Why can’t you just shutup for a minute?

You have the right to remain silent - how to listen.

Aaah, yes. Listening. The sounds of silence and all that. If we can only open ourselves up to the universe then all will be revealed.
It is has been said, oh so many times, that relationships will get better when men learn how to listen. But – weirdly - it has never been said that relationships will get better when women learn how to shutup.
Women don’t want advice or interruptions. Not for them any examples of manly can-do let-me-fix-it-for-you-missy. No solutions or offers of help. What they want is for you to stand there (fiddling away with something domestic at the same time), making eye contact, with a serious-concerned-yet-not-judgemental expression and say things like “oh dear” or “you must have felt aaaawful” while positively oozing buckets of empathy. This can go on for a very, very long time.
Think of it as an investment in the rest of the evening. The best technique is to encourage her to talk fifteen minutes before her favourite TV show. It’s amazing how she can give you the Condensed Books version when there is a deadline that is important to her.
This isn’t all bad, though. If you think about it, this listening malarky actually takes the pressure off. We don’t have to solve anything. We can stop the hard task of scrambling the little grey cells into action looking for solutions. We just need to nod in the right places, make the appropriate empathetic cooing sounds and let the feel good sexy times begin.

I'm so bored with housework

Why the hell can't women leave the toilet seat up? Why do they have to keep spoiling our lazy manliness with their incessant whining about vacuuming and polishing. Why don't they ever want to talk about sucking and polishing the way we like to?
I am so bored with the housework debate. We bought a house a while back and it was split down the middle into two flats. I thought that this was the perfect time to kill the housework argument for good. I would live on one side. I would tile the place so I could hose it out whenever I woke up from yet another booze addled brou-haha. I would furnish it innapropriately with things that modern living magazine would sneer at - inflatable furniture in the shape of female genitalia, mooseheads, snot sculptures, beer mats, roadkill, anything to make the statement that this was a manly zone.
Meanwhile, my wife could live on the other side and wash up, vacuum, fold doilies and generally potter around while "tut tutting" to her heart's content.
We spend so much time arguing over cleaning, cooking, filing, prioritising, caring about (or the perception of not caring about) neatness, dusting and generally fretting that we don't have time to have a relationship.
We have become caretakers of our junk. I keep having dreams where the whole lot burns down. I save a small packet of photos, a case of red, a good bag of weed and a favourite t-shirt. After collecting the hefty insurance cheque, we hit the road in a junky convertible.
Free to laugh, love and fight about not fighting...

Sex on a beach

Have you noticed how many dating sites there are? It's like the dating sites all started hooking up, getting drunk and having baby dating sites. Everyone on these sites look younger and younger and they are spawning like trout or Gremlins.
But here's the thing - if you look on any of the countless dating sites you'll see an interesting phenomenon. A staggering number of women list their favourite pastime as "romantic walks on the beach". Yet, when you trawl through the men, you would be hard pressed to find any that list romantic walks as their idea of a perfect evening.
For me, it would be a perfect evening if she brought a friend along. If it involved alcohol, really dirty sex, some kind of vast platter of food, the giddy laughter of the terminally naughty, a twister board, several semi-naked Euro backpackers and perhaps a small stint in jail, then I would consider that beach to have been well utilised and the evening a roaring success.
So, how do men and women get together if our startup images of romance are so disparate?
Men lie. They grit their teeth and say, "Yeah, that would be great to stroll down the beach wearing my sweater round my neck like I am in an insurance TV ad".

So, what's your idea of the perfect evening?

THE RIGHT OF REPLY

On the one hand, you have women trying to get what they need. They need a partner who will articulate their feelings, their hopes, fantasies and desires. Women want a partner who can articulate what is happening in their lives. But there is a huge fear that if the guy gets the ability to communicate – "What happens if he wants stuff that I don’t want? What if his needs are so different that we can’t make the relationship work?"
They need a balance between articulation and reassurance. They want, at the end of the day, to be told that everything will be all right. Not that the guy will make it all right, just that it will be all right. The guy on the other hand, has his own stuff to deliver. Our views, ideas and desires. It’s just that we have no way of delivering them.
We don’t have the skills to converse at an emotional level in a way that will get our point across. Our usual tools of anger, frustration, sarcasm and humour don’t work here. They are actually counter productive. This is amplified by the prevailing view that, when it comes to relationships and all things warm and fuzzy, we will be wrong. We have been subjected to the barrage of verbal ammunition long enough. For many of us, we are strangers, enemies, indifferent entities locked in a house – surrounded by a sea of shared possessions. We participate in the shared rituals of the modern relationship. In other words, we acquire, we shop, we cook, we do everything but engage.
This blog will not solve all of your relationship problems. It’s not a twelve step program to help you turn Mrs Cranky into a Stepford Wife. What it will do is show you that women don’t have an automatic ownership of the keys to the relationship. They will tell you that they do. Their friends will tell you that they do. But the simple fact is that we fail to remember that we are in a partnership between two adults.
Nearly every subject in the relationship arena has been appropriated – no hijacked – by the sisterhood. Subjects like commitment, parenting, the career/family dichotomy, health, sex, intimacy, respect, hormones, communication, the call of the wild, anthropology, housework. All these topics have been given the chick-lit once over. Men=bastards, women=angels – case closed. And if you dare to even question this, Sonny Jim, they will reign vengeance and furious anger upon you. But question it we will.
Let's take all those topics (well, at least the main ones) and flip the traditional views on their head. It’s time to drag ourselves out of the primordial slime, stand up and (don’t shout – she’ll just call you a brute) say calmly; "Sorry honey, but I disagree. The view from here is way different". No more trying to second-guess what she wants you to say. No more retreating into your shell because her voice sounds lie a four cylinder shitbox with a blown headgasket. It’s time to stand up and say; "I love you, but I feel that your views on that are completely ill-informed/misguided/unhealthy/negative/self-destructive to our relationship."
But, if you genuinely feel that you want to salvage what love you have left and rebuild this into a relationship that has real intimacy and tenderness, then this is the best place to start. It’s not me, it’s you…
As women's lives have changed, so have men's. The difference is that, relationship-wise, women are driving those changes. Meanwhile, we stand around grumbling, "What do I have to do to have a quiet life around here?" If we want to communicate effectively, we have to rise above the "get stuffed, I'm watching the news for Chrissake!"
Men are lousy at sitting down and thinking, "What do I really feel about that?" We are the great emotional procrastinators of this world. We will wait for – indeed even force – a crisis to occur before we even begin to formulate any sort of reaction or plan. It’s not our fault. We’re hardwired to avoid too much introspection. In the past if we had questioned ourselves too much, we would have never have fed and protected our families. The last thing he’s going to do is ask himself "how am I feeling?" because the answer would probably be, "I’m shit-scared and I don’t want to do this". We had to shut down all self doubt and self analysis so we could survive.
So when we’re asked to "share, open up, go deeper and tell me how you feel" we go blank. It goes against nature for us to do this. But we are trying… I want guys to tell me what they really feel about commitment, sex, intimacy, housework, etc. No need to try and work out what you think she wants you to say. No need to worry that you'll spend all night fighting or not get sex for a week...
Go on, do it!

Commitment

There was a time that if you were committed it meant a stretch in a mental asylum. It meant playing Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It meant being a sandwich short of a picnic. Now, it just means that you're a bastard...
Why aren't women committed to drinking beer, pulling bucket bongs, having a laugh, staying in the moment, whirling whirling, freelwheeling in the life, breathless and full of Chi.
They want to go from that to arguing about the laundry. Where's the joy in that?
They want you to commit to something and a situation that will eventually make them despise you...

Do you think men are more committed than women?

Welcome to domestic hell...

You don't have to be mad to live here, but it helps.

For many men, being in a relationship (with a woman – I had to quantify that) is akin to being locked in some Kafka-esque nightmare. A weird surreal landscape where they are lauded and reviled for their so-called "power" and at the same time told to shut up and do as they are told. You might be a big-shot at the office, but when you get home make sure you leave your balls at the front door.
It's a bit like the episode of "The Twilight Zone" where the man is presumed dead. He cannot move or speak, but he is very much alive. Locked inside his lifeless body he screams out to be heard. That is the way of it for men these days. Society has a clear, even strident, view of how men are and how they behave. It is reinforced in the unending stream of articles expounding our lack of commitment, our brutishness, lack of sensitivity, lack of caring. We are constantly lambasted for our inadequacy as fathers, yet eyebrows are raised at any man who spends too long in the company of children. We are the socially clueless idiots who have no idea of body language and very little social skills. The big, lumbering, sports-loving, beer-drinking dolts that knock over furniture in our haste to get to the TV (Hey Homer!). The untamed Yee-haa!s who are a danger to law, order and everything that is good in this world. We must be kept firmly under thumb before somebody gets hurt. Advertising has a field day sending us up – can't cook; can't speak; can't maintain an erection; hyuk,hyuk, has he learnt how to use his thumbs, yet?
And we say …nothing.
If you look into most households in this supposedly patriarchal society, you’ll see an interesting dynamic. While the workplace has changed dramatically over the years, most households haven’t.
Women complain that men don’t engage then shut them down when they try to.
Women are used to being the emotional drivers of the home and they don’t want that to change.
Women say they want men to be more emotional – but not too much – they don’t want men to show vulnerability. It frightens them. They want the reliable, stoic guy who’ll keep holding it together. Maybe it’s because when a guy shows emotions it’s usually when he’s hit crisis point.
Women want to pick and choose which features a man has – they want him to be a SWISH (sensitive when it suits her).
Women want men to do the housework – but only they way they want it done.
Women want to joins men’s clubs, but still have women-only areas for themselves.