For want of an answer, the woman was lost

Posted on glamtings.com in March 2011. Glamtings is dead now. Sorries.

I do not think that women have truly spent any considerable amount of energy trying to understand men, and why they act the way they do, from a practical, problem solving perspective. All our lives, our mothers have taught us to shut up, deal, and make a nice meal. Old wives' tales have it that all the problems we may have with our men will be solved with food: If he's upset, cook him something. If he's upset with you, cook him something different. And if you want something from him, cook him something special. 

It seems, however, that women of the 21st century have started to see things somewhat differently. Perhaps this is because we've broken all our mothers' rules; perhaps it is because now, we actually know what secret lies hidden in little john's shorts, or because now, we know better than to lie still on our backs. Whatever the reason, we are now daring to look for answers outside of the kitchen.

Now that we have stepped into the territory of men, armed with red-soled shoes and skin-sewn bags, ladies, do we know any better than our mothers before us? Sure, we can rival our men in the boardroom and manipulate them in the bedroom, but do we understand them any better in the living room?

I will never understand what switch it is that goes off in their heads when the game comes on, or how they can be so tight-lipped about their feelings, and suddenly animated when it comes to who played what game better. The offside rule? *Insert confused face* Try getting a grown man to remember the 'call back' rule, or the 'pick up your dirty socks' rule. Forget it. 
There's a different algorithm in the computation of Male that makes only things involving sports and games clear to them. 

Have you ever been in a car with a man who has no idea, which way he's going? I have. In that scenario, I like to play a little game called How Many Wrong Turns. How many wrong turns can you make without cursing? How many wrong turns can you make without snapping at your girlfriend for suggesting you ask for directions? And how many wrong turns can you make without coming up with a ridiculous excuse to go back home so that you do not have to pull up to the curb to ask? 

This game is a lot of fun. Unless of course, you're the tired girlfriend in the passenger seat who'll be missing her best friend's rehearsal dinner, and (very rightly) refusing to make any for said boyfriend.

But these scenarios are for the seasoned, the ones who bravely fought through the sea of indecisive, commitment-phobic men. They are for those who have succeeded in answering all those other questions the rest of us ask every single day: "He said he liked me, why hasn’t he called since?” “He said he was single, who’s that girl?” “He said he wants us to see each other. What does that mean?” or the age-old, “Where is this relationship going?”

We’ve all sat down staring at our phones, rejecting calls from pesky suitors all the while waiting for a call from the chosen one that never comes through. Some of us have made excuses for cheating men because we’ve been attracted, and most of us have found ourselves in compromising arrangements with men who call us their ‘girls’ but never their girlfriends. What does it all mean?

 
Hats off to those women who've graduated to bigger troubles than these: the ones who successfully scaled the wiles of the wandering ones to become ‘Wifey’. Our heroes, who have lit the narrow path of hope… only, this path seems to lead to discarded garments, Sports Saturdays and geographical disorientation. Is this confusion the circle of our lives? And, in searching for answers, has curiosity indeed killed the cat?

I cannot help but wonder if our mothers had it right all along. Perhaps we needn’t bother with the why’s or the what’s of the minds of our boys. When it all boils down to it, perhaps there’s no point trying to master their motivations when we can just cook up a storm.