The Female Mind – Why We Read Into Things

Every guy I know is baffled by the amount of THINKING and OVERTHINKING that women do.  Why can’t things be straightforward and simple, the way they are in a man’s brain?   Men seem to ignore anything that doesn’t actively threaten the safety of their loved ones or their egos, but women dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, looking for reasons and answers that sometimes don’t even exist.

When a guy says, “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing,” a woman can’t leave it be.  If he says, “Everything’s going to be okay,” she doesn’t believe him.   Because in her mind, it IS something.  It’s NEVER nothing.  And seriously, if we don’t come up with every possible route that our current situation could take in the future, we have no idea if everything will be okay in the end.  We want to play out all the possibilities in our minds and feel like we’re prepared for the worst, no matter what form it may take.

Part of this comes from the differences in male and female brains in the way that we build intimacy.  Psychologists have realized that men build intimacy with others through shared activities – thus, they feel closest to the people who they do things with.  Women build intimacy with others through sharing of important issues and problems in their lives – thus, they feel closest to the people with whom they share the most emotionally.

Put a man and a woman in a relationship.  As long as they’re doing things together and getting on fairly well, the man will assume that all is well, everything’s going to be okay.  Trouble brewing?  It’s okay, we’ll figure it out, the man thinks.  The woman, however, immediately wants to talk it over with her man.  She wants to go through the details, she wants to share with him and have him share with her.  When he refuses to listen or share his thoughts on the matter, she begins to get anxious and feel less intimately connected with him.

Weird, huh?

Our worrying is our way of trying to connect with you and build intimacy.  Sure, it’s annoying.  Sure, it’s a bit neurotic.  Sure, sometimes it’s borderline crazy.  But in the end, we do it because we care about you and we want to feel close to you.

What can you do to help us?

Listen.  I know this article is taking a kind of serious tone, but this is important, dangit!  The one thing you can do right now to make your woman worry less is to listen more.  Take time to sit down with no distractions and really hear her out when she talks about the things that worry her.  Don’t try to tell her that her fears are unfounded – if she feels them, they’re real.  Share with her any worries you’ve felt on the same subject so she knows you’re with her.  You “get it.”  Then come up with a few options together that will soothe her back into a sense of security and intimacy again.

Get your intimacy meter full and you’ll find that you get more of that OTHER intimacy, too!  Funny how that works, isn’t it?

8 Reasons Why are Girls Always So Cold

I’m sure you’re pretty familiar with this scenario.   It’s bedtime and you and your sweetie hop beneath the sheets to snuggle.  Everything’s fine and good until you are attacked by her ice-cold feet.  “Ooooh,” she says, rubbing those frozen piggies all over you. “You’re so WARMMM! Why are you so warm?  I’m cold!”  Meanwhile you’re torn between wanting to get laid and wanting to kick her frozen ass right out of bed.

Ever wanted to know why women are so darn cold when you’re burning up in the exact same room, wearing similar clothing?  Well, there’s no definite answer, but there are several theories floating around that may interest you:

Women lose heat faster due to a higher ratio of skin surface area to body volume.

The bigger you are, the more heat you produce, but it disappears through your skin.  Since women are on the whole smaller than men, they lose heat faster.

Men have more muscle mass.

Muscles have blood vessels, blood vessels flow with delicious warm blood, thus, the more muscle, the more blood.  The more blood, the more warmth.

Women are built to keep buns warm in the oven.

There’s a neat process called vasoconstriction, by which our bodies cut off blood flow to the skin to keep internal organs and core temperature stable.  Women’s bodies do this at higher temperatures than men, probably as an evolutionary protection mechanism for unborn babies.

Menstruation causes a loss of body heat.

This one hasn’t really been proven, but there are people out there that claim that bleeding for a week (with the ensuing anemia) plus hormonal changes, makes us shivering bitches once a month.

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Men have a higher metabolism.

You’ve heard the analogy – your metabolism is the fire burning in your body, fueling your cells.  Well, if you have a bigger engine, it’s going to put out more heat, right?

Women wear less clothing.

Ah, here’s Captain Obvious to the rescue.  Let’s take John and Sue, typical office monkeys.  It’s August and it’s pretty hot.  John’s business casual outfit involves khaki pants, and undershirt, and a short-sleeved polo shirt.  He wears socks and shoes.  Sue’s business casual outfit involves khaki pants, a sleeveless blouse, and an adorable pair of open-toed heels.  John’s got three extra layers of protection against the A/C blasting at AcmeCo:  an undershirt, socks, and closed-toed shoes.  Not to mention that his cotton blend polo is probably much warmer than her polyester blend blouse.

Eating habits can bring on the chill.

Think about how many times you have heard a woman in your office say, “I haven’t had a bite to eat all day.”  An under-fueled body is a cold body!

Caffeine and alcohol, the silent freezers.

You might think, “But I feel so warm when I drink coffee!”  or “There’s nothing like a shot of Captain to warm you up!”  But in fact, while alcohol and caffeine rush blood to the skin and make you feel warm initially, they actually suck the heat right out of you.  If your Ice Princess is a coffee hound (or a tequila guzzling floozy), this might be the cause of her frozen toesies.

Whatever the reason, it’s a problem that all men (and lesbians) have to deal with – cold feet, cold hands, cold noses, and cold asses.  But hey, you’re sharing a bed with a woman!!  Why are you complaining?

Guys: Ever Wondered Why Girls Have So Many Pairs of Shoes?

I am most definitely NOT a shoe girl, so I had to talk to some of my girlfriends to get the answer to this burning question.  Why do girls have so many pairs of shoes when men can get by with three or four?  Let’s take a look at the “basics” of the shoe collection for your stereotypical shoe-crazy girl:

Flip-flops: We can get away with just basic black, but really, they’re so cheap, we might as well get them in every single color to coordinate with our outfits.

Dress sandals: These are necessary for summer weddings and other dress-up occasions in warm climates.  We can’t wear flip-flops, but we want to show off our adorable painted toenails.

Athletic sneakers: These are the sneakers we wear to the gym.  We may or may not have them in multiple colors to coordinate with our gym outfits.

Crappy sneakers: These are the sneakers we use for yard work or volunteering down at the local middle school doing landscaping.  Often they are old pairs of athletic sneakers.

Dressy sneakers: Totally not appropriate for athletic activities, but for those times we want to look sneaker-casual without wearing actual sneakers.

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Classic black heels:  One pair is sufficient, but we can never turn down a good pair of these.  They work well with everything from jeans to evening gowns.

Classic flats: We have to have flats for occasions where we date men who are too short for us to be able to wear our heels.  (Short men everywhere are grateful that we provide this service!)

Mary Janes:  They’re adorable with their little cross strap and buckle.  A must-have for the school-girl look.

Kitten heels: These are those shoes with tiny heels.  Sometimes in style, sometimes not.  Need to keep them around to be ready for when they are in fashion.

Peep-toe heels:  Peep toe heels are great for Spring, when it’s not quite warm enough for open-toe shoes or dress sandals, but you still want to show off one toenail worth of polish.

Pointy-toed shoes:  Again, sometimes in style, sometimes not.  Gotta be prepared!

Square-toed shoes:  Ditto.  Did I mention that 75% of the shoes we own aren’t worn on a regular basis?

Short Boots:  Best in colors like black or brown, short boots are all the awesome of a boot without the full-calf commitment.

Tall Boots:  Tall can mean anywhere from knee to thigh.  Stripper boots, anyone?

Big goofy slippers: For those times we’re hanging around the house and want giant fluffy bunnies on our feet to cheer us up.

Bridesmaid shoes:  Every girl who has been a bridesmaid has at least one pair of ugly dyed shoes that she had to buy for the wedding and will never wear again.  You guys have it lucky – you can RENT your wedding outfits.

Now, if you take into consideration that most of the shoes listed above need to be had in several different colors.  After all, you can’t wear black shoes with a brown outfit or brown shoes with a black outfit.  White shoes are only appropriate at certain times of the year.  It’s a really messy system, if you take all of these factors into account.  It’s no wonder that some women own ten times as many shoes as their man!

Bottom line, guys.  If you find a woman who has less than twice the amount of shoes that you do, marry that girl.  You’ve found yourself one of the few sensible women (like me!) who have avoided the monster of shoe obsession.

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FINALLY EXPLAINED: Why Girls Don’t Like Porn

Boys, boys, boys.  You have had a long relationship with porn.

It started when you acquired copies of Playboy or Penthouse from your father, or your friend’s father.  You snuck them into your treehouse and you drooled all over the pages.

Then came the internet.  Oh, the glorious, glorious internet.  There were naked women everywhere, doing everything you could ever imagine them doing (and some things you wish you could forget having seen them do).

But the bottom line is this: you’ve been at the porn game for a while.

We ladies on the other hand, haven’t really felt the need to delve into porn.  For one, we were raised to think that someday our prince would come.  He’d sweep us off our feet, there’d be this romantic kiss, and then we’d cut to a scene with all of our little royal children scurrying around our mansion happily.  We grow up fantasizing about the storybook romance.  You grow up fantasizing about getting your hands on giant breasts.

So it makes perfect sense that while you grew up with porn, starting with just sneaking glances at softcore mags and slowly ramping up to utter debauchery on the internet, we ladies are still in the baby stages of erotic entertainment.

In other words, we’re not ready for what you consider to be “good porn.”  We pretty much think that your “good porn” is utter filth.

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For starters, there’s absolutely no plot.

There is no good reason for that girl to be naked while wearing 7 inch glittery stripper heels.  There’s no good reason for her to be blindfolded and leaning over a couch.  And there’s certainly no good reason for her to be crying out in rapturous joy while being taken by a man she’s never met before.  It just doesn’t make sense.

Secondly, there’s absolutely no connection between the people on the screen. (Beyond the obvious bumping of uglies, of course.)

They don’t know each other, they barely talk to one another, and when things are done, there’s no happily ever after.  (No sir, a facial is NOT a happily ever after.)

Want your girl to watch porn with you?

Then you have to put yourself in the wayback machine and dial your tastes back to the stuff you enjoyed in middle school.  You know, before you knew the really raunchy stuff existed. If she’s still balking at the idea of porn videos, why not start with reading some erotica to each other?  There are plenty of websites where you can find erotica and if you look for the ones labeled “Romantic” you’ll get the type of stories that have the plot and connection that she craves along with the naughty bits to rev your engines.

If you want your woman to enjoy the same kind of porn you enjoy, you’ll have to hold her hand and take her on the journey that you made all those years ago.  Develop her tastes in the way yours were developed – except this time, you’ll know which websites you should avoid at all costs.  Happy surfing!

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DEBATE: When You’re Breaking Up With Someone Should You Tell Them You Cheated?

Steve and Liz dated for almost a year before their relationship started to hit the skids.  Over the past month, Liz has become increasingly distant and their arguments went from minor tiffs to major yelling matches.

Liz believes that its time for them to break up and go their separate ways.  However, she is debating if she should bring up the fact that she cheated on Steve about a month ago.  She thinks it could help explain why they have been fighting so much, but is unsure if it’s too much information at this point.

Should Liz tell Steve that she cheated or just keep it to her self?

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A Review of a Kick-Ass Compatibility Test

When I first saw the International Relationship Institutes compatibility test, my first thought was “Why do I need this?”

You see I have been in a great relationship for the past two years and it seems to me we are very compatible.  We enjoying sports (both playing and watching), both work in technology  - even both love jalapenos!  How much more compatible can you be?  Why would I need some “test” to tell me if we’re good for each other? Read more

PODCAST: What Role Does Text Messaging Play in Dating?

In this U Say, I Say podcast we explore the role of texting in relationships.  Do men and women view texting differently?  Does it’s role change from when you’re single to when you’re in a relationship?  Is the “booty blast” an effective means of getting some lovin for the night?  Our panel discusses! Read more

DEBATE: Should Taking Someone’s Last Name Be a Deal Breaker?

Dan, a Boston-born patent attorney in his late 20’s and Susan, a fashion designer in her mid-30’s who owns her own company, have decided to get married after a passionate 6 months of dating. When they subject of Susan taking Dan’s last name came up, Dan insisted on it.  Join the debate!

What Girls Should Know About Long- and Short- Distance Relationships

Long distance relationships can be rough.  You’re totally into this person, but they live miles and miles away so you barely see each other.  There’s a limit to how comforting it is to talk on the phone or via Skype or to type *hugs* in an IM.  Read more

5 Sure-Fire Ways to Handle a Bad Gift Giver

You know what sucks girls?  Getting bad gifts.  You know what sucks even more?  Being a guy and having no idea what to get for your girlfriend/wife/wifey for her birthday/xmas/chanukah.  Read more

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