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[47]. Men, Women, Different Worlds

Women are emotional communicators and men are competitive ones. I remember a book entitled "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" and (Mars being the Roman god of War and Venus, a goddess of Love) this seems to me a very apt summation of the required reading for this assignment...

Growing up around women, my mother, sisters, aunts and cousins (an inordinate amount of which are female) taught me from an early age, be as competitive as you want to be but never expect to win any argument with a woman, especially if the woman involved has her heart in the matter.

As a guy, I can appreciate that there are simply just certain ways to do certain things but when emotions become entangled (as they often do, perhaps more so for women than men, according to established research) in what might otherwise have been a routine procedure, not only might "sparks fly" but things tend to get accomplished regardless of the perceived complexity that men tend to view the methods of women through the prism of manly accomplishment...

For instance, I used to be amazed that my mom, my sister, both my wives and any number of relations and dates throughout my adult life could spend hours in the bathroom, primping in the mirror, doing hair, trying on clothes, shoes and different hairstyles. I mean, what's the big deal? We're going to see a John Woo flick! GOD! Hurry up with it, already! The end result would always be stunning, however, the quest for perfect beauty remarkably realized in the way they smelled, looked and even sounded as we all rushed out of the house, 30 minutes late...

Then my daughter broke her hand a week before her junior prom. The dress was already reserved, all her makeup had been set aside for use days ago, pretty much everything had been planned and set up with the precision of an NFL Play Book the week before the Super Bowl. The only thing that hadn't been taken into account was a faulty hinge on a bedroom door letting go when she closed it and smashing three bones across the back of her wrist. The day of the prom was insane. Not being able to apply her own makeup, having to struggle with getting into her clothes and having only poor, completely inept old Dad to help out was extremely stressful to us both because, finally facing matters heart-on...

I got to see, first hand, just how much passion goes into the "simple" act of preparing for such an event. Men are content to simply shower for ten minutes, slap on some deodorant, jump into a pair of pants and hit the door pulling on shirt, socks and shoes, ready to roll. Women, on the other hand, invest so much emotional energy into not just getting ready to do things but also in the act of doing them that it is often taken for granted that that "extra" expenditure of passion must be a waste of time, a drag on resources better reserved for the actual act in which they are about to engage...

When, in actuality, it is that emotional "extra mile" that puts women in a category of competitive spirit and goal oriented accomplishment that not only rivals any mans but quite often even surpasses anything any man could ever hope to achieve on the strength of that elusive emotional component that makes women far more fierce in their inestimable beauty and grace than any man can ever conceive of being...