listening to: estrela - the letter

here i will adapt a passage from this book i'm reading. the book is called dinner for two and its by mike gayle. he's a really cool author. thanks bebs for recommending me this author.

The Art of Talking Without Talking

Here's the scene: my mate Trevor is standing in Wax Lyrical with his girlfriend when he gets The Look.

"What?" he responds.
"you know", she replies.
"i dont", he protest.
"If you loved me you'd know" she says. Then Trevor's gf storms off leaving him holding a box of scented candles.

When days later, he shares the story with me and the rest of our mates down the pub we all nod in silent recognition. "its the female art of talking without talking," i say. "it can really bugger up your day"

A group of us were in the pub when one of our woman friends came in crying. she exchanged one glance with my better half and disappeared to the toilets.

"what was that about?" i asked my good lady.
"she's split up with Tony, she just had an argument with her mum, her cat's sick, she cant make her mind up about a strappy floral print dress she saw and oh.. she hates her job."

"you got all that from one look?" i asked.

another was when me and the woman of my life were at a party. i'd chatted with some strangers, had a dance and went home. in the car however, i was given the silent treatment. apparently i was guilty of being flirted with.

the thing you have to realise about us men is that we're very simple creatures: what you see is what you get. (i like this part best)when it comes to reading the lins we cant - we're illiterate - which is why having a go at us for not understanding why you're upset when you refuse to tell us is both cruel and mean. its like smacking a puppy for leaving a deposit on the carpet when you had clearly stated in a seven page document left in the kitchen drawer that he cant do that. men, like puppies, cant read seven page documents or find any thing located in the kitchen drawer, and most of all, they cant read women's minds. which is why if you ask us to guess what's troubling you we will invariably get it wrong. we dont do this on purpose: what we do is work on the assumption that, mentally speaking, you're a bit like us. this means that there's not a great deal on you mind to "read" other than endless lists of top ten favourite things, pictures of naked women and fluffy clouds.

the answer to the problem is, i'm afraid, a little obvious. in a straw poll of my mates down the pub six out of six of us agreed that the one thing we'd love the women in our lives to do is just tell us what's wrong rather than us having to guess all the time. as my mate put it, we're reasonable peple. if they just talked to us with their lips instead of their brain waves we'd know exactly what to do." so there you have it. save the guessing games and start talking to you man like a regular human being.

©Dinner for Two by Mike Gayle

please read the whole thing. i think its so true. haha. cherio~