Where the Valentines differ

With Valentine’s Day in the air and personal relationships under the microscope, it’s appropriate to note (as my Bajan columnist friend Vic Fernandes did recently) that if you see no difference between the male and the female brain, either you haven’t spent much time around women or you haven’t been paying attention. That best-selling book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, from some years back, had it right – seemingly a matched pair, men and women are wired differently in many respects and to live together is to learn the difference.

soitgoA couple attends a social function. On the day following, the husband comments on the raunchy behaviour of one of the female guests who had had too much to drink, but he doesn’t know the woman’s name. His wife says, “What colour dress was she wearing?” The husband stares in disbelief; he isn’t even sure about the colour of the tie he wore, never mind the colour of one dress among 30, but the woman knows them all in specific detail (avocado green, Chinese red, sleeveless, etc) including the colour of matching shoes and even the height of the heels – Mars and Venus. That attention to the sartorial differs widely between the sexes. Photos from a wedding reception will show a bunch of guys in attendance, having a drink, every man jack in a formal dark suit with matching tie; a woman will go berserk if she comes to the wedding reception to find that she and another guest are wearing anything remotely similar. On those occasions, women have been known to immediately leave the party frowning, husband in tow, to return later, smiling with delight, but dressed differently. In a group photograph, the guys look like a bunch of penguins; in their turn, the ladies look like a department-store fashion show.

You spend days working on some repair or renovation job around the house. You’re on your hands and knees, making sure the corners fit, the edges are straight, and, most critical of all, the paint job is neat, no ragged edges. On the final day, back aching but everything completed, you greet the wife full of your accomplishment and point proudly at the finished project as she comes in the door. Her reaction is, “That’s nice, but you know what I need you to do? Build a walk-in closet for the master bedroom.” Instead of expressions of delight, the completion of the job only triggers the instructions for yet another project. A friend of mine here recently went to great lengths arranging for a photographer with a drone to shoot beautiful aerial footage of his house, and surprised his wife on her birthday showing the scenes on his home computer. The lady looked at the screen silently for two minutes, suddenly clapped her hand over her mouth, and wailed, “Oh, God; the roof needs painting.” Mars and Venus.

In a song of mine called ‘Famous Lies’, one example says, “You forget that the tenth of May, is your girl-friend’s birthday, and she says, ‘Darling, that’s okay; I don’t mind.’ Well she lie, she lie, she lie, that’s a famous lie.” Lie, indeed. In that scenario, 10 years from the date, wife will tell husband, “Remember that time you forgot my birthday? Eh? You remember?” Women will remember some things for decades, but forget some things within days. Reminding a fellow about some chore he was supposed to do will usually bring a short brief expletive as he sets about getting it done. Similar reminders to a woman will be greeted with five seconds of silence and a very brief, “Yeah, okay”. Every man in that circumstance knows that lukewarm “yeah, okay” is a death sentence for that project; it is never going to happen; for reasons known only to her, and not communicated to you, she has expunged it from her ‘to do’ list. Bringing it up again a week later will only provoke an outburst, “You told me that already; don’t keep repeating it; you’re stressing me out.”

Men tend to abbreviate; women like to expand. Time and again, retelling an incident to house guests, a woman will add or subtract details leaving the man to wonder if this is the same incident he saw. “No, it was not a million cockroaches in the kitchen; it was only two. And, no, I didn’t scream ‘Oh God! Oh God!’ I just sprayed them with Baygon. And, no, you didn’t twist your ankle running away; you did that the day before, getting out your car.”

Certain words in the English language apparently come with barbs making them jam in a woman’s throat. One example is “I apologise” – that’s hard for women – as is the simple word “sorry”. They will prevaricate and gesticulate and remonstrate using all kinds of clever syntax, and you’re standing there waiting for the word “sorry” but it doesn’t surface. And on the odd occasion when a woman somehow squeezes out a 3-second half-mumbled “Sorry”, she will then spend the next 15 minutes listing the 25 reasons proving her misbehaviour was actually the result of something you did or didn’t do.

Mind you, I’m not listing the differences to deter. I would be the first to concede that despite the irritations, women bring qualities and attitudes to a relationship that a man would otherwise lack living alone, and that’s a column for another time. On this occasion, in the Valentine excitement, just don’t be looking for any “sorry” from your lady, don’t expect her to tell the story exactly how it happened, and if there’s some job she’s neglecting, just stop griping about it and do it yourself. After all, in so many other ways, she’s a blessing – right? Happy Valentine’s to Venus as well as Mars.