Male Answer Syndrome

In the animal kingdom, males exhibit what is known as "display behavior"
in order to attract females and to ward off rival males. They thrust out
their chests, ruffle their plumage, and generally try to appear more
impressive than they really are. On nature shows, this is comic. It
appears comic, too, when it shows up among humans: the guy in the Camaro
with all the gold chains, say, or Vanilla Ice's haircut. It has been
discovered that display behavior is much more common among humans than had
been previously believed.

Have you ever wondered why:

    - Men who have never been west of Kentucky can tell you about the
      mentality of the Japanese?
    - Men who can't pay their credit-card bills have a plan for dealing with
      the national debt?
    - Men who aren't on speaking terms with their families know how to
      achieve peace in the Middle East?
    - Men who flunked high-school physics can explain what went wrong at 
      NASA?
    - Men who haven't had a date in six months know what women really want?

Try an experiment: Ask my friend Jeff, who spends his weekends fixing up
his Harley and watching female mud wrestling, how he thinks political
autonomy will affect the economies of the Baltic states.

His brow will furrow; he will purse his lips thoughtfully. "It's
interesting that you mention that...," he will begin, and then he will
come up with something-probably nothing remotely feasible, but something.

This behavior-the chronic answering of questions regardless of actual
knowledge is known as Male Answer Syndrom. The compulsion to answer varies
from person to person, but few men are happy saying, "I don't know." They
prefer, "That's not what's important here."

They try not to get bogged down by petty considerations, such as, "Do I
know anything about this subject?" or "Is what I have to say interesting?"
They take a broad view of questions, treating them less as requests for
specific pieces of information than as invitations to expand on some
theories, air a few prejudices, and tell a couple of jokes. Some men seem
to regard life as a talk show on which they are the star guest. If you
ask, "What is the capital of Peru?" they hear, "So tell us a bit about
your early years, Bob."

Sometimes this expansiveness is appealing. If you ask a woman, "Why did
Madonna go on the David Letterman Show?" she will simply shrug helplessly,
acknowledging that some things are simply unknowable. A man, on the other
hand, will come up with a few theories (she has the same agent? overdose
of Prozac). Men have the courage and inventiveness to try to explain the
inexplicable.

But Male Answer Syndrome (MAS) is by no means harmless, as my friend
Pauline discovered at the age of 8. She had found that eating ice cream
made her teeth hurt and asked her father whether Eskimos had the same
problem. "No," he said. "They have rubber teeth." Pauline repeated this
information in a geography lesson and found herself the laughing stock of
the class. That was how she learned that a man, even if he is your own
father, would rather make up an answer than admit to his ignorance.

Later in life women run into the same problem: Men can speak with such
conviction that women may be fooled into thinking that they actually know
what they're talking about.

My friend Jeff (he of the Harley) is full of expertise on subjects as
diverse as global warming and Elvis' current whereabouts. In reality,
however, he is an expert at only one thing: making very little knowledge
go a very long way. For him answering is a game, and not knowing what he's
talking about just adds to the thrill.

Expressing skepticism can be highly inflammatory. Even mild-mannered Abe
Lincoln types may react to, "Are you sure about that?" as a vicious slur
on their manhood and find themselves backing up a ludicrous assertion with
spurious facts.

Many women actively encourage male answering behavior. There is in the
female correlative condition known as the Say What? Complex. Women who
behind closed doors expound eloquently on particle physics may be found,
in male company, gaping at the news that the earth is round.

MAS tends to be mild until puberty; boys begin to speak with authority on
matters of foreign policy at the same time they start to grow facial hair.
And how MAS developed: Since killing wooly mammoths and attacking enemies
with rocks are now frowned upon, and since shirts open to the navel are
not appropriate in every social situation, men prove their masculinity by
concocting elaborate theories about football.

Growing awareness of MAS has led some to call for a moratorium on all
male-female conversation. This is alarmist. But care should be taken.
Women must remind themselves that if a man tells them something
particularly interesting there is a good chance that it is particularly
untrue.