The talk of death
During the wayward days of one’s heathen bachelorhood, the most feared set of words a man will hear uttered from the mouth of his girlfriend — aside from “Am I getting fat?”, “My dad isn’t afraid to be charged with manslaughter” and “I’m late” — is “Can we talk?” (Although when these words issue from a man’s wife, they still have the uncanny ability to make one’s testicles travel to the top of his throat.)
You see, most men are capable of maintaining an intelligent, adult conversation on three things of import — basketball, girlie magazines and bodily gases (in no particular order particular, unless it was a particularly good basketball game). Now if the topic of conversation moves beyond these topics, men risk bowel discharge, nosebleeds and brain implosion. This is because, as a result of evolutionary missteps, men were not deigned to talk for periods exceeding five minutes (give or take five minutes), but instead we were given chest hair and non-utilitarian nipples. So, please be warned that if you plan to engage men in conversation — most especially a conversation that will involve a revelation of feelings — please know that men will screw it up. Royally. If you really want her to engage in a meaningful conversation, please have her talk with her gay best friend instead. However, if women insist on talking to us on a heterosexual level, please only ask us questions that we can answer with a degree of certainty, like “What time is it?”, “What is your credit card limit?” and “Can Erap run for president in next year’s presidential elections?”
Allow me to fabricate an example for you. This was a conversation I had several years ago with my girlfriend (cum parole officer) after a particularly grueling day at the office:
The Stars in My Milky Way: How was your day, dear?
RJ the idiot: It was okay, love, I actua—
The Sun of My Solar System: It was the woooooorrrrrrst day of my life!! I woke up late this morning because you forgot to give me your good morning wakeup call and then as I was rushing to work I accidentally wore the wrong shade and lipstick and that color didn’t match with my bag so I was so distracted that I couldn’t concentrate on the presentation I was delivering to my boss this afternoon and then — oh my God — he asked me to revise my work and I think I won’t get that promotion—
RJ the even bigger idiot: Don’t worry about your answer, dear. Just forget about it, there’s nothing else you can do about it. Focus on making those revisions on your presentation.
The Black Hole of My Galaxy: What do you mean, “forget about it”!? Has writing your column caused your brain to devolve!? That was the most important presentation in my life! How can you tell me to forget about it!
RJ the hapless idiot: But dear, why were you were sharing this with me if you didn’t want me to—
The Comet that Killed the Dinosaurs: And why do you keep writing about your yaya!? You think I find that funny? Every week it’s yaya this and yaya that! Why do I always have to keep up with your yaya for attention? It’s enough that I’m being ridiculed for dating you! Then I have to put up being ridiculed for dating a 30-year-old man with a yaya?
RJ the dead idiot: What does this have to do with what we’re talking about? Love, you know I’m just writing about yaya for humorous exaggeration.
The End of My Existence: Shut up! Shut uuuuuppp!!! I hope that chastity belt my dad clamped on you rusts shut!
(Okay, that conversation was purely hypothetical. Except for that wrong shade of lipstick.)
After having to saw off my rusted chastity belt, I discovered that a temporary way to solve such communication problems is to throw fashion accessories at them. If you are willing to give up a vital organ that will allow you to purchase a bag with a foreign-sounding name, she might enter into a state of suspended happiness. And remember: the more vital the organ that you give up, the longer the state of suspension. However, peace will reign in the relationship only up to the point that she has taken the bag for a stroll out in public. After that, she will allow the chastity belt to rust shut again and your problem still remains unsolved. At this point, you have two choices: you buy more bags or you solve the problem. If you are like me and have used up your share of expendable vital organs, then you will do the right thing: list down additional bag purchases as an entertainment expense hoping that your company will not perform an audit on you for the next year or so.
But there will come a point when a more permanent solution is needed which will not require men to visit the organ donor bank to amortize another bag or to watch Oprah (or — brace yourself — Ruffa and Ai). And the solution starts with the realization that men aren’t insensitive, we are just imbeciles. And this isn’t just my opinion, there are many books that discuss this lengthily and hide themselves behind politically correct titles like Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps. Men’s brains were programmed by evolution to hunt: our worth to the tribe was dependent on our ability to hit a moving target so that the tribe could eat. We were built to solve problems for the tribe. Other equally important skills, such as gender sensitivity-training and washing our hands after taking a leak, were not required during a period in our history when hand sanitizers had yet to be invented.
Recognizing that we are idiots, men have tried to come up with solutions whenever women talk about their problems. Take heed, heathen bachelors and the occasional henpecked husband out there: she is not interested in our verbal diarrhea that resembles a solution. She wants you to clam up like a constipated sphincter and do something that our government rarely does and just listen to her carefully. Under stress or pressure, a woman’s speech function is activated and she starts talking nonstop. When your woman is stressed, it is time to hide behind your yaya’s palda and hope to God that she doesn’t find you. Otherwise, she will talk about her problems for hours, and her analysis of her problems will be more thorough and exacting than any congressional inquiry. She will talk about past problems (where you were not involved in but will be retroactively blamed for), present problems (your fault, of course), and future problems (which you will be blamed for as well). But don’t whimper like a dog that just got neutered after she has been talking about her problems for five hours straight and you need to get up early the next day for work (no, sweetheart, I promise I am not ranting about last night. We’re married, there’s no need to put that chastity belt back on me) because she isn’t seeking a solution — she already receives comfort and relief from the process of talking.
So, woefully single men, when your significant other prefaces her conversation with the phrase “Can we talk?” — here are some practical tips that have kept me a hair’s breadth away from castration:
1. Just shut up.
2. Stay awake.
3. Take it. Just take it.
4. In the event that you are forced to talk, be prepared to reply every single time with “Yes, dear, I understand.” Or, if worse comes to worst, “Please stop, dear. I have lost sensation in those parts.”
5. Clench your butt muscles. It has nothing to do much with the conversation, but it will give you a constipated type of look that will make you appear as if you are listening.
6. Do not interrupt with “What’s the point?” or “Can I watch TV instead?” or “Honey, you aren’t making any sense.” (That phrase contains the last words you will ever squeak before she rips open your guts and consumes your spleen for protein.) The point here is much like the chief executive who has held on tenaciously to her presidency: there is no point. The most valuable lesson a man can learn here is to listen and clench.
7. Do not try to minimize her problem by telling her, “You’re overreacting” or “It’s not a big deal, forget about it” or “Why don’t we (unprintable, unprintable, unprintable) first, I’m sure you’ll feel much better after. I know I will.” If any of these phrases depart your mouth and land in her ear, then expect your fate to be similar to many of the poultry products sold in dubious wet markets: you will be double dead.
8. If you can no longer take the talk, ask to be excused, make a mad dash to the banyo, take out your razor and perform a lobotomy on yourself. Or if this takes too long, just shoot yourself in the head. You might feel better after that.
9. If, because of divine consequence, you misfired while in the banyo and find yourself instead regaining consciousness in the ICU and she keeps on complaining that you should have let her into the bathroom so that she could continue to talk while you tried to shoot yourself in the head, then it is time to search for that sensitive man that resides deep in the crevices of your being and attempt to listen to your significant other intently. Then, after she is done, try to choke yourself by swallowing your own tongue if your gun was confiscated by the authorities.
(Surgeon General’s warning: Please do not take any of this seriously. If you do, my wife has authorized the surgeon general to surgically remove what is left of my functioning vital organs. Then she will want to talk about it.)
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