The man who spent a week living like a woman

A crowded pub in the middle of London and I'm meeting my best mate Pete for a drink after work.

I'm running a bit late, and when I arrive Pete's already got a pint, so I attract the barman over and order a glass of chilled chardonnay.

Pete splutters beer over the bar. "Bit under the weather?" he asks, frowning at my choice.

"No, beer just leaves me bloated," I reply. Suspicious, he starts to talk about the England-Russia game. I ask him how his relationship is going.

"All right," he says. "But I still can't see us qualifying." I take a long pull on my wine as I consider his reply. "I like your shoes. Where did you get them?" I inquire.

Pete gives me a blank look and stares at my hands. "Are you wearing nail varnish?"

Scroll down for more

It's time to come clean. For the past week, steered by a small bunch of female friends, I experienced the thoughts, anxieties and simple daily tasks of a 21st-century woman. For one week, I lived as I imagined a woman might.

I worried about cellulite, obsessed about finding the right partner and thought constantly about my biological clock. In my mission, I journeyed into the darker side of the female psyche.

"Someone said to me, 'You wouldn't understand - you're a man,'" I tell Pete. "But I'm on a quest. A quest to find out how it feels to be on the other side of the gender divide."

Pete wants to know if I expect him to buy all the drinks from now on.

I won't wear dresses but I will ring my mother every day, buy flowers, read my horoscope, pluck my eyebrows and browse the chick-lit section of the bookshop - all things deemed necessary by my panel of female advisors.

Pints are out; spritzers are in. Westerns are gone (except Brokeback Mountain), to be replaced by romances. Soap and water are no more; cleanser, toner and moisturiser take their place.

Most frightening for me is the revelation that I will have to attempt to multi-task. That's right. I, a mere male, will try to do two things at once.

The first morning, I stare into the bathroom mirror. It seems little has changed. I still have to shave my chin - but it occurs to me I shouldn't stop there. Twenty fraught minutes later, I have silky-smooth armpits (except for one stubborn tuft).

Women, I am told, are more inclined to clean things than men - and it's a well-known fact that men are slovenly in the bathroom. I, for one, have never cleaned a toilet. Poured bleach down it, yes. But scrubbed it, cleaned behind it, used a cloth to floss the yukky little patches underneath the hinges, no.

So I find myself on my knees on the bathroom floor. I haven't been in this position since I drank too many tequilas in 2005. Maybe this will help me find out what it's like to be a woman. It's another world down here - the eighth circle of hell.

Dragging myself away from the newly-sparkling lavatory bowl, I realise I need to give consideration to what I am going to wear today. All the women I've consulted about this experiment emphasise that they don't merely pull on the clothes they threw over the back of a chair the night before, as I do: they put considerable effort into it.

What impact am I hoping for from my outfit? What do I feel like wearing? I select my blue suit and a crisp white shirt.

No, it looks like I'm making too much of an effort. After all, I am only going shopping. Moments later, I'm in jeans and a grey jumper. No, black. No, definitely the grey. Or is that too casual?

I've never thought about an outfit for more than 30 seconds before and never agonised. This is exhausting. And my new morning routine has taken me so much longer than usual.

I'm also going to think about my diet and have resolved to go on a no wheat, no sugar, no dairy eating plan. This, according to one of my friends, is the most effective way of keeping your weight down. It will ensure that I continue to fit into my 32-inch jeans, which - suddenly - has become very important to me.

Checking the kitchen, it appears I have been too hasty in my choice of diet: Weetabix and yoghurt are my only options. So I skip breakfast completely - like many busy women - and head into town.

I have borrowed a male friend's 'man-bag'. I knew I would need a handbag but lacked the courage to walk around with the genuine article. I have seen inside women's handbags and, for authenticity, filled mine with the following items: a hairbrush, old receipts, an umbrella, several pens that don't work, loose change, fluff, and a spare pair of pants.

This causes me some embarrassment later when I try to buy some women's magazines and can't find my wallet, almost dragging out my spare pants instead. How do women manage to rummage without pulling everything out?

"It's in here somewhere," I tell the shop assistant. She nods sympathetically.

But it's not all man-bags and Vogue. If only. Women wear make-up - and I know I have to go some way down this path.

Moments later, I am sitting on a stool at the cosmetics counter in a department store while Julie, whose face is painted with a precision that would make Rembrandt jealous, fiddles with my face and applies creams, colours and unguents - which I learn are concealers, foundations and an antipuffing eye lotion that she claims are used by men as well as women.

She explains in micro detail everything she does. None of it makes any sense to me. The only man I know who wears serious make-up is David Gest.

To make matters worse, two women have appeared to my left and are throwing what they think are discreet glances in my direction, and then, less discreetly, screeching with laughter.

Julie uses scientific jargon, citing ceramides and light-reflecting pigments. She tilts the mirror so I can see what she has done.

Staring back is someone who looks a bit like me, but better. She ushers me over to the counter and makes me pay for something which looks like a gold pen but is in fact Touche Eclat, which, she tells me, will "add a touch of radiance anywhere on my complexion where shadows appear".

For the rest of the day, I try to stop myself wondering if people can tell I'm wearing make-up. A woman, of course, doesn't mind this being obvious.

At lunchtime, I go to a sandwich shop - but everything I want to eat is forbidden by my new diet. I settle on a salad and soya milk latte instead of my usual coffee. The bad news: I am still hungry. The good news: as yet I am still blissfully unaware what horrors and humiliations the week has in store.

Like leg waxing. If this procedure had been round when Torquemada was conducting the Inquisition, the whole world would be Roman Catholic by now.

Lulled into a false sense of security by the pleasant sensation of warm liquid wax being applied, I am quick to receive a shock. Once the wax has congealed, there is a searing moment of agony as 10,000 individual roots are brutally ripped from my skin.

I let out an involuntary expletive, directed at the female technician. I start to apologise but she waves it off. "I've been called a lot worse than that," she says. "Are you sure you want the other one done?"

There is no going back. "I can't go round with one hairy leg," I tell her.

She nods as she tears off another strip. This time I'm prepared. Instead of a foul six-letter word, I simply yelp: "Thank you!" But I scratch from my mental list all thought of having my bikini-line done.

As I leave the establishment, I think that if I really were a woman, I would live somewhere where it was socially acceptable to be hairy. Like France.

I intend to ratchet up the pressure. I am ready to multi-task. My plan is to cook a meal, while washing my clothes and looking after the ten-month-old child of a friend.

I explain this to the mother of my prospective charge. She seems OK with the cooking and washing concept - but becomes curiously reluctant to surrender her baby to me.

In the end, I have to abandon the idea of child-minding and invite them both over for a meal. But since I was distracted by the washing machine, which has started to make a funny noise, I allow the red mullet to cremate itself.

Feeling slightly stressed with all these extra things to consider, I book into the spa at Browns Hotel in Central London. A manicure, pedicure, body exfoliation, back treatment and facial is just the type of expensive pampering men think women enjoy.

Having a stranger filing your nails, massaging your face or stroking your back is curiously intimate. Women may be used to this: I am not. As I look down at my freshly buffed and varnished toes, I feel relieved I have gone for a clear polish and resisted the temptations of scarlet or black, which, I have been assured, are very "this season" - whatever that means. I'm well into my experiment but am struggling to worry about all the things my female friends do. I must try harder to worry about my biological clock. I must try feeling anxious that I'll never meet the right person and settle down. And I still haven't got the hang of thinking about cellulite.

My armpits are itchy, my under-eye concealer has given me a rash, and an article on sex in Cosmopolitan has made me feel like I've been doing it all wrong. I can't believe that women actually take these things seriously.

My diet is leaving me hungry and irritable, so I run a hot bath, light a scented candle and eat a 200g bar of chocolate. I should feel guilty for ruining my diet, but I don't. I just don't feel hungry any more.

I also ring my mother for the fourth day in succession. "What's wrong?" she asks. "Nothing." "Well, why do you keep ringing?" she asks. "Just for a chat."

"We had one yesterday. And the day before." I decide to drop this aspect of the project because I can't begin worrying other people.

However, while I have the phone in hand, I recall a girl who told me how she and her friends would ring ex-boyfriends after a couple of glasses of wine to reopen discussions that are probably best left alone.

Fortified by a whole bottle of white wine, I find the number of an ex-girlfriend I broke up with four years ago.

A man answers. I replace the receiver. I decide to read the beauty tips in Vogue. Next day, I've arranged to meet a female friend for a shopping expedition. I have heard tales of how women shop for eight hours a day - and I want to see how long I can last. It's now that I encounter a major difference between the sexes. We shop like different species. Men, who are hunters, have their prey - whether it's a new hammer or a pair of shoes. They go to an appropriate place (a shop) and capture it. Women, as gatherers, wander randomly through the bright forest of retail aisles, waiting for something to attract their attention.

After 15 minutes I'm ready for a break, but I force myself to endure another hour. I am joined by two other girls, and the conversation flits, butterfly-like, from subject to subject, covering relationships, fashion week and gossip. I soon find I can't keep up.

In fact, research has shownthat women use 20,000 words a day, while men utter only 7,000. It means I have a word gap of 13,000 a day. I will have to talk three times as much.

Except I won't. Because I have reached the final day of my experiment.

I have changed. I am now more interested in detergent with essential oils that make clothes feel nice on your skin. I'm more observant about what other men are wearing. And I've even remembered someone else's birthday.

But it's a relief to be resuming my own persona. I did find the week difficult - and I'd only dipped a polished toenail into a woman's life. I experienced none of the real pressures and tribulations that a woman faces every day. Tammy Wynette was quite wrong when she sang 'Sometimes it's hard to be a woman'. It's not. It's always hard to be a woman. Especially if you're a man.