Let's start with a simple statement. "All women are the same, and each woman is different." The problem for a man is to comprehend this paradox. A man must understand that there is something that all women have in common, which we will call womanliness, something that makes them different from men in their manliness.

A man can learn to see the universal in the particular. Although there are a thousand unique shades and hues of the color red in the spectrum, each possesses similar properties which are recognizable as redness.

Sometimes what seems obvious to someone trained to think in philosophical terms is a very difficult concept for the average person to understand. As soon as you try to express the idea that all women are alike, people immediately rush to the defense of each woman with her uniqueness. If you discuss the uniqueness of a particular woman (or of all women), someone will say, "Ah, they're all alike. If you've talked to one, you've talked to them all."

Since one's success in any given field comes from an intimate understanding of the nature of the subject matter being studied, one's success in romance is going to come from an intimate understanding of women in general. And of how that understanding will give him the key to understanding any one woman in particular.

Perhaps a better understanding of the concept that all women (psychologically) are the same and each woman, personally, is different might be expressed by an analogy to the construction of their physical bodies.

For instance, all women are the same inasmuch as each one has a head, a torso, two arms and hands, two legs and feet. All normal human beings basically (except for genetic mutations) have these same physical properties. There are short ones, fat ones, thin ones, tall ones, lean ones, but all have certain common properties regardless of the unique differences peculiar to each. No two bodies are exactly alike, but all are similar.

Now while women's bodies and men's bodies are the same in basic construction, there are enough differences within the context of that sameness to say that in certain significant ways, no matter how unique a particular woman's body is (or a man's) each body is not only a particular woman's body, but it is the body of a generalized woman as well. You see "women" in a woman.

What is true of a woman's physical appearance is also true of her psychological orientation toward life. Each is a unique variation within the context of conforming to a basic pattern.

All women's bodies are the same and each woman's body is unique. This becomes obvious when brought to a man's attention. What he doesn't realize is that it is just as true in the psychology of how women perceive life, and all women do perceive life differently from all men.

The way a man or a woman perceives life is deeply rooted in his or her needs. All women are the same in their basic needs. Each is unique in the way in which she goes about fulfilling those needs.

That is why if you can understand one woman, you can better understand all women and if you can understand all women, you can understand any one particular woman.