Women Are Mosaic

Why He Really Can't Listen to You and
Watch Football at the Same Time
My friend Sabrina threw a big cocktail party the other night. She was celebrating yet another business coup and treating all of her freeloading friends to an open bar in the process. She is young, beautiful -- a bright spark of entrepreneurial ambition. Her boyfriend is older, balding and can't even commit to finishing a sentence, much less a future with her. He says he is an "idea person," but I've yet to see him have the idea of picking up the check.

Maybe it's because I work in the arts, but it seems to me that in lots of the couples I know, the women are just more together than the men. They're certainly better at multitasking. They start businesses or write screenplays for NBC or take on part-time modeling jobs in addition to working full time and getting graduate degrees.

It's an effort for most of the men I know take the porn off the walls when they have company over. The Clinton's are a good example of this phenomenon. While Bill seems like he'd be great to go grab a beer with, it's Hilary I'd entrust with a business plan my money was riding on.

I suspect the explanation is partly in our genes. My girlfriend Terry, who has a PhD in molecular genetics, explained it to me once: Women are mosaic. Our cellular makeup is literally more complex and eclectic, while that of the male is more rigid and simplistic. I love the image it conjures of women as pieces of amber and blue glass and mother-of-pearl inlaid to form a complex, beautiful pattern. It's as evocative to me as the fact that the simple, phallic letter Y symbolizes the male chromosome. It makes perfect sense. After all, you only have to look to a bar at closing time to see how uncomplicated the male genetic really code is.

I came home that night bursting with the thrill of discovery. I had yet another clue to the differences between men and women; a new piece of knowledge to take us one step closer to community and understanding. I excitedly called my boyfriend, an unemployed musician, to share my news. He asked if he could call back in 20 minutes. The Simpsons was on and he couldn't concentrate on both of us at the same time.