I'll see you there... maybe?

There are inherent differences between most men and women. I say most because there are always those people on the fringes that blah blah blah. Anyway, this isn't about the freaking gender gap and all that crap, it's more about the one thing that men will always be better than women at doing: you guessed it, giving directions.

***Here's my disclaimer that this is all in fun and all that crap, and to not send me mail because blah blah blah***

Whereas women might have the upper hand in the grand scheme of things because they're actually willing to ask for directions, it's not often that you'll see them asking another woman for directions. This is because even women know that they are crappy at giving directions. You ask a woman how to get to the stadium, you'll hear an answer that is basically "well, drive down that street over there until you get to that blue house with the white shutters, and the yellow flowers out front. Not the blue house with the white shutters with the red flowers out front, although i don't really understand why you'd want to plant red flowers in front of a blue house anyway. But you turn right there... wait, is it right? I'm not sure, but i know you're supposed to turn there, so when you turn, if there is a big red car parked at the end of the street, you're going the right way. Once you get to that red car, keep going straight until you get to the yellow house with the white roof. Once you get there... keep going straight..." and so on and so forth.

You can clearly see that the directions are nothing but clear. The problem? Lack of road names. Roads are given names for one reason and one reason only, for men to memorize them. All of them. Generally, men will remember road names in cities they have only been to once longer than the names of their first wives. Why? Well, it's genetics. The y-chromosome contains within it the road map gene. People should recall from their biology classes that the y-chromosome is actually smaller than the x chromosome. Well, this is indeed the case as evidenced by my expertise as a genetic... er.. expert. So what is contained in the other x-chromosome? The descriptive direction giving gene. That's why it's generally a better idea to ask men for directions, because they're not distracted by crap like structures or the color of traffic lights, etc. They'll give you directions with street names and surprisingly accurate distances from street to street. How you ask? Easy, most men at some point, have driven down a street... just to see how long it is. I mean, everyone has a different reason for doing so (generally has to do with... so that's a quarter of a mile... i could get my car up to 330mph...), but i digress...

Now this next point, i guess could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. When you ask a man for directions where he is within arm's reach of a writing utensil and something to write on, often, on the map, you'll see streets that are about 7 miles from any of the roads that you'd ever take or need to take, or maybe even references to roads that no longer exist. This can be helpful if you're particularly bad at following map directions, becuase then you'll know that you've really gone too far.

That being said, a friend of mine once drew a map of how to get to a picnic from the school. It was very simple, devoid of any distractions such as streets that you didn't have to take directly... and looked something like this:

Now, that's great and everything, except it was almost a little too devoid of detail, seeing as how perhaps it would be helpful to have some sort of scale, or references to where the turns should be made. This is where even a "pink house" description would have been helpful. The map would have been just as effective if it had just been the head and the tail of a snake pinned to the start and finish of the map, where he's just writing around, changing the route every time he writhes around. I would venture to say, that if you were able to find your way to the destination using this map, chances are, you're either on crack, or were the one who drew the map.

All of this discussion might make people think that i have a problem with the way women give directions... well, yes... but that's not the point. The point is that there is a good way and a bad way to do certain things, and drawing maps that have no distinguishing features whatsoever is... well, how about i just say, not the good way.



Mitch Hedberg's QotD:

I wanna hang a map of the world at my house. Then I wanna stick pins in the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I have to travel to the to two corners of the map so it won't fall down.