What She SAID…What I HEARD…

So today I had this wonderful epiphany, a huge realization of sorts, something that may even surpass my own stupidity--MAYBE! I realized that I am no different than any other man in my situation, but there are a couple of exceptions. Contrary to what many have said, (thank you for your responses via Facebook, Twitter, by phone, IM & SKYPE, in person, etc…) I am no misogynist, I am really not superficial, I am not surface, (those could be construed as the same thing but whatever) I am not unrelenting in my beliefs (change can be good) and I am willing to learn--though I may be a little remedial in my studies, I AM willing. Hell, it takes a long time to attempt to undo 35 years of ignorance. But, I do know what I like and where my deficiencies live. The real problem, the core if you will is that I, like most men TRULY Love women, I mean, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE women, BUT have the damnedest time understanding them—what they say, what they mean, their actions, reactions or lack thereof…it is like they are speaking Chinese I only understand Spanish. I am sure that many men reading this can relate and if not, this is not meant for you and you don’t count—stop reading. Hell, I am not even sure if a man like that was ever really created, and if you were, you are the mystical and magical white unicorn or the great sasquatch that many have claimed to have seen, but not any one that I know. Therefore, you don’t exist in my world!! And, if you do exist and we cross paths, I will tell all my female friends that they missed-out on the greatest thing ever created by God’s hands—The Infamous “Unicorn Sasquatch Man.”

Back to the matter at hand, COMMUNICATION, or lack thereof. I have married friends, Happily Married (SURPRISE) and they all tell me that communication is THE key to a happy relationship/marriage, but none of them can ever claim to ever Really understand their wives. I am not knocking them by any means, I mean, hell look at where I am—sitting behind a computer keyboard typing a blog about my “singledom”, and they are celebrating their lives together, so I am in no position to criticize, I just want to understand.

My friends and I have spent many SundayFundays “waxing philosophical” and watching football talking over hours and hours of “What Women Want”, “What Women Think”…hell, Hollywood has made tons of movies on the subject and the consensus of my friends and the movies for that matter, is to simply say that WE DON’T KNOW!!! Hell, many men say that “it is better to JUST agree with her than to disagree”, they also say “the key is to just pretend that you are listening and nod your head up and down in agreement when she says ‘yes’ or ‘right’ and sideways when she says ‘no’ ” or the old “85/15 Rule” that counseling touts as “the willingness to accept that 85% of what you want may be good enough when 100% is not possible”. Really, I mean Really? What gets me, and here is the amazing thing about those ideologies…it is so amazing that it is hard to believe, most of us buy into them as if they are the Golden Rule. WTF—the status quo? That may work for married men, (sorry guys, not putting you on blast, maybe I am--haha) but it is hard as hell for me to look at my past & present and see it as a viable solution. Let me get married and I will get back to ya!!! But, hell, if I sat down with my married women friends, they would probably say the same crap about their husbands. So, where does that leave us…back at the status quo?

As I explore this single life, (did I mention that it sucks) I realize that I tend to have way more questions than answers and this COMMUNICATION THING is no different. But I do have my thoughts—crazy, but they are thoughts. Oh yeah, for any relationship critics reading this (you know who you are), I said “thing” because it FITS don’t read any thing into that for the love of God.

Men and women simply communicate on different levels, way different levels—shall we look at “When Harry Met Sally” as an example—the diner scene was awesome and sad all at the same time—two different levels. Not for nothing, women can do that same thing with tears—both of which suck if they happen to you, but as a guy, you may never know. A great and Evil weapon if you will. Women tend to encompass the entire picture, they have the 10,000 foot view, while men tend to focus on one thing, one object, at 10 foot view…no women, I did not say that you were smarter…(you might be) and I didn’t say men (all men) are stupid, just a lot of us—we just see things differently. I will break it down like this, and you will have to trust me on this one because there will be a lot of trees and not a lot of forest on this adventure. I love football, so I am going to use a football analogy that hopefully both women and men will understand, somewhat:

Women tend to view relationships and life like an Offensive Coordinator. They analyze the defense, they know if there will be a blitz by the linebacker, a stunt by the defensive lineman, if there is zone or man coverage and they know the offensive scheme like no one else. They know the responsibilities and routes of the wide receivers, the blocking scheme of the offensive line, they know if the tight end is in on the blocking scheme or if he is running a route, they know if a run is called where the running back is suppose to go, if there is a pass, who the running back is supposed to block and for the quarterback they know if it is a 3 or 5 step drop, they know the “hot route”, “check down” and if there is an audible, they usually know the audible play—that is what you get with women.

Men, well, let’s say that a man is a single player on the offensive unit, if we are playing wide-receiver, we know if we are running a “go route” a “hitch and go” or if there is a need for us to pick up a block down field. If we are lineman, we know our blocking responsibility, a tight-end, if we are running a route or blocking, a running back, if we are running the ball, faking, picking up the block for our quarterback or acting as the “check down” option but we RARELY, I MEAN RARELY know the responsibilities of anyone other than our own. I mean, we know the audible and the snap count, but sometimes we even get that wrong—“False Start on #33 On The Offense”. I know that there are some quarterbacks among us—meaning that they know the offensive play calls and the responsibilities of the integral parts and they may read something in the defense to cause them to change the play call, but just like the Brett Favres in the NFL, those are few are far between in the REAL WORLD! Let's call them the MysticalMagicalUniquaFavrian Quarterbacking GOD!!! You see one, GRAB 'EM!! They are worth a lifetime!!

What I am saying is that I guess that we as men, I as a man, need to try and think more like Offensive Coordinators and women need to think more like players-somehow we both have to meet at 5,000 feet. How we accomplish that, well, that is that whole Chinese thing to me? You ever listened in when a quarterback calls a play he received from the Offensive Coordinator:

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I understand that so much more than when I hear, “We Need To Talk”—seriously what does that mean? I think that it is Chinese for "You Messed Up, You Need To TRY TO DO SOMETHING To Fix It"--DAMNIT, there in lies the problem.