Secrets from The Man-ual, Part III

It may have taken a while, but I am coming through as promised with Part III of my three part series, Secrets from The Man-ual: Shawn Defies His Brethren.

If you missed the lead in, I asked for and received questions regarding all of the weird, quirky and annoying things the men in your life do that drive you nuts.  Now, I’m answering.  

The first round of answers can be found here and the second round here.

Women complain about their husbands all the time men never complain about their wives.

Simple, really: we love you more than you love us.  That, and we are afraid you have somehow bugged us and can hear and see everything we do.  

Why can’t men seem to multi-task? I get 10 things done at once but my husband seems unable to talk on the phone while cooking. 

I am fairly interested in generational studies.  One generational trait I find particularly interesting is the claim that Mil
lenials (the young whipper-snappers in high school today) can only function if they are multi-tasking.  

This means they have to have the TV on while they are chatting on MSN Messenger while they are texting six of their friends while they are watching a music video on youtube while they are eating a hot pocket.  

I find this idea of multi-tasking as a way of life particularly interesting, especially given the absurdity of it all.  Let’s face facts – to do something properly, you have to devote your entire attention to that task.  Dividing your attention means dividing the efficacy of the result and delaying the completion of the task.  The brain simply can’t do two things at once, let alone three of four things at once.

Now, if I can recall some of the basics from my university Logic course: “If A then B, and if B then C, then A has to equal C.”

So, if multi-tasking is inefficient, and men don’t multi-task, men are therefore not inefficient.  

Not inefficient is the same as efficient.  

I rest my case. 

How come you “tidy up” and then we can never find anything? / Why do men have “object blindness” and can’t find anything?

We don’t tidy up because we have object blindness and can’t find anything. 

Why can’t a man have the same standard of cleanliness as a woman?

Let’s do a quick comparison of cleanliness habits…

Women: You take twice as long to shower as we do, thereby consuming twice as much water.  You then use all kinds of chemicals in your hair that volumize, set and enhance the look but leave me gagging as I walk through a plume of sticky mist… a plume that you seem all too happy to have all over your skin, despite the use of expensive moisturizers to prevent exactly what that plume is inflicting on your skin.  Ironic?  Yes.  

Then you apply loads of makeup which may not be tested on animals, but definitely contains all kinds of animal bits (look it up lipstick wearers).  

Sure, real clean outcome.  Total daily allotment of time: 90 minutes.

Men: We shower in under 5 minutes with the same outcome – a clean body.  Then we shave the parts people can see (and before you go groaning, don’t pretend you don’t do the exact same thing) and throw some gel in our hair.  

Total time: 20 minutes.  

If my math is correct, and it rarely is, that means women spend about 35 days MORE THAN MEN do every year, getting clean and ready for the day.  In my world, a little dirt is well worth that month of my time to say, spend with my daughter.

Advantage, dirty men.  

How is it – that a man can be uber-educated (i.e 3 degrees) but unable to figure out how to make a “school lunch”. I just dont get it.

Unless one of those degrees is in Nutrition or Biology, the answer is pretty simple: most men can’t put together a proper lunch with the 4 food groups.  So, we could make a school lunch, but it would contain a bag of chips (vegetable), a Fruit Roll Up (fruit) and two slices of bread with butter (double whammy, grains and dairy).  

But then, when the school calls with concerns over the content of said lunch, you’d probably get mad at us despite our best efforts, so we just don’t bother.    

Another “I can’t believe it” is when they will step over an item on the floor or stairs to get to their destination rather than picking it up or bringing it up. Must be somewhat related to not finding anything that is right in front of them. One has to ignore it in order not to find it.

The answer here is directly related to the love we have for our kids.

As caring fathers, we prefer to carefully walk up a flight of stairs, holding on to the railing to set a proper example for our children, rather than dangerously walk up the flight of stairs with our arms full of stuff and risk falling and injuring ourselves.  

By completely ignoring 7 steps full of dirty baby clothes, bills and other miscellany, we are simply thinking of the children.

If you don’t buy that, then it’s because we have object blindness.

If you don’t buy that, then it’s because we believe you have tidied-up and that you want to permanently house the items on the stairs.  We are simply trying not to disturb the feng shui you have created.  

If you don’t buy that, then it’s because we are lazy.  

Yet another…..why is it that a man would rather leave something at the bottom of a milk bag, carton of juice…..anything more than a centimeter in order NOT to have to empty the bag or throw away the carton. After all there is enough left for the next person, right?

Personally, I find my biceps muscles to be so much stronger than the average person… as such, I have a hard time determining whether the container simply feels empty to me due to my mega-muscles, or if it is legitimately empty.

Why is it that men do not ask for directions?

Because in our minds, the British woman who soothingly whispers directions via the GPS is so much prettier than the guy at the gas station.