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Here's a case report for you:
So this evening, I was talking to my dear beloved fiancee', and she brought to me a Thing* which was broken. The fact that it was broken made her sad. Upon realizing these two facts, my testosterone-laden brain immediately told me to fix the Thing that was broken so she would stop being sad. I'm sorry to report that the Thing was irreparable.
When I told my lovely better half this, she said, "I knew that."
Which made me wonder, why did she bring it to me then?
So here's my theory. Somewhere on the long arm of the Y chromosome is a gene that does nothing other than tell the organism to "fix the thing".
On the other arm of the Y chromosome is a different gene, which says, "if nothing can be done about it, why are you bothering me with it?"
I may not have the mechanism exactly right, but I think I've got the effect down. Look at the vast majority of literature from any culture. Fiction or non-fiction, it boils down to:
Women: (insert blasphemous oath here) Men are insensitive clods!
Men: (another blasphemous oath) Women are whiny bitches!
I rest my case.
*if you must know, it was some sort of cosmetics case
So this evening, I was talking to my dear beloved fiancee', and she brought to me a Thing* which was broken. The fact that it was broken made her sad. Upon realizing these two facts, my testosterone-laden brain immediately told me to fix the Thing that was broken so she would stop being sad. I'm sorry to report that the Thing was irreparable.
When I told my lovely better half this, she said, "I knew that."
Which made me wonder, why did she bring it to me then?
So here's my theory. Somewhere on the long arm of the Y chromosome is a gene that does nothing other than tell the organism to "fix the thing".
On the other arm of the Y chromosome is a different gene, which says, "if nothing can be done about it, why are you bothering me with it?"
I may not have the mechanism exactly right, but I think I've got the effect down. Look at the vast majority of literature from any culture. Fiction or non-fiction, it boils down to:
Women: (insert blasphemous oath here) Men are insensitive clods!
Men: (another blasphemous oath) Women are whiny bitches!
I rest my case.
*if you must know, it was some sort of cosmetics case
posted by Ted @ 00:49
4 Comments:
At 21/9/06 03:34 ,
Jenny said...
It's all about sharing, my friend... all about sharing. Her sharing the otherwise trivial, yet upsetting at times, aspects of her life with you... therefore building a history together. Um, I think it's called communication by some.
At 21/9/06 15:31 ,
Ted said...
Oh, sure. When you put it THAT way, it almost sounds like a good idea.
At 23/9/06 01:27 ,
Jenny said...
heather, i feel your pain.
At 26/9/06 21:54 ,
Ted said...
So here's the issue, as I see it: To a woman, talking about stuff that bugs you and you can't do anything about is called "communication" and is part of "building a history" (I'm NOT trying to mock you, Jenny). This is apparently therapeutic.
To a guy, this sounds like "complaining" and is not therapeutic. In fact, it creates rather a lot of stress. It generally comes across sounding something like: "My life is terrible, and you can't do anything about it. What kind of a man are you?"
So if she's looking for a bit of commiserating, and he sees it (on a subconscious level) as an attack, you can see how strife would ensue.
Mind you, I have a sample size of one here, so I really don't know what I'm talking about.
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