Men, Women, and the Colour Problem
My first attempt at writing a ‘Blog’. What a grotesque word! It may be something that gets covered a great deal but it stares me in the face anyways, everyday.
I have noticed something over the years, and before anyone writes in, no, I do not have a study, a chart, or a panel of experts in white coats to back it up. I have only life, which is usually far more convincing anyway.
When men speak and listen, they tend to do so in black and white.
When women speak and listen, they tend to do so in colour.
Now this is not a criticism. It is simply an observation, like noticing that Labradors like mud or that toast always lands butter-side down, preferably on a new carpet.
A man will hear a sentence and immediately begin assembling a solution. It is almost automatic. A problem appears and the brain, helpfully but disastrously, begins to fix it.
A woman, meanwhile, may not be presenting a problem at all. She may simply be thinking out loud, examining possibilities, turning ideas over like stones on a beach.
This is where the trouble starts.
She is speaking in colour.
He hears only black and white.
He offers a solution.
At which point she looks at him with the weary expression of someone who has just asked for a cup of tea and been handed a detailed blueprint for a hydroelectric dam.
She retreats in exhaustion.
He retreats in confusion.
Both are absolutely certain the other one is mad.
If you doubt this phenomenon, I suggest you conduct a small experiment. The next time someone begins a sentence with, “I was just thinking…,” do not reply with, “Well what you should do is…”
Just nod. Say nothing. It will feel unnatural at first, rather like driving on the wrong side of the road, but it can be done.
Of course, nowadays one must be careful even to mention men and women in the same sentence without attaching several paragraphs of disclaimers. We live in an age in which language itself has become a minefield. Step in the wrong place and someone explodes.
Take grammar, for instance.
Not long ago I came across a sentence in my son‘s English textbook that read: “They is going to school.” Personal pronouns are necessary for some people regardless of the complete strangeness. I, for example am a him/his person. Straight up no monkey business.
Anyways, I stared at it for some time, assuming I had misread it or that the book had been printed during a minor earthquake. But no, there it was, calmly ignoring several centuries of grammatical agreement.
When I mentioned this to his teacher, she looked at it, blinked, and said, “That can’t be right.” Then she read it again and fell silent, as though she had just discovered that gravity was now optional on Thursdays.
This, I think, is how most change actually happens. Not through grand declarations, but quietly, in small steps, until one day you wake up and discover that the rules you grew up with have been replaced while you were making coffee.
Now before anyone misunderstands me, courtesy costs nothing. If someone prefers to be addressed in a particular way, it requires very little effort to be polite. Civilization after all, is mostly just a long list of small courtesies performed daily so that we do not all end up shouting at one another in the street.
But it is also true that most ordinary people are not ideological warriors. They are simply trying to get through the day, raise their children, fix the leaking tap, and occasionally remember where they left their glasses. They are not engaged in linguistic revolution; they are engaged in life.
And in life, certain patterns still appear with remarkable consistency.
Men still try to fix things that were never broken.
Women still sometimes want to be heard rather than repaired.
And both still end up wondering why communication, which seems so simple in theory, is so baffling in practice.
Perhaps the real lesson is this: the world is not black and white, and it is not entirely in colour either. It is something messier than that. A sort of smudged painting in which the lines blur, the colours run, and nobody quite agrees on what the picture is supposed to be.
And perhaps that is fine.
After all, if men and women truly understood each other perfectly, there would be far fewer arguments.
But there would also be far fewer stories, far fewer jokes, and far fewer of those moments, late at night, when you lie awake wondering how a conversation about buying milk somehow turned into a debate about the meaning of life.
And frankly, the world would be a much duller place.
Andreas
Recommend0 recommendationsPublished in Senior Chatters
Interesting blog – yes ‘that word’ which it’s taken me a long time to get used to myself. Much of what you say I do associate with completely. Except… perhaps my partner and I are the wrong way round then? Ooer!! From your description and designations, I’m in colour and she’s black and white. True! All too often I dare not say things to her because she’ll be trying to fix something about it, whereas she might be telling me something which I will listen and acknowledge without trying to counter it in any way, but she will then try to draw me into a debate about it by saying something like “don’t you have an opinion?” To which I might reply “Let me think on it for now” in the hope it’ll get dropped with the passing of time…😂
@dj You’re a lucky man! Those exist too, may it stay that way.
My ears don’t always feel lucky 😆
That was a very insightful blog and I am in full agreement with most of it. Except with the ‘retreating in either exhaustion or confusion’. I am incredibly lucky in that my partner and I can talk nonstop on every subject concerning us, under the sun. Usually, in the wee small hours, however I have noticed that, on more than one occasion, my ‘droning’ on has sent him to sleep, after a busy day and a couple of glasses of malt. Bless him ! 😍 I’ve no doubt however, it helps that, most of our opinions coincide. 🤔
@scorpio you are very fortunate. May I ask did you start out that way with each other or mold into it over time?
Casting, my somewhat elderly brain, back over 30 years I can honestly say we were in sync from the very start. I am extremely fortunate 💞
@Andreas What a great description of our different ways of thinking and communicating. Not read anything so accurate since Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. John Gray 2008. For me it was life changing. I learnt to ‘score points’ differently, Giving them for what my nearest and dearest did; instead of taking them away for what he didnt say. His way of showing love. Taking out the bins in all weather, carrying all the heavy stuff, walking the dog in the rain. Can you hear I dont like bad weather. Did he read the book? Did he listen to my eureka learnings. Of course not. Does he understand me any better after 50 years I dont know. But he does send me to bed when it gets really really rough out at sea. And thats pretty close to the top of my list of reasons for loving him.
I guess that helps me, respond to your ‘politically correct’ if not ‘grammatically correct’ pronouns. I think maybe actions should speak louder than words. It would be lovely if we all said exactly what the other person wanted to hear all the time. But if we all allow each other to be who we are and respect and value each other; Maybe some slack should be allowed on the wording, which is ever changing unlike human nature.
@tjay thanks for the compliment. It took me a while to write this, a lot of frustration in organising my thoughts, not sound too gloomy about the whole thing, not write silly jokes that aren’t funny even with exclamation marks, ect. Anyway, I think you can probably deduce that after 21 ears of marriage to my 3rd wife things are pushing and pulling at the moment. (Nr2 became way too successful for the likes of me, and Nr 1 died some time ago) I’ve heard a lot of positive things about the book you mentioned. Maybe I’ll give it a read too, leaving it to lay around the house for others to read….
You’re write very well.
And I tend to agree with what you have written.
I think sometimes we need to explain things and that just take it the wrong way.
Like saying
I understand you want to help me, but I would like you just to listen to me and try to sympathize some.
I wish I would have did that in my early days of marriage it would probably stopped a lot of arguments before they started.
Thanks for posting I enjoyed reading it.
Makes me think of a drawing; the black & white outlines, like a frame for the details. Then fill the spaces with color, it enriches the image. I know it can be hard for men & women to communicate sometimes but, IMO, worth it. We each bring something unique & necessary to the picture.
For a first blog post I really enjoyed it. Better than my first one I wrote a few minutes ago haha.