Jonathots Daily Blog
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Dear Woman: A couple of days ago I read an article in a magazine…
Dear Man: You’re just trying to impress me with the fact that you can read.
Dear Woman: Actually, I’m trying to impress you with the fact that I read something and retained enough to have a discussion. Anyway, in this article it said that men and women should appreciate their differences because it grants each of them a “unique perspective.”
Dear Man: A unique perspective?
Dear Woman: Yeah, that’s what I geared in on too. What does that mean?
Dear Man: That means I have a way of looking at things that’s different from you, and you would garner great insight by listening to my feelings on the issue.
Dear Woman: Do you think that’s true?
Dear Man: I was taught it was true. Matter of fact, I grew up believing that relationships were 50-50. Somewhere along the line, that got pooh-poohed, and now we believe that it’s gotta be 100% and 100%. It’s the me plus me equals us.
Dear Woman: We don’t believe that. It’s a war with an unsettling truce. Men pretend that women are smarter while still retaining the power.
Dear Man: Well, how do they do that?
Dear Woman: By telling you that you have a “unique perspective” which they value hearing and enjoy ignoring.
Dear Man: So what you’re saying is that telling someone they have a unique perspective is not a positive?
Dear Woman: Absolutely not. It’s never positive. Saying that someone has a unique perspective is only two argument points away from the classic, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
Dear Man: So you believe that’s why we have so many stalemates in discussions between men and women?
Dear Woman: Yes. Every idea has a genesis and an exodus.
Dear Man: Explain.
Dear Woman: That wasn’t very clear, was it? What I’m saying is that the word “unique” is a genesis, but as the word “unique” goes through the human experience, it changes to other words. And by the time it evolves, our emotions interpret it in a much different way.
Dear Man: So you’re saying that “unique” doesn’t really mean “unique” to us?
Dear Woman: Exactly. “Unique” is translated in our brain as “different.” And different is not something we enjoy. It’s something we tolerate. And we always tell people they need more tolerance.
Dear Man: So how do you build a relationship on tolerance?
Dear Woman: You can’t. You kind of end up faking it.
Dear Man: So let me try my hand at it. After “unique” becomes “different” in our heads, “different” can quickly become “alien.” In other words, people from Mexico have different customs than we do, so therefore we view them as aliens.
Dear Woman: Very well said. And of course, once something is alien, we stick it in Outer Space. It’s not really allowed past our borders, is it?
Dear Man: So if I convince myself that your feelings are unique and therefore different, which makes them alien, it’s very easy for me to turn a deaf ear and view them as intrusive.
Dear Woman: Yeah. I’m an intruder on your girl power.
Dear Man: And I’m an intruder on your macho.
Dear Woman: So we end up tolerating each other to get what we want.
Dear Man: And when we don’t want it so much any more, we decide to get rid of the intruder.
Dear Woman: So as long as we look at each other as unique, instead of finding common ground, we will focus on the differences, become alien to one another and eventually, in a bit of disgust, consider each other intrusive.
Dear Man: It’s kind of funny. Because if either one of us found ourselves stuck in the jungle, we would quickly learn to adapt–find our inner monkey–instead of insisting that the monkeys have a “unique perspective.”
Dear Woman: You should never consider yourself a monkey.
Dear Man: You know what I’m saying. To survive, we find commonality. To fail, we focus on differences. That’s just life.
Dear Woman: Except when it comes to men and women, right? Then we think we’re so damn clever by highlighting the uniqueness.
Dear Man: So you don’t think I have any uniqueness?
Dear Woman: Yes, I do. But it has nothing to do with you being a woman. It has to do with your experience. Your faith. Your charity. Your hope. Your sense of humor. That’s what makes you fresh to me.
Dear Man: So how did it get all screwed up?
Dear Woman: I guess the way it always gets screwed up. One night, one member of the sexes didn’t want to listen to the other one, so he or she decided that the other gender was unique, and therefore incomprehensible.
Dear Man: So I am going to give you a blessing. You are not unique. You are not different. You are not alien to me. And you are not an intruder. It’s my job to figure out how the culture screwed us up … and how we can get back to the Garden.
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