Understand women at your own risk

Someone asked why I’ve been trying so hard to understand women, and I didn’t really have a good answer.

One possible response might go something like this: I start with the general in order to understand the particular. I want to understand women in general so that I can hopefully come to understand – and thereby love – one woman in particular.

Er, not really.

It’s true that the ultimate goal (I think) is something like to have a partner whom I love and who loves me in return, whom I can be vulnerable with and who can be vulnerable with me. You know, a fellow vaporous transient consciousness in an incidental universe with whom I can go through life a little less alone.

But to understand her? No, not really.

Let’s think about this: What does understanding mean? To say that you understand economic systems or particle physics or a woman is to say that, given certain events, you can predict how economic systems/particles/the woman will respond. In short: understandable means predictable.

When I think of the qualities that make someone attractive or loveable, predictable ain’t one of ‘em. Granted, to some degree predictable is cute. I know that if my mom sneezes once, there are three more on the way. I know that as soon as Khan hears the sound of me picking up his leash, he is going to hide behind the couch. These things are adorable.

But to say that you understand (= can predict) someone’s little tics isn’t saying much at all.

To say that I truly understand someone – their values, their fears, what makes them chuckle, how they will respond when things get seriously difficult, etc. – seems to me more than a bit conceited. I’d not only need some level of omniscience, I’d also need to believe that life and people are more coherent than they really are.

Lots of people seem to think that understanding someone is a necessary condition to loving them. I’m not seeing it. I’d say that love and understanding are perfectly uncorrelated, or maybe even slightly negatively correlated. I’ll get to that in a moment.

The best definition I’ve heard for romantic love is intimacy + passion + commitment. To put it considerably more crudely, to be in a loving relationship means that you’ve got to share private details, have a desire to bump genitals, and have a spoken or unspoken contract with each other to continue sharing private details and bumping genitals. Notice two things that are conspicuously absent: (1) you don’t need warm, fuzzy feelings, and (2) you don’t need to understand them.

Understanding someone might even be detrimental to a loving relationship. The passion element of the romantic love equation relates to the metaphorical sideboob theory, which says that what makes something or someone alluring or seductive or attractive is that you don’t get to see the full boob, and in particular you don’t get to see the nipple, but you do get to see a part that still feels private or unique or special. In other words, you get private information but it’s not exactly what you want or expect. Implication: too much predictability (= understanding) is a total turnoff.

On the other hand, while coming to understand someone might not be the best for your libido, it probably helps you to effectively inhabit the same living room. Trade offs.

Back to the original question: Why would I want to understand women in general or a woman in particular? Friendly reminder: I don’t know why I do anything. But I’m happy to pull an explanation out of my buttocks:

Because it’s fun.