Understanding women

Forewarning: This story is based on observations from a night of drinking. An entirely separate and more logical set of observations may have sprung from a sober night reflecting on the couch. Unfortunately those nights typically don't motivate me to type. Unlike tonight.

I don't understand girls. I mean, who are we kidding here. But from time to time I put my thinking cap on and say to it "Okay fella, let's see if we can learn a thing or two tonight about the non-males."

Here's a relatively easy lesson. Guys pride themselves on going to the bathroom separately. No need to chit chat with other guys while our hands are near our crotch. We assumed we had that one all figured out.

Girls don't see life that simply. They go to the bathroom and while sequestered share vital information with each other about how the night is progressing, who said what about who, and what the strategy should be upon exiting the bathroom.

The girls are plotting strategy in there. You can't win a war you're not trying to fight. Guys aren't fighting this war. We're letting it get away from us, drowning our intellect in sports scores.

It's kind of like halftime speeches. Guys go out on the town, they get zero speeches from anyone. The only speech they get is a self reminder: Try to talk to a cute girl. Girls go out, they may not have a speech to start. But sooner or later they go to the bathroom together and one of them is down and out. The other one gives her a pep talk, they regroup, and they rally around the pep talk.

This is a whole new layer of intimacy guys don't really understand. We're generally on auto pilot ranking ourselves on how long we talk to you and how pretty we think you are.

Actually what do I know. I'm not generally in women's bathrooms. I assume this is what's happening in there.

Second observation: Girls in groups are very in tune with what the other girls in the group are thinking and feeling. Every so often they look around the group, one by one, surveying emotions to see if anyone is unhappy. If everyone seems happy, great, let's keep having fun. If someone is unhappy, well then, why is she unhappy? And more importantly, does she annoy us? If so, her unhappiness annoys us and our annoyance wins out over her unhappiness. If she's justifiably unhappy and we like her (overall) then we need to fix this and are ourselves unhappy until it's fixed. And so on.

If you, a solo guy, spend time with groups of girls, sooner or later you'll find yourself in an eye lock with the girls. Why, you think, are we all looking at each other? Well, simple man, it's because we all care about each other and we all have empathy that we tap regularly. And so we make eye contact with each other now and then to see how everyone is doing. I know this is a simple act but I don't think most guys are aware that it happens. Guys are too focused on making the night a success or too focused on not focusing on anything at all.

At any rate, I pick these things up from time to time and apparently I've started to report my findings. Hey, it passes the time.