Monday, March 12, 2012

Oh No He Di-Ent (Acknowledge My Existence)

There is a phenomenon that sometimes occurs when I am out with my husband which I am at a loss to explain.

Take this afternoon for example: I'm sitting with my husband and one of our guy friends. A third guy approaches and introduces himself to my husband, scans right over my head to introduce himself to our friend, and then goes on with the conversation as if there were not a third person sitting there waiting patiently to be introduced.

I DO NOT GET IT.

Does he not see me? I mean, I know I'm a hair on the short side, but I happen to know that I am also 100% on the opaque side.

Did I forget to take off my invisibility cloak?

Is he afraid of women? Perhaps he was once bitten by a woman and vowed never again to allow one to make eye contact, let alone come near him.

Maybe it's a respect thing! "The woman, she is yours? Upon my honor as a man, I shall not speak to her."

The phrase "male chauvinist pig" continues to come to mind, but as much as I'd like to think that such a walking cliche might exist, I just have a really hard time believing that's what was really going on.

So if any of you men out there feel like manning up a mansplanation for this mansanity, I'd really womanppreciate it.

2 comments:

Melanie Mauss said...

Emily, I love everything about you and your writing style. Lemme start off with that.

And let me follow it up by saying that Doug does this to me all the time. I remember one family dinner, in particular, when I said to him, "You know, I do exist. Don't I? DAMMIT, DOUG, DON'T I EXIST?!"

He has never had a good explanation for this behavior. I'd like to see what the menfolk have to say on the matter...

Wishful Thinking said...

I think young men are scared of women. I have this problem too, except it even bleeds into other things. Peter often quickly introduces me to men he knows and then flits about doing other social things, leaving me to talk to the new guy WHO NEVER HAS ANYTHING TO SAY AT ALL.

I asked Peter if it's because we're a weird couple or (recently) because I'm pregnant (hey, maybe that throws some people off?) or maybe because they're more used to talking to unmarried womenfolk?

I have no idea, but I feel your pain.

Also, the secret password I had to type into here is "sishin" which can't be real but should be. Starting now.