Social Question

Aster's avatar

Why can't guys "find things" that are right there in front of their noses?

Asked by Aster (20023points) October 12th, 2010

To drive the point home, there’s a greeting card
with a refrigerator on the front showing nothing in it but butter from bottom shelf to top shelf. When you open it , it shows a man with the door wide open asking, “honey, where’s the butter?”
I have a distressing theory: they don’t want to
bother looking or seeing because either their mothers or their wives have always rushed to hand them what they want!

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

21 Answers

chels's avatar

It’s not just men; women do this too (I know I’ve done it). No need for sweeping generalizations ;)

ucme's avatar

Another man bashing excercise on fluther, would you believe it!! :¬)

Blackberry's avatar

I think your theory is just a hypotheses, but sometimes I do this because I am thinking about other things while I am looking for an object. My attention is not fully dedicated to finding the object but instead I am thinking about something more important.

Aster's avatar

Well, a greeting card company picked up on it so that makes 2 of us. lol

Aster's avatar

@chels Of course we all have things we can’t find sometimes. But I have never had a man rush up and hand something to me. Plus, who has always heard , “why can’t women find things that are right there?”

erichw1504's avatar

I agree with @Blackberry. That’s usually why I do it. Also because I’m lazy and don’t feel like looking behind stuff.

Michael_Huntington's avatar

Because we’re all testosterone filled meathead jerks who don’t ask for directions, disrespect women and all we ever care about are protein shakes and weight lifting~

chels's avatar

@Aster It’s called stereotyping. Just because you hear about men doing this more than women doesn’t mean that’s how it is IRL. If that was the case, everyone would be dying their hair to a non-blonde color, since you know, blondes are dumb – women would never leave the kitchen – men would always go to work and come home to a nicely cooked meal while women stayed home to do laundry, take care of the kids and gossip with other wives about scandals.

cazzie's avatar

I have a word for this… it’s called ‘Masculooking’. (women, Femhaughtyfind)

NinjaBiscuit's avatar

Both women and men do that, equally. Well, I know I do it more than my husband! In fact he’s the one that’s good at finding things. (or just showing me that it’s right in front of me) It’s just a stereotype. =3

Aesthetic_Mess's avatar

Everyone does this because we usually have tunnel vision when we are looking for something. We are so focused on finding this one thing that we don’t notice it when it’s right in front of us. That’s why sometimes when you’re looking for something, and you ask someone else if they’ve seen it, it’ll be right there in front of you the whole time

Mikewlf337's avatar

Everyone does that. Usually when looking for things we tend to look too hard and search places that aren’t obvious

Sarcasm's avatar

I’m not entirely sure greeting cards are appropriate representations of society.

Plus, who has always heard , ‘why can’t women find things that are right there?’
To be fair, until seeing this thread, I’ve never heard “why can’t men find things that are right there?” either, so I’m not sure it’s a great argument.

People in general want to be given the correct answer, rather than having to search for it. You wouldn’t scan up and down every single row in a library for your desired book, would you? Personally, I’d much rather step over to the catalog computer, put in my keyword, and be told where the book is.

Aster's avatar

Have you ever heard “why won’t men ask for directions?” I’ve never heard that women won’t. but I’ve seen and heard men asking

Seek's avatar

Hm. I just did this 20 minutes ago with a set of keys. Looked around everywhere for them. Where were they? On the otherwise empty countertop I walked past 15 times during my search.

downtide's avatar

In my case it’s because I am quite literally half blind and I have major problems with visual processing.

Austinlad's avatar

We humans have to deal with a relentless tsunami of visual and aural input every day. It’s a wonder we can see or remember anything specific. By the way, I’ve known as many females as males with this problem, myself included.

jrpowell's avatar

It is because we are busy thinking about how to fix the computers that the women in our lives fucked up.

cazzie's avatar

I think I read about a theory on this… no idea how it would be tested, and I think so many of the ‘women’s v men’s brains’ studies end up inconclusive…. But the theory I heard was that woman were gatherers and caregivers to they needed to develop their eyes for the details close to them, where as men were hunters and planners so developed the ability to see ‘bigger picture’ issues and vistas, having to scan large areas for game when hunting…. having to contemplate actions to be taken in order to effect things in the more distant future…. I don’t know. I don’t even think I really believe it has any truth to it, but I thought I’d just throw it out here. I am very uncomfortable with any of the ‘generalisations’ like this, but it does make a good joke and funny dinner table conversation.

erichw1504's avatar

@twodeadpoets You learn something new everyday. Good find!

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.
Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther