Girls are from Venus. Boys are from Mars. While that phrase was coined to illustrate just how large the chasm is between men and women — how differently we approach life, and the problems we might encounter — the number of similarities we share are still too numerous to count.

I’m going to try and focus purely on the differences between boys and girls, men and women. This won’t be an article on how humans all endeavour to survive, but it might help you survive a little better by getting more out of friendships and relationships — especially if you interact a lot with the opposite sex! This guide could alternatively be called ‘how to get on better with girls’ or even ‘Seb tells you far too many trade secrets.’

To the girls: don’t take it too personally. This is going to feel like, at worst, that you’ve been sliced and prepared into a series of cutaway diagrams. At best, it’s going to feel like you’ve been stripped bare.

To the boys: remember, every girl is different. This is a guide, not a checklist!

Now, please forgive me for starting with the least romantic part of boy/girl relationships, but it sets the groundwork so nicely. It explains away a lot of the difficulties you might have, as a guy, with understanding a girl: it’s all in their head, man! You can skip the first section if you think it’s just plain unromantic.

The Psychology

Genetically, we’re almost identical, with just 78 genes separating boys from girls. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not going to suggest anything preposterous, but it would seem that those 78 genes would become, in later life, the differences in our physiology, our brain chemistry and ultimately the huge differences we notice between the actions and thought processes of men and women.

Tests would seem to suggest that almost all differences between male and female sensitivity and recall is based on our relative levels of testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. Women, for example, tend to have more vivid memory recall during their period. Women also have a much easier time recalling memories with emotional components (which might go some way to explaining why women, at least from a male perspective, seem to dig up very odd, ‘unimportant’ stuff during their period). It’s also female hormones that make women more sensitive, at least towards dangerous situations or a perceived threat. Couple this with the fact that the heightened testosterone levels in men can cause emotional insensitivity or a complete lack of empathy, and you can begin to see why men and women might fail to get along — especially during that time of the month.

The solution here, gentlemen, is to be gentle. A girl only feels bonded in a relationship by a feeling of closeness inspired by shared feelings and emotions — intimacy, in other words. Believe it or not, watching a sporting event with a girl doesn’t actually cement your relationship very much. In fact, the only real shared ground between men and women is sex. Men love it: it’s active, it’s sporting (’Maybe I can go for another hour this week!’, ‘Let’s go for 6 orgasms…’) Women love it — at least, most do — because of the bonding, physically and mentally, and it is inherently very intimate.

Orgasms. Girls love orgasms. Oh, and sex too, but really… orgasms.

With the psycho-babble out of the way I can now move into much safer (if not easier!) waters. The wild, wet seas of the Big O.

Orgasm in the morning; orgasm in the evening. Orgasm at work, in the supplies cupboard. Wherever and whenever — a girl wants to orgasm. I’m not going to turn this into a guide on sex (maybe next week: ‘The master geek at work in the bedroom’), so just go and look up some guides on the internet. I think the most vital thing to remember is that very few girls reach orgasm from the ol’ fashioned ‘just stick it in’ technique — men should really know this by now, but in case you didn’t: you have to get messy! And I don’t mean poo play.

As I mentioned before, girls really need intimacy. Unless you make a habit of watching sad movies and sharing your thoughts (some guys with low levels of testosterone are quite happy to do this — like me), sex is probably the only time you will be truly intimate with a girl. So you might as well make the sex good, and do it often!

Girls want to be loved

I’ve learnt that, despite their apparent faults, misgivings or erratic, emotional outbursts, a girl wants to be loved. This desire to be loved is so strong that a girl will often slight her own ethics or personal integrity to get a guy to love her.

It’s important, for the success and longevity of a relationship, that you don’t let a girl sacrifice herself to please you. Women are constantly in search of intimacy (and the love that follows) and will do almost anything to get it from you. Most men are unaware of just how many hoops they (inadvertently!) force their girlfriends to jump through, to earn their intimacy and love. It’s unfair and it destroys the very essence of what makes a person a person: self worth. Sure, you might end up satisfied in the short term, but you’ll be left with a bereft, empty, soulless shell of a girl; a shell with only a few shattered fragments of the girl you first met and hit it off with.

If you’re not ready to love (I’m guessing this is a genetic thing again, stopping guys from saying those 3 fateful words; those 7 immensely heavy letters), you must at least be ready to be intimate. A girl probably doesn’t want to actually hear you say ‘I love you’, she’s more than likely just looking for you to share your feelings and emotions… so try to do that! Watch The Notebook and cry with her. Trust me.

Girls solve problems differently

This is the difference that really counts. Life is, as you know, just a constant stream of making decisions and solving problems. Both men and women are equally good at working out problems — and thus, surviving! — they just take very different paths to the solution. Us men like to take control of the situation and get it solved as quickly and effectively as possible. Women, on the other hand, are more interested in the how and why of the problem — analysing how that thorn came to be there, and how to remove it,  is far more interesting than ACTUALLY removing it.

In a relationship, this means the girl will assess other possible solutions before deciding on the ‘right’ one. For girls, sharing and solving problems together (either with friends, or with their beloved) is of great value — almost more so than the actual doing! This is often a problem for guys, because they seek the self-assurance derived from solving problems on their own! While a guy will often adopt the ’spray and pray’ approach of problem solving (keep trying until something sticks), girls are far more likely to pool ideas with other people, and learn from other people’s past mistakes. It’s amazing how rational women can be without testosterone clouding their judgement…

In reality, a mix of these two approaches is ideal. Sometimes there just isn’t time for the bureaucracy of female problem-solving — but sometimes there is, and as a guy you should try your best to sit down and discuss problems, and the possible solutions, with the girl. I’m not even talking big, pivotal relationship-shattering problems; it could be something as simple as whose house to stay at on a given day, or which TV show you watch, and which one you record. Discuss it!

Girls want to be wined and dined, and looked after!

I’m probably on dangerous ground here, especially with the ‘looked after’ caveat. Perhaps I should rephrase it as ‘girls like a guy that knows what he’s doing’, which is a very broad phrase, but accurate. A girl doesn’t like a guy that’s uncertain of his role in life — a guy that can’t make good choices and survives poorly is unlikely to be the target of a girl’s affections. In the same vein, girls like guys that know what they’re on about –  ‘confidence’ in other words! A girl likes a guy that knows a nice place to take them out for dinner; she doesn’t like a guy that drives around, uncertain of what to do, or where to go. Girls don’t like guys that mope around in the house, not sure of what to do with their life, or where to go on a date (both of these points is where most geeks fail, incidentally, including myself!)

Perhaps this is more a hint for getting a girl, rather than keeping one, though I would’ve thought that gifts of flowers, jewellery and other tokens of affection are the in-relationship equivalent of ‘wining and dining’.

She really does look fat in that dress…

Yet again, the classic, brute-force problem-solving ability of men (the same ability that first brought meat to the cave!) comes back to bite us on the ass. ‘I think I’m coming down with the flu’ your girlfriend says. ‘Don’t worry honey, I’ll call the doctor.’ Wrong. ‘Perhaps I would look better with larger breasts’ she trickily states. ‘How much does it cost?’ Wrong… so, so wrong. When a woman poses such questions she  is nearly always looking for understanding and emotional support. The problem? Men are far more interested in their ability to solve problems, and quickly. The woman is posing a challenge; the man wants to solve it, further cementing his position of supremacy!

You will only be able to catch these ‘curve ball’ statements after months or years of experience, so you should probably start watching for them as soon as possible… When she says ‘You’re so rash and uncaring!’ that’s normally a sign that you’ve said the wrong thing (even though you thought you were being very caring…)

Tips, tricks and further reading

I’ve given you enough information to make even the most stalwart, embittered ice-queens fall for you (I speak from experience: The American), but I thought I could share a few ‘tips and tricks’ that I’ve picked up in the few years that I’ve been, um, ‘active’, though I’m not going to share my real trade secrets. That’d be like shooting myself in the foot.

• The compliment game – Try being complimentary. Really damn complimentary and affectionate.  Not so complimentary as to be facetious of course, but if you think a girl (or your girl) looks nice in something, say so! If you notice she’s wearing a new shade of lipstick, and it looks pretty, say so! If she smells nice, whisper it into her ear as you hug tightly. I want to believe that I developed this game with my cousin, but I’m sure someone thought of before me. It’s amazing how far sincere affection goes — and how far it will get you.
• Be a good lover, really — Again, I’m not going to turn this into a guide on how to have sex, but sex is so important early on in a relationship. While sex is often sublimated towards more creative outlets later on, it’s really the only intimacy that both you and your girlfriend can share in. Later in the relationship, you’ll find a lot of other ways to be intimate… like a good foot massage!
• Further reading — There are lots of resources on the net on this topic — though, often from very specialised points of view. There’s an excellent condensed version of ‘You Just Don’t Understand’ by Deborah Tannen which looks, very deeply, at the fundemental differences between girls and boys (which, sadly, is of more interest to girls!) If you like the psychology thing, there’s lots of stuff by clinical psychologists offering their opinions on the web, just search around. There’s also data on the statistical differences between men and women — and finally, of course, the obligatory funny (and insightful…) picture.

I’ve covered the sorry state of knowledge and inherent lack of truth that plagues contemporary society.

But it didn’t start yesterday or even 100 years ago! It’s an eternally recurring theme of dumbing-down and almost-truths dispensed by nasty people posing as intellectual authorities over thousands of years. There is an endemic ‘loss of wisdom’ that has an iteratively degenerative effect, gaining more momentum with each generation.

Historically these lies, these tales, were of a philosophical or mythical nature and virtually harmless. They were stories that became true through retelling: Hercules, Romulus, Arthur. The stories were told first by the travelling bard, then more abstractly through tribalism and shamanism. Polytheism followed with its anthropomorphic (god of wine, god of war) pantheon of valiant heroes and demigods. Finally monotheism trumped them all and wrapped up with its epic, fearsomely vengeful tale of apocalyptic events.

Old wives’ tales (or fables or myths or whatever!) might’ve been lies or half-truths but they didn’t really harm anyone; they might have been ‘not ideal’, but that’s not the point — they were moving towards the ideal — they were retold to children with good intentions! The same could be said for the basic spiritual maxims of most religions: everlasting life; don’t murder; try your best not to sodomise your brother’s wife; treat others how you would like to be treated. All good but… it sadly didn’t last. Something changed. All of a sudden enforcement entered the equation. Arbitrary enforcement: rules, laws and peer pressure with little or no basis in moral/cultural advancement or ethical living. If abstract/intellectual enforcement wasn’t enough, there was a strong physical aspect too: witch-hunts, the Inquisition and the Crusades are but a few obvious examples.

Why did it happen? For thousands of years our focus had been on becoming a more advanced race. But one day, probably after the fall of Rome, we woke up and well… we fell asleep again. Life was no longer about pushing the progress of civilisation. Perhaps it was our growing understanding of human anatomy and psychology that caused the change. Maybe it was due to the formation of metropolises like Rome and the urgent need to control large groups of people quickly and easily. Personally I think the continued development of written and spoken language — and rhetoric — played a big role. Whatever it was, something snapped. No longer was storytelling used to share wisdom or morals to improve our progeny’s standard of living. Gone were the tales that frightened children away from actual dangers like dank caves or poisonous fruits.

A new breed of story started to appear, tales that weaved lies and believable half-truths into their narrative. And we know that words, both written and spoken, have a terrible power. Instead of cresting taller peaks and pushing towards new horizons people started to fear their surroundings. Authorities of knowledge slowly faded away to be replaced by scary chieftains, oppressive teachers, greedy priests and, of course, a vengeful God.

I’ve written about magic before and how it is ultimately synonymous with technology. Television was magic (find an old person that was around when television was invented and talk to them about it!) but sure enough, it very quickly became mundane. What do you think would’ve happened to the inventor of the television if he had been around in the Middle Ages? What do you think ‘witchcraft’ actually was? With such an attitude towards innovation and revolution (or evolution, hah!), is it a surprise that books, education and intellectual enlightenment all but disappeared for 1,000 years?

For a very, very long time the pursuit of knowledge and truth — science! — was frowned upon, persecuted. Scientists were shunned or burnt at the stake. Why?

Because they were dangerous. Knowledge is power.

We humans learnt just enough for the monotheistic surge to take place. We learnt how to exploit the human love of mystery with smart wit and sharp turns of dogmatic phrase. We have become a scared and tentative flock too fearful to break from the pack. In essence we learnt just enough to be dominated and no more.

And now we await — or do we create? –  the next Renaissance where veracity of knowledge is returned to us.

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Still more to come, I think; on prejudice and ignorance. Oh, and if you’re reading this on the blog itself, remember you can double click a word to find out what it means!

[Welcome to Thoughtful Tuesday! You know the format by now: I rant, I rave, I reveal thoughts that bounce around in my head that don't necessarily make sense yet, but may do with a little more thought... This week, a particularly meaty subject that pops up on the blog fairly regularly: Transhumanism.]

It’s a long word that sounds a lot more complex than it actually is but the most important part of its definition, as defined by the Transhumanism Declaration (2002), is thus:

Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We [Humanity+] foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet Earth.

I know. This is serious business! But let’s not get bogged down with long, complex words and ideology. Transhumanism is, basically, the next step in human evolution; in enlightenment.

For the longest time imaginable we’ve been limited by our body. We push its boundaries, we perform feats of extraordinary endurance and power, but at the end of the day it is limited. Eventually, something snaps: a bone breaks, we grow senile — and, sooner or later, we die.

Progress in the areas of humanism and enlightenment are all about prolonging (and improving!) our mental, physical and and spiritual well-being. Thus, that’s exactly what transhumanism is all about: we’ve reached our current, imposed-by-our-physical-body limits; now it’s time to let technology do its thing. It’s time to modify our bodies to take us to the next level!

Let me just throw out some possible modifications (upgrades!) that are covered by transhumanism:

• Biotechnological implants/replacements. Strength, speed, eyesight and endurance limits/thresholds raised way beyond current human bottlenecks.
• Modification of our genetic makeup. This is the one that’s currently under scrutiny from the media. This area deals with the modification of ourselves (or our progeny) to make us inherently more resistant or to damage/pathology. Immunity to disease, removal of short-sight — that kind of thing (though obviously ‘designer babies’ with blue eyes and perfect, beautiful appearance would be quite popular…)
• Prevent ageing (aging). Transhumanism covers the slowing of aging, or even prolonging life until we’re effectively immortal (Who wants to live forever?). Cryogenics also come into play here, though the real ‘philosopher’s stone’ is immortality, of course. This will probably take a biotechnological form — replacement organs, repairing cellular damage, etc.
• A lot more that hasn’t been invented yet…! As a general rule, most things that are speculated or appear in sci-fi novels later appear in real life. We can expect to see some really crazy technologies appear in the future. Artificial intelligence (think Terminator), proper virtual reality (think holodeck in Star Trek) and my favourite — mind-uploading, ala The Matrix: ‘I know kung fu…’

Obviously, along with such awesome abilities come a seriously large number of issues, most of which are of an ethical nature:

You can’t play God!

You’ll turn… into a Frankenstein!

Perhaps it is the existential issue that is most worrisome: When do we stop being human? It’s certainly not when we replace the heart or any of the limbs. It’s the brain, right…? Or is it? How do we know until we try? Do we really trust Bible-thumpers that, let’s face it, know absolutely nothing about cybernetics? That’s why we’re afraid: we have absolutely no idea what we’re getting into. But if history has shown us anything, is it ever beneficial to shy away from, instead of facing, the oncoming torrent of technological progress?

As with any technology there are good and bad uses — as to what defines good or bad, I won’t attempt to state — using transhumanist technology is a two-edged blade. You could enhance only yourself or the genetics of your progeny — a selfish act? — or, with the same technology, you could genetically modify those living in sub-Saharan Africa so that they could live without food.

It’s not guns that kill people…

The thing is, I could go into the ethical repercussions, and whether transhumanism should be allowed or not… but… really, it’s inconsequential. We’re going to do it anyway. Of course there will be devout naysayers — sociologists, psychologists, humanitarians, Christians — (the whole gamut!) — but there always is. The truth — the technology – will out. You can’t stop everyone from kite-flying in thunderstorms.

There is something about technology. It’s all there, just waiting to be discovered. As I’ve already covered, we really like turning over stones. We really like uncovering mysteries. This is the biggest of them by far. What makes us human?

This is going to happen in the next decade, by the way. If you have moral, ethical or philosophical disagreements, you probably want to settle them now, before upgrades for your bionic eyes and ears start appearing in the supermarket.