5 Things Guys And Girls Are Both Guilty Of

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There’s been a lot of tension between men and women this past week, which bums me out, because I kind of like it when we all get along. We have more fun that way. I’m not a social scientist, nor am I a particularly serious voice in the conversation, so instead of addressing the (admittedly important) issues directly, I’d like to bring us back to what brings us all together: neuroticism. These are some actions that might stereotypically be labeled as female, but I think that’s unfair, because a lot of guys–including myself–are guilty of them, too. We’re all kind of crazy when it comes down to it.

1. Gossiping With Friends

This might be one of the biggest female stereotypes that confuses me. Girls are certainly guilty of it, but dudes can be just as bad. It’s different in the way we go about it, though. Girls tend to speak more emotionally when complaining about friends who aren’t there, while guys speak more actionably. There’s a distinct difference between this:

“God, every time Karen comes over she just looks at my apartment like she’s in a peasant’s house, and it makes me feel like shit. Like she’s some kind of high class authority, anyway.”

and this:

“Dude, I’m not inviting Keith to the court ever again. He calls every fucking touch foul on himself and bitches whenever anyone calls him out for blatantly hacking them.”

Both are about asshole friends whose names start with K, but the girl is upset about how her friend made her feel based off of a look, while the guy is talking shit about what his friend specifically did. Yes, I get that these two examples aren’t blanket versions of what girls and guys always talk about. That would be stupid, especially since both of those statements came out of my head. I’m not saying girls never talk about things their friends specifically do or that guys don’t talk about vibes they get from their buddies. I’m just saying one side tends to do one more than the other. No matter what the method of gossip is, though, EVERYONE talks shit with their friends behind other peoples’ backs.

2. Think Way Too Much About The Future

I caught a decent amount of flak for my previous column about innocent things girls do that scare off guys. One of the main themes of it was that girls sometimes betray their inner thoughts about the future of a relationship before the relationship is ready for it. I don’t think girls are the only ones guilty of this, I only think they tend to be more likely to vocalize it. Guys absolutely go way too far down mental roads concerning their future with a girl. Hell, I’ve played out an entire dating/relationship/engagement/marriage with a girl just based on her pictures and what she wrote on her dating profile, despite her inevitable lack of reply to my overly clever first message. It’s not fair to characterize girls as insane, because guys are just as bananas. Sure, we’re better at hiding it, because men are taught from a young age to become experts in repression, especially when it comes to emotions and feelings toward others. That doesn’t mean there’s not a crazy-haired mental patient hidden in our brains, planning an elaborate proposal three weeks into a thing with a new girl.

3. Watch Emotional Videos

Girls tend to choose puppy videos, and guys go with soldiers coming home. They’re both emotionally unsafe rollercoasters with no promise of an end once you start them. Hell, sometimes I’ll go back and forth between puppies and soldiers because I’m an emotional masochist.

4. Obsess About Text Messaging

If you think guys don’t do immense calculus formulas and statistical models to determine whether we should respond now or in five minutes, you’re overrating our mental stability. Here’s what all texting boils down to: the person who’s more interested in the other person is the one at the disadvantage. While that person obsesses about when and what to text, the other person freely goes about his or her day like “la-dee-fuckin’-dah” and responds at his or her leisure. This makes the less interested person look cool and more attractive, because he or she is. Disinterest is unfortunately attractive to both sexes equally. The more one side pretends to be bored or checked out, the harder the other side will find him or herself working. We’re all getting played.

5. Getting Drunk Alone And Watching Rom-Coms

Some guys voiced their disagreement to me that this is real. One friend of mine even dismissed it as an “LA thing.” Well, I call horseshit. I did plenty of booze-soaked rom-com watching well before I traded in my Texas residency, and I know plenty of dudes who did the same. I don’t get why guys are so afraid of rom-coms. It’s a subject that bothers me deeply, and I’ll probably end up writing a whole piece just about that. Either way, romantic movies (whether more comedic or dramatic) are heightened versions of reality, if not totally dissociated from the real world, which is what makes them attractive. When shit just isn’t panning out your way, throw on some pants with an elastic waist, order a pizza, dip your brain in whiskey, and let Hugh Grant’s charming buffoonery take your mind off of that guy or girl who so stupidly rejected you.

Again, we’re all crazy. Equally.

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