I've been pondering something lately and I've found myself on yet another quest as to an explanation. Not surprisingly, it involves the brain of the dude of the species vs. ours.
Say Susan and Martha are on the phone chatting, when Martha's Dude beeps through on call waiting. What happens?
Duh. Martha will suddenly cut Susan off mid-sentence and exclaim giddily, "Oooooooh, Dude is calling! Let me call you back." Susan totally understands, and says excitedly, "Oh, go take the call!" Susan takes no offense whatsoever, and hangs up and goes on with her day.
Surprising? Not in the least.
Now, let's switch things up a bit.
Martha and Dude are talking on the phone. Susan beeps in. Martha looks at her caller ID, says, "Oh, Susan's calling." Dude asks if she needs to get the call, and Martha replies in horror, "Oh, no, Dude. I'm speaking to you and you're my No. 1. I'll call her back later."
They continue chatting, when suddenly, Dude's best bud beeps in. Dude exclaims excitedly, "My BDF (best dude forever) is calling. I gotta go!" and drops Susan like a hot potato to his oh-so-much more important call. They might only be discussing beer and throwing pizza at the ceiling -- but he'll do it to you every time.
Martha, indignant that she isn't Dude's reason for breathing, is offended. Now getting back to Susan is top priority so she can whine about Dude's behavior -- and we hope against hope that Susan is not on with her Dude or she won't answer.
"Susan! Dude would rather talk to his BDF than me!"
The truth? Martha's right. He would (okay, except back in the very beginning of the relationship, but refer to my blog "He's Been Abducted By Aliens" to explain that one).
For some reason, women put men first, but men put men first. Why is that?
Now some of you may remember a saying my grandmother used to quote me: For a woman, a man is her whole life; but to a man, the woman is just a small part of his. And generally, I find this to be true.
Women tend to identify themselves with love, who they love and who loves them. They'll give up friends, jobs, houses, whatever it takes, in search of and in support of love, even when it's to their detriment.
Men, they identify more with work, success, how in control, how good a provider they are or would be. They looooove time with the guys. Dudes make dudes feel very dudely. And they don't have to worry about drama or the feelings stuff. I refer to it as Testosterone Time.
Seems we haven't evolved that far away from the caveman mentality -- provider and dependent -- which is very odd in today's society since, by and large, all of us are working and the master of our own domain.
But frankly, I think Dude has something here. Who was with you before love came along, and who will be there after it's gone? Your friend. Who is there to support you when something goes wrong? Who will pick you up when you fall and tell you how great your ass looked when you landed on it?
Dude stays loyal and makes it a priority to make time for BDF, while we'll sell our friends down the river in a hot second for Dude.
So really, which one of us is a few clowns short of a circus?
You be the judge.