THE BOYS' BRIGADE

A knight in shining armour appears only exists in fairy tales and, sometimes, during the initial days of dating. But once the honeymoon is over, they end up with just a man, a mere mortal. As time goes by, they start noticing that not only is he an ordinary man but, he also has flaws that they never imagined existed, flaws that drive them mad.

He will leave his clothes and socks on the floor. He will tell lies in order not to offend you. He will not open up about his inner feelings, preferring instead to retreat into a cocoon whenever his feelings get hurt. He is blind to all the special things his woman does for him – cleaning the house, cooking special meals.
So why do men do what they do? How come most men, with a few exceptions, behave the same way? And why do they keep on doing these things, knowing full well that they are annoying to women?
To understand the mind of a man, here are six of the most common habits of men that drive women crazy and some explanations as to why they have them in the first place.

Habit 1: Men Do not Share their Inner-most Feelings

Women want men to open up to them and share their inner-most feelings. Well, it is not going to happen – thanks to women.
Men grow up being told, mostly, by their mothers, to ‘man-up’ and ‘stop being a sissy’. Men are raised to believe that showing emotions is a sign of weakness – that other men will have them for breakfast if they show emotions. So men learn, very early in life, that the best way to deal with humiliation, defeat, or failure is by keeping such emotions to themselves or else, just lash out. But no crying, no complaining is allowed otherwise you will be guilty of whining, a mortal sin in the world of men.
So, you may notice that your man is not himself, that something is eating him. It will take a lot of coaxing to make him open up but, usually, he would rather blame it on work or deny, outright, that something is bothering him, at all. Even when he gives in and spills his gut, it will be lacking in details. However, do not be fooled into believing that by opening up a tiny bit that it means he has changed; that he will start pouring his heart out to you whenever his feelings hit a bump. It was likely a one-off thing. Pouring one’s heart out to anyone is demeaning to a man.
So if you your man is not opening up to you, and he is keeping his inner self locked away, blame it on women. His mother taught him well.

Habit 2. Men do not notice the Special Things Women Do for Them

Men do not notice when you go out of your way to do something special for them. You can break your back with hours of house cleaning, spend hours studying a new recipe so you can cook him a gourmet meal, you can make yourself look special and beautiful, even putting on that beautiful dress he first saw you in. It all does not matter. Somehow, men will not notice. And there is a good reason why that happens. It is in their genes.
Men are genetically wired to protect, hunt, fight and conquer. That is as true for the modern man as it was for his Stone Age forefathers. From the very beginning, men were hunters of game, gatherers of fruit and protectors of their harems and offspring. They slept with one eye open, an axe or a spear on one side – to fend off predators and competition – and a woman on the other. They woke up early to go shoot arrows at bucks and deer as they took their early morning drink at the pond; they spent the day looking out for attacks from other tribes or went out to raid other tribes for spoils.
Thousands of years later, men still follow the same routine, albeit with different tools. They get up in the morning with only one thing on their mind – go and conquer the world. They go out hunting (office, business) and, at the end of the day, come back home to their wives and children bearing game and spoils from the day’s hunt – money, groceries, stuff. As they walk into the house, their mind is still locked into their world of competition, thinking of the day’s wins and losses, frustrations as well as opportunities that await them the following day. If anything, they are the ones who are expecting to be commended when they walk in.
So, unless you actually moved his chair to a different place, it is very unlikely that a man will notice any changes in the home when he walks in just because you did some cleaning. They are just blind to such things.

Habit 3. Men Forget Anniversaries

Nowadays, you need to be a, particularly, stupid man to forget your wife’s birthday or your wedding anniversary – thanks to mobile phones and computers. But before technology came to the men’s rescue, remembering anniversaries was a hard job for men.
Imagine how hard it is for him to remember something that happens only once a year like a wedding anniversary (actually, to be fair to men, the wedding only happened once). The reason, for this, again is very simple: Such things are not important to men.
Remembering an anniversary adds no value to a man’s war strategy. For this reason a man’s mind has neither time nor space for activities or processes that have nothing to do with tactics.
So if you are really into anniversaries, like most women are, then do yourself a favour. Tell your man in advance, when the anniversary is approaching and, just to be safe, specify which one it is and how many years you are going to be celebrating. Put a reminder in his phone and, then, remind him, again, a day before, and on the morning of the anniversary. That way, when the day comes, everyone will be happy: your gift will be the best he can think of, delivered on time and he will not spend the night on the couch.

Habit 4. Men Lie In Order Not to Offend Their Spouses

Men come with few words. As such, they do not enjoy long discussions, argument or disagreements, unless they are about stuff they are really passionate about, like sports. Men know that if they disappoint their spouse, then they have to fix the situation, with a long talk and a bunch of apologies. For that reason, men learn very quickly never to tell their spouse that they are a bit overweight. That way, everybody is happy.

Habit 5. Men Fall Asleep after Sex

Women believe that the most logical thing to do after sex is to cuddle, talk, stare into each other eyes or have more sex. Unfortunately, this rarely happens because most men fall asleep immediately after dismounting, if not right on top of the woman. And women find this very annoying. The sleeping, that is.
This, too, is not the men’s fault. According to scientific studies, the part that is responsible for thinking in a man’s brain automatically switches off during orgasm. This is immediately followed by a release of chemicals that block sexual desire and sends the body to sleep.
One can only guess that the reason for this sequence of actions is to protect the couple from death by sex. Imagine a situation where a man continues to crave sex regardless of the number of times he ejaculates. Surely, without the automatic shut down, man would continue having sex till he or the woman dropped dead.
To cut a long story short, he is not to blame for the sleep-after-sex situation and women should actually be glad he sleeps.

Habit 6. Men Leave the Toilet Seat Up

Men lift the toilet seat when they are peeing as a courtesy to women and anyone who may want to sit on it. They leave it up because they forget. Now, given a choice between a urine-stained seat in the down position and a clean seat in the upright position, one would expect women to go for the latter. But, no, they want it both ways. Down and clean.
The women’s view point is that men should leave the seat the way they found it, which normally means, down. Men, on the other hand, argue that if everyone did as women suggest then there would be no argument, in the first place. According to men, women would walk in, find the seat in the upright position, bring the seat down, sit on it, do their business and leave it the way they found it, which is up. Men would do the same, which is simply pee and walk away since it would already be in the upright position. Problem solved.
Or as men argue, everyone should leave the seat in the position it is after use. If, for instance, a man wants to pee and the seat is down, he should proceed to lift it, urinate, flush the toilet and leave the seat in the upright position. If, a woman walks in and finds the toilet seat in the upright position, she should proceed to drop it down, sit, do her stuff and leave it down. In other words, the user is responsible for putting the seat in the position they desire.
Men feel that women are trying to boss them around. Men do not like that. So, much as they may not respond when women complain about the toilet seat, in their minds, all men have one, loud response to this: do it yourself.

Will It Get Any Better?

Once in a while, a knight in shining armour actually rides into town and some lucky woman gets to get him. He comes with none of these annoying behaviours that men have. But that is once in a very long, long while. As for the rest of the time and the rest of women, there is a philosophy that men have successfully used for hundreds of years, that female species can borrow a page from. You cannot control what happens to you. But you can control how you react to it. Getting annoyed is a reaction of choice. A woman can choose not to get annoyed by what her man does, especially those things that are hard to change.
Of course, you can teach your man to change the things that can be changed. Things like touching his testicles in public instead of doing it in private as women do with panty adjustments. You can teach him to remember to take the dish to the sink after eating, or to throw dirty clothes in the washing basket instead of the floor, or to leave the toilet seat down or else fix a toilet seat pedal (most likely invented by some man who was tired of being nagged about the toilet seat).
But for those things that are controlled by biology, you may as well accept them and plan your life around them. You know, suck it up. And be happy.