Day Four.
The difference between males and females.
I acknowledge that might not be the most politically correct phrasing of the human being identity. But I am in no way trying to make a political statement. I do and will continue to work on my framing and word choice around gender and sexuality.
I am only using the terms “male” and “female” to describe a purely heterosexual relationship, and the dynamics at play in such a relationship. And mostly to tell a story about my husband I found undeniably comical, and that I also feel so clearly demonstrates a difference between males and females in such a heterosexual relationship. I also recognize I am making some widespread generalizations here, but I acknowledge that. Just bear with me for a minute.
This was last night, as we were getting ready for bed. Now my husband and I are recently married, and currently living in a grandiose 600-square foot apartment. Granted, it’s only the two of us, so it could definitely be worse. But still — the living quarters are tight.
And I have a lot of clothes. Of which he also loves reminding me.
Nonetheless — I am washing my face in the adjoining bathroom to our bedroom when my doting husband picks up my robe from where it’s lying on the bed and starts with, “so I picked this up from the ground of the closet earlier today; I think it fell off the hanger, do you want to …”
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And as I turn to look at him, his words start to drift off and his face falls. It then — of course — breaks into that mischievous grin I love so much. He’s realized.
Simultaneously –
Me: “do you want to hang it up?”
Him: “… think I should just hang it back up?”
That robe was sitting on the bed since he picked it up earlier that afternoon. Instead of realizing it probably slipped off the hanger, and he should perhaps simply slide it back on the hanger, placing it in the closet where the rest of my clothes hang, right above where he originally picked up the stated robe … he decided to place it on the bed.
Now this brambling story finally brings me to my point — is it just me or is this a perfect exemplar of the differences between males and females in their day-to-day mundane actions and decisions?! While I fully acknowledge that my husband’s decision was likely made almost unconsciously — he could have been on a call or distracted thinking about a work or family issue. But — if the roles were reversed and a woman was placed in this situation — her similarly unconscious reaction would almost assuredly have been to simply place the piece of clothing back where it belonged (or at least where she assumed it belonged, based on the apparent facts at hand).
Now my husband is not lazy in any sense. And I think the two of us newlyweds do a pretty darn good job in evenly splitting housekeeping duties — cooking, cleaning, laundry, general maintenance, etc. Generally, if one of us recognizes something needs to be done, that person does it — damned to those gender roles I mentioned previously!! 😉
And yet — it still didn’t seem to cross his mind to take the immediate action of re-hanging my robe on the hanger still suspended in the closet, right above where he found the fallen clothing. Instead, he chose to mindlessly drop the robe on the bed, with the intention to ask me about it later.
To which he did. And to which thank god I didn’t actually have to answer what to do next.
