My friend has been fighting with her boyfriend. "Why?" I ask her. "Oh, no reason. It's no fault of his. But you should just scream at the man every now and then. It keeps them on their toes, you get some added respect and the apologies are always fun. What???? This is my friend talking ladies and gentleman and aghast is the word that comes to my mind.

I've always been a mere witness to the games between the two sexes and have been terrible at playing them myself. At best you can call me a good observer. Sometimes I've been an unwilling referee when two dating friends came up with "Ok! You tell us whose fault it is?" But when it comes to playing these games myself, I've always been at a loss of moves. And I don't think it's just me - I think that men in general are at a slight disadvantage when it comes to relationship games. I've seen some of my male friends play the marriage card successfully where the man emotionally blackmails the "by-then aged girlfriend" with the line "Give me few more years and I'll surely marry you." But that's all that I've seen the mustached sex do.

So I decided to list some of the classic moves women use (or at least I've seen them use) that completely unnerves men; makes them jittery; makes them rush for the closest bar or bathroom; makes them realize that the battle of the sexes is hardly a battle but more like an action movie climax - where you know who'll win but still watch it, just in search of possible novelty.

1. You have changed. Yes! A classic line that completely shocks men and women use it with such dexterity. Men have no idea what this means. Every now and then you see your lady love all serious and grumpy and on questioning her all you get is "You have changed." But that's it. There's never an accompanying explanation to how you've changed. So you are left with the dual task of figuring out how you've changed and how to redeem yourself and till you do that, the woman rules.

2. I'm having girl problems. Now please don't think that I'm an unsympathetic wretch. I know women and men are different (thank you high school for explaining things to me). All I'm saying is that men get very jittery when women use this line. Coz men have no idea what women go through at these times and they also have no idea how they'll react. So we get completely freaked out. One of my exes used this line more often than I thought she should and EVERY time it gave me the shivers. Coz I knew she could get away with murder then (and trust me she did try it a few times). All I'm saying is that maybe even men should be given a day or two every year (JUST a day or two) when we can do stuff, and if questioned, bluntly reply "Man problems bonami, man problems!"

3. Nobody has ever treated me this way (said best when you add a "not my mother, not my brother, not my ex ..." at the end). Another classic. Every man who has been in a relationship long enough hears these words at some point. And to be very honest it means nothing. For all you know it might be a good thing. Something like "You treat me so well, nobody has ever treated me this way." But NO. It never is. It always means something scary and men know that and the moment they hear it they know that it's apology time.

4. You don't love me any more. They should just ban this line. Or have something similar that men can use. For three years you could be cleaning her doormat. Forget doing it for one day and she'll tell you "You don't love me any more". If it's your bad day she'll even add No. 1 i.e. "You have changed." Aaaaaah!

5. You should learn something from XYZ (and XYZ is normally a close friend whom you dislike). That's it. This one freaks men out completely. Coz not only do you feel inadequate, you also feel threatened by XYZ. And women just love that.

Quite a few more techniques come to mind but this post is already too long and the women readers stopped reading quite a while back. I agree, I have changed a lot :)