I sometimes wonder what exactly evolution was up to when it produced men and women.
Obviously we’re the same species. Science is very clear on that. But spend a week in the same house and you begin to wonder if somewhere along the line two slightly different instruction manuals were issued.
Take finding things.
I can open the fridge, look straight into it and say there’s no butter.
“It’s there.”
“Where?”
“Second shelf.”
“I’m looking at the second shelf.”
“Behind the milk.”
And of course it is.
This applies to almost everything. Keys, glasses, socks, phone chargers. Men don’t really search for things. We look in the place where we think the thing should be. If it isn’t sitting there in full view, we assume someone has moved it.
Usually a woman.
Women, on the other hand, seem capable of finding things that are actually hidden. They move another object. They open a drawer. They look behind something. These are advanced techniques.
The same applies to rooms.
I can walk into the sitting room and think it looks perfectly fine. My other half can walk into the same room and notice a cushion is crooked, a plant needs watering, a picture is slightly off-centre and there’s a mug sitting somewhere it shouldn’t be.
I noticed the mug.
I just didn’t think it required immediate action.
Temperature is another area where agreement seems impossible. I can be sitting there perfectly comfortable when suddenly I’m told the room is freezing. Five minutes later the heating is on and I’m considering opening a window.
Then someone says, “Don’t you dare.”
The thermostat in most homes is not really a heating control. It is a weapon in an ongoing domestic struggle.
Holidays bring out another difference.
I can pack for a week away in about fifteen minutes. Shirts, underwear, trousers, maybe shorts, something respectable for dinner, toothbrush. Done.
I then sit downstairs feeling very pleased with myself while packing continues upstairs for another two hours.
The female approach appears to be based on preparing for every possible event.
There are clothes for warm weather, cool weather, dinner, a nicer dinner, a very nice dinner, walking around, sitting around and things that are being brought “just in case”.
Just in case of what is never fully explained.
You might be going to Spain in July, but there will still be a cardigan.
“Why are you bringing that?”
“It might get cool at night.”
It hasn’t been cool at night there since 1983, but apparently you can’t take chances.
Then there are shoes.
I have always believed two pairs of shoes should cover almost anything that can reasonably happen on holiday. Evidently this is an absurd male belief.
Of course, the weakness in my own system soon becomes apparent.
“Have you packed your charger?”
No.
“Sun cream?”
No.
“Medication?”
Ah.
“Travel documents?”
I thought you had those.
So it turns out I haven’t actually packed for the holiday. I have simply put some clothes in a case.
Shopping is another mystery.
If I need trousers, I go into a shop, find trousers, try them on and buy them. This seems to me to be the purpose of shops.
Women can go shopping without actually needing anything.
They are “just having a look”.
A look can apparently take several hours and may involve coffee.
Mind you, men have no grounds for feeling superior. Send one of us to the supermarket with a list of six items and there is every chance we’ll come back with five of them, plus biscuits, beer nuts and something that was on special offer.
Communication also has its dangers.
A woman may ask, “Do you think that picture would look better on the other wall?”
A young man thinks this is a genuine question and answers it.
An older man knows better.
He knows that considerable thought has already gone into the picture and the wall, and his safest response is:
“What do you think?”
This wisdom takes years to acquire.
Men, of course, have plenty of their own strange habits. We’ll spend three hours trying to fix something rather than admit we don’t know how it works.
Instructions are particularly irritating.
Give a man a flat-pack cabinet with a perfectly clear booklet and there’s a fair chance he’ll put the booklet to one side and say, “Sure, it’s straightforward enough.”
An hour later there are two pieces left over, one door is upside down and he is complaining that the instructions are useless.
Yet somehow men and women have managed to live together for thousands of years.
We annoy each other, confuse each other, find things for each other and pack the things the other one forgot.
Maybe that was evolution’s plan all along.
Or maybe it just got us this far and thought, “They’ll have to manage from here.”
