So,
in my never-ending search for ways to resolve conflicts between
male and females, I have stumbled upon several universal themes
that are generic to most relationships. For the past several
weeks, I have been exploring the so-called death questions that
seem to cause so many problems. These are questions that are
totally impossible for men to answer correctly without getting
into deep trouble and requiring the presentation of a “I am
stupid, because I am a man, please forgive me I wasn’t properly
trained” gift.
Valentines Day is a perfect example of this worldwide phenomenon.
Look at any advertisement for anything having to do with Valentines
Day. The catalogs that we receive have 85% of the items geared
towards items that should be bought for women and the remainder for
dogs, cats and men. In that order. The people who make things to
sell at Valentines day know that men need to, no wait, HAVE to buy
some gifts to give to some woman on the 14th of February.
These people know that every man in the world has screwed up some
way or another since Christmas and here is the first holiday to
receive absolution for sins committed. In fact, most men tend to go
overboard and buy more than their guilt requires just so they will
be ahead of the game on February 15th. Kind of like
buying a get out of trouble pass for any future stupid moves.
Now,
please don’t think I’m cynical about the reality of what I’ve just
said. I am just realistic enough to know that when it comes to
emotional screw-ups, men are the biggest offenders. We can be
sitting at a red light minding our own business and hurt someone’s
feelings. Don’t ask me how, we just can. I know. Men may be able to
march off to war and survive bombings, being shot, grenades and God
knows what else, but women have it all over us when it comes to
feelings, emotions and that other inner stuff we can’t seem to
connect with except in rare moments. There are thousands of people
getting rich out there writing, talking and giving lectures on this
very subject as I speak. This is a huge conflict point in our lives.
I find women are trying to change me to be more like them, which I
venture to say is impossible to do simply because I am not a women,
won’t ever be a woman, can’t think like a woman for one simple
reason. I am a man. We are different, in more ways than one.
My
theory is that women are gatherers and men are hunters. I believe
all of this started back in the stone ages. Men got hungry and made
the decision to leave the cave, go out side, and kill something to
bring back to cook on the new fire, which had been recently
discovered. Can you say Bar-B-Q? Now, if men had the same set of
feelings inside of them as women. We’d all still be sitting around
still eating berries and roots since we had discussed the fact that
some mother animal was going to miss her baby if we clubbed it to
death then brought it back for dinner. We would have probably taken
a vote and decided that we should remain vegetarians so we wouldn’t
offend any other creature.
That my
friend, would probably have meant the death of the human race as we
would have either starved or frozen to death in a few short years.
“But we wouldn’t have caused any creature any pain” would have
likely been the argument offered by some peace loving cave dweller.
To which I would have probably replied if I had been there “You are
causing me pain eating this same stuff over and over, day after day
and freezing my butt off wearing these fig leaves.” This of course
would have shown that I was an insensitive semi-naked fig-wearing
clod who needed to gather some flowers on the way back to the cave
from the hunt to make amends for my lack of sensitivity. This
explains my version of the invention of both cooked meat and
Valentines gifts.
