When a woman says, ‘I’m fine’, she most certainly is not

“I’m sooo tired. You stay up and watch a movie” means that sex with George Clooney is only the flick of a light switch away.

“No, don’t get me anything special for my birthday” clearly translates as, “Yes, buy jewellery.” And when you don’t, “I forgive you” means “it’s going to be a very long time before you get to see me in my birthday suit”.

“Marriage? Kids? I’ve never really given them much thought,” decodes as “the snooze alarm has gone off on my biological clock and I’m ovulating, so get naked, big boy!”

And the doozy? When a woman says, “No, nothing’s wrong” this translates as “Everything’s wrong! And because you didn’t notice, I’ll see you in the divorce court.”

If the breakdown in communication between the sexes becomes any more chronic, where will it all end? Will courting couples be required to fill in a consent form before sex? Yep. Casual sex could soon become very formal indeed, with prospective partners requiring CVs, blood tests, whole forests of family trees …

But if authorities ever do insist on compelling couples to fill in consent forms, I feel I speak for all females when I say we’d like to add a few more clauses. Could we also get men to agree not to pee on the porcelain, play air guitar, think that sitting on the toilet is a leisure activity, have pet names for their penises, fiddle with the fridge thermostat just for fun, rip holes in the sides of bread packets, pick their toe nails in front of the telly, snore and presume that asking for directions is a slur on their masculinity.

A clause banning blokes from standing in front of the open fridge waiting for something to materialise would also tickle the female fancy.

We’d also like a formal pledge from fellas that they’ll stop pretending they’re missing the DNA structure that would enable them to find the nail clippers, the TV remote, dry-cleaned shirts, matching socks, paracetamol and black bow ties – things located, amazingly, exactly where they’ve been for the past 20 years.

A clause banning blokes from standing in front of the open fridge waiting for something to materialise would also tickle the female fancy. An added bonus would be a prohibition on men insisting on driving the car (except after a drunken party when he suddenly announces that you’d better drive).

We’d also like men to agree in writing that “mutual orgasm” is not an insurance company. And to find our G-spots without a list of edible berries and a compass. God, apparently as a prank, devised two sexes and called them “opposite”. But it’s important to remember that it’s only an X and a Y chromosome that separate us. The war between the sexes has raged for 5000 years, so it’s time we called a truce … starting with men negotiating their terms of surrender.

In the meantime, the most important thing a man can do is listen. I remember a time in my teens when my mum and dad, who adored each other, had a rare tiff. Mum stopped talking to him. She served Dad’s meals in silence – a very cold shoulder of lamb indeed. My three anxious sisters and I were tiptoeing around the house on eggshells. Much to our relief, a few days later Mum could stand it no longer and insisted they make up. My darling dad looked at her perplexed: “What?” He hadn’t noticed.

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Mum laughed and hugged him, because of course, that’s one way the sexes can always communicate – we’re fluent in body language.

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