'She would never do that! Would she?'

Wendy can spot a fraud on a crowded subway platform or from 100 yards away across a smoke-filled room. That is provided the fraud is a woman. She admits she wasn’t always quite as astute with the opposite sex, which goes to explain her second husband. On the other hand, she has, since that experience, become pretty wily and instinctive about men, too. That’s good since that means I must pass muster.

With women, however, she absolutely ‘knows’ and she’s always right. She knows the signs. She’s not paranoid about the matter, and if the woman is the real goods, then she has a friend for life.

A few years ago I lent a female friend $1,000. She was having a hard time and was behind a bit of an eight-ball. I felt this female friend was an honorable person and, after all, that’s what friends are for. This was early in Wendy’s and my relationship and we were just at the dating stage, so what I did with my money was my choice.

“You what?” she said, when I told her. “Well, I guess you can kiss that money goodbye because you’ll never see it again.”

I protested she was wrong, and since she didn’t know the person very well and I (thought I) did, I felt she was being unfair. Anyway, I was being a gentleman, just like I was raised to be. But, as it was, even though she'd only met her briefly, Wendy got the goods on her. She saw her as a parasite. A user.

Long story short, of course Wendy was right. I actually did finally get my money back, about three years later, and that was after I had threatened legal action on my erstwhile friend. By the way, everything Wendy ever felt about this woman turned out to be absolutely true. Yet, she seemed so nice. And honest.

Where Wendy’s homing instinct is absolutely infallible is if a woman has ‘designs’, namely on me. Being male, I rarely recognize this and will only regard certain behaviors as being ‘friendly.’ I like women, and when it seems that a woman likes me, I am both flattered and feel nice and warm inside. At the same time, I am thoroughly faithful, so nobody is a threat to the sanctity of what we have and cherish deeply.

So, if I extol the virtues of a female friend, I will elicit this response: “Watch out for her.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, knowing exactly what she means, but confounded as to why she has come to such a conclusion. Yet, I know she is in all likelihood right.

“Just watch out for her,” she will repeat.

Wendy, despite having close female friends, and despite the fact that I have a number of cherished female friends (who, like the one I mentioned in my last blog, Wendy trusts completely), believes in the Kiplingesque comment “The female is deadlier than the male.”

“I know how women work,” she will say. “Men, poor and trusting saps that they are, rarely do. They idealize women. Women rarely do. And, there is a certain type of woman who must never be trusted.”

On the other hand, she does concede that I have gotten a bit wiser about gender interplay.

“About time,” she says.