As Ian King would say, this month I have mainly been watching movies. Obviously I have achieved other things too - I've eaten, I've drunk (been drunk), shopped 'til my credit card flopped AND got plenty of work done (let's not forget I've got a book to finish!). But, primarily, I have mainly been watching movies, though this wasn't the shallow, lazy, work-dodging exercise it might appear. I have been conducting anthropological research - research into the very nature of men and women (all while eating those nice big pots of Minstrels they do at the cinema). Surprisingly I learnt a lot. The two big releases of this summer neatly divide cinemagoers into two camps. While members of either sex may wander into a screening of the opposition's film, the majority of the audience self-segregate like a primary school disco and their disparate reactions have great sociological lessons to impart. I speak, of course, about Sex & The City and the latest Harrison Ford/George Lucas adventure, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

I am not here to comment on the flaws and virtues of each film, or to advocate one above the other (though now you come to mention it…shoes good, aliens silly), but I found sitting in the audience of both a curiously enlightening experience. Inspiration for this column struck me earlier in the week when I went to see author Adele Parks at a lovely champagne 'girls
night in' hosted by Waterstone's. Adele was talking about her writing process and her new novel, Tell Me Something, a more intelligent take on the attractive-woman-overcomes- huge-obstacles-to-meet-man-ofher- dreams Chick Lit staple. Male journalists
have, in the past, lauded Adele for her ability to write believable 'real men'. Her secret? She confesses: "Men are simpler!"

But are they?

I often find that I share more opinions and common ground with my male friends than my female - in fact, I number very few women among my close circle for this very reason. Does this make me simple? Shit, I pride myself on being mysterious and complex! I racked my brain for evidence to the contrary.

Sitting in the dark at the Sex & The City preview I had seen women sharing smiles and cries of recognition at familiar scenes from their own lives - reminders of arguments had, secrets shared and hearts wounded. The scenes that struck a chord with these women had one thing in common; they were true to life. And in the very same darkness, in another uncomfortable upholstered chair the following night, men laughing, gasping and cheering in unison - but at something completely different. Fantasy. The few female voices that were raised chuckled at Indy as he came face to face with relationships past, and at the snappy one liners, but the men were reacting to the fantastical whip cracking, sword fighting, killer-ant evading, rope swinging nonsense. They loved every single moment.

So, men like battles for lost treasure and women like battles for an engagement ring. If there is a lesson here, isn't it that, dare I say it, women are the simple ones? Certainly there is a universal trend for 'chick flicks' to end in Happily-Ever-After-look-atmy- huge-diamond-ring smugness. While in manlier thrillers (dick flicks?) our hero tends to leave us with the impression that he will live to swash his buckle another day as he strides off into the horizon. Is that then the difference between the sexes - women prefer reality-fantasy and men just don't do reality?

Looking at contemporary women's popular fiction, you find that Chick Lit is a panoramic library of fantasy scenarios and Prince-
Charming-was-under-my-nose-all-along plot 'twists' - and (after all) it doesn't get much more fictional than happily-ever-after.
As for the boys, well, the real world still reigns supreme. They love war, they love sports, they love tales of great adventurers. And they love the novels of Nick Hornby. Nick Hornby? Wait, isn't he the chap who writes about relationships? So men like to read about relationships? Do men like films about relationships?

Well, no - at least not the poor lost souls who were marooned at the Chelmsford Odeon during Sex & The City. When the lights came up I spotted the vulnerable three, sitting with their partners, all wearing the same hunted look in their eyes. I saw them again in the foyer; a triangle of strangers across a crowded room, united by their sudden terror of their own girlfriends. Or perhaps it was simply all those shoes.

What are we to conclude?

What lessons have we learned? Who among us is the simpler? Men and women are different. So are different men and women different in different ways? Do men like men's stuff and women like, well…women's stuff? It's all so very confusing. Here's what I know. I like to see my dreams become reality - I'm a big kid in that respect. And my dreams don't involve gunfights, ghosts and ghouls; they are fantasies and fairy tales of other Emilys living other lives and wearing other shoes. Perhaps, ultimately then, we are all the same - we read and we watch the stories which fuel our imaginations. Maybe that's the only real difference between the sexes…

We have different dreams.