"Leave the Boy Alone!"

So I learned something this past week: I hate bronchitis!  I was thinking that maybe it would be a fun experience but so far it’s been nothing but disappointment.  Ah well.  Next stop, muscular dystrophy!

That was a tasteless joke.

Anyways, that’s why I haven’t written anything in a few days.  Believe me, I tried.  I started five different posts, all of which ended up being hate rants about feeling fat and racked with pain.  I know I got you hooked on my humor and impeccable grammar with the past few posts, so I really didn’t want to turn out a disappointing one.  Hopefully this one meets the high caliber of my more popular posts, like the one that mentions Ryan Reynolds in the title.  I’m still 87.6% positive that that post has been read the most solely because it mentions Ryan Reynolds, which is kind of funny because I have a shirtless picture of him in another post that has been read less…

In today’s post I’m going to explain why this blog’s URL says “Spaghetti for Brains.”  It comes from a funny and very insightful video called “A Tale of Two Brains,” seen here:

It’s not a zombie video, despite the misleading title, but a presentation by Mark Gungor talking about how men and women think differently.  And let me tell ya, he knows what he’s talking about.

I first watched this video freshman year of college in a communications course.  I thought it was funny, thought he was spot-on about the women, and didn’t think twice about the men.  See, at that time I had never had a serious relationship with a boy.  I couldn’t comprehend the importance of what Mr. Gungor was saying, and I DEFINITELY didn’t realize how pertinent the information would be in three years.

In the video, Mr. Gungor talks about men’s brains being organized into separate boxes (including the infamous “nothing” box) and women’s brains being made up of interconnected wires (I had a teacher later refer to women as “spaghetti-brained” while explaining the theory, hence my URL).  He says that in stressful situations, women need to make connections in their brains and talk it out to understand how they’re feeling and de-stress, and men like to go to their “nothing” box and just…think about nothing.

If you look at the brain activity in men and women, you can see that this is true.  Women tend to approach tasks using several different parts of the brain, while men tend to work from one section at a time (http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toanatj/articles/V002/37TOANATJ.pdf).  Of course, the brain activity depends on the task; in some cases men are better at using several parts of the brain at once, but in general women do it more often.  Now this doesn’t mean women are smarter, it just means women approach problems and stress very differently from men.

As I should have guessed from his name, The Man is no different from other men.  When we were first married I was constantly trying to get him to talk things out with me when he was stressed.  I thought, “well, it’s the best solution for me, so I’m sure it will work for him!”  However, this constant annoyance ended up having the opposite effect from what I wanted; it made The Man much more distant and much less willing to talk things out with me.  It wasn’t until I re-watched the video and read a book about the physiological differences in the two sexes’ brains (Why Gender Matters) that I understood how The Man works.  I had to follow Mr. Gungor’s advice and “leave the boy alone.”

I now know the importance of non-thinking activity when The Man gets off of work.  He goes to school and works full-time, so he’s got some pretty long days.  When he gets home I now know to back off and let him spend time in his “nothing” box, whether that entails playing tower defense games, watching "Futurama," or just sitting on the couch staring off into space.  When he wants to talk things out with me now, he feels much more comfortable doing so because he knows I’m not going to force it out of him.  I’ve learned to ride through the long pauses when he’s explaining something without jumping in and giving my opinion, and I get to enjoy my husband much more because of it.

Then there’s the woman’s side.  Mr. Gungor briefly talks about how women don’t want solutions, they want you to listen to them.  I think the idea is beautifully portrayed in this video:

I may be speaking for all women or I may just be speaking for myself when I say we just want sympathy and compliments.  Forget all that, “here’s what you should do” crap, just tell us we’re amazing for soldiering on through such a hard time and let us monologue so we can make the necessary connections to realize how we feel and what we should do.  Now obviously, that’s not always true, but the majority of the time…sympathy and compliments, men.  That’s all we ask for.

Of course, these scenarios are really general.  I’m sure not all men have “box” brains and not all women have “wire” brains.  I know there are times when women really want to be told what to do and when men do want to talk about it.  We need to remember though: we do not think in the same way.  Whether you’re just going off of life experience, Mr. Gungor’s presentation, that scientific article I linked, or just the fact that I’m super smart and you’ll believe anything I say, you know that men and women think differently.  It’s my belief that the more we remember that, the better our relationships will be.  Treat your woman like a woman.  Treat your man like a man.