December 2016 | MensHealth.com 113Beth Studenberg/thelicensingproject.com
If there’s one thing we’ve
learned from every hack stand-
up comic, it’s that women love
to yack. Except, sorry, it’s not
true. A 2007 study from the Uni-
versity of Arizona found that
men average 15,669 words a day,
versus 16,215 for women.
But even though the word
salad is about the same size for
each sex, women seem to pre-
fer to use verbal strategies to
solve problems. “Women have
increased connectivity between
the left and right hemispheres
of the brain, and men connect
more from front to back,” says
Ragini Verma, Ph.D., a profes-
sor at the University of Penn-
sylvania who studies structural
differences between male and
female brains. “Male brains
facilitate connectivity between
regions that handle percep-
tion and action. Once men hear
something, they want to act on
it. But with women, it’s more
about the connection between
logic and intuition.”
So what’s the solution? Take
a deep breath, let her talk, andMAN BRAIN WONDERS... MAN BRAIN WONDERS...WOMAN BRAIN WONDERS...Why does she want to
discuss every detail of
a problem, even if I already
know the solution?Why does she go to the
bathroom with her friends?Why does he think he has
the immediate answer to
everything and never seems
to listen to me?try not to take it personally. It’s
not about whether you can or
can’t solve the problem; it’s just
the way her brain is wired for
problem-solving.
“She derives comfort from
emotionally analyzing the
problem first in the same way
you get comfort from acting on
the problem immediately,” Dr.
Brizendine says.Women seek friendships
for different reasons than men
do. They want to “coruminate,”
says Tamas David-Barrett, Ph.D.,
a behavioral scientist at the Uni-
versity of Oxford. “They meet
up and then tell each other,
often in sequential monologue
form, about their issue at that
particular moment in their
lives.” But men, he says, pre-
fer active friendships. They’d
rather socialize with other guys
through another activity, such
as playing golf or fishing. It
could even be an “imaginary
action,” says David-Barrett,
“like going to the pub to watch
a game on TV together.”
Women in particular typi-
cally behave this way because
of an innate biological instinct
researchers call “tend and
befriend,” a UCLA study dis-
covered. Females of a species
cope with stress by nurturing
their young (tending) and seek-
ing social contact (befriend-
ing). This is different from the
fight-or-flight response typically
used by males to deal with anx-
iety. When life gets stressful,
women huddle together whileA lot depends on what was
happening while she was tell-
ing you whatever it was you
don’t remember. Next time, tell
her you may have been suffer-
ing from “inattentional deaf-
ness.” If she questions whether
such a thing exists, cite the 2015
study published in the Journal
of Neuroscience that reported
the condition. Researchers the-
orize that it stems from focus-
ing so intently on a visual task
that you momentarily become
deaf—literally deaf—to sounds
you would otherwise hear. Tell
her that if you aren’t making
eye contact with her while she’s
talking, you’re not listening.the menfolk either start throw-
ing punches or run for it.
Remember this the next time
she has yet another girls night
out or travels by female posse to
the restroom. What she’s really
saying, deep in her evolutionary
memory, is “I need to be with
other women because I’m wor-
ried our tribe might be gored
by saber-toothed tigers or deci-
mated by famine or pestilence.”Men don’t get nearly enough
alone time. In fact, we actively
avoid it. In a University of Vir-
ginia study, 67 percent of men
opted to give themselves a shock
rather than be alone with their
thoughts. So anytime a man is
alone, even if it’s on the porce-
lain throne, it’s a good thing. Tell
her you’re just staying on the
can to be a better man—for her.Some women have a com-
plicated relationship with food.
Nearly 90 percent of women
are unhappy with their weight.
They think about food roughly
once an hour, and sex about
every 90 minutes. When was
the last time you thought about
sex? Probably while you were
reading this sentence.
“There’s the cultural pressure
to be thin, which can make them
self-conscious about eating in
social situations,” says Dr. Bri-
zendine. “They don’t want to be
viewed as overindulging.” Just
because they don’t order their
own fries doesn’t mean they’re
not hungry. But for many
women, ordering a big meal is
the social equivalent of a man
crying in public. Even if nobody
cares, it still feels like everybody
is staring in judgment.MAN BRAIN WONDERS...Why does she say she’s not
hungry and then keep eating
my french fries?WOMAN BRAIN WONDERS...Why is he in the bathroom for
hours by himself?CONTINUED ON P. 128