Canyon Man, Are You Lost?
The topic du jour for the brazen beauties of the Demystifying Divas and the Quirky Men's Club is the following puzzler:Why Men Won't Ask for Directions and Why Women Will
I am going to go the historical route on this one, so bear with me.
In my opinion, this whole thing goes back to what my family calls "Canyon Man." Canyon Man is some obscure reference from some comedy skit we saw somewhere, but that is not important. Canyon Man is the term we use to describe a man who is being particularly stubborn about a survival-type of issue. For example, a Canyon Man might spend 8 hours trying to start a fire with flint and steel when he has a perfectly good bic lighter in his pocket. Canyon Man will spend 4 months tanning the hide to build himself a tipi when he has a perfectly good 4-Man tent in the garage. Canyon Man will spend 3 days attempting to catch fish with his bare hands and/or one of those old needle and string get-ups when he has a fortune invested in the lastest top-of-the-line fishing gear. He is a guy who will do these things to show that he can. For some reason, he eschews the fruits of Modern Man's Advances and instead purposely puts his shoulder to the grindstone to do it like "they used to." He will be freakishly obstinate in this pursuit. Why? Maybe it is for that ever-glorious feeling of accomplishment, but I doubt it. I suspect it comes from some primeval need to survive like the first man who crawled out of a cave and clubbed a woman to share his mastadon burger. He wants to prove himself to be not soft, not just another soft modern man who needs modern conveniences to make his way in the wild. He doesn't want to be the guy shopping at the Outfitters store for a mobile cappucino machine. He wants to be McGyver and survive 40 days in the desert with a paperclip and a plastic ziplock sandwich bag.
Men don't want to stop and ask for directions to an obscure location because they feel that they are wussing-out if they need assistance. Canyon Man could find his own way. Canyon Man would get there after building his own canoe. Men are convinced that they are one left turn from arriving at the destination by some biological compass that has been adapted through the ages from the days when man was a hunter/gatherer and had to find his way back to the cave or bush again. GPS unit? "I don't need no steenkeeng GPS unit!"
All of which I personally find ironic since I haven't met a man yet who didn't have to have the latest electronic gadget.
Now, as to why women will ask for directions? The best answer I can come up with is impatience. We don't want to waste our time. We've got stuff to do, we can't be lollygagging around driving in circles when a phone call or a few moments with a gas station attendant or kindly stranger would solve the problem. Women don't have this same drive to prove themselves worthy of the Directional Gods, I guess.
But, I've been wrong before.
For more, check out what Silk, Theresa, Arielle, Mark, Jim, and Jamesyboy have to say.
