Reasoning with Women

Some reader friends asked me, after reading my previous article, “How do I handle my unreasonable girlfriend?”

They thought I was an expert in this field. No, no, no. I am a writer, not a animal trainer. I could only tell his sentence is grammatically problematic as it contains redundant words — because “unreasonable” and “girlfriend” are essentially the same. It’s like saying “How do I handle my unreasonable unreasonable?” or “How do I handle my girlfriend girlfriend?”

I’d rather tame a lion. At least I’ve actually seen it worked. At least you get to whip the lion. At least the audience cheers and claps as you whip it. At least the lion obeys. If it doesn’t, you die, but at least that only happens once in a million tries.

But I’m a writer. So very often, I exaggerate. By now, lady readers would want to protest. And I’d say you’re absolutely right. How dare I reason with you? Nevertheless, note that I am not saying women are unreasonable. I’m saying girlfriends are. It’s like you can be the most honest man in the world, and then you become a Malaysian traffic police… There’s this saying, absolute power leads to absolute corruption. When ladies assume the girlfriend status, they are granted with absolute power. Their most trivial displeasure is greeted with gifts. How can they not become corrupted? It’s the guys’ fault. Would you feed the lion every time it’s hungry? No. It must perform tricks first, like jumping through a fire-blazing hoop. But girls never need to jump through fire-blazing hoops.

Taking away the exaggeration: girlfriends are not unreasonable. I wouldn’t be of much help to my friends if I merely share my pessimism. So here’s what I’ve learned from books and lectures: women speaks a different language. They express emotion instead of logic. For example, when a woman say, “You never buy me expensive, branded handbags,” Man tends to take that literally and respond, “Not true, I bought you Coach and LV for your birthday and our anniversary.” Such response can only ignite a bomb.

You see, what the woman is really saying is: I am upset because you are not buying me an expensive, branded handbag NOW (because Susie’s boyfriend bought her three). The proper response from the man ought to address the emotion of dissatisfaction, instead of correcting the facts. “Honey, I know you’re upset because I didn’t buy the LV. But I’m a little short of cash recently. I’ll make it up to you when I can.” Do not mention it’s her that bankrupted you in the first place.

You can learn a lot more about the differences between sexes in John Gray’s bestseller “Men are from Earth, Women are from Outer Space”. The knowledge and techniques don’t sound too hard, but it’s harder than I thought to put it to use because so much female behavior is contradicting to men instinct.

Actually God wrote a book way before John Gray. It’s called the Bible. I looked up Wikipedia, and found that God formed Adam out of “the dust of the ground”. Now you know why you’ve been treated like dirt. And why she, along with her friends and relatives, step on you all the time. God made Eve from your rib. And that basically explains the cause of your chronic chest pain.

PS: I suddenly realize this is my first article unrelated to cars. If I want to stick to writing about cars, I have to mention something about cars. What cars are unreasonable? There’s no such thing. You steer a buggy leftwards, it goes left. You steer a sedan leftwards, it goes left. You steer a lorry leftwards, it goes left. They never argue. The closest example of an unreasonable car I can think of is a Malaysian taxi.

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