ANOTHER DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SEXES

As you may have guessed, I am a typical American male: married for some years now, living vicariously through my two children and still rather clueless when it comes to women. While outwardly I profess to be the master of my suburban domain, deep down I know I am only hanging on by my fingertips.

So, it should really come as no surprise that I recently learned of another difference between men and women, one so seemingly obvious yet scandalously unpublicized it might warrant a new round of Congressional hearings. Or at least a special segment on Dateline.

What is this difference? The answer to this question requires an appropriate set up.

See, the other day my loving wife asks me to fetch her the tweezers from a drawer in our bathroom. She is sitting in bed, doing something to her feet (like most men, I don’t ask when it comes to women’s feet), and I pass by on my way to the reading room -- which prompts her request.

Once in the bathroom, I search the drawer from front to back but fail to uncover the aforementioned tweezers. So, I return to the bedroom and offer her the nail clippers.

“These aren’t the tweezers,” she says.

“The tweezers weren’t in the drawer, so I thought these might do.”

“The tweezers are in there,” she says.

I take offense to her implication. “No they’re not. I looked.”

“Did you look with normal eyes,” she asks, “or with man eyes?”

There you have it. MAN EYES. I had never heard the term before, and it hit me like the first time I realized my parents weren't celibate.

Is there really such a thing as man eyes? How come I never noticed the distinction before? Was I using them all of the time?

Of course, maybe my wife was wrong. The theory needed testing. The fragile equilibrium between the sexes might depend upon it.

Before I could ponder the matter any further, my wife pulls me into the bathroom and opens the drawer. Moves a brush aside and...there are the tweezers!

I perform a perfect double-take. In return, she gives me a sarcastic little smile.

“Obviously, you were using your man eyes,” she declares. With that, she turns and marches triumphantly back to the bedroom.

So maybe there is a little substance to this phenomenon, though it’s funny that I don’t ever remember the eye doctor saying: “Now read off the top row, but make sure you don’t use your man eyes.” And I’m not altogether convinced she didn’t carry the tweezers into the bathroom in the palm of her hand.

When I finish with my reading break, I press my wife on the subject. She explains in her matter-of-fact way that men don’t always think while they are looking for something -- particularly when the search is initiated by a woman. We tend to put our brains on auto-pilot, she says. This naturally leads to the deployment of “man eyes.” I suppose it might also account for our failure to stop and ask directions.

Later that same week, I returned from a trip to the market with a half-gallon of natural vanilla ice cream. My favorite.

“Why didn’t you buy the French vanilla, like I asked?” she says -- French vanilla being her favorite.

“This isn’t French vanilla?” I reply. “Darn, I must have been using my man eyes again.”

(c) Marc L. Prey 2002
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