The Highway To Hell

With all the modern technology that exists in the world today, it has had zero effect on the age-old issue of directions when it comes to the sexes.

We were invited to a soiree outside of the city and were quick to utilize the Waze app. It has saved our relationship and has replaced an otherwise stressful drive into one that is pleasant. On this particular day, our robotic-voiced sherpa was absent. Blame it on Bluetooth or the satellite, Mona, Hazel or whatever the hell her name is, didn’t show up for work.

I was in panic mode because I didn’t want to get saddled with her role or be thrust back into an old way of being where the arguing would commence almost immediately. I knew no good would come of this. Yes, directions are a point of contention between my husband and I and several billion other people. It upsets the balance of the planet and affects World Peace. I told him I was not going to recite the quadrants every 500 metres to which he replied that I needed to. I did share with him the names of streets that Waze illustrated, some identical to those in the GTA. He was insistent that I was providing him with incorrect information, this from his phone, that he programmed. By the time we arrived at our destination we were thoroughly annoyed with each other. The marriage saver app had betrayed us. We left the car, slammed the doors, put on our friendly faces while staying in separate corners only to discover two other couples who had identical experiences.

Three disgruntled couples, all victims of Waze’s absent matriarch, who was tired of spitting out directions and decided to take a day off.  The testy husbands and wives, sporting fake smiles parted like the Red Sea from their significant other. The women in one corner,  bitching while the men at the opposite end convinced they were right as you can’t possibly challenge logic. The age-old issue the same. Their ‘ways’ challenged by her ‘ways.’

Why are directions such a tenacious point for men and women? Drop me anywhere, and I will recognize a landmark and can construct a picture from there. Instead of identifying the names of streets, I’ll see the patterning of the landscape. Like a cat who circles and can find their way back home from being hundreds of miles away. My husband, on the other hand, operates on a grid system. Logic is rooted in his process and void in mine. Even if I know where I’m going, he doesn’t believe me. The man who shares our bed, whose children I delivered and cosigned on our house will align himself with Waze before me. What’s up with that?! Further, the goal posts change routinely. Where one excursion will follow one route, they deviate the second time around because he wanted a coffee.  Meanwhile, my recollection is to the original trek.

Numerous times in our lives we have not spoken to each other as we drove around aimlessly.  Me begging him to pull over and ask for directions while he’s convinced we’ll find our way to wherever we’re going. Women will happily ask for guidance; men resist that notion. It’s an age-old dilemma that still has me scratching my head. Instead, we spend a ridiculous portion of our married lives squabbling over directions.

I remember being in a blizzard in northern Ontario on New Year’s Eve. It took hours to get up to where the celebration was, and though we were well within a seven-kilometre radius of our destination, we continued to drive for another hour to find the house. Wind’s hollering, snow beating against the windshield and me needing to pee like a racehorse. I was prepared to pull into any farmhouse and graciously ask for instructions, but no, my husband was convinced he knew where we were going. Had we not finally found the place, I was sure someone would discover us frozen in our car with an empty gas tank. Directions can even permeate and undermine the most resilient young loves. While driving across Canada in the early eighties, before the time of cell phones, apps and laptops, we were gitty and in love when we started the journey, and non-communicative and fuming when we arrived in Toronto. Our incredible young romance had no resilience to the ravaging ways of navigation.

There have been papers written on this. Some theories suggest that while a woman is pulling her hair out in the passenger seat, a man is enjoying the process of problem-solving. Women like security and feel comfortable getting out of a situation when they feel out of control. To aggravate an already delicate circumstance, when a woman is demanding to pull over and ask directions it can make her partner feel inadequate so he can appear to be stubborn trying to address his bearings by himself instead of with the aid of a stranger. In fact, in his mind taking the time to stop and ask for directions could be the window of opportunity to find the right direction. Other theories revolve around handing a stranger responsibility instead of solving it themselves. Women navigate through landmarks while men address it through miles and minutes. Ultimately it goes back to caveman days where men left their territory to hunt and had to return while the women stayed closer to home to collect food. What’s insane is that those historical tensions continue today despite the explosion of technology that exists.

When it comes to directions there remains a language barrier between the sexes. Apps like Waze may appear to be about traffic when in truth they’re really about saving marriages. How the designers missed that fundamental point is beyond me. Directions is a sensitive issue in couplehood where the abstract and linear thinker compete against each other. Both ways are applicable and have virtue. I have girlfriends who are far better navigators then their life partners and typically are the ones you will find behind the wheel.  However, on occasion, when their partners are experiencing either motion sickness or are particularly irritating in their backseat driving, they resolve themselves to pass the steering wheel back to them to their detriment.

When I’m alone, I use Waze, and she guides me to where I need to go. But when she’s not working, and we’re both in the car, it turns into an experiment as to how healthy our relationship is and how clear our communication skills are. As it deteriorates, we both recognize we are on the Highway to Hell.

I remember as a kid my dad’s glove compartment bursting with maps. Once unfolded they were never folded back to their original origami shape.  My mother was struggling to read the graph, blocking his view in the front windshield. Busy adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses as she fussed and folded the paper where there were no folds, trying to find where they were going. Communicating directions in a way that was incompatible to my dads listening and becoming flustered and distressed. Once we arrived, they didn’t speak to each other, furious with one another. I never understood why until I got married.

They’ve successfully sent a man to the moon, are looking to colonize Mars, but when there are satellite issues that affect the voice of Waze making it absent, they need to know that it’s no longer about directions but about saving billions of marriages around the planet.

 

 

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “The Highway To Hell

  1. Cynthia Reyes says:

    Oh, Lord. I bet that all your readers can relate to this post, especially those of a certain age! I still don’t know why men won’t stop and ask for directions and why women find it so easy to do so. Hahaha – your post made me grin.

  2. Alison says:

    Great ‘way‘ of putting that age-old struggle, Djanka. I had a good laugh at myself. I too Navigate by landmarks, not names. It rattles me when trees lose their leaves as my routes look different!

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