The Silent Treatment: WORKS! (But Not How You Women Think)

The Darling Wife and I were both tired, allergic, and grumpy as we were leaving the house at one point this weekend. She was snipping at me as I drove to a gas station, and commandeered the driver's seat as I was refueling Bad Robot. I got in the car on the passenger's side and she wasn't talking to me.

Aaaaah, peace at last!

You see ladies, The Silent Treatment does not work the way you may intend it to work. When men are griping at each other, they will continue until they have concluded a fistfight, had a beer together, or said everything they had to say and finished arguing. When men stop talking, they are finished, and then hours upon multiplied hours can be spent in fraternal silence with no ill-will intended, felt, or created. They will resume being best friends after the words/action have stopped, unless something really bad was done, in which case they will probably have forgotten about the other man and deleted them from their lives within a day.

When women stop talking to each other, apparently this can be the same thing as screaming YOU [DELETED] [EXPLETIVE DELETED]! at each other. Then they will seek to find an occasion to sink a nail into each other's car tires and put paper clips in the other woman's hair dryer, for weeks, months, even years afterwards. Men, stubbornly refusing to read womens' minds since the beginning of time, hear none of the psychic dialog and hear only the absence of annoying sound.

So you see, the difference between boys and girls becomes apparent again, to the boys' advantage: when a woman is really, boiling, steaming mad at her man and stops talking to him for a few minutes to a few hours (especially if it's just until she cools off), the man has exactly what he wanted: peace and quiet, specifically from the absence of her nagging.

Great success!