Nailed It

Tom Holt, nailing the width and breadth of male relationships in two meaty paragraphs 

From his novel "The Portable Door."

The text:

In a way, it felt though all his adult life -- ever since he'd realised that girls weren't irrelevant alien creatures who only cared about inane trifles like hair-toggles and glittery nail varnish (instead of vitally important things, such as making balsa-wood aeroplanes and painting 1/72 scale model soldiers) but were in fact beautiful, terrifying creatures who never seemed to notice he was there -- all his life, he'd been pulling and heaving at a door that led into an enchanted garden, and quite suddenly he'd noticed that in face it opened inwards and all he had to do was push gently with the tips of his fingers.

That said, he hadn't got a clue wat he was supposed to do next. Presumably at some point he was going to have to say something toe-curlingly embarrassing, and if that went okay there'd be kissing, and, well, stuff like that. Obviously he was all for that, just as he'd always really fancied owning a big yacht and sailing it single-handed to New Zealand. Now that he was at least part of the way along, he had the unpleasant feeling that his yacht was an open boat, and he was adrift in it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, he assured himself -- after all, it couldn't be too difficult, could it? He considered his relatives; Uncle Trevor and Cousin Darren and Cousin Lorna's husband Eric, men with the personal charm of dustbins and just enough intelligence between the three of them to power a traffic light, and yet they'd all contrived to attract, woo, bed, and marry females, often not in that order. If they could do it, so could a lawnmower or an answering machine or a tin-opener or a small rock, and so, by implication, could he. In theory.