Relationship books that point out the differences between how the sexes think

[manchita]

Are they all crap or usefeul tools? Discuss

Useful tools, providing you read a broad range from the highbrow to the low brow and then take a good critical step back.

Why Men Lie and Why Women Cry and Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps are both great.. written with a real sense of humour. Liked them better than Mars and Venus tbh

Do you think they actually help your realationships?

I agree ShinyHappy - Why Men... Why Women... are a much better read (and better referenced) than Mars and Venus, which I didn't rate at all.

But I also like Simon Baron-Cohen's Men-Women The Essential Difference, which isn't a relationship book as such but covers the same ground of the differences between the sexes.

Hmm, if you remember that 'male' and 'female' attributes are a continuum. Dh and I don't fit the mars/venus stereotuype - he scores highly on the 'female' brain stuff like empathy and I score highly on the 'male' side (apart from spatial awareness which I totally lack).

manchita - definitely.

My partner was given Why Men... Why Women... by the counsellor he and his wife saw when they were in trouble. It didn't save their marriage but it opened his eyes to a lot of things and made him receptive to understanding the difference between innate and cultural discrepancies between the two of us.

There's a Baron-Cohen online brain type test thing, isn't there? Interestly, DH and I both 50-50 left brain/right brain (i.e. he more left brain than most men, me more right brain than most women - I think it's that way round)

Surely 'point out' begs the question?

here

www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml

It's all very well, but they are aimed at women, and men generally won't read them!

CaptainVimes - a good "party game" with a few couples is to get each couple to do the Baron-Cohen test and then to compare scores.

The best/happiest couples are always the ones who work out as balanced across the couple - ie a mid-scoring man + a mid-scoring woman or a very male man + a very female woman.

coldtits - maybe. Men who have had a lot of marital strife are more receptive IMO

At least we've got something right (phew!)

Shit, we're in trouble then. I came out as very male and dh was fairly average but a little bit female.

Does that mean you can navigate, Kathy? I distinguished myself by getting lost in the (small) town I'd lived in for 18 years...

DH would say I can't. (Of course, it's really because I'm usually busy reading about military hardware instead of looking a the map )

Xmas present?

www.missilebases.com/

ROFL! Of course, if the next crisis to hit humanity is rising sea levels due to global warming, I'm not sure an underground bunker is really where you want to be.

(note my logical rational male mind)

ah but you would have pumps. And an emergency submarine for quick escape.

Good thinking old chap!

Gosh. I have a nearly male brain, and fancy feminine faces, apparently!

I have male fingers too [baffled]