The "Men Don't Think" Theory

This isn't really a bash on men.. ok maybe kinda, who am I fooling. Anyway I was talking to my mom the other day when she presented me with the "oh please, men don't think" theory. We were talking about a co-worker of hers who has been with her boyfriend for 8 years. My mom commented "Sometimes I just want to tell her that she's wasting her time if she thinks he'll marry her." I commented that I was under the impression that a woman should leave a guy who isnt making leaps and bounds towards marriage in 3 years max... if marriage is what the woman is looking for. My mom said the following:

"Please, men know what they want. It's not something they may even be consciously thinking of all the time. But as soon as they see it, whoop, they're not letting it go. They don't need years to know this. But that doesn't mean they won't take convenient sex and keep telling the woman what she wants to hear to keep her around. 'Oh yeah you know, I just got to get my finances straight before we can get married.' The list goes on."

The lesson here? If marriage is what you want, instead of seeing yourself as being "pushy" b/c after a year or two you start talking about marriage, you're actually just being smart. While there are *always* exceptions, 3 years max is what I say.

(I hope someone reminds me of this one day when I'm being stupid and still waiting at year 6 :-/ )