Shut Up and Listen in Life After 60

“Woman’s faults are many…Men’s are but two..everything they say and everything they do.” Okay, now that I got that out of my system let me move on to more important things. Most men, by nature, are fixers. Men naturally want to fix things. (Unless it is on the dreaded honey do list) It is that automatic reflex of fixing things that gets men into trouble.
When a woman tells a man she is having trouble with something, he goes into Mr. Fix-it mode. He can’t help it, that’s the way God created him. What men don’t realize, she doesn’t want him to fix it, just SHUT UP and LISTEN! Uh, wait, you mean she just wants to TALK, VENT, talk it through? Yep, pretty much. But that second nature of the male species, auto-fix takes over and now by trying to fix it, we just made it worse.
Okay, there are times when She does want you to fix-it. Those times are usually a direct request or deeply veiled sarcasm. “Would you please fix the washer?” or “The car is making that strange noise again?” But the now mis-understood communication leads to, more confusion.
I never said communicating with a man was easy, nor fun for that matter. It is not that he is complex or incapable of understanding. He has to be approached differently. (baseball bat to the head, not a good idea). But to communicate with the big lug, you have to first get his attention. If he is watching (or if is is even on) the T.V., he is not listen when you talk. Oh, he hears a noise in the background, he will even nod and answer you, but he didn’t hear a word you said. (Please exercise caution from this point on.) Either turn the T.V. down, off, or step between him and the T.V. You now have his attention. Make your request known and have him repeat it back to you. And make sure he makes eye contact. And tomorrow when he forgets to take out the trash, you realize that Mr. Fix-it didn’t come with the optional ability to understand women!