Ladies, this one’s for you. As a 17-year-old male, I have spent a great portion of my life trying to figure you out. I’ve discovered that whether we are dating, engaged, or married, your hobby is to mess with our heads; your passion is to mock us; your ultimate goal is to chase us away from you, running and screaming like the unthinking lunatics you’ve turned us into. These conclusions are, to say the least, quite disturbing. But because I want this process to be painless for my gender, and undertaken swiftly, like a medieval beheading, I will advise you. You should know that two of your torture techniques seem to be the most effective on most males: the “Mixed Signals and Games Technique” and the “Unnecessary Arguments Strategy.”
We’ll start at the beginning: your starter tool should be the “Mixed Signals and Games Technique.” You know which one I mean: it’s where you identify a guy who expresses interest in you, and send him mixed signals concerning exactly what you want from him. The first thing you should do is flirt with your prey a little: touch his arm, let him catch you staring at him, stand unnecessarily close to him when you’re in a circle of friends. Just stick with the whole batting your eyelashes kind of thing. Once you’ve ensured that he’s after you, once you know you have his heart in your hand, at your mercy, have some fun with it (and this is the key to the technique): contradict every one of your original signals. After you’ve baited him with your incessant and sensual flirting, treat him the way you would treat a dirty rodent, or the gum on the bottom of your new Ugg boots. Make your conversations short and flirt with other guys right in front of his face. Trust me, it will crush his spirit and his confidence. Now I know this sounds risky, for some women actually think that such games make a man want her more; but I guarantee you, your games do nothing but make us want to sprinkle you with holy water and run away. Far, far away.

Of course, some men have a stronger nerve than others, and may be more difficult to break. At this point, you’ve no choice but to pull out the big guns, the strategy that is sure to send him crying to his mommy.
It’s time to start unnecessary arguments.
This strategy is actually easier than the former tool I mentioned, for it is an inherent skill, a recessive gene found only on the X chromosome, and so it comes very naturally to women. The easiest way to utilize this tool is to simply contradict everything your partner says. If he claims that the sky is blue, find evidence that the sky is green. If he says “man oh man, this restaurant makes one mean porterhouse,” say, “eh, their meat is pretty gamey.” The trick is to be relentless; you must find any possible way to disagree or argue, especially if the contradictions serve no purpose but to belittle him. And if he tries to stand up for himself, get mad at him and tell him that he’s upsetting you because he’s being kind of an a**. It shuts him up every time.

I tell you all this in hopes that you destroy us mercifully quickly. Just apply the tools I have discussed here, and you can turn any sane man into a psychopathic mess who spends his days and nights in a solitary confinement room, lying in a heap, constrained by a straight jacket, gently rocking himself back and forth in a wide-eyed frenzy as he smiles stupidly at the rubber duck they gave him to entertain himself. Mission accomplished.