Men and Women

Yet again, I run out of topics faster than I can generate them.

Hmmm. I had an interesting topic in mind just minutes before...but me being me, lost it in a yawn. Wowww.

Oh well. I'll just be cheap and talk about a book I was reading some days ago.

It's called "Why men are clueless and women always need more shoes" or something like that. I caught sight of a book, called "Why men want sex and women need love," but that was in Japan and Liz was telling me it's cheaper to buy in SG. Sadly, I don't remember the price in Japan anymore, so I can't tell if it made any difference where I bought it. Then I found it again in Bugis Kinokuniya, this time with other title.

To sum everything they said up...

- Women and men have biologically different brains
- Men are the typical images of thinking problem solvers
- Women are the typical images of the feeling nurturer

That's in a summary.

...Well they did emphasize a couple of times that what they write is a very general picture that applies to dunno how many % of the population (majority). And that's somewhat interesting to know cuz...

...the world as I know it is pretty weird now!?

It's not too reassuring when Andy told me that the guys in army are actually interested in...what, the GSS, fashion and shopping??? What would they screaming on a battlefield?? "OMG My LV helmet!!! Ahhh!!! My Gucci boots!!! SHIEEET My Prada bullet vest!!!"

Hmmmmm food for thought. Then again, they might end up bragging on a battlefield... "HAH! Luckily my bullet vest is Prada. If it's Bata, my body already got lucky 13 holes in me! WOOH! Gucci boots makes me run faster than bullets can catch me! I feel so matrix! My LV helmet has spider sense, I can sense danger 1km around me!"

Wow.

Anyway, this is how the book paints the roles and typical traits of men and women:

Man
- Your typical problem solver who has a need to solve everything
- Does not like to discuss personal problems
- Likes crude jokes (pertaining to body parts and especially fart)
- Likes gadgets
- Likes spatial activity
- Likes soccer
- Very affected by visuals
- Able to compartmentalize lust and love
- More obsessed with tangible achievements
- Unable to multitask-focused on one thing
- Tends to take things literally
- Exaggerates facts
- Some other stuff which I'd need to re-read the entire of the two books to remember
Overall, he represents "the Big Picture."

Woman
- Your typical emotional nurturer who feels a need to...yeah, nurture
- Likes to talk a problem back and forth and to and fro and till it's milked all it's worth
- Absolutely am embarrassed by crude stuff, especially in public
- Likes to know about other people's personal lives
- Likes to gossip
- Think things in terms of 'relation' instead of 'specifics'
- Uses 'underhanded' means to get what they want because that was how they survived in ancient times
- Subconsciously rates every man based on their potential as a breadwinner
- More obsessed with 'sincerity' and all that stuff
- Innate ability to multitask and 'bookmark' their conversations
- Tends to read between the lines
- Exaggerates emotions
- Some other stuff (repeat above line from Man section)
Overall, she represents "the Micro-Manager."

I still haven't read about shopping. That, or I forgot what it said.

The scientific explanation for the key differences for both sexes is that different parts of their brains activate when viewing the same subject. I don't know what the hell the specifics were, but anyway they grabbed a whole bunch of male and female specimens, got them to view many different things, and got a collective picture of their brain activity scans. Interestingly, the females have similar brain activity while the males have another.

Which kinda makes me wonder, since it's not mentioned in the book...that whether hormones play a part in the brain activity? Hmm. I shall Google for it later.

Reason for pondering is that a crap load of people I know are crossing all over the lines. Look at Huizhen man...she likes to gossip about her idols, but wtf she's a soccer fan?? And then I know guys who aren't exactly great in the spatial activity department either. And there are an equal share of girls who don't like to discuss personal problems as there are guys who discuss a problem like it's the unfathomable Magick Science.

Something I found rather enlightening though, was what was actually happening when I argued with a few female friends when I was younger.

Considering this... When males hear a problem, they offer a solution. But when females talk about their problems, they're not looking for solutions...they just want to talk about it and feel understood. But guys don't understand why anyone would discuss their problems unless they're looking for solutions. So women get angry with men for not understanding while men get fed up because women won't stop 'whining'.

And also... If men take words literally while women read between the lines, you can imagine how messy it gets--men wonder why women don't take their words literally and women wonder why men refuse to tell the truth.

When I was younger, I didn't mind listening to problems. But the problem was, if I repeatedly listened to the same problem, I got very irritable to a point of agitation. So I tended to end up offering possible solutions. You can imagine how dissatisfied most of my female friends were at the time. 8D I especially detested (and still do) listening to problems that sounded like whining simply because it seems hopeless and my advice is for naught.

And it usually didn't end there. Somehow we'd just end up with a face-off over the "www" and a texted argument ensues. Hahaha. I remember this quite vividly. I usually ended up writing an essay with point forms arguing my point of view and why I thought it was logical and reasonable, and why I disagreed with the other person.

Then confusion tended to arise from there. I meant my words literally, and I was taking it like a factual account of events...but what I got in return was a barrage of accusations about what I was insinuating, about how I was attacking her emotionally, about my intentions and all the emotional crap. Wow. That was the beginning of my conflict avoidant pattern, simply because I couldn't understand why when I kept insisting for people to take my words literally, they kept 'reading between the lines' and accusing me of a thousand things I never meant.

The best part was when someone accused me of being angry, and when I said I was simply moody, said person ended up blowing up at me and being angrier than me...for denying that I'm angry and for not understanding her efforts to cheer me up. WOWWW wtfff I still don't understand what happened back there?! I just needed peace as I said, literally, and all I got was fuel to the fire?!?!??

Oh, and you can bet your ass that the ones I argue a lot with about accusations are almost always girls...or girlish guys (not that I remember them). The guys that I scold or reprimand tend to take arguments rather well somehow.

Hmm... Woah!!! As I type, I feel enlightened once again! Thinking back to Primary school, I had a lot more male friends than female friends, cuz it was much simpler being with the guys. We fought but it didn't carry on to the next day. It was obvious whether we liked playing with one another, and someone we hated days ago could end up playing catching with us. And I guess I had a terrible attention and memory span, so I kinda expected the guys to be the same and not remember what the hell we had grudges about.

But it was very stressful when I first joined a girl group. Wow. Talk about politics and hierarchy. These bimbos are potential candidates for a Hongkong office serial drama. The girl who had the best figure, was the tallest, maybe looked the prettiest (I don't know, she looked beachy to me), and spoke up the most was the pack leader. The mindless followers were damn disturbingly...mindless. And I was obviously cast out even though they called me a part of the group. We just didn't clique.

So quite obviously I left that group for a better tomorrow!

Thankfully I ended up in a class where practically the whole class, guy or girl, all liked playing Ice and Water and every recess time was a race to finish up our food and spend as much time as we could melting and freezing one another.

Ahh. But I'm not a soccer fan, and I do talk about a problem back and fro and to and fro and while I find fart jokes absolutely funny, I always wished I could somehow mute the world when my father blew up the stratosphere right at the void deck in the public.

Sheesh.

Hahaha about this spatial activity part, I find it interesting too. The better capacity for spatial activity is why guys tended to be better drivers than females, and why men find their way better than women. It is also why there are more male gamers than female gamers, and better gamers.

Quoting an example a friend said... "When I played a female character and played well, randoms called me a pro. But when I played a male character...they yelled, 'YOU HACKER!!!'"

Initially, I had a bad habit of commanding people around when I watched them play game and thought their actions were making no sense to me. Eventually, said people...who incidentally are girls...got upset and blew up at me for it. So I stopped making any comments about how they played and endured their insufferably terrible sense of direction. It never crossed my mind that I simply had better spatial abilities.

Not sure if this is related. The book mentioned that guys would find an absolutely complicated machine that served only a simple function fascinating while women could care less. Clockwork and flashy things always got their attention. Reason also being, it engages the spatial department. Now I wonder if this is the reason why I like watching toy penguins automatically crawl up the ladder and slide down this ladder only to end up back at the ladder and climbing... I still find myself stopping to watch at this age.

Okay. It's almost lunch and I typed this entry for close to two hours. A final interesting case study...that's finally not about myself.

So, in ancient days, the males had this habit called fire-gazing. They went out hunting, then came back to sit around the bonfire and do nothing but stare at it. This helped them relax, somewhat, and recollect themselves after a whole day's worth of work.

Meantime, women shared information, also known as gossiped, while the men went out hunting. They knew what how each person was faring, etc etc. Thus women are usually interested in focused conversations, especially about people.

So modern man replace the bonfire...with a TV.

They flick channels nonstop and never seem to stop at a channel long enough to understand what it's talking about. Apparently, they flick channels so they can get a bit of everything without deeply engaging, solving other problems away from their own.

Women find it absolutely irritating because they just want to watch one channel, usually variety shows involving people, and engage in it.

I asked my mother if my father had a channel flicking habit.

"Yes."

So I asked if they ever quarrelled over the TV.

"No. Because he's being so retarded changing the channel over and over, I ended up reading newspapers and ignoring him."

Hahahahaha nice one.

In another 6 mins more, I'm going for lunch! Hmm.

Oh, a random additional point.

I forgot the exact figures...but it seems the females have a capacity for between 4000~8000 words a day while men only have 2000~4000 words a day. Wow. I wonder why.

I don't know why, but I suddenly remember Chelsea.... Hahahahahahahaha.

And I claimed to have no topic. Talk is cheap indeed. It's so free, it blasted into a full length essay. Zzz.