It is undeniable.  Men and women do act like they come from different planets.  John Gray’s classic ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus’ is still evergreen and ever-relevant.

We don’t mean to hurt each other but even the best of intentions can come out sounding wrong.  A good example would be the guy going quiet for days on end, leaving the woman to wonder if she did something offensive to turn him away.

John Gray has a theory for this – the ‘Going into the Cave’ syndrome.  When guys have something stressful to deal with or a momentous decision weighing on their minds, they don’t talk about it like women do.  They just disappear into their ‘caves’ or indulge in no-brainer activities as their coping mechanism.  They can take hours, days, weeks or even months in the cave.   When they finally emerge, ready to continue the relationship as if nothing had happened, the women, left to fume alone and feeling that the men have put them on low priority during the long silence, would be in no mood to talk.

John Gray also goes on to share that women also have their ups and downs.  ”Women are like waves,” he writes.  They give and give until they have nothing left to give, and then they crash.  Nothing seems to go right and they seem to complain all the time.  That is, until their wave rises again and they become their buoyant and happy selves again.

The wave thing might have a grain of truth.  Something will trigger that downward pattern.  If the woman has unresolved issues from the past (most likely childhood), the waves will happen regularly and go deeper.

With all these complexities in communicating between the sexes, is it any wonder that couples tend to have disagreements and arguments frequently?  Perhaps not in the first six months or a year of basking in the bliss of a new relationship.  But generally, as a rule, fights are common.

I’ve seen the happiest couples disagree with one another.  What keeps them together is the respect they have for each other – to be fair, to not put each other down, to give each other the time and space to cool down, and to convey that it is safe for each other to express their feelings and to be committed to resolve the issues.

Relationships take work.  There are no short cuts.  Perhaps, like what John Gray advocates, if we learn how the other ‘aliens’ communicate, we can bridge that gender communication gap.   And rediscover happiness in our favourite Martian/Venusian.

What am I, chopped liver?

Facebook, or better known as FB, is a necessary evil. It has its benefits – it’s easier to keep in touch with acquaintances, friends and family flung at all corners of the world. And it’s a joy to reconnect with college mates and long-ago pen pals you haven’t heard from in yonks. It’s also a great way to get opinions and have random discourses of anything under the sun.

But I have a bone to pick about the convenience that FB brings. Especially when it comes to important news.

Sure, I’m thrilled when learning about an acquaintance or former classmate getting a boyfriend/married/pregnant/kid/new job/etc over FB.

Call me old fashion or what you will, but I will be most upset to find out news like this or any other important news on my loved ones’ FB pages. I’m not talking about receiving wedding/baby shower/dinner invites over FB message or other event invites, that’s just a modern way of inviting me to join that special moment in your life and I’m very happy to receive those. I’m talking about receiving updates via the FB news feed.

I’ll tell you why this grates me:

• I have over 600 friends on FB. Most of them update their statuses a few times each day. That amounts to over 1,000 news feeds per day. The chances of me missing out on an important update is very high as I don’t comb through my news feeds religiously every minute of every hour of every day.
• Reading an important update on someone’s FB status is equivalent receiving a breakup over SMS. It shows what little importance you place on our friendship/relationship. I don’t mind finding out what my only brother had for lunch or dinner over FB but if he announces that he’s getting married over FB and never bothered telling me first, I’ll be mega pissed. Especially when I’m the last to know and 25 other friends have congratulated him on his status comments. What am I, chopped liver?

To me, when I’m the last to know about the important stuff that’s going on in a close friend’s life, it’s a message that the friendship has degenerated to an acquaintanceship level. These things happen over a period of time when the friendship is not nurtured or both parties have drifted apart. If that’s the case, then, it’s fine. Life goes on.

But I cannot accept it if a loved one does something like this. A friend’s mother recently found out that she’ll have her first grandchild soon – over FB. Not even a call or an SMS to tell her the good news. She had to find out about something as momentous as this over her daughter’s FB page as she didn’t have an FB account.

I ask you this: If you were her, what would you feel?

Photo credits

The weather’s been utterly and horribly hot.

It makes the best of us wilt like soggy cabbages that someone forgot to put in the fridge.  My brains are addled, my eyes are on half-mast all day and I just feel like saying ‘No’ to everything.

Especially to Nooka.

Just discovered this funky brand of watch today during a day out with the sistahs.  At a glance, the watches looked cool. Futuristic, even.

But further inspection revealed that while the watches look good, they certainly make telling time a painful task.  Just take a look at these babies:

Nooka - Making simple things like telling time, harder

I mean, look at them!  I suspect those rocket-scientist wannabes may think this is the best thing invented since sliced bread.  For plain ol’ me, just the thought of squinting under the bright sunlight and making sense of the dots and line lengths to decipher time makes me want to either weep in despair or tear my hair out in frustration.

Telling time should be a simple, no-brainer task.  Not something like Nooka in a baking hot country like Malaysia.

Still, if I do ever get a Nooka watch (a pretty remote possibility but hey, they are not as pricey as they seem to be!) and if someone asks me for the time, I’ll just shove my wrist in front of their faces and let them decipher it themselves.  That way, I’ll still look cool and not have to tax my melted brain matter.  Heh.

Photo credits: Nooka