Is the date cooking or cooked?

There are a few things we gals have learned about men — whether by observation and experience or osmosis from other women or media. We know most men don't get women's obsession with shopping, shoes and fashion, our ability to cry over seemingly nothing, our gossiping, or our need to talk about "the relationship" (or maybe even our need to talk, period!) So smart women keep those sorts of things in check around men.

But I've wondered if there are some things we gals do that send messages to men to which we're oblivious.

Not too long ago, a friend made dinner for a man with whom she'd gone on two lunch dates (he paid for both). Then he didn't call. 

OK, granted, he might have just not been into her. But I wondered about the dinner.

"Do you think cooking dinner was too intimate too soon?" I asked her.

"It was a quick, thrown-together meal and I was heading out after, anyway. Plus," she shot back, annoyed, "women sleep with men on the third date!"

She had a point. But as I told her, "That's different because men always want to sleep with women."

At the time that I asked her that, I didn't realize that I actually had an opinion about it, but I guess I do. That's because I think cooking for someone is a very intimate thing, an expression of love (for lovers, friends and family) — much more than throwing together a few ingredients and making it look pretty on the plate.

I'm not the only one.

When former New York Times food columnist Amanda Hesser met Tad Friend, a writer for the New Yorker (whom she later married), she struggled with the implications of cooking for him the first time, as detailed in her book, "Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover’s Courtship, with Recipes":

“First meals are intimate ... It’s an entry into the way you think, what you’ve seen and know, the way you treat others, how you perceive pleasure. Dinner guests can see by how you compose a dinner if you are an ungenerous hothead or a nurturer, stingy or clever, fussy or stylish.”

But maybe that's just how we romantic foodies think about it. Maybe it's just in Ms. Hesser's head and mine.

Does making dinner for someone need a three (or four- or five-)-date rule?

Are there other things women do that may send messages to men that we women don't "get"?

Are there things men do that may send messages to women that men don't "get"?