Dr Whipsnade draws my attention to a Russian man who teaches young ladies how to bag a rich husband. According to Vladimir Rakovsky, all men belong to one of three types: the mature man, the eternal bachelor and the little boy. To snare Mr Moolah in the matrimonial net, a woman must adjust her behaviour to his character. For the mature man, she must be the little girl in search of a protector; for the eternal bachelor, she must be the fun-loving teenager who giggles at his jokes; for the little boy, she must be the doting mother who tucks in his shirt. Throw in a few party tricks – like nibbling a banana seductively and doing a few hip-wiggles – and the smitten millionaire will get down on his knee with diamond ring in hand.
Any ape can see that this is the theory of a seminal thinker – a scholar of the works of Count Leo Tolstoy and Corporal Tatiana Romanova. Its simplicity is its genius. Dividing a population of billions into three groups cuts through all the phoney posturing and reveals man as he really is. The nagging worry, however, is the possibility of anomalous men who don’t fit into these categories. It only takes a few such deviants to explode a seemingly watertight thesis, leaving much pickled cabbage on Russian faces.
Let us suppose, for example, that we find men who are strangely attracted to pregnant women. There is nothing girlish about a pregnant woman to attract the mature man. The eternal bachelor would surely run a mile at the very sight of one. As for the little boy, the lasts thing he wants is any competition for his mother’s love. Men who fancy pregnant women simply would not fit into the Rakovskyian system. Do such men exist? I fear that they do.
So it looks like we’re back to the drawing board. But before all you single ladies pierce your navels in despair, let me tickle your ear lobes with another method of sorting the menfolk. Based on insights gained from years of patient observation, Gorilla Bananas has created his own system of classification. I postulate that the men of the world are divided into three variants: the mimic…the cynic…and the toothpick.
Let’s start with the mimic. He is a man who unconsciously (or possibly consciously) models himself on a hero figure. This could be his father, a great man of history or Pee Wee Herman. To lure him to the altar, a woman must reinvent herself as the consort of his exemplar. If the role-model is Lord Nelson, she must be Lady Hamilton. If the role-model is Pee Wee Herman, she must be a hand-puppet version of Miss Yvonne.
The cynic is the opposite of the mimic. He has no heroes, because he thinks all successful humans are hucksters and villains. The way to win what passes for his heart is to be an even bigger cynic than he is. But why would any woman bother? The cynic is a lazy poltroon who shuns hard work and rarely has any cash. No level-headed gold-digger would waste time on him unless he had inherited a fortune.
Lastly, we come to the toothpick, the most enigmatic of the three varieties. Here is a man who prefers to spend his leisure time with other men, often in situations where they are packed closely together. His friends are also toothpicks. On encountering them in a group, a woman will find these men dull and rather wooden. But if she can prise one away from his buddies, she will be surprised by his sharp insights and pointed remarks. What kind of woman does such a man want? Very simple: a woman with healthy gums who doesn’t mind being poked after she has eaten.
When I presented my theory to Dr Whipsnade, I’m sorry to say that he roared with laughter.
“Really, Bananas!” he exclaimed, “the search for naïve, tripartite classifications in complex beings is a cognitive dead-end. Whatever next? The tipple, the cripple and the nipple?”
Dr Whipsnade is a brilliant man, but sometimes he talks like a pompous old fart.
Any ape can see that this is the theory of a seminal thinker – a scholar of the works of Count Leo Tolstoy and Corporal Tatiana Romanova. Its simplicity is its genius. Dividing a population of billions into three groups cuts through all the phoney posturing and reveals man as he really is. The nagging worry, however, is the possibility of anomalous men who don’t fit into these categories. It only takes a few such deviants to explode a seemingly watertight thesis, leaving much pickled cabbage on Russian faces.
Let us suppose, for example, that we find men who are strangely attracted to pregnant women. There is nothing girlish about a pregnant woman to attract the mature man. The eternal bachelor would surely run a mile at the very sight of one. As for the little boy, the lasts thing he wants is any competition for his mother’s love. Men who fancy pregnant women simply would not fit into the Rakovskyian system. Do such men exist? I fear that they do.
So it looks like we’re back to the drawing board. But before all you single ladies pierce your navels in despair, let me tickle your ear lobes with another method of sorting the menfolk. Based on insights gained from years of patient observation, Gorilla Bananas has created his own system of classification. I postulate that the men of the world are divided into three variants: the mimic…the cynic…and the toothpick.
Let’s start with the mimic. He is a man who unconsciously (or possibly consciously) models himself on a hero figure. This could be his father, a great man of history or Pee Wee Herman. To lure him to the altar, a woman must reinvent herself as the consort of his exemplar. If the role-model is Lord Nelson, she must be Lady Hamilton. If the role-model is Pee Wee Herman, she must be a hand-puppet version of Miss Yvonne.
The cynic is the opposite of the mimic. He has no heroes, because he thinks all successful humans are hucksters and villains. The way to win what passes for his heart is to be an even bigger cynic than he is. But why would any woman bother? The cynic is a lazy poltroon who shuns hard work and rarely has any cash. No level-headed gold-digger would waste time on him unless he had inherited a fortune.
Lastly, we come to the toothpick, the most enigmatic of the three varieties. Here is a man who prefers to spend his leisure time with other men, often in situations where they are packed closely together. His friends are also toothpicks. On encountering them in a group, a woman will find these men dull and rather wooden. But if she can prise one away from his buddies, she will be surprised by his sharp insights and pointed remarks. What kind of woman does such a man want? Very simple: a woman with healthy gums who doesn’t mind being poked after she has eaten.
When I presented my theory to Dr Whipsnade, I’m sorry to say that he roared with laughter.
“Really, Bananas!” he exclaimed, “the search for naïve, tripartite classifications in complex beings is a cognitive dead-end. Whatever next? The tipple, the cripple and the nipple?”
Dr Whipsnade is a brilliant man, but sometimes he talks like a pompous old fart.
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Pee Wee Herman /
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