Sage advice – senses and sensibility

Feedback from my first posting about the mysteries of the male was quite positive, and as a result of subsequent conversations over margueritas with female friends, here's the next installment of sage advice.

Despite the obvious biological differences between men and women, there are some more subtle ones that often lead to arguments or frustration. But they are real biological differences and it's unlikely your males will ever be able to overcome them. So don't argue or get frustrated, just deal with it. Otherwise you are just banging your head against a brick wall.

Men have less smell and taste receptors than women. From a biological perspective, it makes sense if you think that a mother ape needs to be extra careful with what she feeds her young apeling, as it could be more sensitive to unripe, spoiled or toxic food. Likewise womens’ color vision is better than that of men. Again, it makes sense when evaluating the ripeness of fruit or the possibly toxicity of a colored insect, as a mother ape.

As a result, womens' perfumes tend to be more complex than after shaves or male colognes. If a guy is buying something he likes, it's usually pretty straight forwards and unsubtle. Womens’ perfume is basically designed to appeal to women, men often can't distinguish the subtleties of the scents. So if you get given a perfume at Christmas that he's chosen for you, don't be surprised if it's got the sensual allure of week-old road kill - he simply can't tell. Likewise with taste - if men cook, they tend to lean towards spicy or strong flavored food, which their limited taste buds can detect. The subtlety of some flavors, may be lost on them, to such an extent that some men have very limited senses of taste, which has knock on effects for their ability to cook, or interest in doing so. I'm not saying that all men have poor senses of taste/smell, as with anything in nature there is a continuum, but on average these senses are poorer than womens’.

I mentioned color vision above. Color blindness is much more common in men than women, and the ability to discern shades. So when in Home Deport choosing paints for the bedroom, or posing with a new outfit, don't get frustrated when he doesn't show an interest in the shade of blue, he may not be able to see the difference. To him your dress in a subtle shade if aqua, to him may be just "blue", or even worse, “sorta greeny-grey”.

Also on vision, mens’ peripheral vision is also much worse than womens’. We have better depth and detail perception, on average than women directly in front (due to more light receptor cells in that area), but not so much to the side. So if you are standing next to a man and are gesturing, it’s possible he simply can’t see, even though you might. He may have to move his entire head to see something that you can catch out of your side vision. This certainly has been the cause of many arguments in my car, and a couple of near crashes. My peripheral vision is even worse than most men though, due to need in glasses, and being blind as a bad outside their field of view.

 Another interesting fact related to men on vision. When they are concentrating on something visually, they go deaf (well their ability to register the meaning of sounds decreases). This is related to neural wiring in the brain. It’s something that they cannot overcome, so there’s really no point trying to talk to him when he’s watching the game, or concentrating on the computer. He may grunt at you, but the likelihood is that he really didn’t hear you. But what are you doing talking to him during the game anyway !

 So some subtle but important biological differences between men and women. As I said above though, it is a continuum – not all men have bad peripheral vision etc. But on average, there is a significant difference between men and women in terms of senses. So don’t get angry at him because he doesn’t see the world in the same way you do, because literally, he doesn’t.