Do we women think that we know all the answers, believe that we have martyred ourselves by living with the male gender and that we are consummate communicators? There is a lot we can learn from men:
- To be natural, straight forward and wear less makeup. Men believe they are good enough and so should we! They don’t wear masks and they don’t wear crippling high heels! They speak their minds with an easy fit.
- Men don’t talk behind our backs. However, the female gender travel with a pack of girlfriends to whom they divulge intimate details of their relationship with a man. Do you know that men shudder at the thought of having no privacy? Girlfriends do not have to know everything! True they are good therapists, but not every situation requires a therapist.
- To do our own thing and not be so involved in everyone’s business. Men put their feet up on the coffee table, watch the game, do less housework and play more than female do. They don’t worry about everyone and everything.
- To accept a compliment. Men love compliments and even direct the conversation to get a few. Women have so much difficulty accepting a compliment without giving a qualification.
- To be patient with a relationship and to back off from a waffling man. Women tend to be impatient, embrace change more eagerly than men and when that doesn’t happen, they push men harder who already feel cornered. The best strategy is to back off, lower the intensity in our voice and give up our need to control.
- To communicate briefly and not to digress. Women get caught up in the words and the emotional impact of what they are saying. Women relate the story in a wordy symbolic style. On the other hand, men know how to say it in 25 words or less. After two minutes, a male listener knits his brow in a quizzical expression and hears only, “Blah, blah, blah."
- To clearly ask for what you need. Women expect men and their girlfriends to be mind readers. So they hint, use metaphors, tell parables and conclude with everything is fine – only this is farthest from the truth. Then we feel hurt when our friends don’t figure it out. However, men are literal creatures who ask for things directly and specifically. While women don’t have to do a presentation with charts and statistics, women can speak in more businesslike terms of problem and solution.
This Article is Published in
Arrow Magazine November 2007 Issue.
www.aagneyam.com/arrow
