Like most men, I feel grateful that I’m not married to me. Laurel, my wife, simply is a better person than I am. Less egotistical, more compassionate and generous. Here’s an example.
Last week we stopped at the Mountain High Grocery in Detroit, our habitual halfway pit stop when driving back and forth from Salem to our cabin in Camp Sherman. The coffee is good, the toilets are clean, and the snacks plentiful. Nirvana.
This visit I also wanted an Oregonian for my reading pleasure after we got home. Looking to my left as I walked through the Mountain High door I saw there was one paper left. Nirvana plus.
I snatched it up. A USA Today caught my eye. I grabbed it too, putting it over the Oregonian. Then I saw that another customer had darted over to the newspaper rack. He was semi-frantically scanning the shelves.
“Oregonian, Oregonian. Are there any Oregonians?” he asked me. I casually rearranged the two papers I was holding to cover up what he was looking for. I told him, “No, I don’t see any. Sorry.” He turned away, disappointed.
I was elated. I could hardly wait to share my story with Laurel once we were back in the car. “Ha! Look! I got the last Oregonian. Ten seconds after I picked it up another guy walked in, wanting one. It’s my good newspaper karma day.”
Her reaction: “Oh. You mean you didn’t offer to give him the paper? That’s what I would have done. Maybe he’s out of work and driving to Portland to find a job, needing to read the classifieds.”
Wow! I thought. Amazing. That option never went through my mind. Not did it start to enter my mind. Nor did it stand on the outskirts of my mind, waiting to be let in. It was nowhere in the neighborhood.
But the Generous Option was right there at the top of Laurel’s female mind.
This helps explain why, come December 31, she’s the one agonizing over whether we’ve given enough to charity that year, and why we always find ourselves logging onto environmental and animal rights web sites to beat the midnight IRS charitable deduction deadline so that her guilt won’t carry over January.
I’d worry more about my ungenerous, unempathic maleness if this weren’t the normal state of affairs.
After reading this article, I think there’s good reason to say that women are the more generous sex. Not a big surprise. (Notwithstanding my own impression of the cited research, the article does conclude that “both sexes have their graces and their own styles of being virtuous.”)
Well, on the plus side—or is it minus?—compared to women, men are particularly able to engage in wars.
While I’m (vaguely) on the subject of Detroit’s Mountain High Grocery, this is a good opportunity to publicize their search for the culprit who stole this marvelous piece of art that once hung over the toilet in the men’s restroom. I found it so intriguing I took a photo of it before it was stolen.
Now all that hangs there is this. Sad.
Discover more from Hinessight
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Just a single male thought. Produce a high quality pic from your file. Place the pic in a high quality frame. Give it to the Store for free. Food for thought.
Thanks Brian, from me and the many men who risk their lives everyday trying to protect the community from crime and danger. The men who break their back to provide for their family, only to have their wife divorce them and take them for as much as they can. Thanks for reminding us of our selfishness.
You’re so egotisticle, you claim, that you consider the entire female of our species as superior beings to yourself. Isn’t that just remotely ironic?
It’s a great pity you have such a low opinion of the other half of our species.
Did you not have any male role model to base yourself on?
I think it’s unfair to judge men and women as if they have evolved in isolation. We are encouraged to see them as competitors, as adversaries even, but that’s not what they really are. They have always been partners. Partners in crime, if you will. Men and women have delegated tasks to each other, and over time also qualities. They have operated in different domains. For men to protect the tribe and family, he has be tough. This makes it possible for the woman to be softer, which makes sense if you are primarily involved with child rearing. It’s like playing bad cop, good cop. Men have always done the dirty work, so that women didn’t have to. Women are now playing the innocent and using this to malign men, and benefit from this. I can’t believe you’re falling for that.