On Men, Women and Gravity

Boys and girls are different. I know, I know. Duh. I’m glad of the fact that we’re different but sometimes the seeming enormity of those differences just boggles my mind.

Mona and I have experiences that are basically polar opposite.

She has a sister. She hung out with her girl cousins and did girl stuff, whatever that is, growing up. There are no boys in her family other than her father, step father, and grandfather. She played with Barbies and played house and had crushes on one of those slightly androgynous boy band kids. I don’t think there was much in the way of loud noise or rowdiness. The toilet seat was always down, no one got dirty just for the hell of it, and random acts of violence between siblings were not the order of the day. Her grandmothers taught her to bake and sew. She enjoyed arts and crafts. Things were generally “nice”.

I have a brother. I hung out with him at my cousins’ house. That cousin, let’s call him Dave, was 10 years older than me and had his own home a few blocks away by the time I was 13. We spent every minute we could over there hanging out with Dave and his buddies. We played basketball in the driveway all summer and football in the street in the fall. In the winter it was simulated pro wrestling in the living room. Football was watched ever Sunday. Even though these guys were 10 years older, they didn’t hold back or let us win. Ever. We’d go home with scrapes, bruises, cuts and sprains pretty much every day. And go right back for more. I know it concerned our parents, but they figured if we weren’t complaining then it must not be bad enough to have to put a stop to.

There were stacks of Playboy and Penthouse magazines to peruse (Mom and Dad didn’t hear about those) at our leisure and as much junk food as we could eat. It was like being in a locker room most of the time. Sometimes girls would come by (it was the pre-HIV free love kind of time), sometimes we got to know them a little and developed crushes, and once in a while a party was thrown from which we were banned. All in all it was teenage boy Heaven. It came to an end when I turned 18 and Dave got married. He married a fantastic woman who is as much an older sister to me as Dave is an older brother.

At the same time my father taught me how to use tools and fish and handle firearms and how to hunt with a bow or a gun. I still know how even though I haven’t been in the woods armed in nearly 20 years. And if Mom wasn’t much of a tomboy growing up she was a full citizen of guyville by the time I was 7.

Because our upbringing was so different I don’t understand things that women find fun and Mona has no concept of what boys like.

Case in point, her 7 year old niece, Riley. Riley is a very nice, well behaved little girl. She likes to draw pictures and play with stuffed animals and play games. I can’t hang out with her for more that an hour before I’m ready to try and catch chain saws with my teeth, but my wife thinks it’s great. I just don’t get it.

Conversely, Mona is often horrified by the behavior of little boys. The family across the street has 4 boys between the ages of 13 and 4. They’re good kids and don’t cause any trouble, but they’re boys. I watch them beating the hell out of each other and I laugh. My wife sees them chasing each other around playing guns and wants to run over there and put a stop to the violence. That cracks me up too. She doesn’t understand that they’re just being boys.

I know this sounds like I’m stereotyping, and you’re right. I know that some girls like sports and some boys like to play quietly. I know some women who can hang with the boys and a lot of the girls I know are at least as raunchy, if not raunchier, than some of the animals I call friends. But keep in mind that many stereotypes are grown from a seed of truth.

Now I have a daughter, and yes, she’s a daddies’ girl. Lucky for me, The Peanut is still too small to really show any play time preferences. Funny faces, songs and tickling are enough to send her into fits of giggles. And I know when the time comes I’ll happily have a tea party with her and her favorite dolls and I’m actually looking forward to things like farther-daughter dances. I’m totally OK with that. I’m not a guy who feels the need to have a son, or to pass on the ancestral jock strap.

If I end up just girls in the house I won’t have a single regret or wish to change a thing. Although like every father of a girl, I’m dreading her teenage years. I believe I have a better chance of predicting the appearance, strength and path of a Kansas tornado than I have of predicting what a teenage girl is going to do from one moment to the next. And that scares me. Mona however is totally comfortable with the idea.

I was talking with some of my family about how I expect to have to bury some boy who comes to take The Peanut on a date in my backyard one day. My brother brought me back to reality when he said “What the hell is wrong with you? You never, ever bury someone on your own property!” I’ve shared my fears with Mona, but like most mothers, she was never a teenage boy and has no idea why I worry.

That’s really the only reason I would like to have a boy. Just to put the shoe on the other foot so to speak. I’d love to see how Mona reacts when our son pretends to shoot the cat or gets in a fight with one of his buddies. And how she’ll do when her son brings home some girl she is sure is wrong for him. I know my Mow could handle the shooting and fighting, but I don’t think we ever would have found a girl that was good enough for one of her boys. At least not until the first grandchild arrived, at which point her daughter-in-law would become her second favorite person in the world, following said grandchild.

I love my wife. I love that she’s a woman and thinks and acts like a woman. She forgives me for being a man, which I appreciate. We get along very well and both agree that our marriage and relationship can best be described as “easy”. I doubt my experiences growing up and Mona’s were anything other than more or less typical. I imagine the same will be true for The Peanut. But still, like every other heterosexual couple, we’re very different, just on the basis of gender. I look at my wife, realize just how great she is and wonder what in the hell she is doing with a big hairy, smelly, juvenile oaf like me. And as hard as I try to convince her she refuses to accept that, in addition to all her inner beauty, she’s totally hot.

Sometimes those differences make me wonder how we as a species manage to live with our opposite gender even as well as we do. Sure it’s fun to hang out with the guys, but even excluding sex I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live with, much less be married to any of my buddies. I’m fairly certain that’s true for most men, and probably for a lot of women too. Why is that? Why do we want to live with and marry people whose flaws and idiosyncrasies we wouldn’t tolerate in ourselves or our same sex friends? I’m not saying we should all turn to homosexuality. I’m just making an observation on the lives of straight people and wondering why it works so well. We know it’s not cultural, since every culture I’m aware of has, at its foundation, heterosexual partnership to a greater or lesser degree. Why? I want to understand. What makes it work? To me it’s a little like gravity. I don’t know what makes it work, but I’m sure glad that it does.

On a slightly related note, what don’t you get about the opposite sex? Personally I honestly don’t understand jewelry. I can understand the shoe thing to some extent. I am not a guy who only has 2 pair of shoes. Mona has me beat, but I do my share of collecting. I can understand the talking. And the talking. And the talking. I talk a lot. Even if I don’t fully get it, I do my fair share of talking and talking, so at the least fair is fair. I’ve read some things that explain well why some women enjoy shopping. Fine. Shop away. But try as I might I just can’t get jewelry. What is it about shiny metal and polished rocks that cause women to elicit an emotional response? I don’t mean why is jewelry bought or worn. I mean I don’t understand the seemingly visceral reaction that jewelry seems to bring out. What makes it that special? Why?

Fill me in if you can. And if you need an explanation about something generally considered to be part of the realm of men just ask. Maybe I can shed some light for you.