Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What To Do About It

I'm independent," I said, "but I need people, also. Even men." "An independent women can't hope to be any man's pet," he said. "I'll take what I get. What do I have to lose?" "Why, you lose me, John," I said. "On your terms I never really have you in the first place," he came back. "Materially, no!" I exclaimed. "But why is material possession the only way to think about your relationship with a woman. Are we really just property? A man's daughter leaves home, he doesn't have her materially and, yet he still has her in other ways, still loves her, and she him." "A man wants to feel he's important to a woman," he stated. "You don't think the father is important to the daughter?" I asked. "It's a special relationship of diminishing importance in his everyday life. Anyway, Bea, you're comparing apples to oranges," he said. "Granted, the pair bond between a man and a woman should not be an owner-possession thing, I don't think you can compare a daughter to a wife." "I guess what I was trying to say was that you speak of your daughter as yours all of your life, whether she's there at home with you or not, or whether she's had ten husbands in Timbuktu, she's still yours, your daughter." I insisted. "Go on," he said, calmly. "Why then, the moment a woman ceases to act as if she were an indentured servant, or what is the term, having left my bed and board, does she cease to be your wife? You've had a more intense relationship with her than you've had with any other woman, yet you'll put up with less." "It must be," he said, "that people have a low regard for the objects that have satisfied their sexual appetites, and a high one for those who have not ...»