Just Because I'm A Woman

“Did you just buy yoghurt?”, he asked. I stared at him incredulously for there was no yoghurt bottle whatsoever in my handbag. He then pointed to a black pot lying in my handbag, amidst all other stuff. He immediately took and tried to open it saying, “I’d like some”. Luckily I managed to stop him, but not before I burst out laughing. Imagine what would have happened had he put a scoop of my hair conditioner in his mouth! (The said hair conditioner is Retread from Lush.)

I am sure many women can relate to this. I even remember reading an article which says that an average man cannot recognise or name more than 5 of all the products an average woman has in her bathroom. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the link to the said article (there’s a possibility that I’m wrong on the number, as well).

I believe the anecdote above serves well to remind us how different men and women are from each other. While most men tend to ignore bits and details they consider unimportant, they fail to realize how important these tiny bits and details are to the women in their life.

While the guy I’m dating does remember my birthday, he is completely forgetful about other dates that I consider important in our relationship. Anniversary date? Forget it. I needed to constantly remind him of it and how I thought it would be ideal for us to spend some time together on it and he would say, “yeah, okay” or something along the line which carries the same meaning. Two days before the actual date, he broke it to me that he was going to his weekly basketball meet-up because he needed to get some “much-needed exercise”. Imagine my feeling. I felt like throwing all the things reachable to me at the moment at him. But, having been in a relationship long enough with this guy, I kind of know how his mind works. “Aren’t we in love with each other every day?” This is just some of the rationalisation from his part that I could think of. And with it, I let the matter go. I knew he would make it up to me during the weekend, once I mentioned to him that he forgot. Had it been just a few months before, I would have thrown my tantrums, stopped talking to him for two days and made him buy me flowers.

I have come to the point of embracing the fact that men and women are different. Men’s brains and women’s brains are “hardwired” differently and it is not anyone’s fault. I have learned to compromise and to not wanting to win all the times. Some things aren’t just worth arguing just because no matter how many arguments we had, things will remain unchanged simply because men and women are biologically designed differently. The outcome the arguments can do to the relationship though is something we can control. Being a guy older than me, I think he has come to this realization long before I did. He might have tried to reason with me but I can see how it didn’t work. “That’s because I’m a man” does not make a good reasoning, especially when the said woman is of legal background, with a strong urge to argue. It was then that I realized his lack (or absence) of a better reasoning might be because it could very well be the only reason to it. But then again, the mere reason behind it could be of our cultural differences. Though, that is a topic for another day.

Acknowledging that men and women are different and can never be the same has made my life and our relationship much easier. I learned to let go of unimportant arguments and I can see how he’s trying to make more efforts to be more involved in what I think important. Despite that, men will always be men and women will always be women. Sometimes, hilarity ensues. Other times, plain annoyance is all I get.