In the words of one of my favorite Hip-Hop artist’s Rakim…It’s been a long time since I left you!!!
I come to you as always, with random thoughts that emanate from my life, my eyes and situations I see. Now I promise that I will make a more concerted effort to provide you my thoughts as I’m even creating a schedule to keep myself on more of a track to voice the issues I’ve got to get off of me. The newest one is men and why don’t we talk. To be honest, there are multiple reasons such as having a general inability to talk about things that really matter, the desire to get into a conversation that will probably become deeper than we really want or most frequently the reaction we get from talking. When we do speak what’s on our minds (without thinking how its going to be taken by the opposite sex), most women either don’t believe us when we do say our reasons for not talking, tell you that your reasons “can’t be true” because it doesn’t make sense to them, or that it’s just a “cop out”…maybe you are right because you know it all and have been given the universal truth to everything but…I digress. Ask yourself these questions:
- would I talk if everything that comes out of my mouth is questioned for validity?
- would I talk if every time I said something, it was followed up by a 5-15 question challenge about my statements?
- would I talk if every time I’m in the middle of talking, you have to jump in and get your point across right then?…I’m sorry my answering the question you asked interfered with your immediate need to jump in with a thought I never asked for and cut me off...My Bad!!!
- would I talk if most of the time, any conversation somehow turns into a “Save-the-World-ish” or “Young and the Restlessness-ish” question about what I see or want to happen 10 years into the future, What are my future plans for the next 49 months, and of course the age-old and required question “How do I see you fitting in my plans”?
I’m sure that these previous statements are going to infuriate the opposite sex and somehow this will turn into a discussion on “how a woman feels” but that’s not the topic. It’s about why men don’t talk…And it’s an unfortunate thing because we need to learn how to better communicate with more frequency and quality but you never want to feel like its being pulled out of you. Also, since this is coming from a man, you might as well consider the source and attempt to find something out of it that may help you instead of trying to debunk the myths you and your girlfriend’s created. By the way, how has thinking like a man and not asking one worked for you in the past? Still confused huh? When was your girlfriend a man? When did you ask a man you weren’t involved with questions and took his answers to be true?
Now, back to why we don’t talk.
TRAINING:
Unfortunately, the fact remains that we (men) never learned to talk from our fathers, never learned how to talk to women from our mothers, and have been forced to wade through the battlefield of life attempting to learn the do’s and do not’s on the fly. Its difficult to hear all your life that you should give in to make someone happy, then you learn from the other side that you really are expected to “want to” do something not just give in to make the other person happy. Confused? What happens when my “not wanting to” isn’t accepted or liked and we are left to face repercussions? We, as men, were never taught to deal with those repercussions, and tend to give in to keep down what we see drama. For the most part, honestly it's just that most of us are incapable of talking about something that you don't understand and have never put alot of deep thought into.
PRESSURE:
We are expected to have it all together we meet women fresh out of having the most independent (and most fun) time in our life a.k.a. COLLEGE. We are expected to know what we want in our future including career (not just a job), a woman (of course when I meet you within 6-12 months I should know what you’re all about), love (an emotion we have heard about but never really experienced…I guess like Bigfoot), if I want marriage with you (this should also be discovered within the 6-12 month time frame of meeting you). Really!!! We are even made to feel inferior (I’m sure it’s not purposeful) because we haven’t spent the majority of our lives thinking about what we want in all these situations to come. I’m sorry but I haven’t been dreaming or planning who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with? Sorry but I haven’t been planning who’s going to provide me security, be my protector or be there when I have a bad day, who will be there to listen to my problems, give me solutions when I can’t figure something out on my own or give me reassurance that everything’s going to be alright. I’m sorry but I just haven’t progressed that far in my life (I’m sure I'm viewed as some sort of caveman but I can deal with that).
TIME:
No man wants to hear about the concept of time so why start a conversation. Every woman I know, including my mother (who I love) has an unspoken issue with time. She asks my dad to do something but never says when she needs it, then gets mad when he doesn’t do it within the time she wanted. Hell, he never knew how urgent it was!!! Now the opposite view is “Why didn’t he just stop and do it then, knowing that she wants it done?” Either men take too long, don’t give you the time table you need or don’t stick to our own stated time. Now, a time table will never be given (that’s the safe way) and you may say “I’m not rushing you” but you really are. There’s a clock ticking (in addition to the biological clock) that say “You should know by now” or “It shouldn’t take this long” although those time frames were never stated up front. Whether it relates to sex, when you should commit, propose to a woman, take a woman home to meet your parents or decide to live together, there’s always a time frame we are unaware of. Now for a gender that preaches from the highest pulpit about needing and wanting honesty, Why aren’t you stating these known time frames upfront? Its been confessed to me that you don’t want to scare a man off? So I guess you’d rather trick him or slowly tighten the vice grip on him to create a pressure situation?
Problem is if I gave you a Franklin Planner full of information for the next 36 months of my life, I then have to make sure I live by that or I’ve either lied, shouldn’t have given it to you if I’m not going to stick to it or I should have communicated any change so you would be “in the know”. Hell, I can manage my life like that as I don’t even know what I’m wearing to work tomorrow? But that’s the beauty as I don’t have to know what I’m wearing to work tomorrow and I can get up and figure it out. I don’t need a weekly clothing schedule to function. It will somehow come together.
RECIPROCITY:
Just because something works for you or is the way you would do it doesn’t mean we all subscribe to the same theory. Not to be anti-religious but I think the golden rules are incorrect. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” doesn’t work for some people because we all have different needs. If talking to you every other day works for me but you expect communication multiple times every day, what then? If I want things to go smooth, I’ve got to talk everyday as we know my way isn’t going to work. Now, this is just an uncommon example but extend it to other things and regardless of the initial shock, it does make some sense.
BLOW-BACK:
When I do take the chance and express my feelings (vent to you), I have about 15 good minutes to get it out and then get over it or I’m destined to hear one of the worst phrases a woman can say to a man: “Man Up”. Once that comes out of your mouth, you shouldn’t expect to hear anything come out of that man’s mouth for a long time. Why?, because that basically states that his expression is akin to being less than a man and based on that, why should he take a chance again and say something to you again so he can basically be called a female, soft or just not manly based on your statement.
This basically is a call to all men that WE have to do better. We are desired to be leaders but in a non-traditional way. We are expected to “want to be responsible” for others feelings and well being, be the decision maker for both people (that definitely does not mean she doesn’t want to be consulted unless its something she has no interest in), the support for a bad day at work or especially during those emotional afflictions that appear without warning. It may be the weather, hormones, a conversation with a friend, or some type of off-the-wall feeling about something you said and how wrong she took it…doesn’t matter. We are expected to be there through all of it and I’m just learning how to do some of it (a good therapist and a bottle of Crown Royal never hurt either but I’m just saying…). Step back and look at yourself – Have you told her how you feel about things? Have you told her what your problems are? Have you asked what bugs her about you (be prepared cuz’ she’s got some "Ish" to tell you)? Unfortunately we have to talk, not only to express our feelings, but give them some deeper insight into us. If not, you will be telling them to be mind readers and they will be left believing the only thing we all really like is sex, ESPN, and how good women look from any Latin America country.
