Men are from Mars

Note: Law Momma and I recently met through a community leadership program and hit it off immediately. She already has a popular blog called “Spilled Milk (and other Atrocities)” which I have referenced before and you should totally check out… after reading this:

 

Molly

 

I’ve always heard the mantra that “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” and I’ve always sort of thought it was silly. I mean, we’re people, right? How hard can it be for people to communicate?

Then I started dating.

And I realized that yeah… it’s true. We are totally from different planets when it comes to how we process information, how we approach problems, and even how we communicate. Let’s take for example my relationship with Banks.  If I’m being honest, we rarely fought at all during the honeymoon phase. Both of us were too content to nod and smile and smooth everything over because we were putting our best foot forward. As time ran on, it became harder to do that, and eventually I had to let all of my crazy out of the bag. Mostly, he deals with it well. But it’s become so apparent to me lately that there are some fundamental differences in the way we look at the world.

The other night, I was being a raging you know what. I had a rough day. I was exhausted. My kid wouldn’t go to sleep. It had just been one of those days. And I was on the phone with Banks, trying to have a conversation while simultaneously watching the end of a close basketball game, which basically means I was tuning in with half an ear to him and the rest of my attention to the game. I don’t remember what he said but something rubbed me the wrong way and I got pissy, as I’m wont to do. Because of the rest of my day, I basically just threw up my hands and said we should just say goodbye and talk later. I could actually hear him shrug before he said goodbye. I hung up angry and watched the phone.

In a moment of epic truth…. he didn’t call back.

As a woman, I KNEW he was supposed to call back. Because he should have been all “Baby, don’t go to sleep mad! I love you!” So after about twenty minutes of stewing on how he hadn’t called back, I called him.

No answer.

Obviously my brain went in the RIGHT direction… right to the fact that he was clearly mad at me and was ignoring me because OH MY GOD HE DOESN’T LOVE ME ANYMORE. I texted him to call and that I’d wait to hear from him.

He didn’t text.

“We’re breaking up, I know it,” I thought to myself, getting more and more worked up. Finally, I crawled into bed and had a good cry about how sad it was that I loved him so much and he was never going to let me tell him because clearly he’d stopped talking to me forever.

The next morning, I tentatively sent a text saying good morning or something similar.

He responded back in normal fashion.

How could he be so normal? How could he not tell me that everything was okay and that he wasn’t mad anymore? WHAT DID ALL OF THIS FAKE NORMALCY MEAN?

Oh that?

Turns out, he’d fallen asleep when we’d said good night, because, you know… we said good night.

Men are from Mars.

Women are from Crazy Town.