Quick fact for you: Did you know that if women live together for long enough they can get their monthly moodswings at the same time? You did? Ah, apologies. Okay, bet you don’t know this one: on average, women live almost five years longer than men. Look, stop yawning, it’s rude.
Now I’ve got to tread carefully here. I’m all for girl power, equality and doing a Greer (stick it to the man, sister!), but women can sometimes be too vocal.
Woah woah, put the nails away, I said sometimes.
Women have countless programmes, forums and publications to vent their emotions, discuss problems, pick up advice and all that business. People need room to express their feelings, I get that, but It’s pretty hard to stomach a sandwich at lunchtime when listening to a 50-something woman talk about her latest sexcapade.
I’m no long-term viewer, but there’s a reason those women are called ‘Loose’, discussing the ins and outs (and ins and outs and ins) of their sex lives on a daily basis.
Men, on the other hand, aren’t encouraged to be so vocal.
This might be a dying notion (and a generalisation at that), but I’ve been brought up to think that men shouldn’t be too open with their emotions.
Sure, it’s good to share the odd sob story on the sofa after a particularly teary episode of ‘Cold Feet’, but otherwise men are meant to be stoic and reserved.
This perception isn’t unsubstantiated either: studies show that on average women speak 13,000 more words than men every single day.
Yet still, here’s me blabbing on week after week about emotions (waaaah) and feelings (waaaaah) like some unstoppable moron.
But the times are a-changing, or so I’m told. While women have always had the opportunity to vent, perhaps it’s time that men become a little more vocal with their emotions and experiences.
This week, I’ll be alienating myself from my male brethren by revealing some of the lesser-known facts about our side of the species.
Men are blind (at least compared to women). Not only are women more receptive to variance in colour, but they also have a wider peripheral vision than men. Seriously, we play down how little we can actually see: men stumble around, struggling to make out which character is which on an IMAX screen while women notice when we graze a barmaid’s hand when collecting change – even if their backs are turned. And their eyes are closed. And they’re in a different bar. Most men are homosocial. Before the less-liberal side of our readership stand up and shout at their screens ”Wot?! I’m no bloody homo!”, being homosocial just means that you prefer to spend time with people of the same sex. It means nothing about sexuality, just that men like chatting to men, and that’s no secret – go to any pub on a Saturday afternoon and you’ll see hoards of them chatting over a beer or six. However, it is during moments like this when the idea of men being incapable of expressing sentiment clearly shines through as a myth. Women have the gift of the gab, no doubt, but give a man a couple of friends and he’ll have no problem sharing his feelings. Sure, those feeling will be littered with sarcasm and comments like “I’m not gay, but...”, but all the same I’ve seen some of the most emotionally evolved and even (dare I say it?) vulnerable comments come out of the mouths of male friends just as soon as the last woman has left the table.
Men are always bitter. OK, this one’s not a secret, but It’s a fact: modern British men aren’t supposed to be happy. From sitcoms all the way down to comic strips, the grumpy husband is a solid stock character that doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. It’s a trait established by decades of convention so there’s no change of it changing now. Stupid convention. I hate conventions. And when it’s too hot...or too cold, for that matter. I especially hate that middle one, when it’s not quite hot or cold. Jumper? No jumper? Who knows anymore? God, I hate jumpers.
Men are deaf (at least compared to women). Not only do women have a better sense of hearing than men, but they are also more naturally inclined to pick up variances in tone and pitch. Try telling a lie to a woman and she’ll hear every change in tone and tweak of your vocal chords, while all you’ll be hearing is the creak of the rusty sofa springs as you shift in your sleep. Not only are we stumbling about, half-deaf and half-blind, but Men also suffer from PMS. Girls have always had PMS as their ultimate defence card – “it’s not my fault, it’s the hormones”. Not only is it unquestionable, but most men are so freaked out by the even the concept of a period that we’ll just leave it be and try to retreat to our happy place. However, psychotherapist Jed Diamond discovered a male alternative, the amazingly-named “Irritable Male Syndrome”. Caused by a fluctuation in Testosterone levels, IMS can leave a man feeling grumpy, frustrated, hypersensitive and anxious. Do we mope around, complaining that life’s not fair? No. We get on with things and keep schtum, because men are amazing like that.
Men have bigger brains than women. In terms of brain mass to body mass, men have bigger brains than women on average. But size doesn’t matter (or so I keep telling myself) – the important thing is that Men are cleverer than women. In news which will no doubt leave men feeling pretty smug with themselves, studies have shown that on average, men are cleverer than women by four IQ points. I’m not claiming that all males are covert Einsteins – I once knew a man who drank a cup of his own sick for a dare – but it’s good to know that we’ve got one up on the female side of our species. Men don’t think about sex every seven seconds. Think about it for a moment: visiting your nan, standing in line at the bank, babysitting your friend’s children. This ‘fact’ just doesn’t make sense. More to the point, it would be SEX impossible to get anything SEX constructive done if every seven SEX seconds your chain of thought SEX was being disturbed by SEX thoughts about SEX. The idea that men can’t escape the thought of sex is a modern myth, in all likelihood started by a group of women who were fed up of their husbands being a bit too handsy in the evenings. Recently experts have suggested that up to 30 per cent of men don’t even think about sex once during the average day.
Being a single man on the dating scene can be complicated at times – I’ve previously talked about how tricky it is meeting genuinely nice women without being accused of being a) only interested in one thing b) shallow and c) a sex pest, but hopefully I’ve managed to put a dent in the rumours that men are sex-obsessed, emotionally-challenged and capable only of following our ape instincts (grunt, laugh, drink, grunt, point at boobs, grunt). For the females who may be reading this article, just remember to speak loudly, point at the things you want him to look at and try not to let his superior intellect get in the way. Also, remember that Men are awesome.
Next Week: The second part in my series about Online Dating, where a picture of a girl on a website suddenly becomes a real-life human being in front of me, with emotions and
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