Sexless in the City.

Perhaps there is no female bonding ritual greater than watching Sex and the City with one's girlfriends and bonding through ongoing commentary and categorization. By commentary I mean (as anyone who has watched this show knows) the points at which laughter occur, at which people exclaim "What a JERK!", or mumble an "Oh my God...". You can tell a lot about a friend from these gasps and murmurs.

And categorization is of course the art of figuring out which of your friends is most like which character. This sport became formalized in a Facebook quiz, which I took, only to be told I"m a Miranda. My friends say I'm a Carrie, and hopefully after I finish my obsessive watching of the show, I will know my true identity.

For someone who loves pop culture as much as I do, it's surprising that it took me until 2007 to begin watching the show at all, and TBS edits at that! I had seen a handful of episodes before seeing the movie, so it was a mystery to me why Carrie would marry Big after all. I've borrowed the series from a friend and am now dutifully watching from the beginning so I can understand it all, working backwards, as it were. After Season One, my question is more of "why does Big put up with her needy crap?", but I know the next five will show me the light.

What I love most about the show is its slice-of-life analysis of male-female relationships. I've realized this is something every woman does, with her friends, in her journal, on her blog, but it's another story to put it into a column as beautifully and as succinctly as Carrie does. (another New Years' Resolution: write as well as Carrie Bradshaw)

Today the topic of conversation amongst my email buddies regarded the issue of "hints". Someone omitted to bring up a topic I was waiting to hear about, and he knew I was waiting for said topic to come up. So I immediately sent a missive out to my Charlotte and my Miranda to ask their opinions. Was his lack of mentioning aforementioned topic a BIG HINT to me? Should I take it personally? How could he mention subject b without mentioning subject a?

The email replies came quickly (one wonders what the effect to the American economy's productivity would be if personal email servers were shut down for a day...) And they both said the same thing: men don't make hints, women do. Men don't do subtlety. And they aren't as obsessive about the nuances of conversation and interaction as we are.

The question is, how did this happen? How did women learn the art of the hint and guys avoid it? It's not a clear line between subtle people and unsubtle people; I have very forward female friends who can drop a great hint if they want to. Do we have different communication weapons in our artillery? If so, what are guys'?

I try to think of cases in which men I know have "dropped hints", but I can't think of a one. The more I think about it, the less grey area there seems to be in men's behavior. My guy friends have often told me that a guy either likes you or he doesn't. When I ask if it can be that simple, they affirm: "If he likes you, he will make it obvious and he will go for it. If he's not going for it, he doesn't want it." (author's note: see also, "He's Just Not That Into You").

I need the guys to weigh in on this. If a guy doesn't mention something, does it mean he's just not thinking about it at all? Or do men have the same avoidance tactics we do, and just do them differently? For example, when I've tried to set up a guy with a female friend, if he doesn't mention her again, is he just not focused on the issue or is he silently rejecting her? Do they hint at all? Is it a case-by-case thing?

The good news is that today I learned that maybe everything I read as a silent dis is not so. This is good for my ego. But the bad news is that it reaffirmed the existence of my personal "window of interest". But he can blog about that one :)