COLUMN: Effective selective memory
If you were to ask me to name all of the Super Friends, I could do it without blinking. If you were to ask me to recite any line from any of the Star Wars movies or from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, I could do it without hesitation.
But if you were to ask me what my wife asked me to do for her 20 minutes ago, I would probably begin by thinking, then downshift into drooling and finally end up in the fetal position on the floor, my eyes rolled back into my head and a legion of tiny, flaming, demonic creatures dancing about me chanting, “Turn over your life or face your wife.”
I and every other male on this planet are born with a little something loosely referred to as selective memory; I like to call it the Don’t-Even-Think-About-Sex-Tonight disease.
Guys have a built in sorting mechanism when it comes to information. They listen, but as they listen they keep and discard information based on that moment. Most guys have only a few subjects they keep information on, which usually contain subjects like sports, car maintenance, beautiful women, themselves and small shiny objects. All subjects of information just kind of bang around in a guy’s head for a couple of seconds, causing them momentary discomfort (which women sometimes mistake for a look of concern).
The unwanted information is then eventually banished to the female-common-sense section of the brain, a dark and enigmatic place where “yes” means “no” and “go ahead, I don’t care” often means, “if you do, you’ll be sleeping with your tape of Shania Twain in your truck tonight.” Here, this information gets lost in a forest of unsolicited gynecology and menstruation lore and fashion advice, never to be accessed again.
Although most selective memory is not entirely intentional, there are some upsides to it. Countless trips to the trash can have been saved by selective memory. Many hours can be saved in the video store trying to pick out the latest romantic comedy/everything-works-out-fine/no-action-or-death-to-be-found-anywhere chick flick. Since Hollywood releases a whole three of these kinds of movies annually that are worth anything, selective memory allows a guy to simply pick out what he wants, save time and only suffer a brief tongue lashing when he returns home.
If selective memory is a big deal in your relationship, as it is in mine, here are a couple of tips I have learned that may be helpful:
When your woman is talking to you, try to imagine she is a super model and if you can remember all the things she is saying in an hour then she’ll run away with you to a tropical paradise and be your personal slave.
When listening to your mate, try to imagine she is Bob from the automotive shop and relate everything to a car part. For example, if she says, “I need you to go and pick up my birth-control pills,” you should translate this into, “it’s almost out of gas and if you don’t get a refill, you ain’t going anywhere.”
If all else fails, simply pull out your Swiss army knife and carve everything she says into your arm in blood.
Selective memory is a trait women also have, although theirs is very different. A woman’s selective memory collects information on the bad things a man does and stores them for anywhere from six months to 20 years, waiting and perfectly preserved for that moment when she begins to lose an argument.
When this gem of imperfection is dug out from the past, the male is helpless at this point, unable to remember what he ate three hours ago. A man doesn’t have a prayer at this point and should simply lie down and die.
My wife and I, through some counseling and many arguments, have worked out a system that has worked pretty well for us in the recent past. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to remember what it is.