Somethings We'll Never Understand

I was in class today and my professor was telling a story about men and women (a brave task for a male teacher in a class of 40+ females and 6 males). He was saying that when a female returns home from a confrontation at the work place they will often share with their male partner about what happened. In reply to the story the male will often try to give solutions to the problem, but what he warned was that often times the female partner isn’t really looking for “solutions” but someone to understand why they are upset and justify their position. Often times another argument will occur after the mix up.

It’s a classic men are from Mars and women are from Venus story. At one point or another in our lives we all come to the conclusion that there are just some things we may never understand about the opposite sex. Today I want to try and shine some light on a subject that has women asking the question "Why is this so important to men?"

I saw this on Facebook today:

“John Smith is: My girl is making fun of me cuz I'm excited after winning my matchup in the Fantasy Hockey playoffs. She'll never understand. I told her it was important to me and she almost pissed her pants.”

Fantasy Hockey has become a hobby of mine for the past few years and is quickly growing in popularity among males with each new season. For those of you who aren’t familiar with fantasy hockey allow me to fill you in.

1. In October you sign up for an online league. In my case I joined a league with friends from my undergrad. Your league chooses a day to carry out an “online draft” where all the people in the log meet online to choose players for their teams.

2. Once your team is selected you take on the role of General Manager. You can choose to add/drop players, trade with other managers, choose which players to play on certain nights, and the best part is smack talking all the other people in the league via an online posting board.

3. This goes on for the next 7 months during which you are frantically trying to stay on top of who is having a good season who is having a bad season. Where you can shift players around in your roster and if you should move your best producer for someone you think can bring a new dimension to your team.

4. You’ll often see a group of men huddled together talking about players they are keeping an eye on, who they stole in the 9th round of the draft, why they chose certain goalies, who they like on the waiver wire, why next year’s league should be a keeper season, etc.

If your still following you will understand why John Smith was so excited to have won his playoff match up. A fantasy hockey season is a long commitment and a lot of effort goes into a successful season. Participants get to live vicariously through their players as they rise and fall throughout the season. Nothing feels better than beating someone else in a hard fought round of hockey.

I said earlier that at times women just want a man to acknowledge their reasons for being upset and show some understanding. What I offer to you today is: instead of trying to understand what it is about fantasy hockey that is so fun just understand that it is something important to him. Acknowledge that he is doing a good job and that you are proud. You’ll find that this will make him really happy and you can do this regardless of whether or not you actually understand fantasy hockey.

Sometimes to bridge the gap between sexes we just need to accept the differences. Even if we don’t completely understand them.