Woman-to-Geek Dictionary, Part Five

More translations from the Woman-to-Geek Dictionary…

“What do you say you take a break from the computer and we go and get some dinner?” = “Turn that fricking thing off and pay attention to me already!”

“I don’t like it when you… .” = “Don’t do that. Ever.”

If she asks some kind of random question that seems out of the blue (like “What did you want to be when you grew up?” or “If you went on a game show, which one would it be?”), unless you’re at a speed dating event, she is probably getting ready to psychoanalyze what you say. But you knew that already, right? Which is why you always respond to such questions with non-answers. Wrong answer. If you avoid answering it, or ask “Why do you want to know?,” those responses put you in a more negative light than just about any real answer you could give. Not answering says to a woman that you are emotionally shut down and unavailable. A “Why?” response will be interpreted as paranoia. You aren’t avoiding the “trick” of the question by not answering. This may come as a surprise to most men, but those types of questions are not “tricks.” Nor are they directed at psychoanalyzing you in order to diagnose you--unless you don’t answer the question, then, as I said earlier, you will be charged with paranoia and emotional shutdown. She isn’t trying to get you to reveal something you don’t want to reveal. She isn’t looking for chinks in your armor to then criticize behind your back with her friends. You should be flattered she asked. It means she wants the relationship to become more emotionally intimate but isn’t sure how to bring your conversation to a deeper level.

If you’ve been in the relationship for a while (a year or so) and she needs to replace her refrigerator, stereo, washing machine, etc. and she keeps procrastinating doing so or asks for a lot of your input on the fridge (as if you cared), it’s not because she can’t pick a large durable good on her own. And it’s not because she’s indecisive. The question in her mind is: why spend a bunch of money on a new stereo when you have a really good one and the two of you together do not need more than one? Hint. Hint. She’s trying to figure out how to broach the topic of living together and/or getting married, but she hasn’t figured out how explicit she wants to be. Major appliance purchases aren’t just major appliance purchases. Sometimes they are about one’s emotional future. At least for a woman.

And after all these blog posts dealing with translations, why, you ask, can’t women just be direct? I’ll answer this on Friday!