11 reasons men love women

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hide the moisturizer.

Here are 11 reasons men love women.

1. Your sweaty post-gym rawness
You think you're most desirable when you're all dolled up and looking as elegant as a champagne flute. No. It's at6 o'clock on a weekday, when you're just back from the gym in an old gray tank top and a sports bra, devoid of makeup and perfume—when you are nothing but raw, glistening, briny womanness. "Ewww," you say, "I'm so gross!" We so beg to differ.

2. When you cross-dress
Why does the sight of you gliding by in one of our shirts or our boxers bring us such crazy-wild happiness? Maybe it's some primal, chimp-like possessiveness, as in: She's mine. Well, so what? We monkeys can't help it—we're thrilled that you're ours.

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3. Your awkward high school photos
"Oh my God!" you say, snatching the snapshot from our hand. "Don't look at that!" But here's what you don't know: No matter how frizzy the hair, no matter how gangly the limbs or how beglittered with braces the smile, we're fairly certain you wouldn't have talked to us back in high school anyway.

4. Your taste in movies
Just kidding. Sorry—it stinks.

5. Your way with kids
Here's the thing: We don't know where this young relationship is going, right? And nothing freaks us out more than when you start naming our future children. But when we see your warmth and ease around kids, when we notice your unspoken uplift in their presence, it's hard not to smile and think, "Maybe."

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6. Your spaghetti and meatballs
We dig those candlelit dinners and all your impressive kitchen acrobatics. But you know what's just as good? When you dig out your mom's spaghetti recipe and uncork some $8 Chianti and we eat together on the patio or the couch, idly riffing about our day.  There's infinite bliss in simple moments.

7. Your beauty stash
Sure, we scoff mightily at all your high-tech moisturizers, your microdermabrasion cleansers and inscrutable creams. In public. But alone in your bathroom, we Barbasol-and-Ivory men make full sneaky use of your mystical chemistry set.

8. Your patience with our family
Uncle Schnozzie is making comments about your "rump," and Aunt Franny is pushing another ham-salad-covered Triscuit toward your lips while niece Harmony is hissing "Meat is murder!" in your ear; you're also pretty sure weird little cousin Sluggo has been spying on you while you pee. All this and you still want to have sex with us. It boggles the mind.

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9. When you clean your plate
The only thing sexier than a beautiful woman tearing into a medium-rare ribeye is her saying halfway through, "I can't stop eating this—it's way too good." A passion for great food suggests a freewheeling and insatiable appetite for all of life's sensual pleasures.

10. That look
You know the one. That look that clues us in as to where the night's headed. It's subtle and sly enough to be offered across a crowded dinner table but lascivious and powerful enough to buckle our poor knees. Don't underestimate it.

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11. Your self-reliance
When on a camping trip you've gathered the wood and lit the campfire while we're still wrestling with the tent. Or when you fix your own crashed computer, or take a wrench to a leaky tub faucet. When you show you don't need us, it's that much more gratifying that you want us.