Oh, man! Men’s many mysterious mental maneuvers mystify me

Posted: Friday, April 19, 2013 8:00 pm
By: By Chris Menees

Men should come with instructions.
Hellooooo? There’s good reason an instruction book is called a “man”ual and certain tactics are known as “man”euvers.
To be fair, I know men think women should come with instructions, too.
I guess both sexes are just complicated little creatures, each unique in the way God created them.
For all their weird little quirks, though, I love men.
I love the way they walk and talk and smell and even think, no matter how frustrating it may be at times.
I live with a manly-man. I work closely with some manly-men. They make my life interesting.
It’s true that opposites attract sometimes, but I think it’s also true that their differences complement one another. Like sweet and sour, like fire and ice.
Take movies, for example. I’m a “Robin Hood” (the Kevin Costner version) kinda girl, but my husband is more of a “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” (the Mel Brooks version) kinda guy. I’m drawn to the endearing “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but he’s more “Christmas Vacation.”
He’s tall, I’m short. He’s dark, I’m blonde. He’s right-handed, I’m left-handed. You get the picture.
Nonetheless, it works just fine.
But there are still those subtle differences that keep me hopping trying to understand the male mentality vs. the female psyche.
More examples? I’m glad you asked.
Math is also a mystery to me. Therefore, men and math mixed are mind-boggling.
I’m not a mathematician. I don’t know matrix multiplication from parallel postulates.
My husband and I were looking at a house plan the other day and I was trying to convince him that one room on the drawing was considerably bigger than another room. He was trying to convince me that they were actually about the same size in square feet, with one room longer but the other wider.
So I used my own version of Math for Dummies to prove my point — my pinky finger. I used my shortest digit as a gauge to compare the room sizes, reasoning to my sweetheart that one room was barely two pinky-widths wide on the plan, while the other was nearly three whole pinkies wide.
He, on the other hand, trotted out the math. He whipped out a calculator and started figuring square feet. Show-off.
Speaking of men and measurements, size matters when it comes to anything a man can find in industrial size, quantity or strength. The bigger, the better. This rule applies to power tools and trucks and lawnmowers — and even room deodorizer.
At our house, my beloved recently acquired a jumbo-sized can of industrial air freshener. Is it different from my girly spray that smells like a meadow of flowers in a can? You betcha. His room spray smells like lavender blossoms with a hint of vanilla — but it’s a really big can AND it came from a home improvement store. So that makes it manly.
And don’t forget the male mentality when it comes to meals and munchies. In my little corner of the world, there’s a definite distinction between man food vs. girl food.
There are certain foods that just won’t fly at our house. I’m married to a meat and taters man, so bean sprouts and tofu are out of the question and it can be a challenge to sneak any green veggie other than fried okra onto his plate.
At work, it’s deja vu. I’m surrounded by the country ham and steak breed of men. You just as well leave the veggie burgers and chicken spaghetti at home.
Honey, in our office, even the honey buns are manly. The snack machine in our building once carried a monstrous man-sized honey bun that one male co-worker fondly dubbed the “680” — a reference to the whopping 680 calories packed into the sugary sweet iced treat. Not for sissies, the “680” landed with a firm thud when it dropped from its hanger.
To each his own.
Man, life is fun.
But, oh, man — it’s complicated.
———
Staff Reporter Chris Menees may be contacted by email at cmenees@ucmessenger.com.

Published in The Messenger 4.19.13

,