A Word In Your Ear with Roy Edmonds - Thursday, August 12, 2021

A best-selling book – which I read and learned much from – once claimed that men are from Mars; women are from Venus.It meant, of course, we have profound differences – and long may that be so! However, there remain perplexing misunderstandings, even in everyday exchanges.

It happened the other morning when, with sunshine at a premium, She Who Knows suggested changing our weekly routine. While I might still meet an old mate for a pint in early afternoon, she suggested we go out soon afterwards to eat in Lytham, then watch a tennis match before days of rain set in – good idea!

Being something of an organiser, she added we should leave by 4.25pm, to be sure of both our restaurant table and seats at the match. A little later she announced bringing forward her hair appointment that afternoon, giving herself more time.

That’s all I heard but, possibly, I’d stopped listening.

However, 10 minutes before our agreed departure time, she was waving frantically at me and warning of us being late. Then we argued in the car, over my further assumption that usual arrangements for following days had also been dropped. Isn’t that what she’d been saying, about changing our routine? Apparently not.

Now, among pals, my memory is legendary, if tending rather toward exaggeration. However, most husbands agree they and their wives’ recollections of conversations and events often differ. Women say that’s because men don’t listen, while men find women don’t say what they mean... such a volatile quandary!

Still, we’ve now found a solution, or she has. “We’ll both agree, out loud, what we’ve just decided to arrange,” she suggested, “then it can’t go wrong.”

Sounded all right to me but, did she really mean what she said? We’ll have to wait and see.

Of course, it’s possible, too, I wasn’t listening properly.

* For Roy’s books visit Amazon, FeadAread.com or Waterstones.

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