I think it has been pretty well explored and established
that men and women speak very different languages. And I find this to be true
in more than just the romantic sense. It isn’t just when you’re shopping for
engagement rings that you find you’re speaking different languages: he likes
the classic solitaire; you want something unique and vintage. It isn’t just
when you’re planning a romantic date in your head and you pick a quiet, Italian
restaurant and he picks Beef O’Brady’s. It’s so much more than all of that. It
affects every aspect of your life.
For example, when I talk to my husband about the paramour
bond that exists between Will Gardner and Alicia Florrick and her impending
fate in regards to the love of her life getting shot up like a classy Tupac, I
may as well be speaking Croatian. When I try to explain to him that Alicia is
The One that got away, that Will’s feelings for her were deeper and more
genuine than those that he ever felt for anyone else (including, most
especially, that broad who played Esme in Twilight, and don’t even get me
STARTED on that woman…), he just sort of stares at me as if he has no idea what
I’m rambling on about.
It’s sort of like when he starts getting all chatty about
car parts. He will go on for a few minutes about what parts go where and what
they do, and I’ll be honest with you: I really try to listen. I really do, but
it’s all gaskets and carburetors and then it isn’t long before I start taking a
mental inventory of my wardrobe. I mean, let’s be real: I’ve got places to go
and outfits to plan, pieces to put together and expensive apparel to
accessorize.
I had this friend who went through the same problem with one
of her gentleman callers. And before you think I’m just going off on another
tangent about how dreadful men are, let me just say something, alright? He
wasn’t that terrible. His language
was just what I would call misleading. He had this habit of sort of throwing
stuff out there without any apparent inclination of what he was saying. It was
like what he said and who he said it to just didn’t matter in the slightest.
A man’s face is his
autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction. –Oscar Wilde
I have to be honest. He was very handsome and
self-deprecating, one of those really humble men who had probably earned the
right not to be. He had impeccable manners, even when he was around his “boys”,
which I found particularly endearing. If anything, he was more respectful in front of them, perhaps to set a precedent for
the way he expected my friend to be treated. He held open doors, let my friend
walk in first everywhere, and gave her remarkably adorable pet names like “Ma”
and “Doll”. Barely twenty years old, I was ready to clone this immaculate
creature for myself and boot my idiot boyfriend to the curb. (Although, to be
honest, given the state of my then-relationship with my then-boyfriend, I think
that even Charles Manson might have been a step up…)
The trouble was that he had just been through a really bad
break-up. I don’t really know all the details because as far as I know, he had
never made my friend aware of them. But it was miserable and painful, and he
was apparently so heartbroken that he couldn’t even speak of his heartless
ex-girlfriend, much less seriously commit to a new relationship. But I’m
getting ahead of myself. That doesn’t happen until much later.
They had met in some freshman level psychology class, she
told me after they had started dating. I listened and took a big bite of my
Hooter’s Cobb salad, envious of this new adventure she was on while here I was,
trying to cut weight to satiate my lunatic boyfriend. She picked all of the
delicious dressings off of her burger and continued to tell me about her new
prospect.
“I wasn’t blown away by him at first,” she admitted to me as
I bitterly chewed some iceberg. “You know those people who think they’re black
when in reality, they’re whiter than Ann-Margret?” I nodded and smiled. Of
course I did; I had grown up in Pasco County. “And he wore his shirt so big!”
Her eyes grew wide in between bites, “What, do they not sell shirts in his size
or something?”
“The female mind is
certainly a devious one, my lord.” Vetinari looked at his secretary in
surprise. “Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.” –Terry
Pratchett, Unseen Academicals
But regardless of their rather apparent differences, they
hit it off for a while. And what I remember the most about all of this, what
still rings true after actual years of drinking whiskey, are the things he said
to her. I mean, sure, he was older and in my opinion, pretty goddamn suave. He
was like Christian Troy or Don Draper with the Jersey Shore blowout. But super,
genuinely sweet. He clearly had more experience than my girlfriend,
romantically and otherwise. But it was his words, the sentences that he seemed
to formulate when they were alone that were so impressive. And maybe even a
little baffling. He was just too
smooth, too seemingly trustworthy, too dazzling. He was Frank Sinatra in a pair
of Jordans, serenading her with all these sweet, little nothings.
He told her that he wanted to marry her, have children with
her, and take her on extravagant vacations. I’ll be honest: I was skeptical
(and a little jealous), but he seemed so rapt by her that even I believed him.
I even remember when he went on this vacation he had planned with his friends,
and he talked to her every day. He told her what he was doing and how much she
would love it. He even begged her to spend the night with him the night before
he left so he could spend time with her before his trip. He asked her to help
him pack because he wanted her input
on the outfits he had put together. She was literally the first call he made
when he landed.
In Vegas. On a trip with his “boys”.
Honestly? I was fairly certain they would get married. And
obviously I would have been in the wedding, my certifiable boyfriend scowling
at me from his place in the crowd. I thought she would have like, ten thousand
of his babies and I would be the live-in babysitter while they went on all
those aforementioned extravagant vacations. She would have a big ring (probably
with baguettes, I stifle a shudder), a bunch of brats running around, and a
handsome, slightly gangster husband who treated her like Jay-Z treats Beyonce.
Minus the billions.
But I was wrong, friends. For something happened to my dear
friend and her dapper other half. Something happened between them and it felt
like it happened overnight. All of a sudden, they were speaking different
languages.
He was suddenly too
overwhelmed by her, insisting that she was moving too fast, in spite of all
the things he had told her. Out of nowhere, he was alarmingly distant, claiming
that she was coming on too strong.
She was pushing him away hard, he
told her one morning right before Easter. Maybe it would be better if they just
slowed things down. She was scaring him.
Slowed things down. Slowed things down…? Is that some sort
of joke or are we now residing in the Twilight Zone? This garbling nonsense
from a man who claimed that his “first born would be her first born”. These
insensitive words from someone who literally couldn’t make it out of the
airport terminal without calling my friend to tell her how apparently amazing
Vegas was, how much he wished she was there, how he could envision her
gallivanting from sight to sight with him. And now, after all of that, he
wanted to slow down? When she told me this, I think I actually cracked a tooth
when my jaw hit the countertop.
Moral of the Crazy: What I don’t understand is how immensely
men and women communicate. I mean, naturally there will be those situations
where a man will just say what a woman wants to hear to get horizontal
refreshments from her. But with the above anecdote, that is not what happened.
He wasn’t just attempting to sleep with her because realistically, he could
have ditched her once that happened.
But he didn’t. He kept up this charade of genuinely caring
about her for actual months. And even when they did eventually break things
off, he didn’t cease all communications with her. It took a while but he
eventually called her and asked her to come out for drinks. Multiple times, in
fact. He could never completely let her go. And maybe that’s why she was so
terrifying. Because he was unable to deal with those really strong, romantic
feelings he had for her and it scared the bejesus out of him.
It is just so baffling to me, these vast differences in the
way men and woman articulate. Truth be told, my husband always tells me I’m too
literal, that I take things too personally or seriously. And maybe that’s
legitimate. Maybe that is what I do. But I don’t think it’s fair, or in any way
justified, that people can just say whatever they want to you, expecting no
repercussions. I don’t understand why a person can intentionally tell you what
you want to hear and then treat you like a crazy, clingy mess should you in
some way respond.
Oh my gaga, which reminds me, did I tell you that you have
been randomly selected to go on a date with Carmen Electra (or Bradley Cooper,
for the ladies) on top of winning twenty-four million dollars? Well, I just
said that for your benefit, you big, dumb idiot. How’s it feel…?
Forgive me for being cruel (and I’m sure that Carmen Electra
would have just adored you), but when put in a way that affects you, don’t you
realize how unfair all of this is?
Look, I get it. I’m not completely
wrapped up in my own drama; I realize that in a multitude of ways, men and
women are just different. When I had boy troubles growing up, I would sit on my
mom’s bed and complain to her about how shitty it all seemed. She would play
with my curls or throw her arms around me and give me a smooch on the cheek.
(She has always babied me. I don’t
hate it.) Then she would say, in her most sincere “mom” voice (which is a fast
talking, Chicago accent, for those of you who don’t know, and probably why John
Cusack is so soothing to me…), “Baby (and yes, she still calls me that), who
knows why men do what they do? All I know is that you want an honest one, a
cheerleader. Someone with less baggage than you. Someone who is going to lift
you up, not tear you down.”
Maybe in relationships, we just have to be able to pick our
battles, sift through the superficial fluff, and trust that what people tell us
is the truth. Because if you’re constantly riddled with doubt, you probably
shouldn’t be with that person in the first place.
I would like to tell you that you’ll only hear the truth; but you won’t. I would like to tell you
that when people say things, they absolutely mean them; but they may not. I would like to tell you that in relationships,
the other person sees you as valuable and holds your trust and feelings at the
highest of importance; but they probably
don’t. I would like to tell you that the opposite sex understands you and
is comfortable being open and fair with you; but they almost certainly don’t. I would like to say that it’s not
always, “women are angels and men are animals”, and that you really are
speaking the same language; but you’re
not.
But I do know that some of us try, and some of us, like the man
I mentioned earlier, get scared and retreat. I also know that sometimes, the
difficult ones are worth the fight.
… and the good thing about visiting foreign places is that
you always get your passport stamped.
Men learn to love the
woman they are attracted to. Women learn to become attracted to the man they
fell in love with. –Woody Allen
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