Men are Macs

     I am writing in response to a conversation that I overheard the other day between two girls.  One of the girls was upset because her boyfriend had told her she was All Right.  “All right?” she said.  “What does that mean?  I’ve been depressed all day!”  Since college was for learning, I decided to teach her what I knew.

       There is a chasm between the sexes that can never be bridged until we throw away part of what they taught us in Sunday school. Women should not do unto men what they would have men to do unto them.  They will only get their feelings hurt.  Men should not do unto women what they would have women do unto them either; they will only end up confused and bewildered.

       One thing Sunday school was right about was the definition of conversation.  In the Bible, conversation means “way of life.”  This covers a wide area, including living, thinking, and breathing.  When you think about the basic difference between men and women, it is conversation.  For example, to a woman, “converse” means to tell somebody something.  To a man, it means a pair of sneakers.  No words necessary.
 
       The prime reason that men and women war with one another is because each sex tries to understand the other in its own language, not realizing that there are two distinct ways of life—or conversations.  Men expect women to live, think, and breathe like men, and women expect the same of men. 
       But that will never happen.

     First of all, men are socially underdeveloped people.  Where women have been successfully socialized in the art of conversation—on the telephone, at the grocery store, in the parking lot with strangers, with wrong-number callers, or with themselves—men have not.  Men don’t know what to say most of the time, when, or how to say it.  In fact, they don’t even know that they need to say anything at all.  Women can talk to a stump.  To many women, men are stumps.
 
       Understanding a woman means realizing that although most of what she says in the course of a day is not earth changing, a man can’t always tell at first.  Furthermore his response directly affects the importance of her seemingly inane conversation.  “Of course you have clothes; what’s all that fabric hanging in the closet?” can very well turn a simple observation that never hurt anybody into a real knockdown drag-out involving a monsoon of tears and hours of analytic reconstruction of the situation and its significance for the relationship, an effort that a little intuition on the part of the male could have averted in the first place.

       There is also much that women need to understand about men.  Male people are born with only a certain number of utterances.  They can’t help it. This number varies from man to man, but remains extremely low in comparison to that of women.  Men do not have the innate ability to express themselves the way women want them to, but their very few words actually pack more weight.  Since men are allotted only so many words and very little inclination to put them to use, they believe that men and women should be able to converse by telepathy.  That way, it’s easier for everybody.  Not so.  The minds of men are not readable to women or vice versa.  Men’s brains, simple and uncomplicated, are Macs.  But the brains of women are PCs using OS/2, an operating system best known not for its multi-tasking but for its downright ornery complication and the lack of an understandable manual.  The key is finding the right program that will help you put into your own language exactly what the alien from the other side is saying.
 
      Always remember that when men utter words, they do not mean the same thing as when women say them.  When a woman says something is all right, it means the opposite; she doesn’t really like it, but she is unwilling to offend by saying so outright.  Do you like this dress?  “It’s all right.”  What she really means is “That’s ugly.”  When a man says something is All Right, it is one of the biggest compliments he can give; he wants to take it home.
    
     When a man asks a woman if everything is all right and she says, “I’m okay,” men shouldn’t interpret “okay” in male terms.  For a woman, “I’m okay” has a wide range of meanings, including “Everything is fine; don’t worry about me,” an expression with self sacrificial undertones,  “I’m severely depressed,” or “I’m really miserable, but I’m putting on a happy face because I know you don’t want to talk about it.  You never want to talk.”

         The answer to the man/woman question is learning what the language of the opposite sex means. When a man says he likes that Chevy truck in the car lot, it means that he wants to go truck shopping.  Now.  When a woman says she likes that little baby in the buggy, it does not necessarily mean that she wants one of her very own.
   
     After a woman has asked a man if he’s okay and he has said yes, the woman should accept his response and let him be.  Although there is a chance that subconsciously he is not okay, it is not the job of the woman to find out or to fix it.  It is also surprisingly possible, given the fact that men think so differently from women, that there really isn’t a problem at all.  But ask a guy several times if he has a problem, and if he didn’t have one already, he can certainly get one in a hurry.
 
       Neither men nor women should expect rewards for doing their job.  Men should never expect an “Atta Boy” if they remember their wedding anniversary, no matter how proud they are.  Men are expected to remember such an important date.  After all, it’s their important date, too.  On the other hand, women should not expect to be handed a trophy for pumping their own gas.  Gas, just like the noxious reaction that happens when men and women don’t understand each other, is just part of life.  

       Neither male nor female should assume that the other gender can empathize with their strong emotions.  Men should not assume that women can possible relate to, empathize with, or remotely understand their fascination with things that go.  No matter how much a woman appreciates that her car cranks when she wants to go somewhere, that does not mean that she wants a detailed, mind glazing description of what happens after the spark plug ignites.

     In the same vein, a woman should never expect a man to feel her pain. When women are sad, men can’t feel it.  No matter how loud she clacks the dishes around or yells suddenly at the cat, the guy will never automatically know that all the woman needs is a little hug and that if she has to tell him, it’s completely ruined because then he isn’t really giving her a hug; she is acquiring one.  At best, he will only be dazed and confused.
 
     Once you’ve figured out the language thing, you still have to be careful.  Beware the woman who says she doesn’t like to go shopping.  She might like it once she gets there.  And not liking shopping doesn’t necessarily mean that she doesn’t like to spend money.  Beware also the guy who says he believes in an equal opportunity household.  First thing you know, you’ll be up on the roof feeding him roofing nails while dishes are molding in the sink.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get to hammer.

     When he hits his finger, it is best for both of you if you aren’t overtly sympathetic.  Just say, “Hurt?”  If he is obviously in pain, you may increase the number of words, but not the number of syllables in each.  “Hurt? No? Good.”