Although I consider myself a fan of stand-up comedy, I generally find jokes about the 'essential' differences between men and women to be pretty inane.
Women, according to comedians, alternate between being screeching, nagging harpies and emotional vampires who insist upon watching Julia Stiles movies with their boyfriends.
Men, on the other hand, are portrayed as Neanderthal androids whose interests are football and farting and'OMG!'hate commitment. This is not to mention the toilet-seat controversy, which any stand-up comic will tell you is the coldest war of all.
There is, however, one gender stereotype which I have found to be absolutely true: Men do not care about shoes.
Well, perhaps that's not entirely true. There are foot fetishists, after all. And guys who get off on women in high heels. OK, let me rephrase: Men have no non-sexual interest in shoes.
I do not exempt myself from that statement, even though I am a sensitive male who cannot count on just one hand how many times I have seen 'Bridget Jones' Diary.'
There are times when I have met up with female friends of mine and the first thing they did was compliment me on my new shoes. I, of course, did not remember buying shoes because I am a manly man who cares little for such things, and I was left with the only logical possibility: I must have killed a drifter and stolen his shoes because my own were covered in his hobo blood.
Ladies, if you are preparing for a date with a gentleman caller and fretting over which shoes to wear, I would advise you not to worry. You could seriously show up wearing Kleenex boxes and the guy would probably not care.
Some guys might even think it's cute, although these may be the same boys who find Natalie Portman's character in 'Garden State' endearing. If this film has taught us anything, it is that there is a portion of the male population that is totally attracted to severe personality disorders. This phenomenon can also be seen in the movie 'Serendipity.'
Men will, of course, never notice another man's shoes. If some dude's shoes were on fire and he didn't realize it, I could never tell him about it because it would mean admitting that I was looking at his shoes. I would have to look the other way and hope he notices before the blistering begins.
Why should this be? Why has an interest in shoes become 'effeminate' in our society? At first I thought I would do some extensive research, examine the sociopolitical reasoning behind this footwear divide and write some hard-hitting journalism about this important topic.
And then I remembered that I don't care about shoes because I'm a man. And that I'm not really a hard-hitting journalist, either. So I took a nap instead.
You know, come to think of it, maybe guys do care about shoes, because people used to pay an exorbitant amount of money for Air Jordans. Then again, why do people buy Nikes? Because they think it will help them play basketball. And why do they care about playing basketball well? I have two words for you: Wilt Chamberlain.
So I reiterate: Men have no non-sexual interest in shoes.
