7 Female Behaviors That Baffle Men (Explained!)
In a previous article, I talked about some of the big questions men ask about women, about relationships and communication and all that boring stuff. But in focusing on the serious man/woman issues of our time, I missed out on other less dramatic, yet equally pressing issues, like why girls go to the bathroom together.
Well, here it is. I hope you're happy.
#7.
Why Do Women Go to the Bathroom In Groups?
A lot of men seem to think there is a kind of secret, like the women have some kind of coordinated plan or traditional ritual, when it's really a case of everything looking mysterious when you're not in on it.
A lot of the time it's as simple as trying to find an appropriate break in the conversation. When we watch TV, we all wait for commercial breaks to go to the bathroom, so we won't miss anything. In a dinner conversation, there aren't any designated "commercial breaks," but if half the group is taking off, chances are the other half will save their good stories and such until they get back.
Ladies are traditionally known for being more relational than men, so they sometimes can see dinner conversation as being as important as a good TV show, and look for unimportant "breaks" where they can cut out and pee. If one lady decides to go, another lady might notice it, think about where the conversation is at, and realize, "Oh yeah, this probably is a good break." By the time you get to lady No. 3 or 4, she's not only thinking that, but, also that with a bunch of ladies gone, there might be a lull in conversation -- or at least lady-appropriate conversation -- and this is as close to an official break as you're going to get.
When it comes to ladies on double dates or in large prom groups, they might see it as a good time to catch up with each other and how they think their dates are going. Maybe say what they think of each other's dates. Just like men enjoy the play-by-play in sports, ladies enjoy a play-by-play on dates, but it's very rude to do it right in front of the guy.
And a large number of ladies don't do it at all. I don't usually go to the bathroom when my friends do, but that's because I don't care about other people. Also they are going to take all the good stalls.
Basically there's a bunch of different common-sense motivations depending on the situation and the individual women involved. There's no universal ritual or secret plan.
#6.
Why Are Women's Public Restrooms so Gross?
Obviously this varies from place to place, but a lot of men who have had to do janitorial work complain that women's restrooms are often filthier than men's restrooms. I don't want to go into too much graphic detail here, but I've heard anecdotes of women apparently making a mural of used tampons on the wall.
This is understandably bewildering, since women are traditionally brought up to hate dirt and germs. And while a lot of women like to break the stereotype (CDC doctors, mud wrestlers), a lot more definitely fall into it to some degree.
This is why a lot of women don't play Fallout. Just because the world has been destroyed with nuclear weapons doesn't mean someone couldn't sweep once in a while.
The thing about this upbringing is that it's kind of intended to encourage women to clean, since in the past, that was a woman's job. If you instill fear and hatred of filth in a woman, the thought went, she would get upset about dirty counters long before her man would, and automatically clean it up before he had to give the order.
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Once upon a time, we took the same approach to raising girls as we do to programming Roombas.
As we all know, fear triggers a "fight or flight" response, equipping you to either fight the danger, or flee it. If a classically-raised woman runs into a nasty poo-encrusted toilet, she suddenly gets the visceral urge to either clean it or run away. If it's in her own house, she's got no choice but to clean it, at least eventually (or ask someone else to). If it's in McDonald's, she will pee hovering over the seat with her breath held, fling her toilet tissue in the general direction of the toilet and run like the wind.
So if you're wondering why someone wouldn't flush a toilet that obviously needed a second flush, the answer is that she was probably a block away by the time that became evident.
#5.
Why Do Girls Take so Long to Get Ready?
Again, there's probably a bunch of things that cause this. Some girls probably actually do want to make a man wait in order to play hard-to-get or whatever, just like in the jokes. Someone has to keep stand-up comedians in business.
A more innocent answer could be that she's trying on clothes. As you probably know, women usually like to wear new outfits to special events. While most women aren't wasteful enough to buy a new dress every time, she's probably going to want to combine the dress with a different pair of shoes, or a different shawl, or maybe drape it with meat -- I'm not going to judge. So she's got a really awesome new outfit combo planned for the big day.
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I said I wasn't going to judge.
The downside of a new and exciting outfit is that it's an untested outfit, which means that even though those boots theoretically should have gone with that skirt for a smart, modern combo, once you put it on, apparently you look like a goth. It's bizarre.
Then you swear and start grabbing other pieces that you think will fix this, which as you can imagine, consumes a lot of time, since a lot of nice going-out clothes are both flimsy and tight, so getting in and out without tearing them is an ordeal.
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When are Inuit fashions going to catch on? That's what I want to know.
Obviously, the logical solution is to test the outfit ahead of time, which some women do. However, women, like all human beings, procrastinate, so this happens about as often as anyone actually studying for a test early or doing their homework before the last minute.
And this is all before makeup. You don't even want to get me started on makeup. Mainly because I don't know anything about it. But I heard it takes a long time.
#4.
Why Are Women's Fashions so Complicated?
In general, men's fashions go along a one dimensional axis from casual to formal, like so:
And they just need to pick where on the line they need to be, depending on the situation. Sure, there are a lot of different styles (preppy, yuppie, guido, skater, hipster, etc.), but most guys usually just go with one style, and move along a single axis in that style. Here is an example of a guido axis:
Women's fashions have multiple axes. For example in addition to casual and formal, there's also slutty and dowdy, like so:
Guys fashions have some hint of a coolness spectrum, from smooth to dad-like, but it's not nearly as wide and obvious as the women's range from hijab to miniskirts. It's a very rare guy outfit that would cause someone to point out its wearer as a man-whore, based on the outfit alone. Even if a guy was wearing no shirt in the workplace, he wouldn't get called out for being slutty so much as for being way too casual.
And there's more that just those two axes. There's also a seasonal one, which I don't completely understand, but apparently a white purse is a summer purse and you're supposed to swap to a black one in the winter or something, or so I have gathered from my mom's yelling. So you could have an outfit that's just the right amount of formal and slutty, but it's the wrong season. And the more fashionable you are, the more axes you have. So that's why a simple decision like what to wear today can get so complicated.
Nefarious marketing by the fashion industry or inevitable result of the nature of woman, that's beyond me to say. You all go ahead and get into a fight about that if you want to.
Ladies I hate to burst your bubbles, but as much as you may want us to be considerate enough towards you to make such a small effort to make your day a little easier, isn't it better to just keep in mind that, with it being such a small amount of effort, you should handle it yourself like we do every time we use a bathroom and the seat is in the wrong position for that visit?
ReplyOr would you rather imply that because we aren't thinking about what you do while you're using a toilet, we don't care about you as much as we should? I barely want to think about what I'm doing on the toilet, never mind other people.
This article could have been titled "7 ways women over-think everyday situations."
ReplyFun Fact: One of the reason people who smell good to each other do so (if they're not wearing good smelling products) is because of antibodies. We are genetically programmed to search out a mate with different antibodies from ourselves so that any child produced would have a better chance of being protected from more diseases. So when you smell someone and think "yum" they probably have a slightly different antibody mixture from you. Perfumes are meant to artificially create the smells of antibodies as well (which is why different people have different perfume/cologne preferences too).
ReplyWho said men need the toilet seat down when they have to take a crap?
ReplyI'm a teenage girl and pretty much none of these apply to me. I guess I'm just weird lol.
Reply#4. Why Are Women's Fashions so Complicated?
I wear t-shirts and shorts, that's it. Of course, I wear pants if it's cold. My mom is the only thing preventing me from wearing t-shirts 24/7.
#2.Why Do Women Have so Many Shoes?
I have 2 pairs of shoes. And I'm perfectly happy with that amount.
#1. Why Do Women Get so Upset About the Toilet Seat Thing?
I don't care. It doesn't bother me at all when my dad or brother leaves the toilet seat up.
I agree. My mother is the only reason I have "formal" clothes. If I had it my way, dresses would not exist. Neither would skirts. I have about six pairs of shoes (not including all my sneakers for running, since you have to change them every 15,000 miles or so). That's it. And I just put the seat down if it's up. It takes half a second. The only time it bothers me is if my brother has bad aim and there's pee everywhere.
Wait until you're a grown woman and suddenly have to worry about clothes for job interviews, clothes appropriate to whatever job you end up going to, clothes to wear to the weddings your friends and family are inevitably going to start inviting you to, clothes to wear to things prior to those weddings (I had a friend's future mother-in-law throw a "bridal luncheon" the day before the wedding, forcing all of the girls in the bridal party to go out and buy cocktail dresses), clothes to wear on dates (there is nothing more annoying than when the guy refuses to tell you what he's planned, because then you have no idea whether it would be riskier to over-dress or under-dress), and many other situations. Believe me, I WAS YOU WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. Now I'm twenty-three and still in college, but all of my jobs, internships, and social experiences have since increased my wardrobe to include office attire (including full suits), dresses and skirts ranging from "casual" to "the only thing keeping this from being a wedding dress is the color", four different outfits from four different bridal parties I was asked to be in (and for which I had to pay, each and every time), etc.. Most of it is stuff that I HAD to buy for jobs or special occasions, but some of it is stuff that I eventually decided I really liked (like skirts that are fun to twirl in, but are also long enough that I can do whatever I want as long as it doesn't involve going upside-down). You are NOT weird, you just haven't yet had many reasons to require expanding your wardrobe.
... However, the not-getting-upset-about-the-toilet-seat thing IS pretty weird.
The toilet seat thing has always gotten on my nerves because guys [i]always[/i] look to see if the seat is down before going in to sit on the toilet, it doesn't occur to us not to because we know it might be up. Even if a woman was the last one in the bathroom, dumping a bucket from cleaning the floor into the toilet and knows that she raised the seat to do so, if she runs into the bathroom seconds later just exiting to place the bucket in the hall if the seat is up and she falls in it's any man in the houses fault she fell in. That logic always escaped me too.
ReplyMaybe you should start hanging out with women that don't have short-term memory problems.
There should be explanation on the need for so many purses..or maybe it's just excess? I'm abroad and a female acquaintance asks me to buy for another purse of some popular -foreignnn- brand I rather not remember. It's another 1 since I bought one last year. She has 5 or 6 more purses at home..
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThey're supposed to match your shoes. You can see where the madness begins.
I have one purse, and I usually just leave it in the car. Either that, or my husband ends up carrying it because it hurts my shoulder. Luckily, he is secure with his masculinity.
Purses fall apart the longer you use them.
Wow I have NEVER heard the "women's toilets are gross" thing - only the exact opposite. Maybe it's cultural.
ReplyAs for the shoes thing, I can tell you why I love shoes - shoes are pretty, and they don't have any kind of "I like it but it makes me look like a heffalump" element like, say, clothes for any other part of the body. Also you get to put your own zing into an outfit but not so much that people will go "what a weirdo", they'll just go, "huh, unusual shoes" ... if they notice at all ... so it's like a nice surprise for anyone who can be bothered :)
Am I the only woman here who can catch herself BEFORE she falls into the toilet?? And then when that's all over thinks "Oh, dumb me, should have checked to see if the seat was up!"
ReplyYou're not the only one who can catch themselves before she falls into the toilet. But my reaction upon catching myself is not "Oh dumb me," it's "Crap that's cold." Then I go on and get annoyed at the person who caused me that moment of discomfort.
Just close the damn toilet, lid and all. It doesn't splash everywhere when flushing, you don't have to either constantly clean it or stare at the disgusting ring inside it while you do other things in the bathroom, and nothing will fall in it (dropped toothbrushes, the whole toilet paper roll, cats...)
ReplyThe whole shoes thing...
Replythis is why I refuse to wear any other shoes except boots. I have 4 pairs. A tall, dark brown, knee-length pair I use for my sophisticated outfits. A shin length camel colored pair of buckles, lace, AND zipper boots I wear almost everyday. A short western black pair (barely above ankle length) for jeans. And then a fancy silver pair for any sort of serious meeting.
Even 4 pairs of boots can sound complicated...
I love boots but i cant wear them because my calves are too big. :( Stupid 10 years of soccer. Haha. XD
Ok, here's the thing about Christina's articles. The only names I have bothered to remember are hers and John Cheese's, so whenever I read a bad article by her I think, "OMG, another bad Christina article! Boo!" But, really, she has plenty of good articles (like this one!), and her track record is probably no worse than anyone else's. It's probably better, why else do I even know her name?
ReplyAlso, I loved this article.
Toilet seat, it stays up. It takes less effort for you to knock it down than for me to put it up. Live with it.
ReplyOops, I accidentally thumbs-upped you. Please be so kind as to disregard that.
I just wish I could stop disagreeing with you. I really want to like your writing. I'm trying damnit.
ReplyWomen be different from men!
ReplyGood God, people, get over yourselves. I can't believe I just saw a multi-page conversation about leaving the freaking TOILET SEAT up. Seriously, no one cares.
ReplyYou clearly do
In my family, we just had a rule that everyone had to close the entire toilet, lid and all. It looks nicer, and that way no one can whine about anyone else having to do more work. And also no one ever falls into the toilet. Because seriously, that is the worst.
ReplyGood god, do women really do all that damn math when they need to take a piss? Here's a thought: When you need it down, put it down. When you need it up, put it up. I wouldn't overcomplicate this stuff with a 'default position' and statistics and decision factoring or whatever...
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesYeah, remember that bit about the "falling into the toilet"? It would make you come up with a 'default position' too.
How the flying f**k does one fall into a toilet? I have gotten 5 stitches from playing dodgeball, three from tripping over a microscopic rock, broke a bone from a swing and I have NEVER fallen into a toilet.
Do people actually fall into the toilet?!? I know thats been used as an excuse for the bitching about the seat but Im 29 years old and have NEVER been stupid enough to fall into a toilet. I just cant even imagine the level of retardation it takes to accomplish such a feat.
When you stumble in the bathroom late night, and you're used to having the toilet seat down, you probably aren't going to check, then whoops! Your bare ass is wet with toilet water, and now you have to take a shower in the middle of the night. Just leave it down. It looks cleaner like that anyway.
I won't even TOUCH that whole 'lid up/ lid down' subject. As far as some of the others, I think Christina did a pretty good summary.
Reply7. I got to the bathroom with my friends for the sake of: A.) Primping in the mirror and getting in a quick outfit check, OR, B.) Gossiping.. Plain and simple. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever had a moment where at least one girl has stayed behind with the guys while the girls took a break. *shrugs*
6. Nasty people. If it's too much to handle, I try the mens' restroom when I'm sure no one's looking. If that's out of the question also, I just hold it.. and pray.. lots and lots of praying.
2.Alls I need is a pair of heels, running shoes, knockabouts (lounge wear), and maybe something pretty, but able to go with any outfit..I hate trying to match shoes. One effin pair for the style will do. For everything else, there's flip-flops.
is it just too easy for women to put the seat down if it's up? are they just incapable of doing that? if the woman falls in, it's her fault for not seeing that the seat was up before she sat on the toilet.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesClearly you have never been half-asleep and stumbled into the bathroom and then plopped down on what -should- have been the seat. I actually don't mind too much if a guy leaves it up, but there's a legitimate concern here.
I've never fallen into the toilet half-asleep when I went to go take a shit. Just sayin...
Feek, it's an automatic thing for you because you're used to having to put the seat up and down. Girls aren't. We're raised to be clean and don't get the "boys will be boys" excuse if we want to go a week without bathing or eat a worm or something. Raised toilet seats expose grosser aspects of the toilet than we're comfortable with, and we don't want to touch them. Again, because most of us are raised to be cleaner. It's a dumb argument. Just leave it down, if not for courtesy's sake, then at least for aesthetic reasons.
Thank you, Bunny, for finally telling it like it is. These "I'm gonna fall in" arguments ring somewhat less than true to me.