A plate of spaghetti looks like an uncountable number of discrete strands of spaghetti to a man. A woman knows, in her heart, that there is only one strand of spaghetti and it can be followed, hand-over-hand, from beginning to end.
To a woman, context is EVERYTHING. For example, my mom starts a story with the order that our ancestors disembarked from the boat at Ellis Island. To her, every detail dovetails in a unique way and every dovetail is important for the progression of the story.
This monolithic totality that cannot be teased apart into pithy, self contained anecdotes may be an artifact of how women's minds are wired. In the arch-type prehistoric village the woman watched the children, nursed the babe, tanned the hide and kept the fire going while simultaneously gathered 80% of the family's calories. In her mind, the appearance of a venomous snake is irreversibly tied to the other events. It is all tied together in her mind.
Men, on the other hand, are waffles. We compartmentalize. We can have strawberries in one section of the waffle, pralines in another, whipped cream in a third compartment, Smoky Links in another, a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the fifth, and the sixth can be soaked in Bailey's Irish Cream....and we are happy. Life is good.
While Urda is dispatching the poisonous snake while chewing the hide and nursing the babe, Thog is crawling through spiny bushes, sneakig up on the last mastodon in the valley. He is not thinking about thorns or biting insects. He is not thinking about Urda's desire for a new SUV or the state of his retirement portfolio. He is thinking about the next score.
Men's stories tend to be shorter and more self-contained, at least they are early in the evening before the wine skins are broached.
And thus one of the major differences between women and men is explained.
Nice analogy!
ReplyDeleteNice analogy!
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