Paul Rudd

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Manspeak, Volume 6: Law

This is my company’s first week in our new office.  In the old office, the men’s restroom consisted of only a “one seater”.  Complete privacy, no worries about anyone using a urinal next to me only three feet away on the other side of an inch thick stall.  Those days are gone.  The men’s restroom of the new office is much nicer than the other one, but contains one stall plus two urinals.

 

Today I half-jokingly told my co-worker Mark that I am planning to make a sign to put up on the outside of the stall door whenever I am in there that would say, “Nick Shell is in here, in case you wanted to know.”  That way I could enjoy my peace without having to hear heckling comments or even just having to deal with the annoying question, “Who’s in there?”  Mark replied, “But if you make that sign then you will be interfering with Man Law.  Pestering the person in the bathroom stall is a requirement if it’s someone you know in there.”

 

It’s hard to imagine I could make it through 5 volumes of Manspeak without mentioning Man Law.  (Here’s a refresher course I found…)

http://manlawguide.wordpress.com/

 

Man Law of course was officially outted and recognized by those Miller Lite beer commercials in 2006.  Laws like “a man shall not walk a dog that is smaller than a football” and “there shall be a minimum waiting period of at least 6 months before a man is permitted to start dating his best friend’s ex”.  These laws are taken from the Book of Man Law, a book that no man has actually ever read or even seen before.  A man is just sort of born knowing it.

 

While a man is hard-wired with his own built-in instruction manual which helps him know his own kind; he is not programmed to understand a woman.  That’s where trial and error comes in.  But at least for himself and his own kind, he does have some direction.

 

At the heart of Man Law is an effort to ultimately prevent any reason for a man to ever have a Misunderstanding with another man.  Which prevents the unspeakable Hurt Feelings and the play-it-cool Apology.  A man doesn’t go around thinking about and talking about his relationships with his other guy friends.  Man Law takes care of that.  It’s set up to keep things simple in male friendships.

 

Man Law not only keeps his fellow male relationships healthy but also helps keep a man from unnecessarily embarrassing himself more than he already does on a weekly basis.  One of the many reasons I can’t stop obsessing over the movie I Love You, Man is because of how right-on it addresses the quirky rules of what it takes to be a socially acceptable man among his male peers. It does this by having a cast full of men who constantly break Man Law.  In fact, it is ironically Andy Samberg’s openly gay character, Robby Klaven, who helps his brother Peter to know what a confident straight man is supposed to act like.

 

One of the best examples of a serial offender of Man Law is Peter’s annoying self-obsessed co-worker Tevin Downey who has highlights in his hair and a fake tan, sends annoying e-mail forwards, and sneaks up behind Peter and tickles him whenever he gets the chance.  He’s the epitome of what used to be called a jerk, but in this decade has evolved into what is now called a Tool or a Douchebag. This kind of guy is not physically threatening, nor is he effeminate.  He is simply completely oblivious to the importance of Man Law.

 

Understandably, Man Law is sometimes misinterpreted as a chauvinistic list of what it takes to be macho.  Not the case.  What’s much worse than being less than manly is being compared to Dane Cook or Spencer Pratt, two “men” I constantly make references to, usually mentioning how men around the world long to punch them in the face.

 

To outsiders, Man Law may seem like a finicky, strenuous system in which a person can become overwhelmed by trying to keep up with all the rules.  It can be, for those born with out the instincts.  Because after all, it is an issue of social survival.  For the men who were unfortunately born with Man Law Deficiency, there is hope:  Watch The Office on Thursday nights.  Pay special attention to Andy Bernard and Michael Scott.  Do the exact opposite of whatever they do.

 

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com

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Manspeak, Volume 4: Stance

Man Mode: When men hang out with each other, it tends to involve competitive or action oriented activities like playing sports, hiking, running, watching sports on TV, and playing video games. The men are side by side. The activity itself is the focus; the social element of it is secondary. Eye contact is not important.

Woman Mode: When women hang out with each other, it tends to involve socially orientated activities like shopping, going out for coffee, attending their children’s school activities, and participating in various types of clubs (like book clubs, for example). The women are sitting and/or standing across from each other. The social element itself is the focus, the activity is secondary. Eye contact is important.

Opposites attract. But how do a man and a woman hang out together- in Man Mode or Woman Mode?

The Man Mode Approach: Obviously a man and woman who are constantly competing with each other and never looking at each other, more focused on something else other than each other, will not find any sort of genuine intimacy. But it could be a good way for them to hang out without crossing the line between friendship and romance. [failure]

The Woman Mode Approach: When a man is ready to cross that safe line of “just friends”, he plans a Woman Mode activity with the woman. One that involves an across-from-each-other instead of side-by-side sitting, emphasis on eye contact and conversation. It typically involves dinner. Dinner in a restaurant with low lighting. [success]

Why is it romantic to have to strain to read the menu? It’s not. But a dark environment causes a person’s eyes to dilate. When we look into another person’s eyes and the other person’s eyes are dilated, we tend to be attracted to the other person. The reason- when we are interested in something or someone, our eyes tend to dilate. So if we look into a person’s eyes that are dilated, we assume the other person is mutually attracted to us.
http://www.bodylanguageexpert.co.uk/what-do-dilated-pupils-mean.html

While compromising and meeting in the middle of issues is so important in sustaining a healthy romantic relationship, it does not apply to this specific situation. The answer isn’t to split the time spent 50/50 between Man Mode and Woman Mode. It’s pretty cut and dry: A man must convert to Woman Mode when he’s with a woman, otherwise he is conveying to her that he’s just looking for a buddy. Same thing with sustaining the romance. Otherwise she may end up feeling like he’s just not that into her.

In one of the greatest comedies of all time, Dumb and Dumber, there is a scene where Harry (Jeff Daniels) explains the reason for his recent break-up. Harry tells Lloyd (Jim Carrey) that his ex claimed he never listened to her and as he puts it, “some other stuff too but I wasn’t really paying attention”. There is a reason this example is so relatable and not too much of a stretch. Often when men are spending time with women, they forget to flip the Switch. The Switch from Man Mode to Woman Mode.

A man is focused on something already (anything on TV) and the women speaks. No response. Because the woman said something that didn’t relate to the current activity. Therefore breaking the rules of the Man Code. If she would have commented on the baseball game, she would have received an excited response. But instead, her words vanished into thin air. He is in Man Mode.

This is where it takes a deliberate awareness on the man’s part to keep in mind that he is in the same room with a woman. He has to make a very conscious effort to change over to Woman Mode. When he fails to flip the Switch, he ends up treating his object of affection like one of his buddies. Which causes his sweetheart to feel neglected.

Men are very focused creatures. So focused that it can be a little frustrating to get them to focus on something else. They have to be reminded sometimes they’re in Man Mode and that it’s time to switch to Woman Mode. If a man is interested in a woman, he will communicate and spend time with her in Woman Mode. Sometimes he forgets and temporarily slips back into Man Mode. It happens. He may need a gentle reminder every so often.

The Mode Communication Theory by Dr. Nick Shell:

Woman + Woman = Woman Mode
Man + Man = Man Mode
Man + Woman = Woman Mode

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com

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Manspeak, Volume 3: Filtration

There is a widely accepted stigma that women talk more than men on a daily average basis: The urban legend says that women speak 20,000 words per day, while men only speak 7,000. It’s fun and easy to believe, yet almost all documented research shows that both genders speak around the same amount of words on a daily basis. What actually has been proven is that each gender tends to focus their speech on certain aspects- Men’s conversations are more information and task based, being more direct; women’s are more social based, encompassing more topics all at once.

Since men aren’t quite as in touch with their feelings and able to express themselves as easily and clearly (not to mention the fear of coming across as weak or too sensitive), men often are silent on issues that truly matter. The lack of a man’s words at times when they are most needed creates a canyon of unfinished business, causing some things to never begin and some to never end. While if he uses the wrong words, he may find himself at the bottom of that canyon.

Boy meets girl, man meets woman. Either way. Whether on the playground or randomly in line at a concert, a guy has to find a way to entice a girl with his words. From a cheesy pick-up line to a clever ice breaker. In almost every interview I’ve ever watched where a girl is asked what top 3 qualities she is looking for in a guy, more than looks, money, height, even religious beliefs, “he has to be able to make me laugh” seems to be the most reoccurring. And later down the road it’s the man that is expected to say those famous words, “Will you marry me?” A lot revolves around a man’s willingness to speak.

I find it interesting that God “spoke” the world into existence. Then one of the main jobs He gave Adam was to name to the animals. John the Baptist’s father lost the ability to speak until he named his son John. And it was Joseph that fulfilled predictions of the Old Testament when he named Jesus. When Jesus began healing people at age 30, he often simply spoke, and the sick were healed. He also caused the storm to stop by simply saying, “Peace, be still.” But what happens when a man doesn’t speak, or instead uses his words negatively?

A familiar concept is a grown man with no ambition, or a man who goes on to live a life of crime, because his father told him as a child, “You’ll never amount to anything. I wish you were never born.” Sounds like something from a melodramatic movie, but it happens everyday. And how many grown women look for love in all the wrong places, having a pattern of attracting men who don’t respect them, as they try to find a man to answer the question “do you love me?” because she never heard her father say the words “I love you”? A man’s words alone have the power to curse or bless his children. That’s powerful.

Last week I saw a Friends rerun where Joey starting acting more feminine because he got a female roommate. At one point in the episode Chandler senses Joey is upset and asks him what he did wrong. Joey responds with, “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.” I laughed along with the pre-recorded audience because I recognized from watching a lifetime’s worth of sitcoms that it’s the man that has to constantly apologize for the stupid thing he said. And of course, he usually doesn’t know which specific stupid thing it was.

Joey’s next phrase: “It’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it.” Again, a token situation that is not at all foreign. A man’s words can get him in a lot of trouble. When a man speaks it tends to be more direct, specific, and matter-of-fact; it’s understandable that a man is more likely to hurt a woman by what he says, rather than the other way around. A woman tends to have a gentler, more discrete way of saying things.

As the half-Jewish actor Harry Connick, Jr. puts it in the movie P.S. I Love You, guys don’t really have a filter on what comes out of their mouths. They do, but it’s not too good. And I think this accounts for the term “dirty old man”. As men get older, the filter often works even less.

When I plow through another person unintentionally with my words, when there were words someone needed to hear me say that I didn’t say, and when I say something that is flat out wrong or invalid, I will use my words to sincerely apologize for my mistake. Better my apology when I mess up, than my silence, denial, or apathy.

“No filter in my head, what’s a boy to do? I guess he better find one soon.”
-John Mayer (“My Stupid Mouth”)

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com

 

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How to Hang Out with Friends and Have Fun

An instinct we had as kids is that we always knew how to hang out, without a plan or agenda. In the way that Adam and Eve were not at first aware of their nakedness, we used to have the blessing of being unaware of social awkwardness and social cues. It’s an ability that began to escape us sometime around junior high. When I was a kid, it didn’t matter which friend I was hanging out with after school or spending the night with, we never got bored or recognized that we were about to run out of activities or subjects to talk about.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that as kids we knew “how to play”. Though I may not be a girl, I remember my sister and her friends always seemed to be playing “House”. Females socialize. Males, on the other hand, compete.

As boys we would go outside, often to the woods, to play out some sort of good guys/bad guys scenario. Our version of “Cops and Robbers” was more like Ninja Turtles Vs. Shredder. Bikes and water balloons were often part of the plan. When we got tired, we’d go inside and play Nintendo until we had regained enough energy to initiate a wrestling match on the carpet. And there was the trampoline too. Hours of fun.

But as adults, we don’t use “playing” anymore as the main way to interact with our friends.

It’s not as simple as an adult just to tell a friend, “Let’s hang out at my house after work today”. In many cases, the hanging out is done outside of the home. Instead of playing like we did as kids, adults talk and “catch up”. But there is always a staple to bring the people together. It may be sharing a meal, going to watch a game or movie, or a showing up at a party associated with a holiday or sports event.

But the most simple and common thing I see is people going out for coffee, beer, or wine. The drink serves as a campfire. In the same way people gather around a campfire and find comfort in it with those around them, a drink of choice magically sets the fertile environment for good conversation no matter the location. If by chance the friends find themselves in a noticeably quiet moment, it’s easy to fall back on the easy conversation piece: “Starbucks is wonderful”, “Good beer”, or “I love this wine.” Obviously it’s good. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be the modern day campfire.