Are men really from Mars?

Without mincing any words, people like to say all men are the same. Meaning no matter how sweet and nice the man is to you during your courtship days, once you say I do, most men revert to their old ways. PAIDA MPASO finds out more.

In most cases, women like to talk, and men don’t like to talk or share their inner most feelings. If arguments erupt between a man and a woman usually it’s the woman whose voice reaches the sky. For the sake of happiness a compromise needs to reached, hence the need to either talk it out or understand each other.

In one of his bestselling books, on Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, John Gray, writes that most common relationship problems between men and women are a result of fundamental differences between the genders, which the author exemplifies by means of the book’s eponymous metaphor, that men and women are from distinct planets – men from Mars and women from Venus. He says each gender is acclimated to its own planet’s society and customs, but not those of the other.

One example from this paradigm is the book’s assertion that men complain that if they try to offer solutions to problems that women want to talk about, women do not necessarily want to find solutions but only want to talk about these problems.

“Women and men are often surprised to find that their partner keeps score at all, and that their scoring methods are different. The emotional stroke delivered by the sincere attention is as important as the value of the item.

“This can lead to conflict when a man thinks his work has earned 20 points and deserves appropriate recognition while the woman has only given him 1 point.

“Men tend to think they can do one Big Thing for her and not do anything else. They assume the woman will be satisfied with it. To the woman, she would rather have many little acts on a regular basis. The reason is that women like to think their man is thinking of them and cares for them on a regular basis,” reads the book in part.

Another major idea in Gray’s book is the differences he believes operate in terms of the way the genders react under stress. He believes that many men withdraw until they find a solution to the problem. He refers to this as “retreating into their cave”.

“In some cases they may literally retreat, for example, to the garage or spend time with friends. The point of retreating is to take time to determine a solution. In these “caves”, men are not necessarily focused on the problem at hand, many times this is a time-out of sorts to allow them to distance themselves from the problems so their brains can focus on something else,” reads the book in another chapter.

Marriage counsellor Constance Masamba adds that while this might be true the best way in handling these differences is to compromise.

“The basic things are still important, respect, love and cherish one another. Find proper times to speak to each other and not when the other person is angry. But most of all love each other,” added Masamba.