Costanza Miriano - Marry Her and Die for Her

There is one single, infallible, unmatchable way of speaking to mena killer method. Its just that I personally dont know what it is.

So unfortunately, theres nothing I can do. I mean theres nothing I can do to really communicate, as in exchanging profound thoughts that actually penetrate the others mind and provoke responses.

Speakingjust speakingdoesnt count. Thats easyin fact, its my specialty.

I can speak to men effortlessly, especially when it comes to responding to basic questions like when my husband has to go and pick up my son from school because the little guy is running a fever, and he calls because he doesnt know which class his son is in and therefore hasnt a clue where to go to pick him up. (No, I havent forgotten his name, thank you very much, he says.) So I can speak to men in that way, transmitting clear, precise commands. Though my husband still has to call two or three times for clarificationWhere did you say the kids doctors office is? or Do you really want pine nuts? Would ham do instead? or Do you mind if I dont go to the place you suggested? Of course I mind, but I will deny it even under torture!

At first, I thought this might be some strange defect of the ear canalmy husbands ear canal, that isand I started to check it out only for my mother-in-law to remind me that whatever the problem might be, I had to look after that son of hers from now on. So I decided to speak to other peoples husbands, and carried away with a preachers zeal, I set about writing my letters to men.

I spent night after sleepless night hammering away on the keyboard of the laptop. OK, so I also spent a bit of time putting on geranium-pink nail polish, eating bread and salami, and reading, all the while with my eyes fixed on the physics lessons that come on TV at 4 a.m., unable to take my eyes off the professors yellow tie. But in the end, the following morning, when I had a semilucid mind, I would end up pressing the delete key eliminating everything with one stroke of painful resignation. It was a gesture of some dignity, I like to think.

The fact is that, in my experience, if a woman wants an idea to reach the head or heart of a male member of the species, not only are words not enough, but they can actually be counterproductive. When a man is confronted with advice, recommendations and instructions on how to do something, he immediately succumbs to an attack of rheumatoid arthritis, an urgent desire to go and check the brake fluid in the car, a sudden need to give a fresh coat of white paint to the restroom, or an overwhelming urge to wallow in nostalgia for his favorite music from his youth, which he has to listen to from start to finish, reverently, in silence, on his knees.

And on the rare occasions that men dont disappear while we are talking to them, they just dont listen.

As I was writing these words, I was struck by a qualm of conscience. Maybe I was being too harsh. So I phoned my husband and shared with him my thoughts, my deep, passionate, meticulous study on communication difficulties between the sexes, after which I waited for a word or two of wisdom or judgment from my dear consort.

So what do you think? I asked.

About what?

About the fact that men dont listen.

Huh?

Your opinion.

I dont know. Sorry. I wasnt listening.

Personally, I took that as a compliment. Im sure what he meant to say was Well said, darling. You always find just the right words.

I get the distinct impression that when I call my husband at work, he props up the telephone receiver and goes off to sort who-knows-what into alphabetical order, a job he has been meaning to do for ages. Knowing him as I do, he probably changes his mind halfway through the operation and sets about putting them in chronological order. Then back to alphabetical, but alphabetical order is always such a bother for Italians like us because we never know where to put that letter j that doesnt appear in our alphabet. Anyway, whatever he gets up to while Im talking to him on the phone, his contribution to the conversation is always the same: zero.

Despite all that, the fact that no one listens to us women is clearly not enough to deter us, because advice is our middle name. Helping men to improve seems to us so basic a function that it forms part of our normal dutiesalong with stopping at red lights, applying bandages to skinned knees, putting on the proper foundation before makeup, or putting the lunchbox in the school bag for kindergarten. I use those words helping men to improve advisedly because Id like to gloss over that very different situation of the plotting wife who, from the shadows, manipulates and maneuvers her husband for her own ends. I know plenty of women who could be fully paid secret service agents.

This effort, whether it be laid out in an official five-year plan or plotted secretly in documents shared only among our twenty-seven closest friends, can end up draining our energies and causing us to lose sight of the most important thing of allnamely, the need to love selflessly. Its only by doing this that we give the other person the pleasure and the will to improve freely and spontaneously. That is the only real change possible. (The need for change on both sides in a relationship is constant; that fact must be accepted, whether you want to call it growth or conversion.)

I dont know where the high school headmistress syndrome comes from, but we are all affected by it. In some ways, its a kind of laziness. Its easier to stay on autopilot, in educator mode, treating men the same way we do children. But this Mom-setting makes us impossible to put up with.

A man is a man and never a childdespite the sense of triumph he displays when he tells you hes managed to fit that awful blue cardboard with silver stars behind the nativity scene, despite the fact that hes done it with yellow insulating tape that doesnt look too much like Bethlehems skyline!

And if that fortysomething man at your side seems to still show some signs of immaturity (I mean serious signs, not just a passion for metal and plastic model-making of dubious worth or the joy he seems to take in using a mobile phone app to set off a dummy explosion in his colleagues officebehavioral traits that do not diminish his moral standing!), he has to take steps forward himself to reach maturity; you cant do it for him.