(Greek) Myths about Men and Women

I love Greek mythology. If I had to pick a religion (and btw, doesn’t it show how ridiculous religion really is, that you have to PICK one? If religious indoctrination contained truth, we would all have the same one and wouldn’t be picking it, don’t you think?), I would choose to believe in the Greek gods and goddesses. They’re endlessly fascinating. And the Greeks really had a lot to teach us about the nature of the human psyche (psyche being a Greek word itself, this all makes sense.)

The Greeks believed that, in the beginning of time, man and woman were actually one entity. Forces ripped that entity into two, exiled to opposite ends of the globe, and from that moment, our eternal quest has been to rejoin each other — to find the “other half” that completes us. It’s a pretty romantic concept and probably gave birth to the whole illusory notion of “finding your soulmate.”

Although the Greeks took this rose-colored view of the ultimate quest for hetero love, when you look at Greek myths, they are full of male-female conflict and dysfunction and highlight the often destructive nature of love. It is no coincidence that Aphrodite wasn’t so much worshipped by the Greeks as feared, and that Cupid used arrows to “inflict” love on mortals rather than something a little less painful.

Even Zeus and Hera, king and queen of the gods, can’t seem to get it right. 
Zeus is always tomcatting around on Hera — sneaking down from Olympus and disguising himself as some animal or another, hoping Hera won’t recognize him, to seduce some gorgeous flavor of the moment.

Of course, Hera always finds out the truth and bitchslaps the poor girl by shipping her off on the river to Hades on a leaky boat or turning her into a gargoyle.

These stories prove that the Greeks appreciated how freaking hard it is for men and women to make that journey that unites their half selves into one. 
Much of the problems between men and women in the Greek myths stem from simple communication issues. For example, Eros conveniently forgetting to mention to Psyche that he’s a god, which leads to all sorts of mishaps, and the two could only be together when the Gods decide to intervene and send Hermes as an intermediary to explain the situation to them. I suppose Hermes is like the kid in junior high school whom you recruited to pass notes to that cute boy you liked, because you were too scared to approach him. Or the therapist who has to translate woman talk to male talk, to keep a couple together.

Miscommunication and lack of communication is clearly still an issue between men and women, all these centuries later…even in this technological age, when we have a plethora of devices to write and speak to each other and a dwindling number of believable excuses not to.
Cellphones and computers just can’t compensate for the fact that men and women think differently, I suppose, and thus communicate in totally different ways. The persistent frustrations we all experience with each other are a gold mine for all those “relationship experts” out there. I bet there are more books on relationship issues and how to deal with them than there are textbooks. I know self-help books SELL better than textbooks, attesting to the persistent, failed desire we have to understand each other when communication seems to be impotent.

I think there is one simple rule: men, on the whole, tend to mean what they say and say what they mean. Of course, there are jive talking players out there — “oh yeah, baby, you’re the only one. What’s your name again?” “Oh sure, I’ll call you on Friday”. But, for the most part, I have a lot of male friends, and they tend to agree.

And they don’t really think about the relationship that much. I had an ex who, when I would bring up some issue he and I were having, would sigh, “You’re thinking about the relationship AGAIN.”

I’d reply, “I’m a woman. There’s a little spot in our brains designed just for that.”

Women don’t seem to understand that, though. We think that a) men waffle and beat around the bush like we do; and b) that they’re always thinking about the relationship, like we are. This can lead to “over-analysis paralysis.”

Case in point. I have a friend at my previous workplace who met a guy on OKCupid. They had been on 4 or 5 dates, and she really liked him. In her mind, this posed a dilemma. She asked me, “Should I take my profile down?”

Her reasoning: If she left her profile up, the guy might think she didn’t like him. If she took it down, however, she thought he might think that she was making assumptions. Maybe he’ll assume she wants — uh oh — a commitment? You know, the whole “let’s get married-move into a house with a white picket fence-have lots of babies” thing that men are supposedly scared shitless about and think all women want.

The simple question of whether or not to remove her profile generated a whole day’s worth of angst, I kid you not. But if I do, he’ll think this…if I don’t, he’ll think that…it’s almost comical! And this is just one small example!

I’m a woman in my 40s. Believe me-I have lived, breathed and eaten this kind of thing — experienced it, seen it in my friends — it’s not pretty. Sitting around, looking at the phone (back when we had landlines — now we just take our frustrations out by winging our smartphones at the wall when it doesn’t ring, or someone fails to reply to a text)…chattering and nattering on and on about this guy or that guy with our friends…staying up late, ruminating…there’s a point where it stops being fun and just becomes, well, exhausting.

Ultimately, I gave this advice to my friend — do you want to keep your profile up? Then do it. Do you want to take it down? Then do it. Stop second-guessing this guy, because, believe me, the last thing he is doing is sitting around second-guessing you. He’s out there living his life and doing what he wants. And I guarantee he’s not going to see your profile and try to glean any deeper meaning from the fact that it’s posted, or not posted.
She took my advice and sure, enough, the topic never came up. Now they are in a committed relationship and mutually decided to remove their respective profiles.

Perhaps if we would all engage in a lot more honesty with each other and a lot less game-playing, we could stop obsessing so much about our relationships and get more done. Then again, there’d be no more soap operas, and the “He’s Just Not Into You” guy wouldn’t be rolling in dough anymore.

And maybe if Psyche hadn’t listened to her jealous harpie sisters, and actually sat down and asked Eros what was REALLY going on, they could have saved themselves a ton of heartache.

Copyright 2017. S. Wade