I had a chat with someone about how we “men” are able to switch off all kinds of irrelevant issues and features in communication between us and other men. “How do you do that?” she asked, and my reply was, jokingly, that we miss the gene for that.
And I am possibly not even far from the mark. In my observation, men, when they communicate about an issue or a problem at hand, strip this communication of any emotional fringes (as far as is possible) and they will try to go towards a solution in a straight line. The chit-chat about who is to blame for what, the thousands of words or grunts required for that, those come later, if ever.
We are definitely different to women in this respect. I suspect this is embedded in the hardware, and it is probably also why we survived as a species and, if I really go wild, I even think it is the reason why we have such big brains.
Just imagine: the time is 500.000 years ago and four hominid men (not Homo Sapiens, but something else, something before us in our family tree) are hunting a bear. If they had needed many, many, many “words” to get their act together and make a plan to catch that bear, the only one going home with diner would have been that bear. And in a highly dynamic context, like for instance a bear running FROM you, then turning back and charging AT you, quick and very effective communication is required in order to survive. In other words, I think that efficient communication is in a very old part of our male brains.
And then, to finish up the story, the influx of these animal proteins – from the bear – into our diet, caused our brains to grow and thus “us” to develop into Homo Sapiens Sapiens as we know it. Well, how is that for taking the credit for our success…
Some other time, I will comment on the Homo Sapiens women who stayed at home while we were out hunting. They cooked up these funny brews that made us hallucinate and go crazy and which lubricated our big brains for the snazzy software running up there. Maybe…. Did they by any chance invent our spiritual life?
(P.S.: don’t be fooled by the pictures above. Those are Neanderthals. They are not our ancestors, but a different species from us all together.)
