What's Wrong With Men?

I hear this question all the time from women, since I'm usually dubbed the eternal "platonic friend" women like to pick my brain sometimes in hopes of unlocking the mystery of a man's rationale.

I always get the question, "Rod, why are all men dogs?" First off, you're being inclusive when you ask that question, and if I attempt to answer it, I'm just reinforcing the fact that you basically just asked me why am I a dog too. Hell, I don't know why guys fool around, they've been doing it since before I was born and they'll likely continue after I'm gone and I bet there are one million different reasons why each man has fooled around. Not saying that it's right, but there's no simple solution to the question.

"Rod how come men are afraid of commitment?" Aha! Finally a question I can partially answer. Now I'm not speaking for all men, but from my experiences, this is what I've come up with. Different people go through different stages of life at different moments. Just like they say women mature faster than men, (which I believe is some BS but that's a completely different note, lol) and this is known so instead of being patient ladies what do you do? You try to overrationalize the situation, attempt to entice us with offers, and generally persuade a guy to do something when maturity wise, he may not be there yet. Not saying that a guy is less of a man because he's not necessarily ready to commit, we just take longer to get to that phase. Think of it like math classes. Some people progress through math at different times. While yall might be flying through the math classes Algebra I no problem, Algebra II, no problem, Geometry no problem; we might get caught up in Algebra I and might have to take longer to reach Geometry. Guys have a very long adolescent phase, and it's a fun time. Whereas yall might be ready for marriage and kids at 22, we might be ready for a girlfriend. And it's not that guys are afraid of commitment, we're just not trying to mess up a good thing. Like hey, we've been going out for over a year and it's beautiful, but now you wanna move in together. There are plenty of things that could spoil the good times we've had by moving in together and believe or not ladies were actually thinking about you when we don't rush into big commitments like that because we don't want to mess things up by jumping into something before we're actually ready.

"Rod, how come he acts like he doesn't care when I'm upset?" Okay, half the time we don't even know when you're upset. We ask, "what's wrong?" and most of the time yall will say "nothing". So we're thinking, okay, whatever, she said nothing. If something is wrong ladies, do us all a favor and TELL US! We don't read minds. We don't completely understand female body language. So make it easy on yourselves and the guys by just telling us your side. And don't start off by being accusatory, because then we'll get defensive and it'll turn into an argument. Guys don't like to argue, believe it or not. That's why we're like screw it, you wanna leave, there's the door. That's another issue too. Don't threaten to leave a guy when you're having a petty argument. I'm at the point now where I'll say... hey if you wanna leave, then leave and don't come back 3 hours later talking about "can we talk" because I gave you free reign to express yourself and YOU chose to say nothing so don't get upset with me. So the short answer to that question is, it's not that we don't care, it's just that you don't come off very sympathetic. We want to care, we'll sit down and listen to your side and try to process what you're saying. Just don't come at us like everything we do is wrong wrong wrong because who the hell wants to hear that about themselves constantly?

Now I may be playing devil's advocate, but these are the questions you ask, so don't be mad at the answers you hear, if you didn't wanna know, you shouldn't have asked.