As serious as a heart attack

Women and men are different. I know that seems like an incredibly obvious statement, but I’m not talking about melons or other fruits and berries of the human anatomy. I mean men and women are very different. I came up with this hypothesis after studying the opposite sex day and night for 16 years straight. I’ve conducted numerous experiments and trials with my own personal female specimen. My lab rat has been my wife, whom I love.

What I’ve determined is that men and women are more different mentally than they are physically. The male mind, admittedly smaller than the female mind, works to fix things. The female mind works to complain about things. This is where the conflict begins. Women complain about something; men hear that complaint, realize there must be a problem, and then set out to fix the problem. Women have no intention of anyone fixing the problem, they merely want to discuss it, at length, for hours—or even days. The scientific term for this behavior is called “bitching.” Women don’t want stuff fixed; they just want to bitch a little bit. Or, to be more formal, women just want to discuss the issue.

Men don’t want to discuss, they want to do. Men are naturally deductive problem solvers. Problem: The lawn mower won’t start. Question: Does it have gas in it? Answer: No. Solution: Go get gas (and beer). Men want to get things resolved, quickly. Women don’t want to resolve anything; they just want someone to listen. Men don’t want to listen. Therefore most communication between men and women will ultimately result in a conflict where the woman thinks the man is being a “jerk” for not listening, and the man considers the woman a “nag” for going on and on about nothing he can change.

It is amazing, really, that the human race has survived this long since these two specimens need to get together to procreate. Well, I guess it isn’t that amazing—most people don’t communicate much during that activity. For me to come to this realization—that men and women think and communicate differently—I had to endure a very lengthy field experiment with my lab rat. Below are my notes from the experiment.

It was a very hot day. As supportive parents, my wife and I were obligated to watch our daughter cheerlead at a football game. The teams were comprised of junior high students, so there wasn’t much in the way of football heroics or athleticism to keep our attention. We had already heard the girls do the same three cheers 75 times in a row, and we knew them by heart. There was a lull in the action on the field, and then my wife said, “It’s hot out here.”

I didn’t need her to tell me it was hot. It was 100 degrees, and the sun was beating directly on my skin as I sat right next to her. Since it was an obvious statement, I thought she wanted me to do something about it. So I suggested, “Would you like me to get you an ice water?” Her answer: “No.”

Two minutes later she announced, “It is really hot out here.” Again, I was aware of the heat, and she had mentioned it previously, so I assumed she wanted me to do something about it. I offered, “How about some shade? Would you like me to go buy you an umbrella?” Her answer: “No.”

Another two minutes went by and she announced, “I am really sweating. It’s super hot out here.” I knew that! I was sweating too. I was sitting adjacent to her in the exact same climate. The only reason to tell me she was hot, for the third time, was because she wanted me to solve the problem for her. I asked, “Would you like me to start the air conditioning in the car over in the parking lot, and then fan the cold air toward the bleachers 60 yards away?”

Then she got angry: “No, smartass, I just wanted to whine about it. I don’t need you to solve my problems. You’re not God, you can’t change the weather! I just wanted to complain a little.”

I had to ask, “Does complaining lower your body temperature? Because the longer you complain about it to me and don’t want to listen to any of my suggestions, the higher my body temperature gets.”

“Yes, complaining lowers my body temperature just a little bit, so you can just sit there and listen to it.”

So I did. I continued to listen as she continued to complain about the heat, and thus my body temperature got higher and higher until I thought I would pass out. That was when I realized why women outlive men. They transfer all of their problems, through bitching, to their husbands. Men soak up all of the negative energy like a sponge, while wanting to fix the problems women don’t want to have fixed, and then one day the poor guy has massive coronary failure and dies of a heart attack.

I think they need to change the vows when people get married. Instead they should ask, “Do you, Rob, take this woman’s hand in marriage, to comfort and to hold and to listen to her bitch and moan about every little detail in her life until it eventually kills you?”

“I do?” ∆

Rob is currently sitting in stop-and-go traffic. His wife is in the passenger seat telling him, “This traffic is taking forever.” Rob’s life is getting shorter and shorter.

This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 4, 2012.