As my friend Carol Allen the Vedic Astrologer said, “You can be compatible with an Ax Murderer, doesn’t mean he is Mr. Right”. So often people are anxious to see if they share compatibility with the person of interest. Okay, let’s tell it like it is – WOMEN want to know if they are compatible, men don’t care so much. They tend to know what they want and go after it. They feel it. The chemistry is there and they respond to it much better than women.
But don’t get too cocky men. You can chase your tails, mentally speaking, when it comes to other areas. But less than women in the emotional arena. That is brain specific, people. You cannot tell ethnicity from a brain in a lab on a slab. There are no clues just by looking at the brain that tells you whether someone was black, brown, yellow or white. But you can sure tell the difference between a man and woman’s brain.
This is where men start to feel pretty important, because their brains are bigger than ours. But let me clarify just a little point of importance. The weight of the brain is highly correlated to weight and size of the body. So it stands to reason that the size of the brain is the size of the command central for the body and not an overall correct measure of intelligence. The measure of intelligence is whole separate blog! But no surprise, men’s visual centers are twice as developed as women, so it really is about appearance ladies.
But back to compatibility. Did you know that if we damage the feeling part of our brain, the logical part dithers around endlessly measuring options without deciding? I was taught that as humans we buy on emotion and then defend it with logic. Isn’t that what the ad agencies of the world have been making bank on for decades? But it is truer than you realize. When it comes to relationships of all kinds, with our friends, lovers, co-workers or even the bed we buy, we need to feel it first and then back that feeling up with logic.
This is where women wind up getting stuck on the compatibility question. They are looking for logic to either persuade them to or deter them from the choice at hand. Women’s brains don’t shut down as easily once they ‘decide’. The neurons keep firing worrying about the wellbeing of those affected by the choice (News Week did an interesting write up on blind stock trades with men and women with their brains wired to prove this).
Men on the other hand, shut down most of those brain cells – I will forgo the obvious joke here. Men decide and the brains slow down. Decision made, move on.
Women wonder if they made the right choice. It isn’t simply emotion that gets in the way; it is an overdeveloped safety mechanism that has them endlessly screening for the best decision. It was nature’s way of trying to improve the odds that the vulnerability of childbirth and raising would not be endangered by the first hot hunk to pass by when she was ovulating.
Men have a simpler filter, is she young and potentially fertile enough to carry on the race. These cues are visual, hence twice the visual center in the brain. Nature is logical that way… But we are far evolved from cave man days and survival you might add. Which is where chemistry comes in handy.
These days, we know that we are taking in information at a staggering rate. Our brains can’t help but evolve to keep up. Chemistry is one of the best sticking points in this world of endless choices particularly when it comes to love. That indefinable pull from someone is what makes us stop racing to the next text message or Facebook friend. Chemistry is what keeps us going back even when you have all the choice in the world. It is what helps you learn from others and bridge neural gaps to new thought patterns. It is what fires up the brain and stirs the soul for good or for bad. It’s up to you to apply it well.
But that, too, is another discussion…
