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PAGE 12, SEPTEMBER 14, 2009, THE ISLANDER
Dam Barry.
Why Men can't
help it
I like to think that I am a modest
person. (I also like to think that I look
like Brad Pitt naked, but that is not
the issue here.)
There comes a time, however, when
a person must toot his own personal
horn, and for me, that time is now.
A new book has confirmed a theory
that I first proposed in 1987, in a col
umn explaining why men are physi
cally unqualified to do housework.
The problem, I argued, is that men
- because of a tragic genetic flaw —
cannot see dirt until there is enough
of it to support agriculture. This puts
men at a huge disadvantage against
women, who can detect a single dirt
molecule 20 feet away. This is why a
man and a woman can both be look
ing at the same bathroom commode,
and the man — hindered by Male
Genetic Dirt Blindness (MGDB) —
will perceive the commode surface as
being clean enough for heart surgery;
whereas the woman can't even "see"
the commode, only a teeming, com
mode-shaped swarm of bacteria. A
woman can spend two hours cleaning
a toothbrush holder and still not be
totally satisfied; whereas if you ask
a man to clean the entire New York
City subway system, he'll go down
there with a bottle of Windex and a
single paper towel, then emerge 25
minutes later, weary but satisfied
with a job well done.
When I wrote about Male Genetic
Dirt Blindness, many irate readers
complained that I was engaging in
sexist stereotyping, as well as mak
ing lame excuses for the fact that
men are lazy pigs. All of these irate
readers belonged to a gender that I
will not identify here, other than to
say: Guess what, ladies? There is now
scientific proof that I was right.
This proof appears in a new book
titled "What Could He Be Thinking?
How a Man's Mind Really Works." I
have not personally read this book,
because, as a journalist, I am too busy
writing about it. But according to an
article by Reuters, the book states
that a man's brain "takes in less
sensory detail than a woman's, so he
doesn't see or even feel the dust and
household mess in the same way."
Got that? We can't see or feel the
mess! We're like: "What snow tires in
the dining room? Oh, those snow tires
in the dining room."
And this is only one of the differ
ences between men's and women's
brains. Another difference involves
a brain part called the "cingulate
gyrus," which is where emotions are
located. The Reuters article does not
describe the cingulate gyrus, but pre
sumably in women it's the size of a
mature cantaloupe, containing a vast
By Dave Barry
quantity of complex, endlessly recali
brated emotional data involving hun
dreds, perhaps thousands of human
relationships; whereas in men it's
basically a cashew filled with NFL
highlights.
In any event, it turns out that
women's brains secrete more of the
chemicals "oxytocin" and "serotonin,"
which, according to biologists, cause
humans to feel they have an inad
equate supply of shoes. No, seriously,
these chemicals cause humans to
want to bond with other humans,
which is why women like to share
their feelings.
Some women (and here I'm refer
ring to my wife) can share as many as
three days' worth of feelings about an
event that took eight seconds to actu
ally happen. We men, on the other
hand, are reluctant to share our feel
ings, in large part because we often
don't have any. Really. Ask any guy:
A lot of the time, when we look like
we're thinking, we just have this low-
level humming sound in our brains.
That's why, in male-female conver
sations, the male part often consists
entirely of him going, "Hmmmm."
This frustrates the woman, who wants
to know what he's really thinking. In
fact, what he's thinking is, literally,
"Hmmmm."
So anyway, accordingto the Reuters
article, when a man, instead of shar
ing feelings with his mate, chooses
to lie on the sofa, holding the remote
control and monitoring 750 television
programs simultaneously by chang
ing the channel every one-half second
(pausing slightly longer for programs
that feature touchdowns, fighting,
shooting, car crashes, or bosoms) his
mate should not come to the mistaken
conclusion that he's an insensitive
jerk. In fact, he's responding to sci
entific biological brain chemicals that
require him to behave this way for
scientific reasons, as detailed in the
scientific book "What Could He Be
Thinking? How a Man's Mind Really
Works," which I frankly cannot rec
ommend highly enough.
In conclusion, no way was that
pass interference.
This classic DAVE BARRY col
umn was originally published Nov.
23, 2003. (C) 2009 The Miami Herald.
Dist. by Tribune Media Services. Dave
Barry is a humor columnist for the
Miami Herald. Write to him do Trop
ic Magazine, The Miami Herald, One
Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132) “I
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