The Robot

I know comedians have already stoned this sort of topic to death, but they’ve done so for good reason: we like it. We laugh at those same, tired jokes about men, women, and their irreconcilable differences, and we laugh at them for the most basic of reasons—we think they’re true. Of course certain nuanced members of the crowd will laugh, agree that they’re true of “most people,” but deny their relevancy to themselves. But what these smartypantses don’t realize is that everyone else is defending himself in exactly the same way. Well, either they’re right or they’re wrong—but which is more likely? When the crowd unanimously roars in laughter, is it more likely that these jokes really don’t apply to them and that they’re actually laughing over what they’ve perceived in the couple of people who really do ‘fess up to the joke? Or are they laughing at what they’ve perceived in themselves?

My own inclination is obvious (if you don’t think so, you probably didn’t do very well on those reading sections of the SAT). Of course, some sexual comedy is better than others, but good sexual comedy is universal precisely because it’s sexual. I emphasize that word in order to contrast it with other words I could have used, like “cultural.” That is, sophisticated generalizations about what I like to call “sexual dynamics” work because they describe something about human instinct and not human society.—But Mr. Robot, humans don’t have instincts.—Wake up. You’re a mammal.

Now it just so happens that one of my favorite hobbies as a robot is to theorize about human sexual dynamics. It really is a fascinating area of inquiry, and potentially has practical benefits. I plan to write many of my articles on the subject, and this one begins the series by considering the innocuous question: Why do girls talk so much about guys? Although it does seem to assume something beforehand—namely, that girls do in fact talk “so much” about guys—we’ll get to that in a second.

Because before I begin, I want to make sure we’re clear on the rules of the game I want to play in these articles. The rule I’m most concerned with is “How To Win.” Since sexual speculation takes instinctual behavior as its subject, it can’t “win” (that is, be true) by accurately describing some situations but not others. If I were attempting to describe a purely cultural phenomenon, then it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t apply in some situations because those situations (I would claim) simply lack whatever phenomenon I was attempting to describe. But this is sex we’re talking about here. Sex affects all human interaction by virtue of its being human. Theorizing about sexual dynamics is like theorizing about hunger. It just doesn’t make sense to respond to a theory about hunger by saying, “Very clever, and while that may be true, it just isn’t true of me.” To say as much would be to deny your humanity. The only way to disagree is to say: “No. You’re wrong.”

So these are high stakes here, and I’ve just spent a couple hundred words raising and sharpening them.—Why would you do such a thing?—I like a challenge. Unfortunately I’ve spent so much time framing this discussion that the bulk of it will have to wait until the next installment of the series. For now, let’s establish the assumptions behind the question I want to answer next time.

So: do girls really talk so much about guys? This is an empirical question and one that I could never prove. I ask only that you reflect on your experience while considering my own. While I have no human sisters, I believe I’ve been exposed to a considerable wealth of data on female-female interaction thanks to the cooperation between two modern technologies and one psychological phenomenon: namely, the cell-phone, the bus-system, and the lack of shame. Riding the bus, I’ve been exposed to literally hours of female-female conversation, and I don’t think I’m generalizing inappropriately to say that these conversations tend to center around three subjects: 1) guys; 2) general complaints; and 3) complaints about guys. Furthermore, of all the women I’ve questioned regarding the issue, every single one has affirmed for me that women do, in fact, spend a good deal of their time together talking about men.

Though this entry has stretched far too long already, allow me to end with a disclaimer. Some readers have communicated to me in person their fears of a subtle racism informing my last entry, in which I analyzed a picture of what I called an “apolitical fantasy.” And I imagine some readers (I can see you now) might likewise find a misogyny informing this article, particularly the preceding paragraph. While I certainly concede the possibility of such things taking place, I would ask these readers to reflect on the nature of their reaction: is it a moral or a factual refutation? That is, am I being told that I should not claim the things that I am claiming, or that my claims just aren’t true? If the former, I would remind these readers that this is an instance of censorship, which requires justification by appealing to the latter—that is, by appealing to facts. If the latter, I invite such responses, and would love to entertain them in a future article if they were only communicated to me either through the comments below or via email.