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“Men Really Need to Stop Calling women Crazy”

I rather enjoyed this article from the Washington Post written by Harris O’Malley. I don’t even like the Washington Post, but this article was kind of fun.

Obviously, from “insanitybytes,” people have probably gleaned that I’ve just embraced the crazy train. Heck, half the time I’m actually driving it. Sanity is highly over rated.

Anyway, Harris O’Malley makes several good points in this article, such as “Crazy is such a convenient word for men, perpetuating our sense of superiority. Men are logical; women are emotional.”  Yep. There’s nothing quite like having a man acting all irrational and crazy,  informing you that only he is ruled by logic and reason and you’re the crazy one. Uhm hmm. Do I look like a moron to you?

Kind of funny, that is one characteristic I really appreciate about my husband. Early on he flat-out said, “I’m not trying to be reasonable!” Whether it was a Freudian slip in the heat of the moment or just his capacity for honesty at play, it was quite charming. It also changed the entire dynamic between us. It’s hard to argue your point with someone who isn’t even pretending to be reasonable. Odd, I know, but I rather respect that. I can happily accommodate the irrational, but I cannot stand deception. Honesty is like my Achilles heel, I turn into a compliant plate of mush. You’re saying you want to drive the crazy train? Awesome, what can I do to help?

Harris O’Malley goes on to translate the man-speak, “Except what we’re really saying is: She was upset, and I didn’t want her to be.”

Ah, does that not just soften your heart? It softened mine. So often what is actually in men’s hearts does not come out so well in their words, at least not in their words to women. Communication between the genders can be challenging indeed.

He goes on to say that men hardly have a handle on their own emotions, let alone anyone elses. I think there’s some truth in that. In the Divine comedy we call interpersonal relationships, we tend to take men who are ill equipped to deal with emotion and pair them up with women who are often guided by emotion. Yeah, good luck with that, folks.

One thing that’s really helped me is to realize that men and women are different, very different in how we perceive the world, in our emotional lives, in our communication styles. One of the most valuable tools is to be patient and give each other the benefit of the doubt. Men should not be calling women crazy, but sometimes when they do what they really mean is, “I don’t understand what’s happening here.” And perhaps even “She was upset, and I didn’t want her to be.” Knowing the true intentions of the heart behind the sometimes sloppy words can make all the difference in the world.

Anyway, I really appreciated this sweet article and the fact that there are some men out there that genuinely care about healthy relationships between men and women.

teacups