Noodles and Waffles

At church a couple of months ago our Teaching Pastor was discussing communication between men and women. Much of this I agree with him on and I was glad to have my son with me to learning about this at such an impressionable age. But, there are definitely some exceptions....

The are two theories that resonate with me, the first is the noodles and waffles. Men talk in waffles. They talk about one subject, finish the subject, give the other a slight warning, and switch subjects. Women, we have all seen this first hand - "Hey man did you see the game last night?" "That run, blah, blah, blah, the touchdown, blah, blah, blah, can you believe that move, blah." "Yeah, that was a good game." - end of subject. New subject - "Hey, did I tell you I bought a new lawnmower...." You get the idea.

Women talk in noodles, we will talk on one subject and there will be something else that will pop into our heads on a completely subject, but was brought on by the first subject. This is amazing to men and why they can never follow us. "Can you believe that she thought that shirt looked good on her this morning, way too tight?" "Yeah, she should definitely think about losing weight or joining a gym." "Did I tell you I joined a gym last month?" "You will never believe who I ran into there?" Ladies, in man world that was 3 conversations.

Now that you know this, you will watch and listen and see that this is in most cases true. I don't know too many men that noodle, unless they might be gay. However, I had lunch with a male friend of mine this week (very not gay) and after I went back home, I realized that he completely noodled with me. In fact it was so bad, that we went back to a conversation twice and I had to e-mail him the next day to ask him if we ever got to the end of that conversation because we kept getting off track. So, maybe as we evolve (or just get older), men are learning to noodle in men/women conversations, but waffle in men/men conversations. Interesting....

The other theory is that women look for love in the relationship - think, act, talk, everything for love. Men look for respect. If the man didn't do something, it always shows a lack of love to the woman. He wasn't home on time, didn't offer to pick up dinner, didn't sweep off the deck - all due to lack of love (or laziness). However, she did not get the kids up, do laundry, or dress nice due to lack of respect.

Now, I firmly believe (and could be very wrong on this) that this has transitioned a bit since there are now more women in the household that make more money than the men. If the woman has the better career, makes more money, and has a bit different perspective than our mothers or grandmothers then love is no longer the main driver, it is respect. In fact, when our Pastor was talking about this I tapped a female friend of mine on the knee and said Ira and I are so opposite on that. She completely agreed with me on this after spending time with us on enough occassions. He is focused on the love and I am focused on the respect, which is okay because at least we balance each other out. Can you imagine if you had two lovers and two respecters in a relationship - ugly. In fact, now that I think about it, that may have been the biggest flaw in my previous marriage, at one point love was no longer the issue, we both wanted respect.