Men Aren’t Like Women-Thank God
When women are younger and we get confused about men we sometimes turn to our mothers for an explanation. Usually we want to know why one doesn’t like us or why they do so much that they won’t stop calling even though we have never called them back. Our mothers typically just say “because they’re men” or “that’s just the way boys are”. For most of us, this explanation is not enough. We are SURE there is more to it than that. The answer seems too blase, too simple and too generalized. What we dismiss as our mother’s bitterness towards the male gender or her complete disregard for one’s individuality is actually based on totally relevant experience. We forget that this woman has more knowledge of the nature of dealing with the male gender than we do. We think she must be scorned by her own background with men so we immediately chalk up ourselves as being different from her and therefore try to understand the opposite sex in a more “modern” fashion. Many an author and psychologist have made loads of money off of women’s fascination with decoding the thoughts and actions of the male of the species. Do you think hoards of men made “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” a bestseller? No, of course not. Women did. Persuing the ultimate goal in understanding men. The problem is, what we don’t realize as teenagers and young women, men are really much more simple. Our mothers were right.
Now, by “simple”, I don’t mean stupid or dense. I mean uncomplicated as compared to their female counterparts. Are there exceptions to the rule? Probably but very very few. We, as women, are taught to examine everything. Examine our feelings and actions. Do they match up? Are we in connection with ourselves? Men are not taught this. Even with the millions of single mothers bringing up little men, they are still not taught to study their feelings. Which is fine with me. Frankly, the sight of a man crying uncontrollably in public makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I know that makes me sound mean and extremely hypocritical given my mostly progressive views. If I thought that men would be ultimately happier exploring every feeling that they have, I would put up with the public sobbing, hell, I would cheer it on. I don’t think men or women would benefit from being the “same” emotionally just as we are not the same physically.
Here’s why. If I had someone deciphering my every action, trying to figure out how that action reflected my feelings towards them, I would lose my ever loving mind. Frankly, sometimes I wonder how Jason doesn’t start axe murdering people in the street out of sheer frustration. Seriously. I can’t believe sometimes how I haven’t driven the man insane. Then, it comes to me. It’s really easy to figure out. Without us, men would never know what they are feeling.
You know how every guy in his 30s has that unmarried guy friend that acts like he is still in college? The eternal frat guy? The guy that you can’t ever see with a woman over the age of 25? This guy never has to “delve deep” because no woman has ever made him do it. If they have, he’ll freak out and run like hell in the opposite direction. You’ll spend your days greeting every 23 year old he brings to your place while wondering where that cool down to earth 29 year old went to. She won’t be back. Stop wondering. This guy will never find a girl that you will be able to have a discussion comparing Cosby Show to Growing Pains with. She won’t even be able to pick out which Beverly Hills 90210 character she was most like or know who Zack Morris is. This because, at 23, most girls are still reading self help books and trying not to “scare guys off” with their pesky “feelings”. You did it at 23, after all, didn’t you?
As you grew older though and got more “hands on” experience, you realized you can’t understand men in the context of being a woman. There are fundamental differences. You find instead of wondering why they can’t articulate how they feel about every stinkin thing that happens, you find you are GLAD they don’t. Sometimes you just want to take things at face value too. Sometimes you get tired of trying to get beneath the surface of everything. If you do feel like digging, most likely you’ll call one of your girlfriends to help you. Then you’ll curl up on the couch with your significant other to watch “Lost”, have him grab your boob a couple of times and all of the complications of life fade away.
Men can resolve their emotional issues without having to decipher why they felt the way they did. Men usually have four avenues of doing this: sex, sports, drinking and eating. We have a multitude of avenues but if we use them in excess(like eating too much or buying that sweater we just had to have but couldn’t afford), we are remorseful. Which brings on more negative feelings. So, in turn, we eventually have to figure out why we filtered our emotions into whatever distructive thing we did instead of “dealing” with them. Men don’t question, unless forced, their avenues for dealing with emotions. Sometimes they don’t even know they are feeling anything at all. It’s as simple as women look at life through an emotional glass that men don’t have. They don’t see the world through this glass no matter how much we try to force them to do it. They are neither taught nor born with this emotional glass so how can they be like us? Why would we want them to be?
I, for one, love men. I always have. I have always had guy friends and I dated a lot. It’s always funny trying to get guy friends to analyze your relationships with other men. For one, usually your guy friends want to sleep with you. The exception being if they are gay, which I have to say gay men are the best friends to women. It’s like having the other teams plays before the game starts. They will be honest. They don’t care if you will sleep with them or not after they tell you that the guy you think is in love with you is just trying to get in your pants and he doesn’t give a crap about your involvement with Greenpeace. The hetero male friend though…this is where it gets sketchy. There is a fine line between an insight into the male netherworld and a plan to erode your feelings for the man in discussion.
My relationship with Jason is actually a perfect example of this. Jason and I were friends since we were 16, but didn’t become a couple until we were 25. Now, this isn’t the movies, so no, he was not in love with me since we were 16. He didn’t have deep rooted feelings for me the whole time we were friends, plotting our future together. Of course he didn’t. He’s a man, baby. I have no doubt in my mind though that he probably wanted to sleep with me that whole time. Which, as you know, is not the equivilent to being in love with someone. Anyway, from the time he met me until I was 22, I was obviously deeply infatuated with Wolf. So, Jason and I would have many discussions regarding Wolf and his “mysterious” behavior. One day, Wolf was all about me, the next, he was running 1000 miles away, not to be heard from for weeks. Jason would attribute his behavior to being “a guy who wanted to sleep with me but not date me”. While I think he was right, Jason would damage his objective credibility on the subject by calling Wolf “Art Garfunkel”(Wolf had a fro when he was in first grade and unfortunately for him, a first grade picture of him was placed in the senior high yearbook. I thought it was possibly the cutest thing I had ever seen but then again, I was very blinded by hormones) and proclaim that I was “an idiot to like this loser who would never see how wonderful you are”. Jason would make fun of him and instead of seperating what I knew was true(Wolf wanted to sleep with me but not date me), I would discount the whole discussion. Purely based on the fact that I knew that Jason was male and driven the same way Wolf was, by sex. I should have seperated the good insight from the male defense mechanism(i.e. trying to diminish the other guy’s grasp on my emotions by belittling him).
In there also lies the second problem, even when we do go to our guy friends for the answer to our quandry, the answer is again too simple for us to comprehend. How can it be that simple? Girls, because it is that simple. Accept it and move on. Guys are easy. Think about how it is for them. Holy Jesus. Thank god I am not a man.
nicole Says:
Your post touches upon the same ideas in that book, “He’s Just Not That Into You”. Women constantly make excuses for guys who don’t show them the attention they should when they need to come to terms with the fact the guy is just not into them. It’s not easy to do. If I look back at some of my relationships I hate admitting these guys just weren’t as into me as I was into them because as women we want to see a deeper meaning and purpose for staying with a jerk. Who wants to admit the guy just wanted to sleep with you and nothing more? In any case, I enjoyed your post.
Karl Says:
I wish more women understood that men are really far less complex than they think. Seems like it’s very frustrating to women when guys aren’t forthcoming with their emotions, but as you said, most of the time that’s really because guys don’t know they even HAVE emotions. heh.
Glad you’re back!
Kentucky Girl Says:
Men are simple. I like that. It does explain a lot, you know.