Short Stories in the Shuswap

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The difference between men and women... it all started when my niece got married last spring.

Her new husband was a nice newly ordained minister. One of his first duties as a minister was to perform a graveside funeral service in a brand new graveyard — the graveyard was so new that this was going to be the first person ever to be buried there. The deceased was what they used to call a hermit so they didn't expect anyone else to attend the funeral. My niece decided to go with her new husband so he wouldn't be out there standing alone in an empty field.

On the way to the funeral they got lost. They drove round and round in circles and she kept suggesting that they should stop to ask for directions, but you know men — Our Young Mr. Minister didn't think it was necessary.

They arrived at the graveyard late. The funeral home had already come and gone, obviously, because there were three gravediggers waiting beside the freshly dug grave leaning on their shovels. Our Young Mr. Minister apologized to them and told them he'd be only a few minutes, and proceeded to give a very short, but eloquent service. Then he told the gravediggers they could go ahead and he and my niece left.

It wasn't until they were getting into their car that they heard one of the gravediggers say, “Now that's the dangest thing I seen in all the 25 years I've been installing septic tanks!”

Makes you wonder, doesn't it, why won't men ask for directions? Women never hesitate to stop and ask.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, it was politically correct to think that there were no real differences between boys and girls. Any behavioral differences were supposedly the result of socialization, and were imposed on children by their parents and the world around them.

It's true that men and women are equally intelligent. Men and women start out the same when they are concieved but for men, at about 8 weeks into the gestation period, it's the testosterone that takes over. It's the testosterone that makes men, men and we women like that — but it doesn't stop with their physical appearance — it affects their brains! How else would you explain why it is that men can spot a new sports car model two blocks away but they can't find the ketchup bottle in the fridge right infront of them?

But, to be fair to men, it's not that the brains of men and women are inferior or superior to each other; they're just different. A woman's brain at rest is about five times more active than a man' brain when he is engaged in solving a problem.

It's true. Women are always thinking, and usually in several directions at once. It gives them more freedom to quickly switch between right and left brain functions, and to integrate emotions into thinking. From a man's perspective, women lack emotional control — men seem to be able to separate their thoughts from their feelings. They remain cool calm and objective in even the most emotionally charged situations, in the office.

It's because of this difference in the activity in the brain that women can talk in circles around any subject, while a man takes a more linear route to “get to the point.” Men grow up in a world in which a conversation is often a contest, either to achieve the upper hand or to prevent other people from pushing them around. For women, conversation is a way of exchanging affirmations and support.

Women will say things like "Let's." "Let's park over there" or "Let's clean up." Men don't like that. They think they're being told what to do. So, we change the way we suggest something. We'll say, "Would you like to stop for a coffee?"

He says "No, thanks." So we don't stop. I find that frustrating. I wasn't asking him for an immediate decision, I was trying to begin a negotiation.

The trick is to recognize that men and women are different for a reason. The world doesn't need clones. What it needs, and gets, is complimentary points of view.

So the next time you and your man get lost, just remember that a man's refusal to ask directions is that old testosterone causing a chemical reaction that kicks on in their brain. All sense of time and location shuts down and completely turns off. It's like a dog who needs to stick their head out of the car window and let their tongue flap in the breeze. All I can say to you is, Ladies, just sit back and enjoy the scenery, because it's going to be a very long ride.

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