understanding women - how they fall in love.

There's an old adage that says, Women give sex to get love, whereas men give love to get sex. And, for the most part, that's true. Obviously, it's a bad deal for women since men can fake love pretty easily.

More often than not, this sex-for-love approach proves disastrous for women: Boy tells girl he loves her, boy gets sex, then boy tells girl to hit the road.

Yet, literally centuries later, despite mountains of evidence and experience to the contrary, there are still women who insist on using that approach (which is probably why teen pregnancies are on the rise and successful relationships are harder to find than Amelia Earhart).

Against all reason, women consider these emotionally driven decisions to be reasonable ones. ("Putting your hand into a blender is okay as long as you do it for love!"). They're endlessly willing to gamble on lottery-style odds over past experience, falling in love with men regardless of whether the relationship is workable or not ("He's just misunderstood! I can make him stop serial killing..."). It's endearing, if not entirely sane.

Why Women Want What They Can't Have: Why So Many Relationships Fail.

Most guys, by contrast, realize early on that, when it comes to life-altering decisions, their brain (or what passes for it anyway) is best suited to making this call. When men let other body parts do the thinking, they end up in some ugly girl's bed trying to exit without waking her up.

What Men Know That Women Don't: How to Love Women Without Losing Your Soul

More often than not, men go into a relationship pragmatically, deciding whether or not they can live with a girl, before getting emotionally attached. That way they get to really know a girl before they fall in love.

Men need to view love more seriously than women do because they have so much more to lose—least of which is the freedom to have sex with other women. Once they commit to a relationship, men are more fully invested, emotionally.

Women, on the other hand, get to "fall in love" impulsively. For women, love is a casual lark. A cheap thrill. Like riding a roller coaster. Or shoplifting. Then, if the relationship goes South on them, they can cry a lot and get lots of sympathy—in other words, attention—mission accomplished!

It's like a game. A stupid, fucked up game.

So don't get suckered into making a life-commitment just because a woman says she loves you. Remember, it's a "woman's prerogative" to change her mind. And if you ever forget that, you're totally screwed.