiful in the world.

So, not being an abstract thinker, we can distract him from his misery by stringing bright, preferably blinking lights, singing perky, hopeful songs, wearing clothes with sparkles, dabbing perfume, serving tasty treats, and encouraging shopping, which dulls feelings with the frenzy of finding. That, some extra sports on the TV, a few craft projects requiring assembly, and the crisis will have passed. Soon, the testosterone will be climbing again, and he[base ']ll rise to the challenge of paying all those holiday bills like a man.