Here’s Another No-Win Situation For Guys
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Singles Blogger
One of my roommates (the female one of the two) is in redecorating mode.
This is always a tough thing for a guy because it really makes us feel completely useless.
I don’t pretend to know a lot about why women do things (and especially when they do things), but I do know one thing: when a woman starts moving objects around, you had better pay attention to what is happening around you.
The redecorating always follows a familiar pattern.
First, it happens seemingly randomly and most certainly without warning, and it comes at the oddest times. It could be first thing in the morning, on a bright and sunny afternoon or at night just as you’ve settled into your TV-watching routine.
Sometimes it happens right at the start of a big game. Whenever it happens, it’s sure to be an inconvenient time for a man. (I don’t believe this is intentional, by the way; it’s just that women don’t seem to be aware of when is inconvenient for men, which frankly is pretty much anytime.)
Secondly, within about 15 minutes of starting her adventure, the woman will find something of yours you long forget you ever owned, briefly wave it in the air and ask if you want to keep it. You have precisely three seconds to make a decision. (I’ve learned to automatically program myself to say “oh yes, forgot about that; thank you!”)
There will be many of these incidents. I always wonder why they just don’t put all of it in a pile and tell you when they’ve finished to go through it and keep what you want and throw out the rest. But perhaps that leads us to the next point.
Third, the woman will never, ever ask you for help. She will move around, bring boxes in and out and even start pulling heavy furniture across the room by herself. She will go about this silently, without saying a word. I’ve even known women to move a couch with a guy sitting on it!
Of course, when she does this, it’s far worse than if she just said “get off your lazy ass and help me!” Instead, she’s doing something much more effective. She’s making you feel guilty (and like a lazy ass) to the point where you have no choice except to leap to her assistance and say “oh, let me help you!”
After you help, then she will go back to doing her thing alone, and you’re left scratching your head trying to figure out what comes next so you don’t appear to be a lazy ass. But she just goes back to silently moving boxes from one side of the room to another and you have no choice except to going back to being a lazy ass.
This is not to criticize any woman and most certainly not my roommate, who is a very dear woman (my mother does the exact same thing, by the way), but rather to wonder why women don’t alert men some days or hours in advance of these things so we can prepare for them.
If nothing else, we could call the boyz to meet us out at the bar. (I realize this could create other, bigger and potentially explosive issues, but we can always use the handy male excuse of: “oh, I completely forgot!” And then play dumb. Women will always accept men playing dumb.)
I know for a fact women have been thinking about this for a while because they are not built to suddenly pop up and start rearranging the living room. It’s planned out in their head; I just wish we could get some sort of warning it’s coming, like a tsunami alert siren.
A man will occasionally do a similar thing and it always involves electronics, But it’s different because we don’t want any help. Until we need it, of course.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to being a lazy ass. Until it’s time to move the couch.
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