Some free advice for the ladies

Ladies, if I may, I would like to offer some free relationship advice.

I would like to talk about communication between men and women — neither of whom actually speak the same language.

Men can communicate, but not in the same way you ladies can. When guys get together, there is tremendous communication about important things like hockey, cars, the job and other important matters.

What men rarely talk about is emotions.

"Y'know Bob, when you said my mustache looked cheesy, it made me feel all bad inside. It made me feel less attractive."

"I'm sorry, Frank, I meant it as a joke. C'mere, gimme a hug. I love you, man."

I have never, and I mean ever, been a part of such a conversation and I have been a guy for as long as I can remember.

Because men rarely talk to each other about emotions and feelings and all that gooey stuff, we are not very good at talking to our spouses about those same topics.

Women talk freely about their feelings and emotions and how their emotions make them feel. 

Practice makes perfect, and when it comes to talking about inner-most feelings, men are sadly out of practice, while women could make it an Olympic event.

My wife could easily make the national team on sharing feelings, while I would be relegated to the water boy. 

So here is where I will impart my meagre wisdom upon the world, even if it doesn't want it.

When it comes to talking about feelings and emotions, ladies, I implore you to talk slowly, use simple terms and most importantly of all never assume we know how you feel, because we don't — ever.

It is not that men are dumb (I know, there's lots of room for argument there), or we don't care (still more room), it's just we can't pick up subtle hints the lady in our life thinks is a blaring clue as to what is wrong.

If there is a problem, subtle hints work about as well as trying to knock out an elephant with a feather.

But if you say it in simple, straight-forward terms, the chances are much better our man brains will be able to connect with that little, tiny, miniscule part of our grey matter that controls emotions.

Yes, men (most men anyway) do have an area where they can look at and examine their emotions.

It is typically buried under a pile of brain clutter consisting of information about motorcycles, hockey, movies and why beer and nachos are possibly the greatest food combination ever devised.

But once you get through all that stuff, the emotional brain does exist. But subtle hints have little chance of getting past all the other things we find interesting and important.

Not that our significant other's feelings are not important, they are, honest, really, I mean that, but over the centuries men have had to concern themselves with matters other than our emotions such as hunting for food, defending their land from attacking hoards and watching the play offs.

I doubt there is a man alive, now or throughout history, who has not had the line, “Well, you should know how I feel” dropped on them.

We don't know. It's that simple.

After many years of marriage, I can tell when something is bothering my wife and she has learned subtle hints don't work and the direct approach is most often used.

See how it works?

My wife tells me how she is feeling and I recognize how she is feeling and then we have a big, happy talk about how she is feeling. I apologize for whatever it was that made her feel that way and life can get on as normal.

Copyright 2017, Darren Handschuh