How Women are Wired Differently than Men

No surprise to any woman to hear that we are wired differently than men. We approach life differently and we remember events differently.

As a broad brush statement, men compartmentalize their memory of events and the emotions. As women, we are wired to tie our emotions around each experience in our lives. Then the emotional ties intertwine with other similar events. I remember my first awareness of this back when I was dating in my twenties.

My boyfriend and I were out to dinner while on a romantic vacation in San Francisco. We were discussing what wine to order with our meal. I spotted a Lambert Bridge Chardonnay on the wine list and wanted to order that. He had asked me why and the reason I gave was because it reminded me of the glorious picnic we had at that winery the summer before. He looked at me like I had grown horns out of my head. He asked nicely, "What does that have to do with this meal?" Ouch!

For me, it was a way of connecting the current pleasant experience to a former pleasant experience. For him it was a mismatch of wine to the present meal. I can tell you to this very moment, I can picture exactly what restaurant and table we were sitting at having that conversation and that was over 20 years ago. For my boyfriend, our prior picnic was a pleasant experience that stands solo in his memory bank. Just like the meal we were currently sharing. He didn’t feel the emotional connection like I did.

Our conversation of wine selection didn’t end at his comment. He also remarked at how he admired my ability to remember details about memorable events. That is a fabulous trait we women have. As we move along with our lives in the here and now; something in the present triggers the same emotional response we had before and we wire those together.

The same goes for those experiences in our lives that are not joy filled. That boyfriend became my husband and then over time my Ex-Husband. There are a lot of painful experiences because my emotions are wrapped around them as well. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I would be in an argument with my then husband; bring up a past experience of whatever it was we were arguing about and he would say ‘What does that have to do with this?’ Sound familiar?

I do not mean to imply that men are void of emotion. They just process and store the memories and emotions differently than women. Neither way is worse or better than the other. We are just different. When I came to understand that the sexes are truly different on this point; it helped me to understand and nurture this incredible gift we as women have. I truly am grateful.