Exchange in our kitchen this morning.

My lovely wife: “It’s funny, maybe you guys are all the same…my (guy) friend says something to me and then like 20 minutes later he’s like - man, I wish I had never said that.”

Me: “Um, yeah, of course.”

Brilliant comeback, huh?

I mean, should I lie? I find myself saying many boneheaded utterances during the course of a day, the week, any given month…things I certainly wish I could take back.

So, do us members of the less-advanced gender really say more stupid, regrettable, and inane things than the women of the world?

I believe that is probably true.

But please, enlighten me, humor all of these readers: what is the single dumbest thing your hubby (or any other man for that matter) has said to you (or just in or near your presence)? C’mon, make me laugh.

Get your mind out of the gutter - I am talking about PLATONIC couples dating, and honestly, it has been one of the most interesting topics that I’ve considered over the last few years, especially since the birth of our daughter:

As a modern, urbane (and insane) family with one five-and-a-half-year-old girl, how do you find friends who:
(a) have a husband who your husband likes*
(b) have a wife who your wife likes*
(c) have a kid (or kids) who your kid(s) like and is of a similar age
*In some cases, both spouses need to like both of the other spouses, but frequently it’s okay if you do the gender split.

I would argue that in today’s hurly-burly world, it ain’t easy to do.

You could try kupple.com, but do you really want to visit a site that claims: “Every soul has a mate. Every couple has a match.”? (Apologies if you are a member, but not sure I could stomach that, especially because the photo on the homepage is a bunch of bologna - those 4 people are NOT friends, let’s just be honest, k?)

For us, we’ve been on many couple/family dates, and many of them just don’t work - usually the kids are compatible enough, but you do a nice brunch somewhere, the women talk, the men talk, you smile and say let’s definitely do this again - and then you never do.

The synergy just isn’t there.

No magic.

Sometimes you can point to a reason, but most times it’s just straight-up incompatibility…

Just like regular dating, you can’t force it - either it works, you have some chemistry or you don’t, and for so many of our play/couple dates, we were trying to force it.

And so, we have a few couple/family friends, but what really seems to work (for us) is having couple friends WITHOUT children, or even single friends. Because then, it’s not about the kids: holy cow, what a novel idea?!

It is sometimes so nice to not discuss children and their activities and their development and their ever-growing list of needs…instead - as we did this weekend with child in tow - we had a lovely brunch with an unmarried, childless couple, and we really didn’t do kid talk (even though she was right there the whole time, but not at the center of it all).

What we seem to have learned is that it is wildly refreshing to have different (and sometimes overlapping) sets of couple friends - those that are more for US and those that also benefit child; and if you can make it all work and find those magical people, kudos to you! (even if it’s on kupple.com).

Good luck out there - it’s not easy to find good couple/family friends!

Please raise your hands out there if you have teenagers.

Thank you.

And how many of those teenagers enjoy your company?

And how many of them give you a verbal lashing on a daily basis?

All of you?

Lovely.

So, here’s the current state of my five-and-a-half-year-old:

[Hands on hips, squinty eyes, erect posture] “I am NOT happy and you are NOT making me happy so that means I will never be happy!” Oh, the daggers.

And I can just feel teenage-hood knocking on my door, coming in for a glass of iced tea, and staying for awhile, right until this wicked-tongued kindergartner has her car keys and is dating a dude named Armando with 17 tatooes.

Please tell me that is not in my future.

Yes, I will be honest with you - it’s a brand new year and my little girl is springing up before my eyes; reading, playing the piano, understanding stuff, and developing a serious ‘tude, which is a grand precursor to her formidable teenage years when she will be destined to despise her parents but still require money and transportation so she can exist in her suburban euphoria while her deadbeat rents hope that one day she starts to like them again.

Please tell me it’s not that bad.

Please tell me that the boys will be polite and they will actually be studying when they say, and that Facebook really isn’t such a mindsuck and dangerous online jungle…please oh please.

But I know that my teenage premonitions are real.

Which is why I am so thrilled when I get a hug and a kiss and a swift ride down the mountain on the sled, clutching my dear daughter as the cold flakes shower down onto us, and I just want us to be frozen right there, forever, until we tumble off sideways, laughing, perfectly.

I don’t want to lose that.

I dated a girl in high school who once told me that her father walked around the house naked, or at least naked from the waist down (which is kind of all that matters), and I will be honest, I was SHOCKED - both that she told me this and that she told me this and did not see fazed by it; she even asked me why I was surprised, wasn’t this something that occurred in my house as well?

Um, actually, no.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against nudity, and I frankly hate the buttoned-up and covered-up American way of life (except when it comes to our love of porn). I am not one to run off to the nearest nude beach (Boston doesn’t have too many of them), but I am somewhat reserved and I just don’t like getting naked in front of other people…even my family.

So, here’s the setup: my daughter and I share a bathroom, my wife has the master all to herself (because I am smelly, hairy, six-foot-tall primate) and that is fine with me.

What is not so fine is that every morning, at some time between 6:43am and 6:58am, I am in said shred bathroom performing my morning hygienic rituals and my daughter knocks on the door because she has to pee (fair enough). I am typically at the sink shaving, clothed in boxer shorts (minimally), or boxers and a t-shirt. But many times I am fully undressed on my way into the shower, and you can pretty much draw the picture should my daughter walk into the bathroom while I was in transit…

Another interesting scenario is when she enters the bathroom and I am already in the shower. She does her business and then goes back to her room, no harm done.

BUT…

Last week she decided to be “funny” - she left, closed the door (my signal to exit the shower and grab my towel to dry off my primate-ness), and then she reappeared as I was in full-on drying mode. And yes, she took one look, gave me a look of shock and awe and confusion, and then she closed the door and left. No comment.

The questions here abound. When she was 18 months, I took my daughter swimming and I changed into my bathing suit in front of her. She barely knew English at the time, so she said, in Russian, “look, Papa has a tail.” How would she know what was going on there?

But now she is 5 and a half, and the curiosity is mounting…should I cover up or explain to her what’s going on with the difference in body parts?

When my wife was on a business trip she said she wished I could mommy; I said that would be tough to do, so she replied that the only reason I couldn’t do so is because we have different voices.

Of course my thought was: that’s not the only reason, little girl…

And so I continue to cover up, wondering when she will ask me about it, or when she’ll stop letting me give her a bath because she won’t want me to see her in the birthday suit - it all makes me wonder about how we deal with and discuss sexuality and genitalia, and it also makes me laugh.

Because what else can we do as parents except laugh, to survive it all.

What’s the naked truth for you and your family?