A male friend of mine was recently puzzled by how much his partner’s attitude had changed between date five and date six, or thereabouts?
Date five was, or so he thought, a nice Indian meal around the Portomaso area, great vibes, lots of flirty smiles and not too heavy conversation; male nirvana in other words. He went abroad on business, came back, met her for dinner again only a week later and was met with a barrage of questions about things he’d said while under the influence of tikka masala and chenin blanc.
As far as he was concerned up to that point date five had gone swimmingly and he had looked forward to date six with eager anticipation. But somehow between date five and six his then girlfriend seemed to have moved to another continent in her attitude, from Malta to Sweden, while he conversely, and now he felt stupidly, had moved from Malta to the Sahara in eagerness and warmth.
What could have happened, he asked?
On date five his girl seemed just as keen on him as him on her, was a chatty and light conversationalist, was mellow and easy going. Suddenly all these demands and questions before she flounced off muttering something about men being from Mars and women from Venus, or the more understandable men are from the Arctic and women from the Sahara. Could it just have been the time of the month, the full moon or what? Should he call her? Did she want him at all? How to understand all these signals and what brought them on? What could possibly have changed in only a week he groaned?
Hmmm. Only a week, he thought. An age, I thought. How many times in that week would she have discussed him with her friends, her sister, her cousins? Men and women certainly approach relationships in very different ways. ‘Something along the lines of love is of man’s life a thing apart, tis’ woman’s whole existence’. Seems like not a lot has changed since that romantic poet of yells bells and smells fame told us that.
Typically if a girl, or the more female partner in a gay relationship, goes out with a boy, she will spend a huge proportion of her time thinking about all aspects of that date, what was said, what was implied, what was worn, what the silences meant. But not only that. She will often proceed to dissect every part of that conversation with anyone who will listen, with sometimes not very reliable, albeit well meaning girl friends, who are usually very keen to impart all sorts of advice on what everything boy said, wore, and of course did.
Consequently when she meets her male date again she is not the same person he left behind. She will not only have thought about him incessantly, she will have discussed him interminably too. She approaches the next date armed with all her girlfriends’ advice, analysis and comments. He on the other hand will have thought about her a little, and probably mainly sexually, and have talked about her not that much. His conversations in the interim will have mostly been about work, football and more sport.
Not much can be done about this, though girls would be well advised to spend less time dissecting every aspect of a date, or of imagining what men might mean or imply by something. Men are much simpler, and I sometimes think much happier creatures for it. They react to relationships as they do to a football game. In other words they react when something actually happens. They go all glum when their team misses a penalty or are ecstatic when their side scores.
Women on the other hand, the worlds’ greatest planners (well, we have to be, motherhood requires loads and loads of planning and juggling skills) prepare themselves for every eventuality by discussing the minutest details of what was said. Even a simple text message from a guy can generate hours of conversation from his girlfriend to all her friends. And MSN chatting is another world again.
So men or boys need perhaps to be a mite more understanding of why their girlfriend is a changed person. Their girlfriends’ girlfriends might be the cause of that. But it is something almost all women do, share gossip and analyse, whether we are southerners or northerners, from west coasts or east coasts. Talking about things keeps us sane, while men respond by doing stuff, the hunter gatherer stuff or the sports stuff.
So when a girl can’t understand why her man isn’t interested in her analysis or her conversation and thinks he’s being Arctic in his approach, she should too reflect for a while on the fact that her guy is coming to this date new and almost a blank sheet. She on the other hand has over analysed it. Ideally she should gossip and analyse less. He should maybe discuss things a little bit more.
But then where would the chemistry be? That’s why we are attracted to each other. That’s why so many of us make the mistake of trying to mould each other the way we possibly more legitimately try to mould our children. Maybe global warming will lessen the barriers between the sexes, make men come in from the cold, make women calm down and be a little less hot and heavy. Or maybe the answer if you are female is to watch more football and maybe understand men better... even though Mourinho has temporarily left us.
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