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Note from Will:
An Open Letter to Women
Will Ferguson
Dear women of the world,
I am writing today on behalf of men everywhere to ask
you for a very simple favour: please don't think so much.
I'm not suggesting you should stop thinking entirely --
I mean, we don't want you to become men or anything -- but,
please, please, please, please stop reading secret meanings
and hidden depths into everything that the men in your life
say or do.
Being a woman must be very strange, indeed. Sort of like
being a spy, I imagine, inhabiting a world of code words
and allusions, where every gesture, every statement, every
look is rife with meaning. A world where "Pick any video
you like" really means "I don't care about which video we
watch because I'm not sure if I care about our relationship
anymore. My feelings for you have changed."
So please don't think. Especially in bed. The bedroom
should be a thought-free zone. The passion pit of the boudoir
should be exempt from philosophical musings and sex should
not involve discussions (or, worse yet, negotiations) of
any kind. One should make love like a Zen master: "Do not
think. Do."
You see, the problem with thinking is that it inevitably
leads to talking. And talking just leads to more talking.
As my sage and wizened older brother once said, "If there
is anything I have learned over the years, it's that when
a woman says, `We need to talk,' it usually means, `You
have to listen,' and it's not to something I want to hear."
Ladies, I plead with you, have your heart-to-hearts with
other women, not with men. True, men love gossip as much
as anyone, but only if it involves someone getting naked.
(As a whole, men feel that any anecdote can be greatly improved
by adding nudity to it at some point.) Talking about the
troubled familial relationships of your Prozac-popping friends
is not gossip, it is third-party therapy and it bores men
to tears.
It's not because men are insensitive. It's just that --
well, OK, it is because we're insensitive. But we're insensitive
for a very good reason. It's bred in the bone and woven
into our very DNA. Men are problem solvers. We believe in
taking action, in striding forth with bold confidence. We
believe in coming to immediate and unwavering conclusions.
Indeed, men are so good at doing this that they can come
up with solutions to problems without even waiting for all
the pertinent information. Women, on the other hand, will
talk for hours and hours -- and days, if need be -- without
resolving anything. Men want a solution. Now.
As evidence, I submit a word - for - word transcript of
a recent conversation I had with a female friend:
"I don't know what it is, Will. I enjoy my job and, yet,
I don't feel it's quite as fulfilling as ..."
"Then quit."
"But I enjoy what I do. It's just that ..."
"Then don't quit. Are you going to finish those fries?"
Men don't have time for long, meandering discussions about
how we feel. Men prefer facts.
Forget Venus and Mars. The real difference is this: women
are fascinated with minutiae; men are fascinated with trivia.
How do you distinguish between the two? Easy. If you could
win a bar bet with the information you have just gleaned,
it is trivia. Everything else is minutiae.
Case in point: on a recent trip to Toronto, I wanted to
visit the Hockey Hall of Fame. My wife wanted to shop.
"But the Stanley Cup is on display at the hall," I said.
"The Stanley Cup. That's like the Holy Grail itself. Did
you know that the 1963-64 Toronto Maple Leafs are misspelled
on the side of the cup? The engraving reads "Maple Leaes."
Don't you find that fascinating? Don't you want to see that
firsthand?" Nope. Instead, she wanted to traipse about from
shop to shop to shop, even though we have perfectly good
malls back in Calgary. "There are stores everywhere," I
argued. "But there is only one Hockey Hall of Fame."
Now, I don't mind the actual shopping part. It's the endless
thinking that accompanies it that drives me nuts. Every
single purchase has to be mulled over as though it were
a life-and-death decision. (My wife, meanwhile, complains
that shopping with me is like going on a bank heist. "C'mon,
get the goods and let's go. Let's go, go, GO!")
The point being, womenfolk are different from the rest
of us. And by "us," I mean "normal people" (i.e. men).
It's the same when we go out for dinner. Like many a man,
I want only two things from a restaurant: large portions
and a waiter that screws up so I don't have to leave a tip.
My wife, on the other hand, wants to mull over her options.
She thinks about what she wants to eat. She sits there in
a perfectly good restaurant and she thinks.
Women do this all the time. Women actually read a menu.
They study it. They frown at it. They say, "Hmmm." Go into
any restaurant in the land and you will see women frowning
at menus as their husbands send out laser-focused Impatience
Rays in their direction.
The waiters don't help. "Would you like more time?" they
ask my wife.
"No!" I scream. "We'll order. Don't leave!"
It's no use. Once a waiter vanishes, that's the last you'll
see of him until the next geological epoch. My wife, meanwhile,
is carefully pondering the pros and cons of raspberry vinaigrette
vs. creamed Camembert. The waiter has long since entered
the Federal Witness Protection Program and I am practising
my finely honed Impatience Rays when a thought hits me.
The Toronto Maple Leafs team name itself is misspelled.
It should be "Leaves," right? Don't you find that absolutely
fascinating?
Of course you don't.
Flare
November 2001
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