The second advantage to playing the guitar...

Not only will the ladies love you, but you'll UNDERSTAND THEM AS WELL!


Let me explain…no…is too much…let me sum up.

I once read this book called "For Men Only". It had a chapter about men needing to listen more. It made the point that women need guys to listen first, fix problems later…or perhaps the problem is not the facts or the situation, but that the lady needs her feelings on the matter heard. They don't always need our "brilliant" advice, they just want us to know we've LISTENED to them, and care about them.

Now, if that much isn't true, Ladies, go ahead and skip the rest and just comment "You're a moron, James Legg" and we'll go on with our lives.

However, if that much is even REMOTELY true, then we might be on to something here gentleman. As I sat and pondered this point, I tried to think of some avenue of a gentleman's life that would in SOME way parallel. I think I may have found one.

If any of you play guitar, you've been in this scenario. You and your friends are jamming around, playing riffs, favorite songs, etc. You then decide to share with the guys a new chord progression you came up with late last night at 2:00 am. "Hey guys, listen to this…" you say as you begin playing the slow but elegant ballad. All goes well for the first thirty seconds or so, until one of the other punks with a guitar starts playing little melodies over it. Now, depending on who you are, you may or may not say anything but every guitarist FEELS the EXACT same way. "PUNK! Can you not just listen for just two minutes!?"

It doesn't really matter if what they were playing fits the music or not. In it could even be a relatively good melody for the chord progression, but unless it's the music of heaven it just ticks us off a wee bit. It means that they can't keep their own guitar from going off for an incredibly minute amount of time, and just listen. It means while they may have HEARD our chord progression, they weren't LISTENING. We don't want them to add on, we don't want them to make it better, we don't want them to give us advice on what the chorus should be, we just want them to listen for a minute.

I don't think it's that much different with women. When they come to us with something that's troubling them, they don't want us to fix the circumstances. They want to know that we not only HEAR them, but we're attentively LISTENING to them.


Practical ways to do this:

Don't offer advice, LISTEN to them first.

Physically let them know you're listening, don't play a video game, instrument, watch the TV, read the newspaper, or blog while they're speaking. Make Eye contact.

Affirm their emotion. While you may not always understand or agree with everything they say, chances are, the emotion has a legitimate root, and can be affirmed without you lying to them.

Gentlemen, what do you think? Or more importantly…Ladies, what do YOU think?

-James