Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Men Are From... Where?

It's no secret that men and women are wired differently. In, like, a ridiculous way.

Here's a story:
I was at the gym at my complex tonight with two big guys who were working out together, spotting each other, talking supplements, guy stuff. The first piece of their conversation that I pay attention to goes something like this:

Giant-Armed Guy: I wrote down a list of movies we should see together on my business card and gave it to her.
Smaller Guy: I don't get it.
Giant-Armed Guy: Then I called her and was like, "Yeah, scratch [whatever movie he said] off the list, because I saw it without you."
Smaller Guy: Yeah, dude, I learned the hard way you should never give your business cards out to girls.
Giant-Armed Guy: Well, it was all I had.
Smaller Guy: Like, at first, you're like, cool, she's calling me? Then, a few days later, she's calling, saying, "Why haven't I heard from you?" and you're like, shit, why'd I give her my work number? Now she's calling me at work. You know, you can get like 100 business cards printed up for like 20 bucks with just your phone number on them.

And then I tuned out because, frankly, the display on the treadmill was more interesting.

I should note that the TV on the right was playing a muted version of the Miss U.S.A. pageant. The TV on the left (closest to the two guys) was blaring rap videos. I chose neither.

Moments later, two other gigantic guys come in. [Seriously, three of these four men had biceps bigger than my waist.] One takes an elliptical, the other a bike. The one on the bike notices the pageant on TV and says, "We gotta change this shit." But then the bathing suit competition begins. You take your guess whether or not they left the beauty pageant on.

So now I'm on the treadmill and all four guys are glued to the Miss U.S.A. pageant as perfect girl after perfect girl parades out in matching bikinis. They make the (appropriate?) oohs and yeah-that's-what-I'm-talking-abouts, then I hear this:

Smaller Guy: Dude, that one's got some chub on her. Look. See that? She's not all tight.

I look to the TV where a girl with ridiculously toned thighs and obvious ab muscles does a little twirl for the judges. Then I hear:

Smaller Guy: Oh, no wonder. She's from New York.

???

I go back to Entertainment Weekly to read about Lost. Now, many of you know that the one show in the world I most do not want to read about is Lost. But, read I do, to avoid further such meathead comments. (I don't, by the way, think it's any big surprise that it's Smaller Guy who makes this comment.)

I leave the gym, shower, and go to my friend Amy's house for some wine & a weekend debriefing, and I fill her in on the exchange at the gym, which sparks a conversation about the disconnect between men and women. Here's what we come up with:

Men always say that women are all about playing games. We're not.* When we're younger -- say, twenties -- guys play games with us and think we get that that's what's going on and, as such, participate. But really, we're at home going, "I don't get it. He said he'd call...?" Then our friends -- who have the clarity to see the game-playing happening to us, but not to themselves -- say, "You can't call him, for like four days." And we do that, and of course, he comes back (until we give in and let him know just how much we like him, then it's all about "return to go; begin again."). Or we cave and call -- saying we don't need to play games, why should we play games, we like him, what's wrong with that? -- and he vanishes into the ether. But once we hit our thirties (and slowly come to accept that fact), we know games when we see them. We don't wonder why he hasn't called; we know why he hasn't called. So now the question becomes: Do we take the bait? Do we play back? Do we like him enough to put up with this when we've really got plenty on our plate already? And the answer is: Sometimes.

Yet other times, we fiercely embrace something like Sheryl Crow's "Run, Baby, Run." A sample lyric for demonstration purposes:

From the old familiar faces and
Their old familiar ways
To the comfort of the strangers
Slipping out before they say
So long
Baby loves to run
For whatever reason, the girl with the business card didn't call the gym guy fast enough. And maybe she had no intention of calling him ever. But is he really going to get in with the "I'll show you" phone call?


I'm reminded of a terrific book called Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman (which was made into a painfully-bad movie saved only by Hugh Jackman's abs called Someone Like You.** [Someone needs to tell Ashley Judd she can't act, stat.]). The book describes a scientific study called Old Cow-New Cow wherein a bull mates with a cow, then loses all interest in that cow. He's had that cow; been there, done that (literally). He wants New Cow. The scientists try to disguise the Old Cow as New Cow by dressing her up. Nothing doing. He knows it's Old Cow. They take the scent of a New Cow and put it on the Old Cow. No go. He gets it. He wants New Cow. Bull is only satisfied when he finally has New Cow. Then -- guess what -- he doesn't want that cow anymore. She's become Old Cow. And the hunt begins again.


My friend Seree once came up with an excellent analogy about men and women. She said that men are a chest of drawers. They've got a drawer for work, a drawer for sports, a drawer for women, etc., and they can only be in one drawer at a time. Women, on the other hand, are walk-in closets. Walk in, and it's all there, all the time.


So in the midst of this massive gender disconnect, can we ever hope to untangle the wires and find that balance? Will the bull ever be happy with his Old Cow, or will he forever be seeking the New? Can any of us get our friends/family/coworkers/therapists/whoever out of our heads long enough to determine what we want, rather than what others want for us? And can't we, in the end, just get along?


What would happen if all men and all women everywhere agreed to a moratorium on game-playing? Would it be like a giant train wreck with the carnage being broken hearts? (Can you picture it? Little shattered hearts everywhere amidst the debris; maybe one lucky couple rising up from the ashes...) Or do games actually save us in the end? When one of us begins to play the game, is it actually a subconscious desire to end a relationship without having to be the guilty party? Or is it a subconscious fear of pursuing a relationship with the knowledge that it could end badly, or just end, period, so we wreck it before that can happen? The fear-of-success so I'll ensure failure plan.


(Am I starting to sound like Carrie Bradshaw? If only I had a little Apple on the back of my computer, then I'd be more able to embrace the part.)


The thing about games is this: There's usually a winner, and there's usually a loser.
It's so very rarely a tie.


*In fairness to men (and know that that phrase alone somewhat kills me), I will admit that there are women out there who knowingly play the game without needing encouragement. But that's not what I feel like talking about and it's my blog, so there.
**I do know that I'm being somewhat hypocritical simply by commenting on Hugh Jackman's abs here, but, really, have you seen them?

4 Comments:

Blogger egyptiansally said...

p:
fantastic post. just to comment on those gym guys, i don't think they really meant what they were saying. guys are weird together. they gotta comment on the swim suit babes. they wouldn't be guys otherwise. and you're right in noticing the smaller guy was doing all the stupid talk. he felt he had nothing else to impress the bigger guys with. moreover, *you* were there. in some pig-headed scheme, this may have been macho talk in front of the *one girl* in the room.

t:
most girls-- once again not referencing anyone in particular-- play games because they're insecure. they don't know what guys are thinking and they think to get into guys' heads, they need to *trick* them. hence, the game.

as for hugh's abs, yes, there's that aspect also. girls are incredibly idealistic, always searching for the *perfect man* with the perfect brain and body. however, and this is what pam was saying about women in their '30s, once you get older you realize the perfect man is just a myth and only a small perecentage of men have abs like hugh, and an even smaller percentage of that percentage has a personality. it takes a while for girls to feel secure in themselves and in the knowledge that they can date a man who doesn't look like hugh jackman and it wouldn't reflect poorly on them.


conclusion:
we're all insecure which is why we do stupid shit.

8:49 AM  
Blogger pamela said...

In my defense, I did offer a disclaimer at the bottom that some women are active game-players, too. :)

After some more thought, though, I have two more ideas: 1)We all play games -- whether we mean to or not -- until we find that Right Person where we like each other equally and there's no need to act otherwise. 2)As Sally mentioned, we grow up and realize that Hugh-Jackman-abs are a fantasy and, really, it's the flaws that make someone beautiful; real. (I'm thinking now of Shakespeare's "To His Coy Mistress.") I think when we're younger, we not only believe we can have someone who has abs like HJ, we believe -- given the right set of circumstances -- we can HAVE Hugh Jackman, Hugh Grant (I mean, if Divine Brown can get him...), Brad Pitt, even (dare I say it) George Clooney. (I do love George...).

I'm reminded of my sister-in-law once saying, "I realized the other day that I'm not going to be famous. My whole life, somehow I just thought I'd be famous. But now I realize that was just a fantasy. It will never happen for me."

In terms of reality shows showcasing meant-to-be-together business, note that only one couple from the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise has gone the distance.

We may want to live in the Sarah Jessica Parker world where a new set of men is laid out on the buffet table every night for our picking & choosing should something go awry with the one we had in the last episode, but in reality, sometimes we just want to stay home and watch TV and leave the food on the buffet to grow its bacteria all by itself.

Also -- maybe I'm generalizing to use age. When I thought back on my original post, I thought of some twenty-somethings who don't fit the mold I put them in (Sally Badawi).

In the end, Sally's probably right: It all comes down to our own insecurities.

To quote from cheesy TV (as I so love to do):

Felicity: Liking someone is supposed to make your life better, not worse.

12:23 PM  
Blogger egyptiansally said...

this was such a great "conversation." big hugs to both of you.

3:19 PM  
Blogger pamela said...

I didn't feel attacked. :) I love a good gender debate. If only we could all do it in person at Barnes... Oh well, we'll settle for virtual hugs & coffee.

xo

3:40 PM  

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