We Actually Know We're Neurotic

Women are neurotic. We are, it’s true, and I can admit this.

And while I’m at it, I’ll go ahead and say this, too: I feel bad for all the decent men, those rare and decent men, who actually have their acts together and who are forced to deal with neurotic behavior they don’t deserve.

I think that as women get older, the intelligent ones – the ones capable of learning from their past mistakes – are able to look back at the women who are some steps behind them and recognize: Oh dear god. I used to be that girl.

I no longer consider myself a novice in the dating and relationship arenas, but by no means would I ever call myself an expert – I’m a long ways from that. And yet, I still feel like it would be fair to say that I’ve gained some useful insights over the past decade or so.

One of the benefits of entering this new phase of wisdom is that now I’m somehow more able to recognize these moments of neurotic behavior. In myself, in my girlfriends, occasionally even in girls I’ve only just met. It’s eye-opening, really. I’ve learned that we get upset (a lot) over things that have… well… nothing to do with anything. But the thing is, to us, this little thing actually does relate to something. See, men are confused because they take us literally; they believe that the problem at hand is the problem at hand, when really, there’s usually so much more under the surface.

When I get irritated at, or pick a fight over, something completely ridiculous, I can almost always see that I’m being unreasonable and unfair. The problem, though, is that whatever the underlying issue happens to be, it’s never something that I think is ridiculous.

Men fight over what is in front of them, over what we (women) have laid on the table, but we (women) fight over what is under the table. What we’ve placed on the table is just something we’re using to bring up our real issues. Do you follow?

Women are neurotic, for sure. And we can’t help it. We will always be this way. This is because we all secretly want a man who can read our minds when we’re upset, a man who’s in tune with what makes us happy and what makes us angry or sad, a man who can learn what we want and need and expect. We want men who can give us what we we’re hoping for without us asking for it. We want men who can look at the tiny and ridiculous matters we bring up and naturally see what it is that’s really bothering us beneath each of them. And why do we want men like this? Because we, as women, are always searching for the “grand gesture,” we are constantly looking for signs from the men that they care enough to make efforts to satisfy and take care of us. Because we hope (against all odds and better judgment) that men exist who are capable of deeper thought and who will care enough to always get to the bottom of things. What makes us neurotic is that there aren’t a lot of men out there who are like this.

I blame the discrepancy in expectations on the genders’ respective wiring. We just think differently, and that will probably never change unless we all become genderless automatons.

So what do men want? If a man isn’t neurotic, what is he? Reckless? Insensitive? Oblivious? I don’t think it’s fair to pass those judgments when I don’t really know what they want. Where are they coming from? What kind of women do they want?