I was having a discussion recently with a wonderful lady friend I met in church. She told me about how the time she tried to describe a key difference between men and women to our Pastor. After listening to her explanation, I thought it made a lot of sense. So with great thanks to Sheryl Porder, this is one way to look at gender differences:

Women are composed of circles and men are composed of squares. A simple concept we can explore a bit further.

A woman’s life is comprised of a myriad of different roles – wife, mother, the maintainer of the household, an employee (or boss), a creative type, and all the other things we women do and are. Some of us enjoy working on crafts; others like to go hunting. Some love cooking; others love yard work. Whatever the woman’s interests and strengths, she is usually expected to be the one in the household who takes care of lots of different things – paying bills, making sure everyone in the family is fed, taking care of kids and pets, etc.

The center circle is the woman herself. Around her, and overlapping that central circle, are additional circles where she places each of her responsibilities. One circle represents employment, one is children, one is personal time, one is for relationships with friends, one is the family mediator, etc. All of them overlap. So, when a woman comes home at the end of a long, hard day at work, this circle of work is still influencing the other areas, such as family and children. She can’t push one circle outside the arrangement; instead it influences everything else.

Men, on the other hand, are represented by a square. Their additional squares of SEX, employment, hobbies, family, kids, whatever, are all lined up outside that center square. When the man comes home after a hard day at work, he can jump from that square and into the square that represents his family life or sitting comfortably on the couch to TV. Gone are thoughts of the job square, or anything else that doesn’t have immediate significance.

That is why men and women think differently. It’s why women have been so often attributed the old line about, “not tonight, dear, I have a headache”. It’s because we can’t keep those other circles from affecting our mood. Have you ever broken up with a man only to have him ask you for sex one last time? That’s his square personality at work. The sex square is the largest and most powerful and the one he jumps into most often, regardless of what other emotions he just experienced!

So thanks, Sheryl, for explaining it in a way that makes sense.

I was sitting at a local gathering hole where I live when a young friend I hadn’t seen since he got married plopped down across from me. We exchanged the usual pleasantries and I asked, “So how’s the new wife?” He replied, “She’s great, just great.” But his face did not match the intent in his words. “What, is she wearing you out.” He answer with a grin, “No, it’s not that.” I probed deeper, “Then what bud, this is man to man here.” He looked puzzled. “She just has so many … I don’t know how to describe it … She has so many voices racing through her head.” I pulled back. “Voices? You mean like … she’s possessed.” He shook his head. “No man. I mean there are all these things that affect her mood, make her doubt herself, question who she is.”

I had never voiced that trait of the female mind that way, but I had to agree with his observation. I’ve talked to other men who have come to the same conclusion: women have self imposed demons that tug at their spirit, chastise them, make them belittle the wonderful creatures they are. “I’m too fat”, “My fingernails are ugly”, “Was I to slutty last night”, “Was I too reserved”, “Am I a good wife”, “Am I a good mother”, and the list goes on and on. The only voice we guys have is “Is my little buddy sufficient to please her”, and “Did I last long enough”, (you’ll notice they’re both sexual demons, but what would you expect from rutting animals). Everything else, we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, except if we lose our job or the woman we love, then we beat ourselves up like crazy.

I’m not sure why the difference exists, but it does. Read the magazines tuned to the ladies, or watch the shows like Oprah, Dr. Phil, etc. Many of the topics they discuss deal with the voices that haunt women. In our novel Veil of Deception, I actually had the hero struggling to understand this pain women endure and try to help the heroine stop whacking herself. This is not in anyway a dig on women, just the contrary. I came to the recognition of this reality late in my marriage (about ten years ago) and decided to do everything I could to help the woman I love vanquish her hovering demons. Several times a day, I tell my mate how much I love her, how damn good she looks, how her butt turns me on, what a great job she did or whatever, and the truth is, all those statements are true, but women need to hear them. Now, I don’t do this in the hopes of getting a little more lovin’ (wouldn’t work anyway). I do it, and have mentored my son’s to follow suit, in order to help my wife, my grand daughter, my sister, all the terrific ladies I care about to understand what a gift they are too us men.

I’m not sure why all those voices exist; maybe its upbringing, perhaps hormones, perhaps because of past years of struggling for equality. What ever the cause, I believe as men we have to recognize its not an attempt on our ladies part to confuse us or drive us nuts. It’s just another reason we have to love them all the more and help swat away those demons when ever we can.

See ya soon

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)

Author of the year, 2008

After three decades of marriage, I’ve concluded that men suffer from what I call “Moth to the flame” syndrome. Even though we’ve been burned by the fire, we always come back again What do I mean? I have been sent out on a hundred assignments by my boss, and every single time I screw up, but instead of just saying, “Oh, no, there’s no way you’re going to get me this time”, I do it over and over again. And it’s not only me. All my buds suffer from the same sad condition.

Case in point. My wife wanted a new floor mat for the front door and assigned me the job of running down to the store and getting it (the old one was too ugly and we had company coming in from out of town). Now, in my defense, I did ask, “What color?”, “Doesn’t matter,” What shape?”, “doesn’t matter”, “What size?” “Doesn’t matter.” Well you get the idea. The kicker is that I ran through the same series of probing questions every time before, but I still always got the wrong thing, and like a moth to the flame, I always raced back into the fire again and again.

As I pondered carefully at the store over a four-dollar purchase, a young man saw me struggling and came over to help the old man examining every single floor mat in the display over and over.

“Can I help you, Sir?”

“Afraid not, Son.”

“Well, I’d like to try.”

“All right. My wife sent me to the store to find…” I didn’t have to finish my thought. With a sad expression and an understanding tone, he slowly shook his head. “I hear you brother.”

“Then you know…”

“Yes, I know. No matter what you do, it will be wrong.”

We both synchronized with lamenting head nods while the young man shared his own experience.

“Two weeks ago, I asked my newlywed wife, ‘Babe, what’d say we drive up the Blue Ridge and afterward stop for lunch. This will be your day, what ever you want.’ You see, I thought I was doing a good thing. I even asked, ‘What time do you want to stop for lunch’ and she said, ‘Oh, I don’t care you decide’ So around 1100 we were passing peaks of otter (a local restaurant) and she mentioned, ‘Isn’t that a cute little place over there?’ I nodded in agreement and kept driving. After another fifteen minutes I noticed the car had become strangely quiet. She was no longer humming or chatting about this and that. All the morning cheer had been replaced by a frown. ‘What’s the matter, Babe?’ I asked. She looked out the window and announced, ‘You don’t really love me anymore, do you?’ Man, I swear, I almost ran off the road. ‘What? Well of course I love you. You mean everything to me.’ ,‘Then why didn’t you stop when I asked you to? I thought you said this trip was about me?’”

I could see moisture forming in the poor boy’s eyes. “I swear man. I never knew when she said that ‘cute little place’ she meant…”

I firmly patted his shoulder and suggested, “I know son. Don’t try to figure it out. Just accept the inevitable. You will always be wrong. As the years go by, you’ll grow to accept your destiny, grasshopper.”

We both shook hands and departed with a profound appreciation for a man’s suffering and willingness to continually return to the flame. Oh, and I did get the wrong floor mat, but you knew that was coming didn’t you?

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008

So, Big Mike posed a good question to me today while we were talking about our latest romantic suspense novel collaboration endeavor. He tends to do that a lot. Makes me think, and often leaves me without a glib reply. Guess that’s why I like having him as a writing partner.

His question was, “Why do you like having a man in your life? What does a man provide for you, outside of physical and sexual needs, that a woman can’t?”

Well, I thought I had it all figured out. But as I tried to explain, I soon realized that nothing I was saying really made sense. “You men are different than us women. You’re physically stronger. You’re built differently. If we were all alike, then we’d all be gay.”

As Big Mike pointed out, these are all physical characteristics. So they don’t qualify. He asked me to think about it and get back to him. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Men think differently. They try to solve problems, rather than just relate. This can be a great way to find a new approach to a problem, or give me an alternate insight.

Men are bigger and stronger (yeah, that’s physical again). *sigh* Just like Big Mike said in an earlier post about women being smaller and more delicate, men are bigger and stronger. There, I said it again. And it still holds true. I don’t need my man to be a dragon slayer, but I like touching the hair on his chest and the muscles in his arms when we lay together at night.

His strengths are different than mine. He is more outgoing and more social-oriented. He can build anything. I don’t NEED him to do these things, but the fact that he can works well with my weaknesses. I do the maintenance on our vehicles, am not bothered by spiders, and can certainly take out the trash. But it’s nice to have someone who can build a chicken coop or fix a leaking roof.

And if it were up to him to feed us, we’d be eating at Jack in the Box every night. I’m better at cooking and cleaning, as stereotypical as that sounds. But someone’s got to do it.

He sees things in black and white. I’m more of a gray area type of person. He’s more tactically oriented while I rely on cerebral insights.

My husband is a conservative Republican. I’ve always been a liberal Democrat. Since marrying him, I’ve come around to his way of thinking, for the most part. It just makes sense. We go to church together, and I’ve found a closer relationship with God. Another good thing.

Could a woman do the same things for me? Most likely, yes. But it’s neat to have my man do it instead. I can feel what I want to say, but for once, I’m having a hard time verbalizing it or even putting it down in words.

What do y’all think? Help a fellow female out here, would ya?

Is there anyone out in web world past the age of 25 that hasn’t recognized men and women communicate differently? In the early days of interactions with my life mate, I actually thought my main squeeze did her confusing way of communication to drive me crazy. After about ten years, it finally hit me. She just communicates in a different language, one I was never indoctrinated to in school. Need an example? Check this one out. When we go to the grocery store, if the boss says, “I’ll only be ten minutes,” I now know via my man-woman translator that she means, “come back in an hour or so.” Well, to help expedite the process, I ask for my own list that I can rush around, pick up, and toss into the basket.

About a month ago, I asked, “are we done yet, are we done yet”, and she handed me the dairy part of the page. The only items there were cream, butter, and OJ. I did as directed, got em, ran back, dumped the items in the cart and looked around but she was gone. I pushed the basket around until I found her and yelled, “meet ya at the check out counter”, and ran off. When we got home, after she unpacked all the groceries, she inquired, “Hey, you forgot the sour cream and cottage cheese? “ Now, I felt secure I was safe because I still had my copy of the diary list she had handed me. I extended the list and smiled, knowing I would be vindicated, “Check the list, woman. There’s no mention of sour cream OR cottage cheese.” She frowned. “I didn’t write them down because I know that every time I get in the dairy department to get cream, I always get cottage cheese and sour cream also. So where is it?” I was dumbfounded. “You mean to tell me that I was supposed to read you mind and …” Now get this, then she had the fortitude to inform me, “If you can’t do the job, then don’t offer to help.” Again, even thought I was technically right, I was gender blind when I read her grocery list and did not enact the gender translator. Oh, well. At least it makes life interesting.

Tell next time

Big Mike (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008

The other day I came up with a great topic for gender difference, you know, the central topic of our blog. Then I was forced to eat crow.You see, as most men will confirm, woman have a tendency to forget the little things. Oh no, they’ll remember that you forgot their birthday 22 years ago. Those issues are important. But when it comes to the trivial stuff like where did they put their car keys or their cell phone, … well you get the idea. I know when ever I hear the words, “Where are my keys,” they will be followed by, “Michael!!!!!, what did you do with my keys.” That phrase is never followed by, “Oh, silly me, I forgot I left them in the car.” Or “My fault, they were in my pocketbook all along.” Even though that’s where she finds them, I still never heard, “Sorry, sweetie. It wasn’t you after all.”

Don’t worry. We men are experienced at taking the blame for things we did not do. We figure it’s why you married us, you need someone to blame because as we all know, ladies are perfect. But lately, it’s been getting worse, I mean, well here’s an example. Now that we’ve passed the fifties milestone, she’s become severely afflicted by forgetitus. I’m accustomed to going behind my wife and shutting the fridge door, or closing the outside door she leaves open in the winter, or cutting the stove off (yeah, that one scares me), or charging her cell phone and replacing it in her purse so it will work when she needs it, just those little things. Sadly, over the past 3 months, I’ve become afflicted myself.

The most serious case was this morning when I hear her high pitched scream from the bathroom. When we travel, I always cut off the water heater. It saves electricity and if the bottom of the vessel busts (it’s happened), then the elements inside won’t burn down the house. Only this time I forgot to switch it back on when we got home the night before. Actually, I love the image of a woman running around in the buff, but not when she is chasing me with daggers in her eyes yelling “I’ve only got thirty minutes till they pick me up for the garden club meeting.” Problem is, I’ve done this three times in as many months. No, it’s not some cruel attempt at payback (that’s a different post). I’ve just become contaminated by forgetitus. So, guess I’ll eat crow on this post since the idea boomeranged on me.

See ya in a few weeks.

Big Mike
Davisstories.com

I think one of the most confusing and painful areas of gender miscommunication would be recognizing attraction signals. As a guy, when we’re interested in a woman, there is no confusion. No, I don’t mean when they’re disrobed, that’s uncontrollable primal response. I mean when we want to go further then just buds. Our language is clear, “Are you interested in a date”, “Like to go out sometime”, or the crude “Hey babe, lets wake up in the morning together.” But even our expressive outward signals are clear. We’ll scroll the body, try to whisper in the ear to see if we can penetrate her personal space, or a dozen other obvious signs, or ask to look at her fingernails for a moment (that was one of my favorites).

With women, it’s more subtle, hell, it’s down right foggy what message they’re sending. Now for a player (a guy that’s only looking to build up his list of conquests and expects three rejections for every successful penetration), he doesn’t give a hoot about rejection or insulting a woman; to him it’s part of the game. But for most men when they want more, and yet don’t want to appear forward, how do they tell if she is interested enough to risk the shoot down?

Before I started writing romantic suspense, I queried a dozen female friends for their insights, but their responses were clear as mud; a toss of the hair, a smile, crossing the legs, etc. So every time a woman does that, she’s interested? Lord did I miss out on a lot of opportunity. Point is, those signals are ambiguous to a guy that does not want to be offensive. My son once asked, “Dad is there any absolute signal that says she’s interested? My best advice was “Son, if she opens her personal sphere to include you, that’s a real good sign.” By that I meant, if she momentarily touches your shoulder, rubs your arm, tickles your back, stokes your leg, removes a non existent hair from your chest, any of those are strong, but not absolute signals.

Love to hear the counter point on this one, ladies.

Big Mike
Davisstories.com