One of the great things about language is the fact that you can use it to communicate with other people. For example, I might say to you, "Hey, could you hand me that pencil?" And then you might, if you were so inclined, hand me that pencil. And that would work out great for me, because in this particular example what I was attempting to communicate was that I wanted you to hand me that pencil.
This may seem rudimentary to roughly 12% of my readers, because thus far my focus has been on normal -- which is to say
male -- communication. My female readers, on the other hand, are thinking, "Good grief, can you imagine the CHAOS that would ensue if people were to just hand each other pencils whenever they asked for them?" Let's look at an example of female communication:
Woman: Hey, can you hand me that pencil?
Man: (Hands pencil to woman) Sure.
Woman: (Bursts into tears).
Man: Pretty disappointing pencil, huh?
You see, in this example, Woman actually had no interest in the pencil. She was simply trying to make an emotional connection with Man. Here is the same conversation, translated from Womanese into normal human speech:
Woman: It's strange that it's the times when we are so close to each other physically that I feel so distant from you, because it reminds me of when we were dating and we used to just sit together and we'd look into each others' eyes and feel a deep, unspoken connection that seemed to transcend time and space, and now, as we sit here, reading the newspaper, bound by our shared lives, I see that connection becoming ever more tenuous, and I wonder if our material ties are ironically pushing us apart on a deeper level -- so that a mundane request, once laden with meaning, has become only a base expression of human need. Please, oh please tell me you understand what I mean.
Man: (Hands pencil to woman) Sure.
Woman: (Burst into tears).
Man: Pretty disappointing pencil, huh?
Man's big mistake in this example was ignoring all of the words that Woman
didn't speak before her spoken request for the pencil. If he had paid more attention to the message that Woman didn't communicate, he could have avoided a lot of crying and a trip to Target to buy ball point pens.
Now let's look at another example.
Woman: Man:Woman: (Bursts into tears)
In this case, Woman wanted a pencil, and can't figure out why, after 14 years of marriage, Man won't just give her a pencil without her having to ask him
every single time.
Of course, none of this is news to you if you've read my best-selling book
Men are from Mars and I Shouldn't Have To Tell You Where Women Are From Because After 14 Years of Marriage You Should Just KNOW Without Me Telling You. Or if you, like me, have been married for 14 years.
Now Mrs. Diesel is pretty cool, for a chick. I've pretty much trained her over the course of our marriage to understand that sometimes a pencil is just a pencil. She has pretty much stopped getting upset at me for failing to notice that she has been deliberately trying not to communicate some problem to me over the past three hours. Still, she occasionally forgets that I don't speak Womanese.
For example, this past Saturday she asked me if maybe I had spent enough time on the computer that day and wouldn't I rather help her with dinner? Keep in mind that I had already mowed the lawn, weeded the flower bed and swept the floor that day, among other chores.
I got a little testy, and told her that if she wanted me to help her with something, she should just
ask me to help her, rather than insinuating that I'm wasting time on the computer. She responded, of course, that she shouldn't
have to ask me.
And this is where we get into the truly baffling part of female communication.
Sometimes Mrs. Diesel and I will be just sitting in the living room, reading or whatever, and she'll say, "Talk to me." And I, because I'm a guy, say, "Talk to you about
what?"
And then -- because, as I mentioned, she's pretty cool for a chick, she rolls her eyes and goes back to her book, rather than bursting into tears.
So, to recap, this same woman who can't bear to waste words asking me to help her with dinner now wants me to just spew words in her direction, for no reason whatsoever.
The conclusion that I've come to is that for a woman, communication is cheapened when you fill the words with practical meaning. Women feel about words the same way they feel about plants: They want the pretty parts chopped off and put on display, even if it means that they wither and die without having accomplished anything. Giving a woman words that are connected to actual content is like giving her a potted plant. Sure, it's nice, but it doesn't say "I love you" the way that killing the plant and disposing of the ugly bits does.
Still, Mrs. Diesel and I have each made some concessions to each other's mode of communication. For example, I have no doubt that she'll have no problem telling me exactly how she feels about this post.
And I'm off to buy flowers.
Update 2:55pm - So I'm sitting here trying to figure out why some women seem to be reacting so negatively to the last paragraph, and then I realized that my pronouns are ambiguous. The sentence...
Women feel about words the same way they feel about plants: They want the pretty parts chopped off and put on display, even if it means that they wither and die without having accomplished anything.
...should read...
Women feel about words the same way they feel about plants: They want the pretty parts chopped off and put on display, even if it means that the plants wither and die without having accomplished anything.
All I meant is that women tend to like pretty but impractical things like flowers and jewelry, not that women tend to wither and die without accomplishing anything. I mean, obviously women
do tend to wither and die without accomplishing anything, but that's a topic for a whole 'nother post.
Well, I'm glad I cleared that up. Women can be so touchy.
Humor-blogs.com: (bursts into tears)
Labels: Mrs. Diesel