Sex Lies And Conversation By Deborah Tannen Summary

“Concerns about pre-marital cohabitation may be legit. Substantial evidence associates cohabitation with negative relationship outcomes. Pre-marital cohabitation is viewed as a risk factor for divorce as it predicts later marital instability, poorer marriage quality, and less relationship satisfaction.” Deborah Tannen in her essay “Sex, Lies and Conversation,” elaborates on the miscommunication between men and women. How they are unable to communicate each other’s feelings towards each other, causing fights and potentially leading to a divorce. However, men and women who live together must also deal with each other’s living conditions in various ways. Both men and women must understand each other in their cleanliness and organizational behavior’s

at home. As well learning each other’s pros and cons for meals cooked at home. Both men and women have their own dynamics at home, and depending on person to person it can be better or worse.
Organization at home differs for both men and women.

Men tend to be less tidy in some aspects, most commonly clothes and the infamous dirty clothes hamper. Men are usually content about arriving home and taking off our: shoes, shirt, pants and one sock. The clothes come off and remain where they land until they have to be washed or the problem has gotten so out of hand; a tourist knocks on the door wondering if they can plant their national flag on the new found Mount Downy. The tourism would stop if most men would place the dirty clothes in the hamper, but you lose some pleasure from taking it all off and enjoying momentary freedom. On the other hand, most women tend to be more organized with their clothes. From softer more delicate fabrics and more pride in their clothing collection, organized by seasons, colors or comfort. Women put away their dirty clothes in the (invisible to men) hamper, so the aforementioned Mount Downy is not formed, keeping a more organized and pleasant

home.
But as women like to keep everything well and organized, men tend to lean towards disorganized order. Men know where everything they store is, they just do. The poor soul that needs to find something in the “order” is generally out of luck. Men can have five drawers filled to the top in what others may call junk, but finding a very specific item takes less than two minutes. Need the proprietary screw driver for the smart LED lightbulb? Check the third drawer to the right, and its next to the miscellaneous batteries that still have charge and no packaging.
While some men have this disorganized chaotic order, women practice more compartmentalization. All items go as close together to their similarities as possible, keeping everything in check as much as they can. But, women use their organized items more than men do, causing them to lose items more frequently than men do. If it’s the chap stick, phone charger, ear ring or the very specific make up tool that I won’t pretend to know what it’s for. Women keep everything so organized, it can lead to disaster if there is any disruption to that order.
Once me and an ex-girlfriend got into a fight, because she lost an ear ring that her late grandmother gave to her. It was not in her ear ring box, so logically it glitched out of this universe and would never be found again. I told her to check in the dirty clothes hamper, in case it had gotten stuck in her blouse when she was undressing. “DO YOU THINK I’M STUPID?” she yelled back at me, she obviously took the ear rings off before everything else. As she was storming, screaming and moving everything looking for this one ear ring. I checked the dirty clothes hamper, and with little surprise I found the ear ring caught on her blouse.
Other organized items in the house can be found in the kitchen.

You can find the spice rack, cooking utensils, good plates and the “I am too lazy to wash dishes later” plates. The foods are also organized naturally by use. Cereal and other breakfast foods will close in together. Meats will go in the freezer, along with the ice cream dessert. And never forget the sweet sweet snack drawer, holding all the sugar goodies or healthy treats.
Cooking at home will look and taste different depending on who is cooking. Men tend to cook delectable or horrendous meals, because they are not afraid of trying something new and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Without caring too much about the appearance of the meal, men emphasize on flavor. If it needs a touch of seasoned salt, a dash of paprika or some sriracha; men will try anything to provide that Mmmmm on the first

bite.
Where women from my age group have lost the old stereotype of being the cooks of the house. Women now make food look amazing, but sacrificing the flavor of the meal. I sometimes believe women are more concerned about their Snapchat or Instagram pictures of the meal, than the meal itself. A friend called Stephanie sent me snaps showing off her meal preparations and end product. My mouth watered looking at the images. She said she would cook for me if I wanted to, I jumped to it and said yes. But when the time came and she was cooking this amazing looking meal of rice and beans with a side of fried plantain and oven cooked chicken. I noticed how little she would taste the food while cooking, and how often she would record herself cooking. She took several pictures from all angles of her delicious looking meal, “No filters needed” is what she said. I anxiously took the first bite and before the second bite there was already BBQ sauce on my plate because the chicken was dry. The rice was flat and had no taste other than wet grain, so I sprinkled salt over it. Whilst the plantain was not cooked correctly and had no taste at all. How could it be that a meal pulled straight out of a Cooking TV show in appearance, could taste worse than a microwave meal. I blatantly lied to her and told her it tasted amazing, she cooked a meal for me with a smile on her face so I refused to be a jerk about it. But I am a man who holds high standards of home cooked meals. I come from a Panamanian home where food was cooked daily, always with an amazing taste.

The results of this experiment will always vary. Some men will be more organized as other men will not. As where some women will be less organized than the others. Women have had the cook of the household champion flag for decades, and it will most likely be so for decades to come. Even though nothing is set in stone and men might take the flag from women. Or we will all eat synthetic food from microwavable pouches. There are tens of thousands of variables that decide how men and women interact at home, it has nothing to do with their genders. It does have to do with: conditions at home growing up, culture and religion. Many generations of men grew up with the idea of a women cleaning after them, as well as feeding them. While on the other side of the coin, there are women that grew up being taught to clean and cook for the men. Thankfully after years of inequality, we are reaching the high point where men and women are equally responsible for their own stupidity. Leading us to harmony and team work, that will reflect in the household in a positive way. (Results may vary.)