Part Two, For You

You ever have an argument with your significant other and it seems like y'all are speaking two different languages?

You're laying out a point-by-point breakdown of the problems you have with your lover's behavior, and your main squeeze is complaining about your tone of voice. Or, your spouse tells you that she doesn't feel loved, you explain all the things you do that show your love, and she says those things don't count. It's both baffling and infuriating.

Welcome to the logic and emotion divide.

This topic is a dangerous one, mainly because many of my beliefs about relationships are tinged with chauvinism. See, how easily I admitted that? Do I get brownie points for admitting up front that I have a totally "male" view on the world, and believe many stereotypes and generalizations about women because my personal history has borne them out? Or, does that just make me an idiot.

Oh well.

I issued that disclaimer because my honest assessment is that men tend to use more logic in relationships, and women tend to follow their emotions. I know this isn't 100 percent true in every relationship, so those of y'all firing up that angry and obvious response can fall back. There are far too many variables in relationships for anything to be 100 percent, but I feel confident in making the argument that men like things to make sense, while women like things to make them happy.

And that creates conflict.

Look, I know men also want to be happy in relationships. That's why we dominate the remote control and why many of us fall asleep shortly after putting in our time in the bedroom. These things make us happy. But, it seems like we understand better that our happiness does not have the power to change facts, while women seem immune to this reality of life.

For example, ladies, if you cook a nice meal and your man eats it and compliments you on it, then just move on. Don't ask him how it compares to the meal y'all had at his momma's last weekend. Because you might not like the response. Your man is probably going to respond honestly that your meatballs were nice, but his momma's made him do a happy dance. He's going to tell you he appreciated your effort, but that his momma also makes garlic bread topped with Parmesan cheese when she cooks pasta. And, ultimately, you're going to be pissed. See, logically and factually, your meal wasn't as good as his momma's meal and he let you know. But, emotionally, he should have known that telling you the absolute truth was a pretty stupid decision, and he could have protected your feelings.

That's how men and women differ. Unfortunately, men don't tend to filter reality through our emotions as often as women do. Something either happened, or it didn't happen. That's it. But, for a lot of women, whether or not something happened is not as important as how they felt when that thing happened. Men figure that buying flowers for a women that likes flowers is a good look no matter what. But, women believe that the flowers only count if you thought of them yourself, and they were the right color and type. If a man only bought flowers because his women kept asking for them, and he got roses instead of tulips, well he might as well have saved his money.

It's not that men don't have emotions, and it's not that women don't use logic. Like I said, dealing in absolutes is idiotic whenever you're talking about human beings. Men have lots of emotions, but most of us have been taught since youth to suppress those emotions and focus on the realities of life if we want to be successful. On the other hand, women have been encouraged to express their feelings and they've been told those feelings are important since they were children. Consequently, the two genders have vastly different worldviews.

Brief Tangent
Some of this is due to what I call the Daddy Complex. My friends and I have discovered that many women have been thoroughly misguided about the realities of marriage and relationships because of the well-meaning love showered on them by their daddies. (That's not even accounting for the women that have a host of issues because their daddies weren't around.) Anyway, Daddy's Little Girl typically has been treated like a princess by her father since birth, and in many ways she's been able to avoid facing the hard realities of adulthood.

When she encounters a nice young man, she's taken aback at all the expectations this young man has regarding her behavior. See, she has lots of expectations about what a man should bring to a relationship, but she hasn't spent much time thinking about what her "duties" might be. This leads to many fights when her man confronts her with the realities of life, and she talks about the depths of her feelings.

Damn those Daddys.

Tangent Finished

It's imperative for us to understand the difference in how men and women view the world if we want to have successful and enduring relationships. For men, that means understanding that just because you prove your case logically, sometimes logic isn't as important as the way your partner feels about your actions. As many relationship experts have noted, if you "win" every argument with your spouse, you will eventually lose the war. For women, this means understanding that men like things to make sense, outside of what you "feel." That means that when you have a beef with your man, you should distill your disagreement into easily digestible points that are not tied to subjective feelings. Your feelings are important, but so are the facts.

What say you Lunatics?







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