Men are from Mars...

It's been 18 years since John Gray wrote the book that got so much press attention: "Men are from Mars,; Women are from Venus."   I never read it, but I know the premise. One of the online reviews says,"Here Martians (men) play Mr. Fix-It while Venusians (women) run the Home-Improvement Committee; when upset, Martians "go to their caves" (to sort things out alone) while Venusians "go to the well" (for emotional cleansing). "  Certainly some of that may be true, but there are ways in which both of us blur the distinctions. Last night, I was in my cave and H was running the home improvement committee. At least that's where it started.

We sat at dinner last night with our close friends, and we fought the noise, to shout at each other over a meal that should have been better. It was way too hot and by the time we left, I felt crippled with a sore back and hips. I would have preferred a couch and some takeout, but we were celebrating her birthday and it seemed more appropriate to do it on the town. Herb noted that we had spent 4 hours and 15 minutes there and he was sleepy and hot. I noted that I was sleepy and hot. We felt lousy when we left, but we were glad to have had the time with our friends, and they had shifted our mood considerably from where we were when we began the evening. We always wind up talking about work and politics and economics and international relations and family when we are with them. We usually agree, but there have been times when we have had long attenuated disagreements about the state of education or government. We love each other like crazy and now twenty-five or so years after I first met G, and after they have patched me together through a number of crises, there is little we don't know about each other.  I have watched them handle some crises as well, and know that they are handling some difficult times.

But it made me think of the nature of friendships, and of the differences between women's friendships and those of men. And how the nature of friendship has changed since we got married. As H and I fell asleep on the inflatable bed in Mom's apartment, I wondered aloud whether our friendships are different than those of others. We seem to have a lot of people in our lives who are confronting life challenges; I know very few people who come home to watch TV and live "unconsidered lives".

When I am troubled, there are several women I can call; there are several women (and a man) who call me.  But my h.h.h.h.husband doesn't seem to do the same thing. There is his closest friend and his work colleagues, but I never see him pick up the phone to find out what they are doing. He calls one friend when he wants to play pool, and there is email of course, and he texts, but it isn't the same thing as sitting stiff and sleepy and hot with people you can argue with.

Last night, I asked him what he had heard about Ben and Neoma's pregnancy, thinking she must be well overdue by now. I was a little worried.
 "Oh she had the baby and we did a Gmail chat last week," he said. I was stunned. "A boy. They named him 'Roan' after Roan Innish in Ireland."
"How is she?" I asked.
"Fine."
"How was the labor?"

And so it went.

He had had a long on-line session with his friend Ryan a few months ago, and one with Lindsay more recently. He and Julio have been playing telephone tag for a few days.  And while we have had occasional dinners with a few of our colleagues in Boston, those meals are usually work related conversations and I know little about their personal lives. But when we have dinner with our friends here, we talk and talk and talk. And as architect Christopher Alexander would say, there is something important about seeing the people you love in person, and about revealing yourself in all your eccentricities to each other. We see our Vermont friends in person too. Alexander says that we need four "intimate" friends that we see each day if we are to stave off social anomie. So friendship is important not only for the friends, but for the health of the community. We are a long way from seeing four friends a day and revealing ourselves in all our eccentricities. Imagine what that would be like if four friends revealed themselves to four friends who revealed themselves to four friends who..... But as we have written elsewhere, in Vermont, it is possible to drop everything and run up the hill when a friend's friend dies. It's different than IM'ing. And washing up after a shared meal is different than eating in a restaurant. I know where G and H keep their salad spinner, and they know what goodies we will like when they come to visit from New York. I know where she buys her kielbasa because I have been there too. And the friend in New York knows that our friend in Vermont lost her best friend.

So as I began to think about the struggles of  our friends, I wondered if there was something different about those we know in person. Are we more aware of their eccentricities and challenges? Are we more able to be there when they are confronting life decisions? And are women who are more capable of expressing affection openly, of  "going to the well", more able to both support and be supported by their friends than are men?

Sometimes I feel that we are in a vortex, and bumping into those with whom we are sharing the storm. We only have a moment to catch onto each other before we are blown apart.

I said to H this morning, that I want to take some time soon...to get away from the vortex. I want to go to the "Oh!-Look-At-That" place where we can really look around rather than concentrating on what's on the pavement just ahead.  I want to go to a place outside the vortex where we can sit long enough to get stiff, and to argue about education and the state of politics.  I hope we will find you there. I am working on building up my group of intimate friends. The neighborhood and the nation need it.