Promises Guys Must Keep

I don't usually read Cosmo. Scratch that - I don't EVER read Cosmo. But I do occasionally stumble upon it while following links on my home page. Today, the "Promises Guys Must Keep" headline caught my eye. Not because Matt doesn't keep promises - I wanted to know if my expectations for my husband fell into the "normal" range. (As normal as they can for Cosmo). The first one on their list:

"I'll call you right back."

To summarize, Soon, A Little Bit, Just a Second, and 5 Minutes do not mean the same thing to men as they do to women. And even the best of intentions to stick to the literal definitions of the above phrases don't always pan out.

Case in point, the following scene played out at our house last Friday night: I had just come home from work but was going to Chick Night so Matt was on his own for dinner. With a quick, "Can you find something to eat?" over my shoulder, Matt said he would wait until I got home at 10:30 and we could go to Taco Bell together. (World of Warcraft waits for no man's stomach.)

When I returned at 10:27, Matt was in the middle of a battleground, or an instance...or a raid...or something.

"How long until you're ready to eat?"

"Ummm...a little bit."

"Liiiiiiike 10-15 minutes or 30-45?"

"Oooohhhh, I don't know...A little bit."

"Matt, sweetie. You're not in trouble, I'm not upset, but I NEED to know what kind of time frame I'm dealing with here. If I take off my shoes and pick up a book only to have you pop up from the computer in 5 minutes I'm going to be a little put out. And I'm not looking forward to the possibility that I'll be sitting on the couch for 45 minutes twirling my hair thinking that I could have taken off my shoes 10...15...20 minutes ago and finished off a chapter of my book or an episode of How I Met Your Mother."

"Mmmmm...30-45."

"Thank you, you're wonderful. I'll be over in the corner reading."


The above example is also closely related to the "I'll take care of it." promise. Which pits a woman's expected time table against her significant other's doable time table.

A conversation with a friend when I was in college opened my eyes to this phenomenon. She said that when she asked her boyfriend to do something for her she meant she wanted it done within the next three to four hours. To him, the request has an reasonable completion time of three days - give or take 24 hours. Most of the men I've spoken to about this are firmly on the side of the boyfriend. Most of the girls think that if they knew it would take three days to get done, they would have not said anything at all and done it themselves, thus saving 72 hours of frustration and "mind chatter". (You know, where we tell ourselves that if he cared more, he would have done it sooner or wonder if I should ask again because maybe he didn't hear me the first time or fully understand the request. After how many requests do I start to sound like a nag? Because it's possible he can't smell the chicken rotting in the garbage or doesn't fully understand that yes, I could lift that really heavy box onto the top shelf of my closet myself but I'd rather have him do it. I mean, that's why he's here in the first place isn't it...?)