guys and gals

i think i have alluded to this in previous blogs and conversations with others, but i have finally figured out what the difference between women and men is, and i'll give you a hint - it's not anatomy (actually it is anatomy, but that seems a bit obvious to cover in this space. that, and i was terrible at anatomy, so i'd rather not try to discuss anything related to it at length for fear of being discovered as a fraud)

the main difference between girls and guys is level of interest. guys obsess, and girls dabble.

what do you mean, justin? (and before i get going here, know that this is not meant to be offensive to any person or group of persons. i like to stereotype. it's what i do. some call that wrong, but i call it my natural tendency and a fun way to pass the time. also, none of this has anything to do with my wife, who somehow breaks many of the guy/girl rules, and that is why i love her so...)

i have met, known, been best friends with guys who are obsessed with the following things: sports, records, movies, fine wine/beer, theology, computers/gaming, technology in general, skydiving and extreme sports, classic car restoration, weight-lifting, tattoos, getting drunk, marijuana usage, literature, bicylcle riding and a bevy of other interests i don't care to mention now.

i have met, known and been married to women who are obsessed with the following things: shoes, cooking (that one is heidi), losing weight, clothes, and getting tan.

do you notice a fundamental difference here? chicks don't get obsessed with stuff. you don't meet the girl who hasn't seen the sun for three weeks because she's locked herself in her mom's basement playing 'call of duty 4' or 'world of warcraft.' girls don't walk around in public wearing jerseys of professional quarterbacks and small forwards (unless said jerseys are pink, which is awesome. (note to reader, since i assume some comment will come regarding comment about about pink jerseys being awesome on a girl, let me tell you now that this comment was made in jest)). how many times have you walked into a girl's apartment and immediately been confronted by a 13,000 record collection? how many girls walk around quoting lines from the latest judd apatow movie and go home each night to a dvd collection of over 100? ever met a girl who couldn't stop talking about her golf score? how about the day after a game 7 loss to another team... how many times does a lady call in sick to work because she "just can't get over how devastating that loss was..."

this doesn't mean that girls don't have interests. it doesn't mean that girls don't care about important things (look at the list of things i attribute to guys... not exactly the mother theresa list of things to care about). i'm also not saying that girls can't be interested in things. they can and most certainly are. but girls dabble in many interests. so many, that it's impossible to even begin to record them here. most girls have at least 4,000 pairs of shoes. how do you decide which pair to wear each day? that's crazy to me. i have worn black chuck taylors for the last 10 years, without variance. i'm obsessed. don't give me choices. i don't do well with choices.

what conclusion can we draw from this observation? i'm not too sure. i know that dudes have the ability to get along much easier than broads (wikipedia defines broad: "a woman of lesser class then a lady but higher class then a bitch." that one's for you, brian.) because chances are you share at least one obsession with every fella you meet on the street. girls have to work too hard to find common ground to start on:

girl #1 "so, what kind of shoes are those?"

girl #2 "they're vintage, you wouldn't recognize the brand."

girl #1 "oh." (why can't i get away from shoe comments when talking about females? seriously.)

on the flip side, let's ease drop on a classic dude conversation:

guy #1 "what's up man?"

guy #2 "freakin' bengals, man... 0-7."

guy #1 (excited and raising his voice) "i know man! can you even believe that. to make things worse, you've got the entire media reporting on every insignificant detail of the dallas cowboys and jay glazer reporting every time brett favre sneezes. if it weren't for the improbable rise to greatness of the tampa bay rays, i would give up all hope..."

guy #2 (interrupting due to surge of joy) "that's what happens when you live in the entertainment age. used to be that the average middle american worked hard to sustain and build a family and sunday was a singular day in the week to come together in a social context with his neighbors and family to enjoy a competition of juggernauts and gladiators. due to the cable networks complete reliance upon "new" stories to keep the average viewer returning, the typical american is innundated with mundane and mindless trivia they try to call news. that's why i dig the new tv on the radio album, dear science, so much, because i think it captures the struggle of the modern man and woman. sure, bands like deerhunter and of montreal tell a story as well, but it far less transcendent."

guy #1 (urinating on himself now). see, that's what i'm talking about. a movie like 'forgetting sarah marshall,' or 'knocked up' shows the plight of the average american man as placed in that position by society. it's funny because it's real and it's sad because it's true. we live in a world now that rewards men for being "emotional and understanding" and rejects the heroes of old; guys like stallone, seagal, willis and schwarzenegger. everything is reversed. that's why i just sit in my apartment and smoke weed while playing halo 3. neil postman had it right in "amusing ourselves to death" when he said that we are now in the entertainment age, not the information age as once thought. do you really think anybody is any smarter now than they were before the internet? the human mind can't begin to hold onto all of the info that assaults it every day. like trying to get a sip of water from the firehose... you know what i mean?"

guy #2 i get it man. you're speaking my language. what did you say your name was again? we should hang out some time. maybe drink a few pumpkin beers and play some madden or something..."

do you see the difference between guy talk and girl talk? it's so painfully obvious.

it should be noted, at this point, that i am a male. being a male, i am most certainly excluded from the female race (it's not a race, is it? gender would have worked better there). it's possible that i'm wrong on this one, but i don't think so. my wife is taking a nap right now, or i would ask her if i am right or wrong. i'm going to go ahead and be a maverick and just his "publish post" without any confirmation. (you see what it happeing here? i'm already obsessing over whether i should discuss this with a female or not before making it public! i'm my own case study. fascinating!)

dames just typically don't get into stuff the way boys do. i don't know why this is, but it just is, and that should be enough. if i were to get all "scientific method" on this i'd feel pretty good about my question of origin and background research (28 years of being a dude and being around girls is a lot of research). my hypothesis has been constructed, but i lack an experiment that will test my hypothesis. screw it, i'll just analyze data from my frivelous background research and draw a short-sighted and possibly erroneous conclusion. you are currently enjoying the communication of my results, so 5 out of 6 in the scientific method, not bad (maybe i learned something from freshman science afterall)

now, perhaps your thinking, "justin, what is it you are trying to say? something tells me that you're going to make some grand point about how guys are better than girls..."

obviously i'm not going to make that point. as a matter of fact, in honor of this election season in which nobody makes any points, and no stance is ever taken on any issue, i'm just going to make this point (in a presidential-hopeful tone):

"people of america. men and women are different. if i am elected president, i promise to uphold and promote that difference as much as i am able. unless you don't want me to uphold that difference... then i promise to make sure everythink is homogenized, because i care about the american people. unlike my opponent who doesn't like women. or men. or puppies. he is evil, and that is why you should vote for me... because i'm not evil."