Man Rant

This is your fair warning. I am about to post things that I would normally not say out loud due to consideration of tact and class. You may be offended by what you read here. Do not read further if your feelings are easily hurt. You have been warned.

I respect women, and I love my wife, mother, sisters, and daughter. Sometimes, though, I wish that they could just deal with things like men instead of women.

Men communicate by exchanging information. They process the information they've received, and if there is any doubt or confusion about the information, they will generally ask for clarification or a fight.

Example:
Man 1: The USU Aggies stink this year and don't deserve to go to the NCAA tournament.
Me asking for clarification: You talkin' to me?
Man 1 providing clarification: You heard me, stinking cow herder.
Me asking for a fight: You want to take this outside?

Women communicate by building relationships. The truest meanings of conversation are carried not in what is said, but how it is said, and how it might be interpreted. They will exchange hellos in passing and spend the next 30 minutes trying to decide if the other woman hates them, and if so how much, and how much venom they should put into their next exchange.

Example:
Woman1: Hello
[Possible Interpretations, depending on tone and body language, among other factors]
- I can't believe you wore THAT today.
- I still hate you from when you didn't say hi to me three years ago when we were within 50 feet of each other in the Mall of America.
- I'm envious of your appearance, but I want to look like I couldn't care less.
Woman2: Hi
[Possible Interpretations, depending on tone and body language, among other factors]
- You vile hussy, you.
- Nice hair. Did your curling iron cause some singes this morning?
- What are you looking at? Do I have something in my teeth?

The possible interpretations get even better when one woman tells another woman about something a third person (or farther down the chain) said. We'll come back to this one later.

Notice that none of the possible interpretations are casual greetings. Of course, women often do exchange casual greetings and recognize them as such, but that falls outside the scope of my rant and will therefore be ignored for the time being.

This is why men and women can be so confused in a relationship for the first little while, like 10 or 20 years. A man asks for information, and the woman tries to build the relationship. The man asks for clarification, and the woman feels that the man doesn't care about the relationship.

Example:
Woman: Honey, can you please put the seat of the toilet down when you're finished using the facilities?
[Possible Interpretation] He loves me, and knowing that I would like the seat down will help him to show me that he loves me.
Man: Why do I have to put the seat down? Isn't it just as easy for you to put the seat down? Do I ask you to put the seat up when you're done?
[Editorial note] A man asks these questions because he is actually curious as to why WHO puts the seat down matters, and he would like to compare and contrast the scenarios of a man putting the seat down versus a woman putting the seat up. The poor sap has no clue that he has inadvertently brought his sweetheart to the brink of tears.
Woman: I can't believe you don't want to put the seat down. It's not like it's hard!
[Possible Interpretation] How can he say that he doesn't want me to be happy? I'm not asking him for some impossible thing. Doesn't he love me the way I love him?
[Editorial note] If a woman were to answer the man with something like, "I use the toilet with the seat down 100% of the time, and you use it with the seat down about 50% of the time, which equates to roughly 75% of the total uses are with the seat down. It would be more efficient to put the seat down after each time it has been raised", she would instantly "win" this argument/discussion at least 95% of the time. Of course, if the man would have answered her question with something like, "I'd be happy to do that for you", he'd have her happy as a clam most every time.
Man, still looking for the information he requested, or a fight: You're right, it's not hard. Ipso facto, why must I be the one to do it all the time?

And on it goes. I would guess that most of those who will read this post have had a conversation very much like the one I described. Nod your head if it sounded familiar, if you haven't already nodded.

Tangentially, why is it that the woman in the argument can get upset, yell, scream, and say mean things to the man, but when the man starts dishing out the same in return, the woman runs away and won't work the problem through to a resolution until she's cooled down? Why can't the man do that? Why is it that when a woman is upset about something outside of the relationship, she can stomp and bluster and wave her arms about, but the man is supposed to take it all in while remaining calm and providing what little verbal comfort he can muster? Why can't the man bluster and pace?

Obviously, the answer to the second question... Oh wait, I'm only going on 10 wonderful years of marriage. Can I say obviously and be truthful about it?

Anyway, the answer to the second question would seem to be that behaving in the calm, comforting way is the way the woman needs to be comforted and helped to vent her frustrations. Then the man goes to Guy's Night Out and vents to his buddies, who promptly forget about it because they've got their own problems to deal with.

Now, let's extend this thought process a step or two further. Suppose that a woman heard from another woman what a third woman (a friend, a family member, a neighbor, or otherwise relationally important person) had said about the first woman's children not being under control in the third woman's opinion. Let's now suppose that the first woman's husband is informed of the issue. How is he to respond?

He may think that it's a problem between the two women, but since the third woman didn't tell the first woman directly, he wonders if there might be a possible misunderstanding. However, if he presents that as a possibility and asks if the two concerned parties might want to actually talk about it, he may not be building the relationship with his wife. He may want to contact the accused party directly, but then he might be overstepping the bounds that his wife would prefer him to keep.

Now let's add to this scenario an undercurrent of feeling that several extended offers of relationship building activities have been rejected when distance between the parties does not appear to be a huge problem. Now let's add in a feeling from the party of the first part that the children of the party of the third part have had similar issues as well. Now let's add in a willingness to forgive past wrongs if the other side will do the same, but an uncertainty if that will happen due to the lack of open communication. Now let's add in a desire to know "What have I done or not done to cause this?" Now let's add in...

Fortunately for the husband, the first woman has done a lot of hard work in learning how to speak Man. Sometimes she has to work at it, and sometimes she has to tell the man that she is speaking Man to him. He now knows that he is authorized to deal with this problem like a Man.

So, to tie it all together, I ask: You want to take this outside?