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Manslations: What men really mean

(The Frisky) -- I've never really been a fan of the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" school of relationship thought, but I'll admit that sometimes I feel as though the men I've dated have spoken a different language.

Like when a great date is followed by the deafening silence of the phone. Or when the big relationship talk results in a boyfriend-shaped hole in my wall.

Those are the times I want nothing more than a dictionary that translates every deer-in-headlights look, ambiguous voicemail, and cryptic text message.

That's where Jeff Mac's "Manslations: Decoding the Secret Language of Men" comes in.

Actions speak louder than words. Sure, not a novel idea, but this "duh" lesson is one that can take years to learn. If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck.

Mac's Golden Rule? Whenever there is any conflict between what a man says and what he does, always, always ignore what he says.

There is no such thing as a man dumping you because he is afraid of getting hurt, is frightened that his feelings are too strong, or because he finds you intimidating. Mac says to think of the simplest solution -- is it that this man sensed you were the perfect woman for him, who touched him so much in deep, important places that he couldn't handle? Or was he just not feeling it?

It's OK to call him first -- and if you get blown off, it's not because you called first. This is my favorite piece of advice from Mac, who says the mistaken conclusion women come to when they call first post-date and get blown off is that the call made them look clingy and spooked the guy.

"This is not how it went," says Mac. "If you called him and he blew you off, it went like this:

1. You had a great date, and he did not.

2. He planned to blow you off.

3. You called him, and nothing changed."

All men are obsessed with cars, the remote, sports, and video games. Yawn.

For the record, my man keeps his video game playtime short, hands remote control power over to me, and doesn't care for sports or cars. Is my guy an exception to the rule, or is it possible that all men are different and do not necessarily share those interests as a gender? I'm guessing it's the latter.

Men are like dogs. Is this statement required filler for all dating books, right after the part about women being shopping-obsessed nags?

According to Mac, men are like dogs because, among other things, they have short attention spans and pay a lot of attention to their own crotches and the crotches of others. I'm willing to bet short attention span isn't an inherently male trait, and I can personally testify that neither is an interest in crotches.

So is Jeff Mac's "Manslations" the be-all and end-all of man manuals? Not exactly.

But when your girlfriends refuse to help you decode, for the eighth time, what he meant when he said, "I'll call you later," Jeff Mac's sometimes trite, always funny advice comes in handy.

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Summary:

assistant: I've never really been a fan of the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" school of relationship thought, but I'll admit that sometimes I feel as though the men I've dated have spoken a different language.