I’ve never quite understood men. Mostly because, often – even though I see their lips moving – I don’t get what’s coming out of their mouths. Even if a man is speaking English, for example, does not in any way mean that I will comprehend him. And it seems that he will have similar problems understanding me. I suspect this is due to the fact that men and women speak in code. That means a woman can never take anything a man says at face value. And that a man can never take anything a woman says very seriously. Even when he really, really should. I can take things my girlfriends say at face value because I know we’re speaking the same code. But I have to run everything a man says to me through the decoder cycle of my brain. Any man with half an ounce of sense knows he has to run whatever women say to him through his decoder cycle. Unfortunately, the decoder cycles we’re born with are pitifully slow, incomplete programs. But they’re all we’ve got. I do believe, however, I’ve broken small parts of the code. And I think what I’ve deciphered is helpful, so I’ve decided to share it.

 

Men and women will often use some of the very same phrases when speaking to one another; phrases such as “you’re attractive,” “I’d like to get to know you,” and “I love you.” And although men may use these phrases in the same context that women use them, these phrases have entirely different meanings for the two genders.

 

Take for example the most widely misunderstood phrase in any language: “I love you.” When a man says, “I love you,” what he means is “I love you. Period. At this moment in time, end of sentence, end of story.”

 

When a woman hears the phrase “I love you,” what she hears is “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you and have children with you, and should any other man try to take you away I’d crush him like a beer can.”

 

It works the other way, as well. For example, when a woman asks a man “Do I look fat?” She’s not actually asking if her pants look a little tighter than usual. She’s really asking “Do you still love me and cherish me and adore me, or do you think I’ve become as unappealing and undesirable as a big brown-and-white bovine? I think I’m getting my period.”

 

When a man hears the question “Do I look fat?” he foolishly believes the woman is soliciting his honest, unbiased opinion about body mass and proportion. So, he answers quite simply, and (he thinks) sufficiently, “No.”

 

His “No,” however, does not mean “No” to the woman. To her, “No” means “I’m not entirely sure that I still love you and am attracted to you and want to be seen in crowded public places with you at my side.” This is not the answer the woman is looking for. So, in an attempt to elicit the answer she is looking for, she presses on with another question “Don’t you love me anymore?”

 

This is a confusing non-sequitur for the man but, not wanting to lose his grip on an already wildly out-of-control curve ball, he answers “Of course I still love you.”

 

This placates the woman because she interprets this to mean “Of course I still love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you and have children with you, and should any other man try to take you away I’d crush him like a beer can.”

 

What the man is really saying is “Of course I still love you. Period. Even though you’re acting a bit neurotic, end of sentence, end of story.”

 

And thus, the gender miscommunication goes merrily around and around until one day the man decides to up and leave because he’s tired of having to tell his girlfriend she’s not fat. This is an enormous surprise to the woman because all along her boyfriend’s been telling her that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

 

While I hate to make broad, sweeping generalizations, I believe men and women communicate differently due to our different biological assignments. I began to break the code the day I realized that since a man’s biological assignment is to spread his seed, a man’s perspective on life is grounded more in the present moment. Since a woman’s biological assignment is to grow and nurture the seed until it’s old enough to get a job at Burger King, a woman’s perspective on life is focused more on the long term.

 

Of course, the biological assignment theory has a few holes. For example, sometimes a man will tell you that he’ll clean the toilet, but then he’ll manage to stay away from the bathroom for the next two weeks. When it comes to toilet cleaning, and sundry other household chores, the code seems to act in reverse. When a woman asks, “honey, will you clean the toilet?” she really means, “I’m tired of looking at the yellow streaks you managed to get all over the outside of the toilet, so clean it now or sleep on the couch until you do.” When the man answers “yes” to the toilet-cleaning question, what he really means is “yeah, I’ll clean the toilet. When it becomes as big a priority for me as it is for you. Which is gonna be a while.” And then he’s confused when he’s told to sleep on the couch for the next two weeks.