Men and stationary objects
Men are strange. They say, “Honey, have you seen my [insert inanimate object here]?“. Everywhere. Let’s define everywhere. Let me...define everywhere. I’m going to go ahead and group all men into this with me since I’m hoping it’s true with others besides me (hint: can I get a little feedback on this one fellas?). According to Merriam-Webster Online everywhere is an adverb that means in every place or part. Taken a step further the root adjective every means complete, or entire.
Ok, so by the male brain’s standards, when pertaining to looking for an object, everywhere, does include quite a bit of square footage. Much to our dismay, this does not include as much area as the textbook definition of the word everywhere. This is where, I’m guessing, lies the problem. A female, or significant other, tends to think of everywhere in the exact context that Merriam and Webster do. As an encompassing body of all the matter contained in this universe and for that matter the next two universes wrapped around this one! Men, on the other hand, think of everywhere as if everything (all objects and I suppose therefore all matter) in the universe is stationary. In geek language we refer to this as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). When we (men) are looking for an object, for instance a new leather jacket at the end of November at 7:30 in the morning in the north western United States, we do not think in layers. At 7:30 in the morning the universe is not a Photoshop file with layers, but rather a slightly distorted, hazy J-peg thumbnail image that is ready for the web. But I digress.
As I tragically avoid the point of this short essay I am, as a man, wondering why when we look for objects, can we not lift things up and look under them? Why can’t we bend over and look under that desk or in the back of that closet? Ultimately it would be to our advantage to do these things rather than taking a quick, and sometimes even quite thorough, scan of our living area in the universe to find these objects? Is it instant procrastination? Simple misjudgement? Or even the imbalance of the chemicals in our brain?
I don’t know. I do know however that this is a very silly reason to wake up your mate at 7:30 in the morning and ask them where the object is hiding. This is a bad thing to do. Not only for the short term goal you have set to find the object, but for the long term relationship that is now at stake for your simple statement of “Honey, have you seen my [insert inanimate object here]?“. Oh man, sometimes I’m such a tool!
November 30th, 2004 at 11:05 pm
I think part of the problem with finding objects at any time of the day or night really lies in the whole cohabitation element of a relationship. Think back to the days when were single. You could find anything you wanted. Why? Simple you knew exactly where you threw it the night before. You knew when you walked in the door first thing that hit the couch other than your backside was your jacket, to use the example given in the story. Now enters woman….who tries, in vain, to break certain habits that are just genetic to men. Men live in a world built on organized chaos, which is fine. At least for me it is but woman must exist in a very different world. Generally this will be the exact opposite of you. So is it really worth waking up your ever so gently sleeping partner in life? YES! Until they (women) understand the delicate balance that a “mans” world is built on. That is their end result for off setting the balance of nature. Sociologists would call this the Functionalist Perspective. A struggle is needed to bring about change. So are you to be held responsible for waking your partner up? No, tell her it is your “jeans” which you can’t seem to find either.