Someone (anonymous, for obvious reasons – and male, for equally obvious reasons, as will be revealed!) once wittily decided to write what he considered to be ‘Rules regarding Relationships between Males and Females’.
These were as follows: The female makes all the rules. The rules are subject to change by the female at any time without prior notification being given to the male.
The male is not allowed to know all of the rules. Should the female suspect that the male knows most or all of the rules, she must immediately change some of them. The female is never wrong.
Should the female appear to be wrong, this is always as a result of a misunderstanding arising from something said or implied or done (or not said, implied or done) by the male (who is wrong anyway).”
OK, OK, OK, enough! No, but there is more. “The mood of the male must at all times remain calm and docile, unless the female requires him to be in a different mood.
The female must not by any word, hint, gesture, or any other means of communication intimate to the male which mood is required of him.
Whichever mood is selected by the male is automatically wrong. The inability to mind-read by the male is not mitigating circumstances for contravention of any of the above rules.”
So there we have it! Now we know! The truth is out. Someone has been bold enough to reveal and admit the (unwritten) rules.
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Another male has expressed a similar feeling in another way, as follows: “If you try to keep yourself in shape... you're vain. If you don't ... you're a slob. If you buy her flowers ... you're after something. If you don't ... you're not thoughtful. If you're proud of your achievements ... you're full of yourself. If you don't ... you're not ambitious. If you work too hard ... there's never any time for her. If you don't work enough ... you're a useless bum. If you mention how nice she looks ... it’s sexual harassment. If you keep quiet ...... it's male indifference.” Enough!
The overriding, overwhelming, despairing (disparaging) feeling can be summed up in a few short words – we just can’t win!
No matter how hard we try, it appears that we males just do not understand or accept the rules and end up on what appears to be the losing side.
We can’t win! It is a similar feeling in some quarters, or in some teams, though at a more serious level than what we have communicated so far, when it comes to sport; some individuals, some teams end up muttering despondently “we can’t win!”
No matter how hard we try, it just comes out that we cannot win.
How then can we deal with that?
How can we respond to a child saying ruefully, “I can’t win”?
One response, especially at school sport level, is simply to say, “So what?” or in other words, more dramatically, “what’s your point, counsellor?” Who says we have to win? What is so important, significant about winning?
Why do we have to win, always (or even sometimes)? Is it not obvious that if someone wins, then someone else loses? What is wrong with not winning?
We can’t win – OK, we can’t win. So? And anyway, as one person has said, “If you don't win, you're going to be fired. If you do win, you've only put off the day you're going to be fired.” So, does winning matter?
It might be helpful if we simply add one word to the statement and say, “I can’t win everything”.
Yes, we may not be able to win in one area but we may well win in another area.
So, now it is important to ascertain what is so important or significant about winning in some areas and not others. Equally, we may well respond by asking what it is that we are not winning or what it is that we have to win.
Are we looking to win approval from someone else, be that a parent, teacher or friend)? Yet why would approval only be found in winning (when losing is going to happen at another time)?
The fact is that some situations, especially in relationships, lead to a lose/lose situation in which no-one wins anything of value – it produces silent responses, with neither speaking (or winning).
Others might lead to a lose/win situation whereby one person simply agrees to shut the other up.
Then we have a win/lose situation (depending on who we are) where we argue instead of agreeing – after all, as Dale Carnegie pointed out, “You can't win an argument because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.” Ultimately, we are looking for a win/win situation in every situation – and that comes when we listen. As Vince Lombardi, the American football coach, once said, “If you can't accept losing, you can't win.” How do we know this? Read the first paragraph again!
