Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah

There is an advertisement on the radio trying to sell some sort of car. I believe it to be a Jeep or a Landrover or something equally impractical. Regardless of what it was selling, I thought the way it presented the 'great for everyone' sale's pitch was quite clever. The script went something like this (with rather inaccurate details, but the jist is the same):

Voiceover: What you hear at the car dealership...
Car salesman: Eight speaker sound system, six speed manual or five speed automatic, 18 inch alloys and a 3.6L V6 for the low price of blah blah blah blah
Voiceover: What your wife hears...
Car salesman: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah low price of $39,990

While it did take the notion of selective hearing to absurd extremes, it did raise an interesting question. Just what is it that makes males and females so different from each other that we sometimes seem to speak totally different languages? Surely, it's not solely the work of biological factors and hormones? Perhaps it boils down to long established gender stereotypes. That men are looking for bigger toys louder grunts. That women are hopelessly drawn to something with 'sale' stamped on it. That men do not give a damn about price. That women pay no attention to function (hence the alarming number of mini skirts worn in the middle of winter). That neither sees what the other sees, especially when looking at the same thing.

But if neither understands the other, why is it that humans are attracted to the opposite sex? Freud believed it was an innate drive to promote the survival of the race but, like everything else I've learnt in psychology, this is a rather airy fairy theory with no real evidence (besides, would you really believe someone whose name looks like the word fraud?). Some people think we're attracted to things that we don't understand because of the sense of mystery and adventure. Which makes sense because after marriage (i.e. after the mystery and adventure is replaced with nausea and contempt), 45% of the time the next step is divorce. Of course, the obvious counter to this is the racism argument: that we are all innately racist (some more than others) because we fear those that we do not understand. Does that then make homosexuals the only sane ones because they stick with what they comprehend (slightly better)?


Anyway, to end this little rant, here's a short video (thanks to Cyd for sharing) which is a representation of opposite sex interaction which is simultaneously amusing, alarming and accurate.