Thursday, October 1, 2015

Men Have Sheds.....and women go shopping


Why Men Have Sheds – and woman go shopping!


I hate generalizations or profile and gender fixing, as we may share the same sex, but we are all different aren’t we? But are we?

Most men that I know have a systematic way of dealing with things. It’s a process that allows us to deal with things in the order they need to be dealt with. It may not fulfill the protocols that the opposite sex may have chosen; neither are we necessarily as tidy or organised (I said maybe), as our counterparts, but to us, it makes clear sense and fulfills our understanding of logic and procedure.

Men are by and large practical and motivated by sight and taste; this is not the case with woman. A woman is motivated by what she hears and feels. 

This is why woman wear make-up and men tell lies.

A woman will walk into a store and engages with the stock, by touch, feel, smell, hold up, spin it round, stretch it, try on, put back and start the process all over again, until the store closes. A man will, walk strait to the shirt or trouser rack, spot a  colour, size, price and head to the check out and pay. He will rarely try it on (as it wastes good time). He will then go home to his shed (or den).

Men are hunter gatherers, who are wired to bag a bargain and move onto the next. We are on “an expedition”, with a clearly defined target, and once we have bagged it, we are done! 

During the expedition, we are not being rude or ignoring people along the journey, as in truth, we don’t see them due to our single focus. Occasionally, something will grab our attention for a fleeting moment, but normal service soon resumes.

Within our potential (apparent) dis-organised state, we are comfortable. Move something from where it belongs (even if it is on a table top, behind a door or piled high), our process is thwarted and frustration sets in, as we try to organise and prioritise our cave. 

Comments such as, “OK then, I’ll just leave your stuff where I find it” and “It looks a mess” or “I’ll put it back where I found it” even "Well I wont bother again" are wielded like a baton, as if somehow and some way it will punish us! 


By leaving things the way they were? 

Seriously, that’s all we ever want!

As a youngster, I was raised in a pit village where miners would work all manner of ungodly hours and shifts. I was always fascinated by how many of them would have pigeon lofts, in which they would keep racing pigeons. Others would have rickety sheds, knocked together with corrugated sheeting, coal conveyor belts, plywood and other odds and ends.


The “shed” would always be built at the bottom of the garden, or in an “allotment” (a rented space usually away from the housing in the woods).
I could never understand why the men would forgo the pleasures of a warm home, with electricity and all the mod cons for an easy life, but they did.

I recall visiting some of these “sheds” and there were no attempts to make it homely! They had a converted oil drum on which to burn wood and boil a kettle. A rickety chair, piles of horse racing chronicles, a biscuit tin, radio and hobby materials. They often had compacted earth floors which smelled of tobacco and damp, yet they were a refuge for solace, a special retreat, a safe tower.  


We all need a shed! 

A place where things just are and yet don’t have to be.