Mars vs. Venus: boys think with their {you-know-what}

There are many books out there concerning how differently men communicate from women. One of my favorite titles is "Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti," which has the fun yet accurate premise that men can compartmentalize their lives while, with women, everything is interwoven. I do admit to having read a bit of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" a few years ago. There are a lot of spot-on observations in that book. But, at the heart, this fact remains: when it comes to communication, men and women really are on different planets.

On planet Mars, there are three major thoughts: sports, sex and sleep. Perhaps not always in that order, but those are consistently the top three things on men's minds. Plus there seems to be this whole black hole of the brain that allows men to think about nothing. Seriously.

Women, on the other hand, are always thinking about something, and often multiple things at once. We never have nothing on our minds. So we're mystified when we ask a man what he's thinking and he says "nothing." But it's probably true. And we're thinking about a project at work, needing to go to the gym so that we can fit into our new shorts, and we need to buy new shoes to wear with the shorts, which means we need a pedicure, which reminds us of the time we got a pedicure with our best friend and she picked out red polish even though it clashed with her dress.

So when he asks what we're thinking (assume you just started dating and he's still pretending to care) and we take him through the process, he's wondering what the score is of the baseball game and what you look like naked.

I know all this. I know men think differently and react differently and have distinctly different brains. But I still marvel at how differently we process information.

Take last week for example. I was thrilled that LB and I have found our way back to some sense of normalcy. Don't get me wrong; there's no hint of romance there. But we finally became comfortable enough with each other again to not obsess over everything we say and how it will be heard. And we spent all last week harassing each other with emails, texts and calls. It was great. I was relieved. The weirdness was gone.

Until I accidentally forwarded him an email that was completely insensitive and mean. I didn't realize it for a few moments, then I frantically tried to figure out a way to retrieve it. I imagined him opening it and getting mad. Or worse, being hurt. I obsessed about it all weekend. I laid awake two nights thinking about it. I sent him a follow-up "oops" e-mail, then a text, and never got a response.

I spent hours trying to figure out what to do. Finally yesterday I bought a card that said, "Sorry I'm a jerk." I apologized for what I said. I told him I hoped he knew me well enough to know that I'm moronic but not malicious.

Tonight he called to thank me for the card. But he was confused about the apology. Because he never opened my e-mail.

I don't know when I'll learn. Men really aren't that complicated. And unless you insult their manhood, it's hard to hurt their feelings. Which can sometimes be a good thing. Because if you can be insensitive like me, it's awesome that half of the population isn't smart enough to realize it.