Men's Guide to Women

Uh Oh. She is mad. What’s worse is she is mad at me. Oh hell.

What did I do? I honesty can’t think of anything. Did I miss a call? No. Did I miss an anniversary or birthday? No, I am covered there. Did I miss a “family dinner” or something? No…

I could sit for hours working on this, doing nothing except thinking about what I could have possibly done to offend. I am not going to do it, though, because I am a pro, all I need to do is wait.

Sure enough, half an hour later I hear the foot steps of a female meaning business.

I strap on my helmet and silver fire retardant suit and get ready for the flame throwing to commence.

Very matter of factly she demands “Who is Wendy?”

To which I respond with the only honest answer I have “I don’t know, unless you are talking about the girl on the hamburger place sign.”

The Wendy I was Thinking About

This is never a good time for humor, but I cannot not resist. She feels belittled and insulted now. She is beginning to glow a light shade of red. Normally this would be very bad if I had actually done anything wrong.

“Seriously, I do not know who Wendy is.” I respond trying to reduce the glow. I am always working to reduce the glow, man.

“What’s this?” She flings a receipt at me from a restaurant, signed in big letters “Wendy” at the bottom with a big heart drawn on the paper with “Luv Ya!” scribbled beside it.

“What, you are upset about how the waitress signed the bottom of the ticket?” I say in a completely “you have to be kidding me with this” tone in my voice. To me this is a joke, but as evidenced by the lava leaking out of her ears this is still serious business.

Because of my TONE, not my words, what she heard was:

“You are an idiot to feel this way because there is nothing to it, you are angry for no reason and it is not even worth discussing.”

Bad move on my part because she has officially left the atmosphere, head glowing a bright bubble gum pink. This happened not because of the actual issue; no it happened because of the TONE SHE HEARD in my voice.

Can of WhoopassNow there will be no chance of a simple resolution until she cools off, but that is not going to happen. She has officially entered stage 2. The booster rockets are coming off and she is now a serious can of whoop ass traveling at 17,000 miles an hour.

Stage 2 is when I bring my chair forward, get my tray in the upright and locked position, make sure my seat belt is securely fastened, and acknowledge that my seat cushion can be used as a floatation device if things get really out of hand. Stage 2 is when my female starts coming unhinged and leaves the original topic of the argument for all points south. It took me ten years to spot this little detour but I finally found it.

“How dare you tell me how to feel. There is something wrong here and you are not telling me the truth, just like that time we went to dinner with my mother…”

Normally I have missed this subtle change in the conversation because she is attacking me and I am defending myself with whatever evidence I have at hand, which is never sufficient because I am battling a feeling. Nope, no winning that one. Took me seven years to learn that one.

Now the oxygen masks drop out of the ceiling. I need oxygen. I need to breathe slowly and deeply.>

While I am defending myself and getting angry, I miss the fact that she has changed course on me while I was thinking of what to say next. I might be the first man to admit he wasn’t listening.

Did you see it in what she said?

“How dare you tell me how to feel.” Is what she said.

Now, does this have anything to do with a stupid receipt that got this party started? Nope.

Should I ignore the diversion? I tried that once but got accused of “Not listening to her.” Need some more practice on that one.

Remember, though, this is easy stuff to grasp when you are not flaming hot yourself, but it takes a lot of brain power to follow this when your hair is on fire and lava is leaking out of your ears.

Your natural response is “I am not telling you how to feel. I never said that” because you did not actually say that, but she heard that in your tone. I am never successful arguing over my tone. That is the same as arguing over her feelings, completely pointless. When that happens, time to cut bait.

What I should say is “I am not telling you how to feel (keep talking before she jumps in) I am telling you that if we can calm down a bit I think you will see things a bit differently. (The “we” is the operative word here; do not under any circumstance use the word “you.” That would take you to stage 3 which is so bad I am not even going to write about it.)

After I have responded with the above sentence, one of two things happens.

1. Here comes another left turn. “I do not need to see things differently, I see things real clear right now.” This was never a question about her vision, but she now seems to think so and off we go again in the weeds. At this point my natural instinct is to shut down.

2. “OK, then, tell me what this means.” She says still breathing hard, blood vessels popping, but it looks like auto pilot has engaged and she is coming back down to earth.

With autopilot engaged and calm returning to the room, regular conversations can begin. In this instance she was mad because I tipped the waitress well, the waitress wrote that stuff on the bottom of the ticket, and the restaurant was Hooters (Which I called in advance to tell her I was meeting the guys there just to try and avoid any hint of suspicion. Didn’t work and I got no points for my efforts but lost a bunch in the argument. See the Guy Rules and the Points System for how to recover.) All settled. No harm. No foul.

If she had persisted in attacking me with the unrelated crap, talking about my tone, me telling her how to feel, or anything related to HOW we are arguing instead of the content of the disagreement, I would most likely say…

“OK. I am done. I am out of here. I will be back later.”

This would infuriate her more but when she is arguing about stuff that is so far off of the point you have to do something to stop it, even if it is nothing.

You cannot wade in and deal with anything she is saying when she starts talking about her feelings or things that cannot be quantified. You either have to apologize to quell the situation, which is in many cases an admission of guilt regardless of the truth potentially reinforcing more of this behavior later.

Another tact would be to try to get to the specifics of her feelings and why she feels the way she does. That sounds easy, but it is very difficult to get to her feelings without looking like you are invalidating them, trying to tell her what to feel, or what she is supposed to be thinking. Step on any of those land mines and the process will start all over again.

If you have not diffused the situation by the time it gets to this point, she very well may start breaking out the super evil words that slice and dice your insides using everything she can dig out of her memory banks to try and hurt you.

And some women wonder why we never open up to them completely and share our deepest feelings.

Tread carefully because this is where permanent damage can be done, specifically if you start firing back at her with all of the insecurities she has about herself. It is a tempting pile of ammunition but you need to stay away.

There is one more half step before you go all out nuclear, and that is the “Cold War” option. This is where you hint at your incredible arsenal of insecurity ammunition in silos aimed at her, in hopes she will stand down.

Do not ever fire these weapons under any circumstances as you could vaporize the foundation of a twenty year marriage over a $20 dollar receipt.

There are no winners in that deal.

Now that you know some of the signs, your job is to learn your particular female’s methods of attack. Try to avoid arguments all together (See Guy Rule #1) but if you must get sucked in, keep your wits about you and make sure you talk only about the specific issue at hand, find polite effective ways to try and keep her on topic, tabling everything else until cooler minds prevail.

Finally, some women and men are prone to violence when the arguments get heated. Men have a tendency to want to force their will upon someone if it comes down to it because that is how we act with other guys. This is the grown up version of “Do it because I said so.” that we heard so often as children.

If violence is the only tool left in your tool box, you either need to learn to use some new tools, hire a professional, or replace the leaky faucet.

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