I often ask M. how she feels: how does she feel about working together, how she feels about seeing me every day, how she feels about spending her hours after work with me, and, ultimately, how she feels about disenchantment before marriage.
I recently concluded that asking M. how she feels is as useless as asking the left side of my brain to think of a funny and creative metaphor explaining incompatibility.
M. was on the phone with me last night while I was having a cigarette before I went to sleep. My eyes were heavy and my movements seemed delayed by a quarter of a second—relishing the buzz from my sleeping pill is one of the highlights of my day.
On some nights, I started conversations that made my head run at full speed--in my “heightened state”--until it got tired, and then I’d fall asleep. Last night I asked M. how she felt about us.
“What do you mean?” she asked me back.
“Juss’ asking, you know, what do you feel exactly about us now? Like, what emotions are present when, let’s say, you see me on a regular day.”
“What do you mean by regular?”
“You know, on average…” pause.
“Average, yes, and?”
“Your average emotion on a regular day with me!”
“I don’t know. I can’t think of regular day with you.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s like a new day with me every day?”
“Yes, you always have something to complain about every single day. If it’s not about work, it’s about me not giving you the proper attention or about your insecurities.”
“Aren’t you happy though? How it’s diff’rent with me every day?”
“No, not really.”
“So what exactly do you feel when you see me, I mean the moment you see me in the office?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“Not happy or mad or sad?”
“I feel normal.”
“Fine, but what do you feel when I’m not around? Like when I’m sick at home.”
“Nothing either, It’s not like I won’t see you soon since I know you’re going to make me visit you at your house.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t you want to know why?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll tell you anyway. I can’t see why not even a single of emotion passes through you even when you lay eyes on me on a daily basis. Take me for example. I either feel secure because I get to see you throughout the week or, sometimes, I feel disappointed because I see too much of you. I feel there’s no thrill anymore, and what hurts most is that we haven’t even seriously talked about getting married.”
“Okay! I feel happy when I see you every day! Just shut up!”
It occurred to me that, as a guy, there’s no hope for me to understand how the opposite sex must feel, even if they answered me honestly. There’s this theory which aims to encapsulate everything in our known—and unknown—universe. Most people call it String Theory or M Theory, and what it proposes is that there are eleven different dimensions that exist around us, so that leaves eight other unperceivable planes of reality. They (the physicists) used the metaphor of an aquarium to illustrate how we, as fishes, are limited to only three dimensions to experience and understand our “reality.” What lies beyond the aquarium is anybody’s guess.
Something told me that those unperceivable dimensions could be applied to women, more precisely M., without underlining the coincidental names (M. theory?), of course.
There’s already an obvious difference between a woman’s physiology and my own. And, maybe, therein lies the rub.
Take having sex for example. I don’t wince in pain during intercourse when I’m deprived of foreplay; the same as how my climactic chart rises then dives down while a woman’s plateaus. These nuances can have staggering implications. As with the Butterfly Effect, a single flit of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can cause a hurricane to hit Texas.
One tiny, seemingly insignificant thing like having a pair of balls can lead to great divisions between men and women. Balls, or testicles, are obviously exclusive to men. Their function is to produce sperm which, more often than not, assures reproduction and the progress of the species. Sperm production is perpetual whereas women are born with a set of eggs without being able to produce more throughout the course of their life. Having a fixed amount of eggs causes women to be more protective and feel more sensitive about their bodies since they instinctively know their eggs are finite, and once they lose them, that’s it, kaput (Despite how some may argue, I believe reproduction is a primary reason for existence). On the other hand, males have the luxury to be more aloof, since we can create more and more sperm. We just have to make sure our balls are safe from occasional threat: a knee or a mishandled Indian style sitting position. This whole set of causes and effects answer the common question why women are more sensitive than men. But it doesn’t stop there. When men reach a certain age, their balls stop producing sperm. Suddenly, the luxury of aloofness gets pulled from under them and they start to realize their fleeting existence (late midlife crisis). Women, on the other hand, were already aware of their mortality from the very start; that explains why women tend to find religion earlier than most men. There’s no better way to redirect your fear of death other than to the Almighty.
If we build up our understanding of reality through the use of our senses, we should question when do these varying experiences stop, and in what scale do they keep on going?
If I can’t feel what a woman feels when she’s having sex, there’s no way in hell I could hope to understand what she feels everyday when she sees me, right? She’d probably have a different inner language when it comes to sensory experiences.
As String Theory goes, there must be some point when the different dimensions crash against each other. I see this happening all the time, in verbal language. Sure we share the same verbal language, but the place where our thoughts dwell-- before they’re released as familiar words--are entirely different planes of reality. Ergo, men and women crash against each other through communication or interaction.
If we think about it, it probably explains why there’s “girl talk”, or why “No!” means “Yes.” It’s also probably the reason why there’s romance in the beginning of relationships. Overflowing emotions result in a suspension of rationality; it resembles a high, and once you crash, you start using your reasoning and asking “how the fuck did I end up with this person?” Some people move on when they realize it while others accept it no matter how painful it is—take me for example.
The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that M. and I live in mutual ignorance of each other, and we’re too ignorant to know…just like those other dimensions, you know they’re out there, but…
I woke up at around four in the morning. I woke myself up from a dream where I was about to take a piss. I noticed the phone was making the noises it made when someone forgot to hang it up.
