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Praetorium Honoris

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

The Nail

 I am happily married. Seriously.  Wonderfully.  Since 1986.  Sure, some tough years, some unfun years, but overall happily married.  Love Mrs. Andrew.  Love her with all my heart.

But...

Have you ever noticed there are some differences in communications styles between the sexes?  Yes, I am painting with a wide brush full of generalities, but there's truths behind assumptions sometimes.  It deals with facts vs feelings, actions vs talking about it.

Seriously, if there's one thing, and it is a THING, I'd change on Mrs. Andrew is lack of brevity in speech.  

Like, none.  

Well, sometimes, if it is an emergency.

Otherwise... she'll talk about it.  And talk.  And express her feelings about what she is talking about.  And then her feelings on her feelings. 

For an example, reading books and making quick comments.  I'll go "Hmmm, Ashok died, what, 1 1/2 times already?"  She'll go, "Well, the first time he only almost died as..(insert lots of word salad filling in how said character got close to death, if not actual deatand then came back) and the second time he... (insert lots of word salad filling in how said character gets close to death, if not actual death, and then came back.)  Me?  Max 25 words.  She?  Max about 2,000-5,000 words.

Seriously.  Eye glazing.  I could have gone back and re-read the chapters dealing with it in less time than she related it (and her feelings about it.)  Admittedly, I am a fast reader, but not that fast.

She just finished reading a book I am not interested in and, so, of course, every chapter or big event has to have her explain it to me.  In detail.  She could have read it out loud in less time than she talked about it.

It's like... Leeloo in "The Fifth Element" saying her name and Corbin Dallas trying to get her to .shorten it.  Mrs. Andrew is Leeloo and I'm Corbin.

The Name Scene from "The 5th Element"
Excellent movie.  Probably the most perfectly executed cut scenes I've ever seen in movie history.
If you don't like this movie, you may be dead to me...
Not really, but seriously...

I've even tried that 'shorten distance using my fingers gesture' and sometimes all it does is derail her and she starts over.  Augh.

And it's not just babbling on about books or tv shows or movies, it's about everything. 

Like tasks.  

Instead of saying, "Can you get that box off the floor and put it away" she'll instead remind me of the famous pizza box episode (wherein I cleaned a whole room and vacuumed and dusted and left a pizza box in the middle of the room, hey, ADHD is a thin... Squirrel!) and then go on to how the box is... and that... and the other... and 5 minutes later I pick the box up and throw it away taking 1/100th the time she spent talking about the box and what to do with it.

And... feelings.  Whoa whoa whoa feelings...  Yes, I know I hurt your feelings.  Yes, I apologized and fixed it.  Yes, I'll try not to do that again.  So you don't have to talk about your feelings on a never-ending loop tape until you feel better because all it does is fluster me even more than me hurting your feelings.  But, no, still have to hear about the feelings and blah, blah, blah.

It's like that famous video about the nail.

Guys are nodding their heads and going, "Yep."
Ladies are not getting it and want to talk about how they don't get it and how they don't do that and how it feels and why can't the guys just listen to them and...

And it's a real thing.  That whole 'must talk about it' and 'talk about the feelings' thingy.  

I love her, I do.  I understand she has feelings and wants to talk about it, I do.  I wish she'd talk like a guy more often.

How do guys talk about their feelings?  "Man, that sucks. Makes me feel sad.  Please don't do that again, okay?" (for an especially wordy man.)  That's it.  11-20 words max, hug it out, move ON!

It's like colors.  Never ever ever play punchbuggy with an arts major who's female.  

Her: "Blue" punch.  "Light blue" punch. "Haze grey blue" punch.  "Cornflower blue" punch. "This exact shade" punch. "That exact shade" punch.

Me: "(sees in 16-bit color) Blue"  Her: "Nope, already called it...."

Or jokes.

Her:  (On and on and on explaining the setting and the characters and tells the punchline and then explains the punchline.... 10 minutes later...)

Me: (Insert 2 line Dad Joke.)

Now, I do get wordy, as anyone who has read my comments or my blog entries can attest.  But actual normal talking?  Standard pattern male speech patterns.  Oh, I can talk and talk, and can lecture like a professor (more like a term paper, first paragraph gives it all away and remaining paragraphs provide the support to the thesis, and the closing paragraph summarizes it all.)  Even so, not as wordy as her.

She actually lost points on an essay in college because she went waaaaaaaayyyyy over the maximum limit.  Me?  It's a limit like in Calculus, you approach as close as possible to the 'limit' but do not actually reach it.  (Remember, Calculus is the math of "Almost 2 plus Almost 2 approaches but does not meet the value of '4.')

And now, if Mrs. Andrew ever finds this essay, yep, I'll get to hear about it, ad nauseum, and her feelings, ad nauseum, and on and on...  

I'd be just doomed... Dooomed... Dooomed....

An excellent FedEx Commercial, about being dooomed...



35 comments:

  1. My husband is like your wife. Married 50 years and love him to death and if he needed my kidney I would give it but honestly … having to listen to him mansplain every. freaking. detail. makes me mentally reach for a mallet. He doesn’t talk about “feelings” (thank God) but he’s pedantic. I can listen so long then I have to tell him, “Just give me the Reader’s Digest version”.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. At least you GET the Readers Digest version.

      Me? If I ask for that I'm lucky if the newly restarted looooooog story with frequent side trips and feeeelings happens.

      Delete
    2. If I push too hard, then the 'Feelings' train starts. Oy vey.

      Delete
  2. After several long relationships and a couple of marriages what you describe is standard sex differences. At my current age I have lost my tolerance for such, and have had a much more peaceful life without them. One you didn't mention is how no slight is ever forgotten, no issue is ever settled, like in the joke about why women make the best archeologists, because of their talent for digging up the past.

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    Replies
    1. Yeep. It's almost as if there is a difference between the sexes... nah...

      Delete
  3. Yah Beans, women and men are hardwired differently all right. Wishing Mrs. Andrew would talk more like a guy sometimes......ah... ha. ha..ha..... heh..heh....heh (snort)...gasp......

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    1. I mean, sometimes she does, short conversations and too the point.

      But then there's the convos where I have to put "Yeah" and "Mm-hmmm" and "Okay" on constant shuffle and repeat so she thinks she knows I'm listening when in fact my mind has wandered off to some weird part of my brain and passed out.

      Delete
  4. Insert Rex Harrison's song "A Hymn to Him" from My Fair Lady here....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APPfTEv-YxI

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, MFL. An excellent musical. And a very appropriate song.

      Delete
  5. Love is never saying "Will you please shut the f*** up?" no matter how strongly you're thinking it.

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    1. Oh, never ever ever ever ask Mrs. Andrew to 'be quiet' or the more rude 'shut up' and definitely do not do the STFU. As she will.

      Longest has been 2 weeks. No. Not kidding.

      I learned my lesson there. See above comment about internal voice tape of semi-words to mutter so she hears that I am still alive while she's talking.

      Delete
  6. I'm glad you ended it the way you did. About the second, maybe third, paragraph I was thinking I should keep an eye out in Florida, there's going to be another murder there soon and we'll have to figure out why Beans isn't commenting anymore.
    Be careful out there, the trap door is well hidden and you're tying the noose around your own neck.
    Just sayin'
    juvat

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    Replies
    1. Ah, I've had a noose made of det-cord tied around my neck for a loooong time. And, yeah, it's not so bad. Except when it's a 'discussion' with 'feelings' and 'emotions' over something that literally takes a very short amount of time.

      Don't get me started on the 'projects' that she wants me to do but when I go to do them it's "Not now, I'm tired" and then because I haven't done them the 'discussions' on why I haven't done them start, and, of course, if I try to do the projects while she's discussing the discussion, well, that's just more fuel for the discussion fire.

      Love her, love her to the afterlife, but sometimes...

      Delete
  7. I was lucky enough to marry a fellow naval officer (the second time around). She does get concise communications. Having said that, the Mars-Venus thing does exist. Wife made me go in for a hearing check a while back, asserting that I didn't hear her. Check came back 4.0. I told her it was a software issue :-).

    ReplyDelete
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    1. In the movie "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," a male bit character gets a pea removed from his ear early on in the movie. Suddenly the man can hear. Later he asks the doctor to put it back.

      Now, I do have a hearing problem, mostly in the left ear (sadly the one pointed towards her most days) and it is mostly in the higher register. So sometimes I really can't hear her when she's right next to me. But I can hear her when I'm down the hall in the bathroom or kitchen, because the distance has dropped the sound to a register I can hear. Proven, at the ear doc's, several times. She knows this, but still gets peeved because I don't listen to her.

      But if I don't hear her, how can I know, unless I'm looking directly at her, that she's speaking?

      Can you tell we've been married 36 years?

      Delete
    2. 37 for us :-)

      Delete
    3. And I don't know why I was suddenly "Anonymous".

      Delete
  8. Brilliant!

    But I'll deny saying that ...

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    Replies
    1. Yep. Only said it because nobody she knows reads this blog. And the rest of you out there are snickering and nodding your head. I can sense it.

      Delete
  9. There is something to be said for getting deaf. "Oh --- just forget it!!!"

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    1. Only works if I can actually see her lips move. Otherwise she'll get somewhat peeved because I'm not listening to her. Seriously, deaf in one ear, the one that points at her, and so sometimes I don't know she's talking, especially if she's talking quietly, but yet I'm still responsible for what she says.

      It's like winning big in Las Vegas. Which I did with her. She has put up with so much poop and stupidity from me. But like winning at Vegas, it comes with a price. At Vegas, it comes with an automatic visit from IRS agents out to get their cut first. With her, it's the little things like this...

      Delete
  10. Both my wife and I are usually terse, abrupt, concise, abrupt, even blunt or gruff, Usually. Now and then one or the other of us will get verbose, talkative, wordy, loquacious, even garrulous. Usually a "speed it up" gesture snaps us out of it. She'll want to read a line out of something she's reading, and will set it up with an abstract of the chapter, then maybe read the full paragraph (I usually don't mind the full paragraph). I'll wax voluble about some technical detail that is unnecessary for her understanding.

    Her dad wanted a son, and raised her as such, so she understands "guy speak," and will herself get irked, vexed, piqued, or irritated at long descriptions.

    Emotions? We rarely bring those up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, she a lot of times is terse and concise. It's just the other times... She talks more guyish than most ladies, but when she ladyfies her speech, she goes full bore and with great gusto into the non-terse, unconcise, anti-blunt and decidedly not gruff speech patterns.

      Delete
  11. In my adult life I have lived with many females, (wives and daughters). At some point I realized that when we (male/female) look at the same thing we don't necessarily see the same thing...
    Two of us sitting on the couch looking at "the TV on the wall" in front of me, she does not necessarily see "the TV on the wall". Try it, sit someplace and ask "her". "Over there, I see a TV on the wall, what do you see?". I'm using "the TV on the wall" as an example, it could be any common thing.
    For many years I assumed we both saw the same thing & I was wrong. I can't say realizing that has helped communicate but I do realize we may not be speaking about the same thing and that can help...

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    1. Yep. 16 bit color vs the color chart at the paint store. That's the real thing.

      Now, it's not like I don't see everything, sometimes I do. Sometimes I see too much and don't see what she sees. It's a known issue with me, known to her, and she diagnosed the issue when nobody else did, seriously, I see too much. Focus is hard somedays. Too much and I get visually wiped out. But I still am, somedays, responsible for what she sees.

      Eh, it's the price I pay for her living with me. Decidedly better than not having her here.

      Still, one small tweak and she'd be nearer perfect...

      Delete
    2. For me, there are eight colors (like a kindergarten crayon box). Have you ever tried to buy white paint at a hardware store? "What shade of white"? "WHITE"!!!

      Delete
    3. I generally go with standard semi-gloss base white. You know, the one they mix all the colors into? So, yes, I understand.

      Delete
  12. Too much truth can be a difficult thing to have. There are times I'd like to walk away for ten minutes, just to see if she'd notice ... but I know she would, and I'd be sorry. by the time we are two or three we're different. The miracle is that we keep trying. Love is a wonderful thing.

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    1. Precisely, to everything you said. Love is a wonderful thing. It's the only thing that's kept her knife collection from using my body as a display rack, ifn you know what I mean.

      Love is a hurting thang, according to some dumb song somewhere.

      But it truly is a wonderful thing.

      Delete
  13. The expression you are looking for is "vaccinated with a gramophone needle". Young'uns need to ask their grandparents to explain if they don't understand the reference. >};o)

    Phil B

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  14. Crusty Old TV Tech here. Oh man Sir Beans, what a target-rich environment is this magnum opus of a post! First, to colors. Blue comes in TWO shades 1549, and 1550. Anything other "blue" may be connected to the Navy, and would thus be suspect. All other colors are only relevant if they are resistor color codes (BBROYGBVGW, and shame on you who are sniggering under your breath after remembering what Sarge at Keesler taught you!).

    I know one thing, if I were to ever mildly implore my Base Commander to "stifle yourself", the relevant movie reference would be more like that commie flick The China Syndrome, remember the Turbine Trip scene? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nemYBeT4aQY (even a commie squirrel finds an acorn on occasion).

    Feelings...well, I express my feelings, sometimes in 4-letter arias (followed by "Bless me Father, for I have sinned...") upon injuring some bodily part against the solidly immoveable object of mechanical device obstinance. Or, "Yep", Or, "Nope" to Base Commander. Makes my wife very frustrated, followed by one of the long explanation sessions from said wife, as was noted by Beans. I try to tell her it's a guy thing, our way of dealing with frustration and woe, but that just extends the session!

    And yes, nagging IS a thing, but only to us husbands...for our lovely and much loved Base Commanders, it is needed direction!

    1986 eh, same here. Must have been a good year.

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  15. On brevity. Had prostate surgery. Afterwards texted my (female) cousin "All Ok". The important information. She was irate because I didn't peck out every detail on my phone.

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  16. About a week ago I picked up my wife to bring her home from spending two weeks with two of her adult children. It was a 90 minute drive home. She never went more than 30 seconds at a time without talking the whole way home. Heaven forbid she should be short and to the point when communicating. Nothing like taking at least five minutes to say what could have been said in under 30 seconds.

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  17. You have to interrupt- "Honey, what was your favorite part and your least favorite part?" It shows (fakes?) you're interested, but cuts to the chase. She may also need to join a book club! I absolutely love that Nail video, and every guy I've recommended it to loves it as well, but for some reason, all the wives hate it.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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