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Automobiles are to men as clothing is to women. You may think that women are every bit as interested in your car as you are, but you'd be wrong. If she's interested in you, she will feign an interest in the things that interest you, but believe me, she's probably not as enchanted by the intricacies of the internal combustion engine as you might wish to believe.
Women are not impressed by a fast car, a luxury car, a really neat car or anything else about a car except that it works when it should and is not embarrassing to be seen in. The only thing that impresses a woman about a car is that it's yours and that you like it.
A luxury car is somewhat like a peacock's tail: it tells the woman that not only do you have resources, but that you have resources to spare. This had better be true, or it will be taken as an unforgivable instance of false advertising. If you really are rich, then you can drive a luxury car. If you are not, in fact, rich, then you'd better not pretend to be what you aren't. This goes for other aspects of your life, as well. Be yourself.
Women seek safety. The only thing about a car that a woman will not like is if it keeps breaking down and you won't get rid of it. If your car is in the habit of packing it in during heavy rainstorms, heat waves or in the middle of nowhere, she will become reluctant to go places with you. You may like tinkering with the carburetor by the roadside, but she won't like sitting alone in the car as you hitchhike into town to get spare parts or a tow. While you're thinking about the fuel pump, she'll be thinking about rape, murder and a shallow unmarked grave. This will do nothing for her mood, your sex life, or the welfare of the relationship. Get a reliable car.
Women are not impressed by aggressive, macho driving.
Do not drive in a manner that frightens her. If she makes complaint of the way you're driving, listen and learn.
If you've been drinking and she suggests that perhaps she should take the wheel, let her. Don't go into a big song-and-dance about how you can hold your liquor or how your reflexes are just fine or how you didn't really drink much after all. Just hand over the keys and sit back and enjoy the ride. She will think much better of you for it. She will not be so apprehensive if she knows that she can rely on your cooperation if she thinks you've had one too many. She will appreciate your having listened to her opinion and taken her advice. Last, but not least, you may save yourself the expense and humiliation of a DUI citation.
Do not criticize her driving.
When you get lost, ask directions. I know that this runs counter to every male instinct, but do it anyway. You will find her in a much better mood when you get to where you were going if you actually listen to her, take her advice, and act upon it. At the very least, you're saying to her that you're listening. At the most, you will find out where you are and what to do about it and get there more-or-less on schedule.
To be sure, I would not know how to lay down any hard and fast rules about dress, save that one should adapt oneself to the custom of the majority; and since, as you say, customs are so varied and the Italians are so eager to adopt the styles of others, I believe that everyone may be allowed to follow his own inclinations. . . . I would add that he should decide for himself what appearance he wants to have and what sort of man he wants to seem, and then dress accordingly, so that his clothes help him to be taken for such, even by those who do not hear him speak or see him perform anything at all. . . .
I am not saying . . . that clothes provide the basis for making hard and fast judgments about a man's character, or that we cannot discover far more from someone's words and actions than from his attire. But I do maintain that a man's attire is also no small evidence for what kind of personality he has, allowing that it can sometimes prove misleading. Moreover, habits and manners, as well as actions and words, provide clues to the quality of the man.
-- The Courtier, Book Two
By your appearance and public behavior, you are telling everyone the exact degree to which you value your lover. If you're a slob, everyone will know that you don't care about her. If you try to be presentable, everyone will know that you want her to like you and be proud of you.
Treat her fashion hints like strong suggestions, and her suggestions as commands.
But in any case, everything should be tempered by discretion . . . if the courtier is a good judge of himself . . . he will act his own age, for it is certainly most unbecoming and unsightly when an old grey-haired gentleman, who is toothless and wrinkled, takes up the viola and plays and sings in front of a gathering of ladies, even if the performance is quite good.
This is because the words of songs are nearly always amorous, and in old men love is altogether ridiculous, although it sometimes seems that Cupid along with the other miracles delights in melting even the icy hearts of the old. . . . those who are fond of these things even though they are not young are anxious to appear so; and so they dye their hair and shave twice a week for the simple reason that Nature is tacitly telling them that such things are fitted only for the young. . . . every age brings its own cares with it, and has its own characteristic vices and virtues. . . .
Young men should be just as careful and judicious, not of course after the fashion of the old (since what is suitable for the one would hardly be so for the other, and it is usual to say that too much wisdom is a bad sign in a young man) but in correcting their natural faults.
-- The Courtier, Book Two
Act your age. If young, do not be overly serious. If you don't do the things you ought to do when you ought to do them, you will want to do them later and then you will make a fool of yourself. If you hurry your youth to get to maturity, you will never actually make it. Maturity comes with making a host of stupid, irreparable mistakes. It comes from hurting other people and being hurt by them. It comes from the forced self-examination that results from the dark midnight of the soul, and there's no substitute at all. You can't get out of it. It's a life sentence. As Martin Luther said, "Sin bravely." In order to forgive others, you must learn to accept forgiveness and, most important of all, to forgive yourself. It takes a lot of time and a lot of sin to get there.
If old, do not make a fool of yourself by aping the fashions of the young. If you missed out on life when you were young, you missed it. Too bad for you. Don't try to recapture your lost youth by taking up with a 19-year-old aerobics instructor unless you are 19-years-old yourself. Never buy a red sports car, 4x4 or motorcycle if you are over the age of 30.
If you have facial hair, keep it clean and tidy. Carefully groom after eating, drinking or smoking. If you are sweaty, dry your mustache before kissing her. If you sneeze or cough, carefully wipe your mustache and beard. Look in a mirror once in a while.
Nose hairs and ear hairs should be eliminated.
Do not chew tobacco.
It is a rude fashion for a man to claw or scratch himself when he sitteth at the table. And a man should at such time have a very great care that he spit not at all. . . . I have heard tell, many times, of such countries that be so sober: that they do never spit.
-- Il Galateo
Do not spit in the street. Women find it nauseating. The very thought that this spitting mouth may soon seek theirs is enough to make them not want to kiss you at all.
Women's sense of smell is much more acute than men's. If she implies that you do not smell good, take a hint.
I don't want him to appear soft and feminine as so many try to do, when they not only curl their hair and pluck their eyebrows but also preen themselves like the most wanton and dissolute creatures imaginable. Indeed, they appear so effeminate and languid in the way they walk, or stand, or do anything at all, that their limbs look as if they are about to fall apart; and they pronounce their words in such a drawling way that it seems as if they are about to expire on the spot.
-- The Courtier, Book One
Women mistrust a pretty-boy. If you think you're good looking, you may or may not be, but women don't much care. Good looks are their bailiwick and you should not try to compete. If you make too much of your looks, they'll believe, correctly, that you are the center of your universe, and there is no room for competition.
There's a Spanish saying that sums up the female attitude toward masculine good looks: "El hombre es como el ozo, el mas feo, el mas hermoso." "A man is like a bear, the uglier, the better."
If you are balding: no comb-overs. No hair plugs. No rugs. No ponytails. Live with it. Keep it clean and short. You would be mortified to hear the mockery that women make of such things when they are in that citadel of their gender, the ladies' room.
Unless you've had a serious automobile accident, leave cosmetic surgery to the ladies.
Avoid high-maintenance hairstyles.
A man must not apparel himself like a woman: that the attire may not be of one sort, and the person of another: as I do see it in some that wear their heads and their beards curled with bodkins, and have their face, and their necks, and their hands, so starched and painted, that it were too much for a girl, nay, harlot, that makes a merchandise of it, and sets herself to the sale.
-- Il Galateo
Do not primp and preen. Do not look at yourself in shop windows. Do not mess with your hair in public.
Keep your shirt buttoned. Cleavage is a feminine prerogative.
And some such you shall find, that although they be encumbered with no more wealth than easily serves their turn: yet will they never appear unless their necks be laden with chains, their fingers full of rings, their caps beset with agates, and every other part bespangled as though they would defy the king of Castiglio.
-- Il Galateo
Wear modest jewelry, and not much of it. No gold chains. Only one earring. No pimp or power wristwatches. Only one ring. No clear stones (the sole exception is a Super Bowl ring. If you've got one of those, wear it all you want.)
You must smell, neither of sweet nor of sour: for a gentleman should not smell like a beggar; nor a man like a common whore. But you may very well use some simple fragrances made from distilled waters.
-- Il Galateo [That is to say, you may use a discrete aftershave lotion.]
Do not wear scent. She's the flower, you're the bee.
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