Different Sides of the Same Tree?
Men may be from Mars and women may be from Venus, but that doesn’t really help anyone when they are trying to communicate here on Earth. Fortunately for everyone Earth falls directly between these two planets in orbital rings, providing an actual middle ground for the two planets to meet. Unfortunately, it is sometimes like a wildebeast trying to talk to a butterfly (I’ll leave it to you to figure out who is which animal!)
When Dr. John Gray published his book in 1992, it hit the mainstream media with a velocity that has made the self-help title “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” one of the most recognizable since “How To Win Friends & Influence People.” Heck, Bridget Jones even handed it out to those poor misguided women in a Taiwanese prison after Darcy sprung her! Martians and Venusians came together and bought the book in droves, because they all recognized that there does in fact seem to be some very distinct differences between the sexes, and not just anatomically.
Whether it’s our wiring or societal imposition, the way guys and girls communicate sometimes leaves someone throwing their hands up in the air in utter defeat. Somehow we ended up on different sides of the same tree, just trying to have a conversation.
When I asked my guy friends what the biggest difference in these conversations was for them, the resounding sentiment appeared to be time and effort. Guys are fixers, their brains immediately flow to a fight or flight response and they just want to discuss the issue and then it’s done. Thus when a conversation lasts for 3 hours they are checked out after the first 15 minutes. As one friend wrote, “It’s not that we dread the conversation, we just dread the last 2 hours and 45 minutes of it.”
It isn’t that guys don’t care about their emotions and feelings. Occasionally, they’ll even be the ones to start the conversation. For most, it’s more like football (or, as we Americans would call it, soccer.) You can be American and be a fan of soccer. You can play, coach and maybe even follow one of the US teams. That’s more than some Europeans ever get involved in the game. Yet those folks are rabid about their Football teams, and that’s from a girl who is passionate about New England sports! Does that mean that one side of the pond care about soccer/football more than the other?
Girls, this doesn’t mean that we should give up on lasting conversation that is important to us. Relationships and sharing and nuturing is part of what makes a woman so especially essential to the world. Without the occasional (and sometimes forced) sharing of feelings, thoughts and opinions our world would be a different place. Guys need that connectedness to keep from spinning off into a lifestyle straight out of Lord of the Flies. Just remember that when their eyes start glazing over and you are pretty sure they are mentally re-positioning their fantasy baseball team, it’s probably because they are.
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