Oh Just Stop it With Your 10 Things Women Need to Know About Men

I spent a spare moment on twitter Saturday afternoon. It had been a busy day, a long drive home in the morning, quiet time to myself in the car, then an explosion of small children, a beautiful summer day, a nice dinner in the garden.

And I discovered this:

Top 10 Things All Women Need To Know About Men. It caught my eye in twitter, I clicked, I read.

I liked the intro. I’m not a church goer myself, at least not anymore, but the introduction, church or not, God or not, was pleasant enough and engaging.

I even like the list. There’s something in the tone that makes me like the author.

But parts of it bother me. Maybe at 61, almost 40 years married, I’m getting tired of the stereotypes. For example:

We are not mind readers, say what’s really on your mind.

That one made me smile. I have no idea what he’s talking about. My wife has never had any trouble speaking her mind. And then there was this one:

We need our time alone: guys night out, man cave…

Boy, no offense to guy friends, but no thanks. What with business to do, kids, family, trying to have a life … I never understood the guys night out. Never wanted it. Is that really just me?

So as I read on, I recognize the problems, but is any of this really man vs. woman?

We want to be the leader and the protector… let us lead.

That’s old. Protector maybe, in a physical way, male, but I don’t think marriage is about a leader and a follower. Let’s hope you have some of both, on both sides.

When we say nothing is wrong, “Nothing is wrong” nothing means nothing!

Good luck with that. Let me know how it goes. It’s a good thing only one gender has trouble with this .

We want to be respected and appreciated.

Weird. What’s that doing here? Who doesn’t? What does this have to do with men and women?

We don’t remember many dates, maybe even special dates.

What is this, the I Love Lucy show? Leave it to Beaver?

We don’t like chick flix.

I like good chick flix myself, and I also like good action flix, and so does my wife. Maybe it’s just me.

This stuff gets old. It’s endearing, I suppose, but it’s also out of date, and some of this — like respect and appreciation, or leadership, are gender specific — is not that good for anybody.