So there were some grumpy mails/males in response to sunday’s column, about the way guys communicate with each other, so since this seems to be a week for clever responses (what with the whole Santam-Nandos-Santam thing), I thought I’d let a boy-person have a crack at a response.
Please meet Roger.
Roger was once into journalism and PR and now he’s into ‘everything kitchen’. And he writes a good funny too, as you’ll soon see.
There are some lovely jabs, and a couple of aha’s and one grrr for me, but all in all a good touche I thought.
Heeeeere’s Roger:
A retorting Grunt – by Roger Westbrook
Guy talk may seem vastly different from girl talk and as long as we overhear one another across the gender divide, we may never actually understand one another. That is not to say, however, that a guy’s “grunt” is inferior to a woman’s obscurity and cryptic conversing.
The term “grunt” in itself is a little demeaning but for fear of seeming over-sensitive I will accept and embrace. In fact, being able to understand the offer of a cheeseburger and beer through a mere grunt will be taken as a compliment. The affirmative responding grunt is even more impressive because offering a girl the very same meal – in perfect English – will be met by several minutes of uncertainty, menu variations and calorie calculations. Its here that the dog whistle reference is perfect because it’s a well-known fact that a woman’s indecisiveness cannot be heard by the human male ear. Only women can hear it. Not that I am comparing women to dogs – well, not completely.
It may surprise you, but a woman’s brain is very similar to a man’s in that it is also made up of complex gears, pulley’s and levers. The difference is that a man’s are not attached to a separate volatile sub-station of emotions. Ours are simply attached to the need to eat, sleep and understand chainsaws. I believe it may have once been attached to the ability of understanding women, but through evolution, along with the appendix and wisdom teeth, it fell vestigial. As for those storage files and containers, it is no secret that they are packed in your pretty little heads as well. However, they only manage to store up all the mistakes men make, and come argument time they are accessed faster than a guy can grunt.
And for the record, ladies, even when you think that for once you do understand us, think again. If we happen to mention, for example, that we are fed up with Angry Birds, we just may not be talking about our iPhone app.
Well played, that man. A worthy riposte. I mean, grunt.
Ooohhh… Chainsaws out, huh?
Though I don’t appreciate the bit about the storage containers. Men somehow always whine about the mistakes we remember and remind them of, but never appreciate the minute details of unimportant-but-makes-us-happy things we remember and reward them for.
Guess that’s where the substation comes in handy.