Being oblivious

I am impressed by how oblivious I can be to my surroundings. For example, several times over the years, my wife has said, “You didn’t mention anything about my new haircut.”

Sentences like this, and there are others, cause the male body to go into a state of high alert. There is a message that prints out on the computer screen internal to the male head that reads something like this:

Warning! You did not detect something that your spouse believes was crucial to detect. This detection failure points out, once again, your many and gross limitations. However, you are not doomed yet. But you could be doomed if your next set of responses is viewed as ‘incorrect’ by your spouse. You have the following choices for your immediate response:

A) Your beauty has always blinded my senses. It does so once again. I was so overwhelmed by how gorgeous you are that I did not notice your new haircut. Comment: Corny and transparent but this generally works.

B) I did notice and I do like it a lot. I’m sorry that I forgot to tell you. Comment: A blatant lie on your part; you didn’t notice it at all and she knows it. But the apology makes up for it. This generally works.

C) I did not notice it. I am a male and have many limitations. I am generally clueless about so many things. If I could correct my many deficiencies, I would but there are so many and I do not know how. Comment: Groveling, asking for mercy generally works.

 D) Huh? Comment: Very bad response. Guaranteed to put you in a very deep hole.

E) I’m sorry dear but I was distracted by my meetings with the leaders of the world on the problems of world peace (or hunger or disease) and I did not notice. Comment: Very bad response. She knows that you are too clueless to be invited into any serious discussion by world leaders on world problems. Hence, you are either lying or delusional. Moreover, you are implying that world peace/hunger/etc. are more important than the new haircut. You do not want to go there.

F) I don’t like it. I hope your hair grows back quickly. Comment: Choose any response but this response.

While all this flashes in the male head, most males are so terrified of the situation they are now in, that they fail to read the screen and hence mutter the first thing that comes to their mouth and head – in that order.

This is invariably a mistake. The spouse will respond with a comment of despair/hurt/exasperation, leading to a series of sentences, by the male, that begin with “That’s not what I meant!” To which the spouse responds, appropriately, “What did you mean?” To which the male responds, “I meant….” But the male does not know what they meant when they uttered the response because it was muttered before they thought. Now they are thinking but they are making stuff up, and the stuff being made up is pretty weak and illogical. Hence the spouse responds, “You meant that? How could you think that?”

And the cycle devolves. Eventually, as happens with all thunderstorms, all the energy is drained out of the colliding of forces and sunny days return.

It does make you wonder if the evolution of speech from grunts and hand signals was really progress. I think the males have been disadvantaged by this “progress.”