The Male Mind Verses The Female Mind

 

The boys found this book in a gas station on a road trip.... their faces speak volumes:) St. George, UT 2014

“So let me get this straight…” Logan begins from the back seat of the car, “She just left the root beer sitting there? She didn’t even drink it?” “Yep!” Spencer confirmed. “But she said she wanted it!!” Logan continued, baffled. “Logan, its time you understood something. Women are incomprehensible!” “In-com-pre-what?” Logan interrupts “Just look at mom!” Spencer continues,  gesturing wildly towards me,  “Sometimes girls say they want something and they don’t want it, or they actually do want it but they think they shouldn’t or what they really want they don’t think they should say that they want and while they're trying to decide what to do, the soda goes flat while all the dudes die of thirst,” Spencer explained, spreading his arms wide as he talked. "Like how mom never orders ice-cream at McDonalds because she doesn't 'want one' but downs my cone before I can even get a lick in?” Logan asks, “Now you're catching on!” Spencer confirms. "Why do women act this way? Are they some type of She-devils? I'm not gonna lie! Trying to figure this out is giving me a headache!” “Join the club brother.” Spencer says while patting him on the back. “Join the club.”

They are right... usually I don't order my own and just eat theirs :) - that 's Logan's cone :) Texas 2015

 

For my sons, (when you are older) an attempt at explaining the unexplainable: The male mind verses the female mind.

The best example I can come up with when thinking about the way a mind works, is to imagine the brain as a post office system; ideas/tasks/emotions/life experiences – the lot of it- are dropped off in a giant humanity mail box, from there they are picked up, sorted, filed and slid into individual PO boxes.  From that “metal brain,” individuals access their “mail” to get the information they are craving.  But, in my experience when ingressing thoughts, emotions or to do lists…our brains react very differently depending on whose picking up the letters.


One of these things is not like the other...sorta the way my whole life has gone...
 (I don't know why when we were making cookies we only made one armless ghost) Texas 2014

Having spent my whole life surrounded by men (luck-eeeeee) I've learned -for the most part- men are very straight forward. These observations are backed by hard scientific facts. Men utilize nearly seven times more gray matter than women. Gray matter areas are localized pockets of information and action processing; which translates into men functioning in a type of tunnel vision when they are doing a task. For example, when they wake up in the morning they mentally search through their inbox until they find the envelope entitled “Wake up.” They slide it from its spot, slip it open, read through, and check off the instructions:



Logan's to do list..."Skip school, check, play video games, check,
be a good boy and do homework seem to have been prematurely
crossed off the list. Texas 2014

Morning Routine

1)      Hit snooze

2)      Do a cautionary check to see if you might get lucky.

3)      Oh well. Get out of bed.

4)      Scratch nether regions.

5)      Stretch, yawn, moan, and make Chewbacca noises.

6)       Shower. Dry off. Get dressed.

7)       Find black socks.

8)      Put toilet paper on razor cut.

9)      Wipe toothpaste off chin.

10)   Flip on TV and check the news.   

11)    Eat cereal.

12)    Grab briefcase.

13)   Climb in car.

14)     Drive to work.

 Morning routine. Check! (There are other subcategory envelopes entitled, “Weekend Morning” or “It isn’t your birthday but you’re getting Lucky this morning, possibly because you did the dishes last night! Don’t blow it!” that have different applicable checklists).  Throughout the day, envelopes are opened in a straight forward manner, information accessed, check lists checked and the envelope is closed and returned to its dedicated slot. It’s neat. It’s efficient. It’s uncomplicated.



Late night hanging with some of my favorite brains (my oldest and youngest brothers) Utah 2014

Now it’s not to say the male mind doesn’t think deeply or delve into complicated matters, but overall, men would like to keep it simple (chillax) which means they’d 10,000,000 times rather pull out the envelope entitled “Buying Video Games” than the envelope titled, “Let’s talk about our relationship.” For him, it’s simple math, “Time for a sandwich” Or “Getting lucky at Bedtime” is so much more appealing than “Analyzing what you meant when you said a gym membership would probably be  a good idea for your spouse” and also the “So…you’re sleeping on the couch now” envelope.

There are all sorts of envelopes in the male PO Box, including a letter with a bold toxic biohazard skull emblazoned across the front entitled, “Dealing with PMS.” But the check list is blank on this paper, and in its place is a rudely sketched escape route to the underground bomb shelter built in secret (naturally it's done in invisible ink and you have to brush it with lemon juice to reveal the map). The male mind thinks the envelope system is lovely; and in truth I ENVY the straight forward nature of the male mind. You got a problem? Here’s a solution! Because when I pick up the mail, my experience is entirely different.

The male mind: You want a donut, you eat a donut. Simple Simon! Texas 2014

My mind (me being the female in this scenario) - my envelope system- does not work this way. Because while my brain is still a post office, I still have envelopes, I just have 872,766,999 envelopes, (all opened at the same time) and they aren’t made up of simple check lists, but rather paragraph upon paragraph of instruction tied to emotion and the motivation behind actions and a chunk of them are unreadable because tears have made the ink run.  They are paragraphs upon paragraphs upon paragraphs long. And they start with phrases like, “What I’ve realized is…” or “Note to self...” There is no systematic checking off of lists in this post office mind of mine… because each word in each list is highlighted in blue and a link, click on that word and it sparks a connection to another word in another list on another letter. This process of hyper linking from topic to topic like Frogger when he's crossing  traffic continues until my post office looks like the room from “It’s a Beautiful Mind” with red ribbons leading to haphazardly ripped photos and torn pages of instruction stapled to a bulletin board with wide, bold marker scribbles listing further instructions. My mind looks like something exploded in the post office…because everything is connected to everything… one thought leads to another thought then another and another. You open up one letter and immediately it’s like you fell down the rabbit hole. And see, it’s not just me! Scientist explain the female mind utilizes up to 10 times more white matter then men. White matter is the networking grid that connects the brains and other processing centers with one another; which translated means girls tend to be in a perpetual state of multi-tasking.

Ummmm.... Housekeeping?

For example, last week when I was at the grocery store, I happened to think, “What should I make for dinner?” (I know this might seem like a misplaced idea being in the grocery store and all but go with me on this). So, like a man, I opened the letter entitled “Dinner time” but upon reading the first word, “Decide what to make for dinner,” the word “dinner” reminded me that I’d both invited the missionaries over for dinner, (open the “trying to get into heaven” envelop) and I’d volunteered to take dinner to a friend who just had a baby (slide out that “friendship envelope”). So then because I invited the missionaries over, I opened the “Clean the house envelope” and the “Dinner other than ramen noodles” envelope and as a sub-list from the clean the house envelope I opened the “Clean the bathroom” envelope, which made me think about how BADLY my oldest son’s aim is … so then I started thinking about his gross motor skills and how I should probably check into OT again,  so I opened the “OT envelope” and then the word OT sparked a memory that I was suppose to get Spencer’s eye hand coordination tested again because of the missing vision in his right eye. Then the missing vision made me yank out the “guilt envelope” (which is always in a highly accessible spot and never grows dusty from being ignored too long) because I bought the stupid bungee cords that caused the missing vision in the first place. (The guilt envelope is actually the size of a dissertation, which is why I may have looked stoned on the cereal aisle, as my brain downloaded the guilt upgrades). So then I spent a few moments in the fetal position, blocking traffic by the milk (The fetal position envelope is well worn with photos and step by step instructions of how to rock back and forth properly). But then the fetal position reminded me that I was taking dinner to the woman who is struggling with post-partum depression so I’d better pull out the “Chocolate envelope” from its slot. (Sigh. That’s a good envelope) and then while I was drooling over the chocolate envelope, I remembered I needed to make cupcakes for the PTA bake sale tomorrow, (cue  the “PTA envelope” which try as I might, I can’t EVER misplace :) and while debating if I should make chocolate frosting because it’s so messy, the word messy linked me to the “laundry envelope” as I remembered I forgot to put Logan’s football pants in the dryer (slide out the “drop things off at school” envelope). And so, within the course of 1 minute, I have scattered all over my post office brain 13 opened envelope, one dissertation on guilt, and one how to rock in the fetal position diagram. And it’s only 9 am. My brain constantly looks like the floor of the New York stock exchange. And that tornado of information was spurred by the simple question, “What should I make for dinner?”

I LOVE Logan's sense of humor.... "Attempting to care -loading- please wait." I think this was after I asked him to work on his homework... Love this boy! Texas 2014

And that’s just for nominal tasks! Don't even get me started on my analyzing skills! Another skull and cross envelope is a worm hole, a black hole envelope, titled, "Interpreting what he thinks.” This envelope is a disaster because it’s written in Latin, (and I don’t speak Latin) and never goes well, partly because women process more of the bonding chemical oxytocin, so we have more emotional connectivity than men. Additionally, females have verbal centers on both hemispheres of the brain, where as men only have one on the left hemisphere. Meaning, girls tend to use more words when discussing incidences, and attach emotion to almost all interactions. Men, not only have fewer verbal centers but have less connectivity between their word centers and their memories, meaning girls LOVE to discuss feelings and emotions and senses tied to their experiences, whereas men, often... do not (AND, when it comes to analyzing what he thinks, it’s helpful if you both spoke the same language. Rosetta Stone this may be an untapped market).

Hanging with my sister-in-laws, finally my brothers got something right :) St.George UT 2014

Because of the way my mind works, I sometimes run into trouble when trying to dissect a situation. For example, right after we got married, we were driving home from a night out and Russ was unusually quiet. I asked a few probing questions, but he seemed listless, and brushed them off. Well, my multi-tasking, emotion fueled mind assigned eight hundred potential possibilities for his behavior, and by the time we'd reached home, I’d surmised our marriage was over because of X Y and Z.  Meanwhile, Russ was utterly DUMBFOUNDED when I exploded in the driveway about "how can you just let our marriage fall apart and not even say anything?" As it turned out, he'd just been mourning the fact that I ate all of his chocolate cake at dinner (when I specifically said I was full and DIDN’T want to order any desert!).

Train 'em up young...shopping in Paris 2015

In conclusion, I think the best part about the male brain is that men have an envelope that is titled, “NOTHING.” And when they open it, it’s just a blank page. This is their favorite envelope. And they really can just shut down, think about nothing, zone out, take a load off, relax, unwind, chill. And that’s not meant as a SLAM….I long for that envelope! (I have sixteen varieties of "EVERYTHING" one in chineese just in case). Because my mind is endlessly making lists…I wake up at three am and I’ve already got a dictionary going for what I need to do for tomorrow: check, check, check, check (tick tick tick tick) (facial tick or time clock you decide).

Then, as a side note, please examine exhibit A, the autistic male mind…. (Or at least the autistic minds that I deal with). Which magnifies this letter rule honor system to a laser focused power of 3000…. and then maybe you will understand why it was a cruel twist of fate to give my children me for a mother because I am utterly baffling to them. “I thought you said we were having pork chops for dinner and this is soup….?” (“Because –duh-  I forgot to buy the pork chops because I was too busy buying army soldiers to make a land form project, and am using the cookie sheets for salt dough so I couldn’t make fish sticks and besides reading appendix A of the guilt dissertation takes a chunk of time! So eat your Campbells and simmer down!”). Such a wonderful magical thing… the male mind. It’s not caked with dried flecks of fruity pebbles, or salt dough. It doesn't have red ribbon leading from one synapsis to the next. And it says, “Turn off mind” when sleep is next on the list of what to do.


Mmmmmmm estrogen! Celebrating turning forty with my girls!
(And celebrating people who think like me )
Jackson, WY 2015

 “So why do we put up with it? Logan asked baffled

“I don’t know. Why do you let mom lick your ice cream cone when you want it all for yourself?” Spencer probed.

“Because I love her and I don’t want to make her feel bad if I initiated a smack down situation.”

“See? That’s why, because we love them.” Spencer agreed.

“So what you’re saying is, don’t expect a second glass of root beer, and not to freak out when she doesn’t drink hers?” Logan confirmed.

“No, I’m saying not to freak-out when she throws it in your face.” Spencer answered matter-of-factly.

Why would she throw it in my face? Logan wondered.

“You can’t ever be sure.” Spencer said.

“So you’re saying I should just buy my own root beer and hide it under my bed?” Logan asked.

“No.” Spencer said, patting him on the back.  “What I’m saying is … RUN!
 

Love these beautiful minds! Texas coast 2015