KT Walsh
CREATIVE  PRODUCER | WRITER | MEDIA RESEARCHER 

MAN TIME vs MY TIME

By: KT Walsh | 2012

Boys do not plan. As little girls, we are raised planners. We plan to have a tea party. Getting all the dolls and stuffed animals ready is part of the fun. We could spend all day planning what to wear, just playing dress-up for hours. Wait… I still do that. Setting up the Barbie world and planning her outfit is in some ways better than her date with Ken. Ken’s usually a disappointment anyway, his head always pops off when they kiss. It’s all the boys, brothers, neighbor kids that parachuted in with their G.I. Joe’s ready to destroy everything we just set up. Impulsive simple fools set out to ruin all plans. Hence, Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice and little boys are made of everything that is icky and gross. Duh!

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We get older, training bras turn into lacy bits with under-wire, our plans become more flexible as we traditionally wait to be asked out. We wait on Man Time. This is where Man Time starts and Boy Destruction dissipates. Wait for them to call, wait for them to text, ask us out, pick us up, make the first move, wait for them to figure out what exactly it is they really want then wait to see if they change their minds. They like to say they wait on us, but the reward is fabulous looking arm candy. With Man Time there is no reward.

These guys cannot keep a calendar. Dudes are continually surprised when appointments scheduled weeks in advance pop up. I suppose it’s an exciting way to live. When you are continually on Man Time as the relationship progresses, you start to realize there is no method to the madness. Zero. I like spontaneity, surprises, being swept off my feet, but I also like to know when or if he plans on eating dinner with me, has to work late, or has decided that a three hour shopping trip to complete the survival kit must be executed immediately. Come on guys, you’d let your mom know if you were going to be late for dinner.

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It’s funny to me how guys will always know what time the game starts and all the stats of both teams, but somehow forget that we have a wedding to attend and stumble over his college buddy’s wife’s name. I could convert my whole life to mimic sporting events, making his punctuality like a batting average and birthdays like playoff games. But that’s just too far down the rabbit hole.

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 Is it that ladies make ourselves too available when we first start dating? We flow with the Man Time to get a dinner date and a make-out session. Then suddenly Man Time has taken over our time. Always a fact checker, I’ve discussed with this with a few ladies to make sure I wasn’t the only one seeing these sort of scheduling issues.

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Come to find out modern guys attempt bridging this rift with an offer to share gmail calendars. We don’t want your calendar, we want the courtesy call that you’ve decided to go to the strip club instead of meeting me and my mom at the museum. We don’t care what you do, as long as you tell us when you’re doing it. We’d like to take that pole dancing class we bought on groupon or slosh back margaritas with our best gays. We have lives too, but heaven forbid we are unavailable. 

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So we are the planners, and we’ll set out to plan around them. Is this how straight marriage works? I make a plan, he ignores it, then I plan around his forgetfulness? Is that what this is? Or when plans change I don’t get notified until four days too late, ten minutes before we’re supposed to be somewhere. 

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To avoid future mamsy-pamsyness say accept that invitation to his gmail calendar, like a personal assistant. Boys aren’t like girls, they just don’t plan. So perhaps we are anticipators, and men live more in the now?

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Maybe start scheduling sex? Then maybe he’ll  call to say he’s going to be late for sex, or sex isn’t going to work for him on Tuesday because of an important meeting. We’ll see how many time he has to cancel sex. And no rainchecks.

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