I was driving to the office the other day and switched from NPR to a music station – just as a song came on that I had never heard before.

“Cowboy Logic,” by Michael Martin Murphy describes a set of rules for living.  If there’s a broken fence, mend it.  If you have money, spend it.  If a punch is coming, duck.  If there’s a job, do it, and of course, if there’s a hurt, hide it.  The repeated message is “simple solutions to everything.”

While this is a fun song, there is (to some extent) a truth for men in general.  

Men are far less complicated than women.  It’s not as simplistic as the song says -- if there’s a job, do it.  But, men do tend to go into much less depth about things that, at least to us women, is important.

What I often see with couples is a woman feeling the man is not paying as much attention to things of concern to her.  She feels he doesn’t love her, doesn’t respect her ideas, he isn’t interested in what she has to say.  Then he, on the other hand, feels she prattles on about inconsequential things.  The emphasis here is two-fold; the prattling on and the inconsequential things.

Research does indicate that, for the most part, women use far more words than men do on a daily basis.  (I feel sorry for the researchers who had to actually count this out!)  But, that may account for men feeling women “prattle” on.  If a couple is talking about a relationship problem  (family, friends, co-workers), the man is more often content with a brief problem-solving sentence or even a brief non-taking-a-side sentence.  This is not just true for relationship topics.  It can be about anything – how pretty the yard looks or whether to move the sofa to the other side of the room.  Women are more likely to have lots of thoughts they want to share about topics that are of interest to them.  Men may have lots of thoughts about topics of interest to them, but they seem to have less need to share them. 

So, the woman may feel discounted when the man makes a brief statement in response to her comments and then moves on to another topic.  

Of course, I am a woman and feel Cowboy Logic should be left to country songs, not used in personal relationships.  However, it is instructive for a woman to understand that when her man has passed on his “simple solution,” she does not have to take it personally that he isn’t interested in learning more about her impressions or ideas.

This is a good time to practice QTIP, quit taking it personally (one of the words in this gender relationship dictionary).