Women – a Valuable Insight
I’ve been considering for some time my long-term frustration with women and their reaction to a crisis or problem. I don’t mean major events like death, war or an Ashes series – both sexes fare rather well in extreme adversity. I’m talking about minor crises like the accidental burning of food or an unfortunate power cut. I’ve always been confused as to why, after the initial reaction of shock, anger, frustration or whatever, women always seem to drag out the consequences for longer than men.
Being a scientist (but at the same time acknowledging my relative lack of experience in the field) I eventually arrived at the following premise:
‘A man, given any problem, will immediately consider the simplest possible solution and then, if this is seen not to work, will progress to the next simplest and so on until a satisfactory resolution is reached. Conversely, in the same situation, a woman will immediately try to implement the most complicated solution and work her way towards the simpler.’
This was backed up to some extent by the evidence of my mother who, despite having many admirable qualities, has never been one for handling a minor crisis. Given a example situation, she’d flusteredly start considering the health & safety implications, if the house insurance would be affected and whether to involve the police. Whereas my father and I would quickly form the opinion that if the sofa was simply returned to its previous position, the stain on the carpet would become covered once more.
I mooted my theory to a friend recently and was pleased that he managed to partially modify it. Having had far more experience of the female mind, he’d arrived separately at what I feel to be a far more satisfactory theory. ‘Women,’ he said ‘when faced with a question or problem, merely see far more variables than men do and, furthermore, feel compelled to act on them.’ This is exemplified in the following conversation which actually took place between said friend and partner: (M=Male, F=Female)
M: Where do you fancy going on holiday then?
F: When are we going?
M: I don’t know, sometime over the summer I suppose.
F: Because I don’t want it to be too hot.
M: Well choose somewhere cool.
F: How much can we spend?
M: Er, well, whatever we’ve got at the time.
F: You mean we’ll not be booking in advance?
M: Well we can, but it would help if we decided on a destination first.
And so on. A similar conversation took place in the same relationship at some other juncture:
F: Where would you like to go on holiday?
M: Peru.
Because, as a man asked a straightforward, unqualified question he’d given an honest answer. Unfortunately for him, he was then berated for speaking before he’d considered when they’d be travelling, what their budget was, whether his partner wished to be overly hot, etc.
While having strayed slightly from the subject of the female handling of day to day calamities, we can at least draw are two valuable lessons from this:
1. Women: Do not believe that your partner will assume that any question you pose should only be answered after he’s taken into account all the variables that you’ve chosen not to mention.
2. Men: When asked any question by a woman, consider before opening your mouth the advantages of maintaining your right to silence. Rest assured, in most cases the woman will eventually provide the answer she requires herself.
