I wrote about how the sounds we make affect our mating potentials in I Love the Way You Say That and Sing Me a Little Song. Those posts dealt with how women and men respond to the sounds their partners make. This post deals with a time the sounds we make are extremely important; when we’re with our children.

Mothers around the world sing or hum their children to sleep. Fathers around the world may not sing and often, when a mother or mother surrogate isn’t available, will hum, coo or otherwise vocalize to their children when it’s time to nap (and if they do sing, excellent!).

Those young minds are both amorphous and agile. Just because their eyes are closed don’t think they’re not listening…or learning.
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Anybody remember those first school dances you went to? The boys lined up on one wall, the girls on the other? And remember that the boys gathered in groups of maybe 2-3 and the girls in groups of 5 or more?

What you’re observing is a proto-typical gender behavior bias. That’s a 25¢ way of saying men and women behave differently. Kind of like noticing that wolves go after the most vulnerable member of a herd or that the bull elk challenges all competitors to his harem. It’s all obvious when you know what you’re looking at.

For example, somewhere up around the 4m45s mark in my iMedia presentation on Gender Specific Marketing Discoveries I comment on the fact that men sat singularly or in groups of 1-3 on one side of the room and the women clustered in noticeably larger groups on the other side of the room. A solitary male is the usual case with males over 30 yo (they tend to have more confidence whether they should or not).

What it all comes down to sex on the beach.
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I wrote about the importance of sound in the mating game in I Love the Way You Say That. That post dealt with how women could determine if a potential partner was going to work out based on the sound of their voice.

It turns out the same is true for men, although it takes a slightly different turn. It’s not so much the sound of their voice, it’s whether or not they sing. Or hum. I think laughter qualifies, too.
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A friend of mine, Karen, finds herself in the dating game once again. We got to talking about the various dating sites she’s tried and the personals ads she’s looked through and replied to.

At one point we got online together and she called up some ads. They seemed normal to me. I mean, I wasn’t seeing any red flags. Then she began translating the acronyms (like NSA meaning No Strings Attached ) along with the ads as a whole. I’d offer that she was harsh and recognized that her harshness came from experience. It was a defense mechanism based on having answered ads, met some people and discovering that there was a disconnect between…umm…the product and the ad (isn’t that a nice, markety-ish way of saying it?).

And this was long before the CraigsList thing got going.

I noted that she was only showing me text-based ads or ads with “your pix gets mine” in one form or another. “What about the video sites?”

“Same thing. There are people now who make a living by making you look good on video dating sites.”

“You’re kidding.”

No, she wasn’t. Slightly stunned, I asked some other friends about their experiences and shared some of Karen’s. I was curious to know if this was a female-only response and it wasn’t. Some of my male friends shared their experiences and it turns out the door swings both ways.

So I asked both men and women to show me ads that they felt were “honest” — a “What You See Is What You Get” in online dating — ads that provided a good enough idea of the person placing the ad to move forward. I didn’t care if they would actually respond to an ad, I just wanted to know if they felt the person placing the ad was honest about who they were, what they wanted and so on.

Some discussion, some dissection of ads and some sharing of experiences led to Three Simple Rules for Online Dating Ads:
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Ladies, have you met someone special, someone you think might be the one? Or men seeking males, ditto?

Very good. Excellent. I’m happy for you.

Now a much more important question. Have you met his (this only works if it’s a ‘he’) family? Did you spend time with them? More than an afternoon, more like a weekend. Or even better, a week when some chores had to be done? Did you get a chance to see them in the morning, at the dinner table, in the evening, making lunch, going to worship, working in the yard, … ?

And if you did, what did you think?

It turns out that the adult interactions between males and their families of origin are excellent indicators of their hidden side, their angry side, their possibly violent side.

I want to make clear that I’m not making light of this. It’s one of those things that brings tears to my eyes. The hidden scars of childhood physical, sexual and emotional abuse are often completely undetectable in western males once they’re in their 30s and 40s. The scars have to be hidden. There’d be no way for western males to function in society at any level without developing some incredible coping mechanisms.

But what are the signs in the family?

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What is expertise? Most people know it when they see it or when they’re in the presence of someone with expertise in a given field. Talking with a friend yesterday, she admitted she hardly feels like an expert even though she’s taught at the university level. “How come?”

What is recognized as expertise is often just a little brain work

“Because I’m old enough to know what I don’t know,” she answered.

So I invited her to play a game with me and here I share it with you. It’s very simple, is something you can do on your own and in very little time each and every day. In the end, people will consider you an expert even if you don’t think that’s true yourself.
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There’s a lot I can write about the psychological and emotional benefits of holding hands, of simple touching, of the bonds it establishes, the communications it insures.

But that’s not the subject today. Today it’s about determining if the male in your life will be a good provider in the modern world and then one other thing. They’re both simple determinations, really.

Take a moment and look at your male’s hand. Is his ring finger longer than his index finger? How much longer?

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You’re about to enter a meeting and you’ve been warned you’re going to be challenged…a lot.

Is it better

• to seek a quiet place, to calm yourself, to find your center and go into the meeting relaxed or
• to focus on the idea of being challenged, being put on the spot, possibly being singled out in front of your peers and preparing yourself for battle?

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Ladies, do you enjoy hearing your partner talk? Sing? Hum?

There’s something to be said for whether you do or don’t. You do: chances are you’ve found your life long mate. You don’t: chances are your relationship won’t last long and there’s a better than even chance you’re last words (or at least your hope) will be something like “Please don’t ever call me or talk to me again”.

It seems that females are more sensitive to their “family” sounds than males are (generally speaking, of course). The best example of this is the mother who can hear and isolate her child’s cry of distress amongst all the sounds of all the activity of a public playground.

Well, this auditory sensitivity extends to life-partners and would-be life-partners, too. Women tend to bond more closely with males whose voices are a natural harmonic of their own.

Natural harmonic?

Can you imitate your partner’s voice really well? Not just the way they talk or the words they use, but the actual tone of their voice? Can they do the same with yours? Congratulations, your voices are probably natural harmonics of each other. You may not be exactly an octave apart (musically speaking) and chances are you’re either close or a multiple of it.

There are lots of reasons this sensitivity leads to long term relationships; hearing our own “voice” makes us comfortable and puts us at ease, it demonstrates acceptance by the group, things like that. The cognitive and sociologic factors are numerous, really, and seem to play across cultures.

So the next time you’re in a meeting and you find yourself mildly interested or a little attracted to someone speaking, listen carefully…you probably already are, anyway.

I shared Five Simple Ways to Take Back Your Life in my last post and mentioned that I’d share some other methods neuroscience tells us can help this time out.

The whole key to taking back control of your life is allowing yourself to feel good about yourself. I’m surprised at how few people have this ability any more. Being pulled in many different directions often only serves to pull us off balance, to cause us to forget who we are and why we’re doing what we do.

Personal Philosophy Alert: We’re here for each other.

For what it’s worth and (hopefully) for your pleasure and enlightenment, here are six more simple ways neuroscience and psychology tell us we can take back control of our lives.

#1) Decide If It’s Worth the Effort

Is something upsetting you? Take a moment to decide if what’s upsetting you is worth the energy and effort you’re devoting to it. Chances are what’s upsetting you is out of your control, isn’t what you think it is, is a miscommunication and so on. You can laugh or rage at what happens in your life and either one can leave you in tears and gasping for breath. Given the options, putting the energy into laughter makes your heart and mind stronger.

#2) Take Time to Play

Staring at the computer waiting for something to load, someone to arrive, an email to be returned, does nothing but increase your blood pressure. Really, do you feel good about it? So play when you have to wait for something to happen. My choice? The guitar, clarinet or piano. I know some people who are wizards at solitaire or keep a good book handy. Little moments of play in the middle of busy days keeps your mind alert, your emotions on keel and allows you to focus when you do get back.

#3) Recognize When You’ve Had Enough

This is an amplification of #2 and can be thought of as “Know when to stop”. Sometimes simple discussions can get out of hand and the reasons aren’t always obvious. Take a moment to get yourself out of the moment (so to speak) and analyze what’s going on. Maybe it’s time to take a break. This applies to discussions, work groups, house chores, anything and everything. A reframe of this is “It’s okay to get tired and take a little rest.” Lots of people will work or talk or think beyond their internal exhaustion point then get frustrated at the poor results, so recognize when you’ve had or done enough, stop for a while and come back later, refreshed.

#4) Stretch or Move Whether You Need to or Not

Our bodies and minds weren’t designed to work in offices or in small spaces. Given enough time, they’ll rebel in one way or another and usually the end result is not good. When you start to feel signs of mental fatigue, get up. Walk. Stretch. Get some one, five or ten pound weights and keep them under your desk (or whatever). Are you on the phone a lot? Do curls or tricep extensions while you talk. Stand up and touch your toes while waiting for a program to load or an email to open.

#5) Slow Down

More and more people are becoming slaves to their servants. Their digital servants. Part of this modern malaise is that people can’t keep up with all the demands coming at them from their email, their cellphones, their PDAs, their this and their that. I know the old adage “Never put off ’till tomorrow what you can do today” and let me offer a healthier alternative “The world can’t end today because it’s already tomorrow in Australia” (I know the reframe loses something for Ozian readers). Increased interconnectivity is creating an unhealthy interdependence that we are designed to deal with neither effectively nor efficiently, so learn to recognize what’s truly important. You might end up in digital remission. It’s a happy place to be.

#6) Drink More Water

I laughed at this until I started doing it. Lots of people hit their wall mid-afternoon and usually get a cup of coffee. Drink a glass of water instead. Usually our bodies are busy digesting our lunches by mid-afternoon and go into a mild dehydration state. A glass of pure water (then a cup of coffee if you must) allows our metabolisms to balance.

The whole key to everything here is to decide (yes, you must decide or at least become aware that you can make the decision) if you feel good about what you’re doing. If you don’t, ask yourself why you’re doing it. If there’s no goodness involved, stop it.

I mean, really…you do want to be in control of your life, don’t you?