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 All the morning cheer had been replaced by a frown.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

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