Tristan Speaks: The Eff Calvary Has Arrived…FINALLY

When I was nine I made this boy I liked cookies because I thought he was cute.  I made them from scratch and by myself watching them rise slowly in the oven, making sure they were the perfect shade of brown.  I wrapped them carefully in a paper bag I decorated with little pink and red hearts I cut out of construction paper and glued them meticulously into patterns on the side of the bag.  I was so nervous walking up to him to give him the bag I almost peed my Rainbow Bright underwear. 

When I presented them to him with, “They’re chocolate chip macadamia nut, you’re favorite.”  He unceremoniously took the bag, ripped it open, stuffed two in his mouth, and walked away.  I was devastated.  He was oblivious.  And so that same pattern would play out over my adult dating life from the petty: unreturned phone calls to the extreme: sleeping with other women without my knowledge or permission.  It’s been a vast spectrum of dumb ever since. 
I’ve since learned that some of these behaviors don’t mean the guy is a jerk or that the offense is deliberate, it doesn’t even mean he is aware of an offense in the first place.  It’s why the posture in arguments is women with their hands on their hips and men with their hands in the air.  It’s where the angry women meets the oblivious man. 
In a conversation with a friend a few weeks back he identified the core difference that lies between men and women, the chasm for which we are forever fated to bridge.  He said, “Men are emotionally retarded.  Women are crazy.”  And then, he expounded and it was kinda brilliant so I’m sharing it with you below.   Enjoy the read.  I did. 
PS - Stay tuned for my eloquent explanation of why, in return, women are often card carrying crazies. 
Men Are Emotionally Retarded
by Tristan Silver
On the sliding scale of emotional intelligence men are slightly smarter than a nematode. Expressing a degree of emotional intelligence linearly, one can see a normal distribution of the two sexes evolve when a random male/female population is sampled.
It looks like boobs.  Hehe.
Most men fall somewhere between ‘emotionally hopeless’ and ‘emotionally retarded’.  Women start at ‘emotionally retarded’ and evolve up to ‘crazy’.
But why, my reader may ask, are men emotionally retarded? 
Foremost men are emotionally retarded because their ability to think critically (and consequently take themselves far too seriously) happens to such a degree that they fail to have room for any intuitive processes to work.  Nothing mystical, mind you.  Totally empirical.  ‘Obvious’ is relative.
Men are so sensually impaired it is impossible for them to tap into the nuances of emotion.  If barriers were condoms, mankind is as wearing four.  He isn’t the most sensitive.
It’s why the television is so loud. 
However, just as taste can be cultivated so can a man’s emotional intelligence. 
1.  First, give your man space.  It’s not his fault the lights are half dimmed.  Every read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave?  Yes, kinda like that.  It’s like yelling at blind people after messing up at a crosswalk.  Be patient.
2.  Start with something simple.  Before tackling tantric sex, try getting your man to taste the dinner he’s eating.  Mindfulness is not a masculine quality.  Start focusing on time together that has no distractions.  Let him become aware that he actually has feelings.
3.  Let him know when he does well.  Even if it was ‘totally obvious’ he probably needs to hear it.  Most likely he just got lucky – a puppy who hit the newspaper the first time.

Hope?  Yes there is hope.  There is hope in that a man can acknowledge he is missing some sort of antennae to pick up what his lady is laying down.  He can go, "Baby, I have no fucking idea why you need this, but I've happy to give it to you."
[Editor’s Note: Tristan Silver, friend of Carrie’s, will be guest blogging from time to time on certain male topics that are above and beyond the reason and understanding of any living female.  Thank God.]