Now, I will confess to drinking wine coolers, but that is all. I hate soap operas and their nightly counterparts (Melrose Place, Party of Five, etc.), romance novels (with a passion! They can be blown off the face of the earth!), romantic “chick flicks” (and have been known to sit and angrily criticize them when forced to watch one), find bitching about men deplorable, and only bitch about my own weight every 28 days. 
I also can’t stand a woman who expects a man to think and communicate like a woman. I recently had dinner with a woman who is notorious for this. She is of the variety of woman who over-analyze everything, worry about everything, make everything a Big Huge Deal, etc. when it comes to men (akin to the Dave Barry column that has been circulating in Email for years). There is a man she has been messing around with, and she wants to sit down and have A Talk. Now, I know what her talks are like, and I know what this guy is like. He will have no idea what the hell is going on, and she will prattle on about the Deep Meanings behind their NCMOs, and then be pissed when he has no idea what the hell she’s talking about. When I advised her to make the conversation extremely short and concise (“Josh, the making out is confusing me a little bit. Right now I just need a friend, and we really need to stop this,”) she looked at me, horrified, and could not comprehend that this is how she should communicate. BAH!
I also can’t stand women who try to change their men, or who expect their men to stop noticing other women (particularly those who walk around with revealing shirts and enormous breasts). Brian and I will both comment on this when we see it. And heck, just last night I did what would make many women implode: I showed Bri all of my Victoria’s Secret catalogs, asking him which lingerie he liked (for our honeymoon 
). Every now and then, we’d comment on the breasts as well. Hey, the girls have pretty breasts, they’re worth mentioning.
Then there’s the women who have to have control of their men. “Oh, no, you are NOT going out with the boys tonight!” Whatever.
And there’s also the stereotypical women who make it their major life goal to get married. I have never, and likely will never, understood this mentality. I had a roommate in college who had a scrapbook of wedding ideas three inches thick that she started when she was in sixth grade. She’d been planning her wedding since she was 12! WTF?! I never gave my wedding much thought until Brian proposed a month ago! (And I had to go buy Weddings for Dummies because I am so ignorant of the whole process.) And, now that I am getting married, I am finding a new pet peeve that makes me prickle: “It’s your special day, your time to be a princess!” (This is what a guy friend told me!) Again I say: WTF?! Please. I am not that kind of spoiled, the world revolves around me snot. This wedding is a celebration of TWO people, puh-lease.
Now, on the personal and home decor. I can’t stand Victorian crap–big floral froo-froo patterns, little angels, lacey frills, etc. My home is solid and gingham prints, that’s it, thankyouverymuch. I am repulsed by overly-cute teddy bears and little cutesy kids decor, and have a mixed opinion on the country style that is popular today. As for my clothing, same thing–I hate floral prints, lace, and general froo-frooness. I also hate acrylic nails, curling/styling my hair, and spending more than 5-10 minutes on makeup. I’m pretty low-maintenance all around.
Bri and I were playing a “Rate Your Mate” game the other day; it’s rather like The Newlywed Game where you try to match answers. One of the questions was “If your mate was the same sex as you, would you still be friends?” Brian started laughing and said, “You practically are a guy!” Of course, I’m feminine in all the right places, but he is ever amazed at how non-girly I am about how I conduct myself and how I think.
What can I say, I grew up catching tadpoles and minnows at the local creek with my guy pals while the girls were styling Barbie’s hair!