The math of relationships

Imagine what we women could accomplish… if we could just stop thinking about men.

I look at the hours my friends and I have spent this week talking about the men in our lives and why they do what they do and what do they mean when they do this and how could they and why do they… Wow, we could have found the cure for cancer in the time we’ve spent ruminating on their intentions and their emotions and their motivations.

And, really, I think it breaks down like this.

Women do advanced level algebra when it comes to relationships. If x = y then… Most of our thoughts about the men in our lives always seem to come down to the “if…then” algebraic equation. We fill board after board after board with symbols and equations and theories and logarithms and theorems. We make John Nash look like a first-grader with all our figuring and evaluating and analysis. Okay, so we can’t balance our checkbooks and most women cannot figure out how to put gas in their cars or program their VCR’s. But we can give you theories down to their childhood influences about why a man behaves a certain way. We can cite numerous articles (mostly from Glamour and Cosmo) and books (Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, anyone with a fake Dr. credit in front of their name), give you discourses by experts (Oprah, Montel), make charts about why and when and how. We are experts on the fictitious study of the male psyche, thinking that all of this analysis and discussion and research will give us an answer.

We also tend to think that men spend as much time thinking about us and figuring us out as we do them.

Men, however, just don’t. They’re very much the 1+1=2 variety. They see what’s in front of them and that’s it. They don’t spend hours on the phone with their buddies going, “do you think she meant this when she said that?” Their conversations are much more basic, I’m sure. “Hey.” “Hey.” “So you hung out with her this week?” “Yeah.” “Cool.” “Yeah.” They wouldn’t know what to do with a logarithm if it bite them in the ass. I think their figuring and calculating goes on underneath their conscious mind and maybe even underneath their subconscious mind, like the way OS X works on my Ibook. I don’t know it’s there or working until it’s not working anymore. Thoughts of us pop up like little reminders on a computer, triggered by something that makes them go, oh, I should send this to her or I should remember to call her. Like a grocery list. Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to get bread. If the relationship requires more than one simple equation, they just can’t handle it.

And that’s where the crossed signals come in. We women spend our time obsessing and figuring and calculating (not in that bad, manipulative way) while they spend their time focused on things like sports scores or how they could score with women, not realizing that there are probably a handful already standing around them, analyzing them. So while we’re assuming that they are just as obsessed as we are, they’re just not. And that’s why they’re surprised and taken by surprise when we finally smack them in the head and say, hey, didn’t you know I was interested, or, hey, didn’t you know that you hurt me when you did this? The answer is, no, they probably didn’t. And it’s not that their stupid or that they’re not paying attention. They’re just not built to think the way that we do.

Somewhere in the middle is where we must find the perfect way to meet. We women have to learn to approach men like we’re remedial school teachers, reaching out and tutoring the men we love (or that we want to love) in the ways that we figure. We need to take our time and remember that they’re just not operating on the same level that we are. And men maybe need to step up their end a little and become aware that, when dealing with the women in their lives, that they may need to do a little homework. Now, I’m not suggesting that every man avidly watch Oprah and Dr. Phil. For the most part, we all already know the things that these people are telling us. Men just need to be aware that there is another level on which they can think. And that we’re already operating on that level. They don’t need to understand the equations that we put up, they just need to understand that a lot of thought went into those equations and take the time to listen to the equation and see where they can fit it. Then we women need to slow down and try to go back to basics when it comes to relationships. Sometimes, 1+1 really does equal 2, whether we want it to or not. Sometimes, what seems like a well-thought out manipulation, a carefully constructed avoidance is just him operating on that basic level.

That simple equation – 1+1=2 – can be the most frightening of all equations in the world. That equation means being vulnerable, means giving things up, means being something most men are not prepared to. So we, as women, need to educate our men in our theories, our New Math, shall we say. Yes, 1+1=2 but, if you add the proper “if… then” to it, it can mean a lot of freedom to continue to be who you are, a lot of variation in that equation, in that 2 doesn’t always need to be attached at the hip. You can be 1, I can be 1, and we can come together and be 2 “if… then”.

Once we get that concept down, then we can move on to the trigonometry of deeply committed relationships and all the complications that go along with that. But if we can both find a way to join the simplicity of 1+1 with the elegance of “if… then”, maybe we can get past some of the clutter and just reach out to each other on a simple level, an honest level, and leave all the machinations behind and just be.