That explanation seemed plausible to me in the heady enlightened days
of college, and all the women I wanted to date firmly believed it, so
who was I to argue? The fact that male and female roles had converged
so dramatically during the 20th century was clear proof that our paths
would soon merge together, and the concept of human predilections that
were characteristically male or female would some day seem as quaint
and out-of-date as religious wars or authoritarian Russian leaders.

Many years later I was still comfortable with the idea that boys and
girls were essentially the same animal. Then I attended a poetry reading
in my daughter's kindergarten class. All eight of the girls' poems were
about either rainbows or princesses. Out of four boys, two had written
about killer sharks attacking babies, and the other two poems were also
good but too disturbing to describe here.

It got me to thinking. When I was seven, my friends and I spent every free
minute playing a game called Kill the Guy with the Ball. It was actually
more sophisticated than it sounds. What you did was, one Guy would pick
up the Ball, and the rest would try to Kill him. We played this at recess,
birthday parties, funerals for former Guys with the Ball, you name it.

There was never a scrum of girls across the field playing an equivalent
game. Even today you would probably have to poll every girl in the state
to find enough willing seven-year-olds to make up a decent round of Kill
the Girl with the Ball. The female force we did have to contend with
during second grade recess called themselves The Kissing Girls, whose
M.O. was even more self-explanatory than that of the Guy with the Ball.

Now, I'm not interested in debating which group is smarter or even
which game is better, the cool one designed to sustain and cause as many
injuries as possible--maybe even a couple of spectacular deaths--or the
lame one glorifying affection and love. The point is that in the end,
to persist in denying that boys and girls are very different does a
disservice to both, and especially to girls, because there really is so
much they could learn from boys.

For example:

1) Absolutely any human activity can be made into a competition.
As I was flipping channels the other day I stumbled across a barnful
of men shearing sheep with a sense of urgency you normally associate
with emergency c-sections. At first I thought it might be a variation
on a game called Kill the Guy with the Sheep, which we used to play up
in Topsfield while our sisters were at 4H meetings, but it turned out
to be The Professional Sheep Shearing Championships. Few things say as
much about the male approach to life than that title, except perhaps
the Professional Emergency C-Section Championships, which sadly are no
longer legal in this country.

2) Bullies are mean people you avoid, whereas Friends are a different
group of nice people you hang out with. It seems girls are still unclear
on that one. Also, people who are mean to you one minute and nice to
you the next are part of a third group, called Psychos. Treat them like
plague. If it turns out that everyone you know is either a Bully or a
Psycho, it's time to lay low for a few years and get into cars.

3) Kill the Guy with the Bone should always be played with a bone,
otherwise it gets too confusing.

I've come to believe most boys are born violent and crude, and only after
decades of training are they fit to enter decent society. Meanwhile girls
are too wrapped up in social complexities to enjoy their relationships.
These things don't seem to change. Sometimes I worry that my three
daughters are so innately different from boys that my descendants are
doomed to repeat all the same misunderstandings and conflicts men and
women have suffered through since time immemorial. Then I walk into the
lavatory off the play room and find that three days ago the toilet plugged
but no one bothered to tell me and they just kept using the toilet for
all the things toilets are used for, and I think gosh darn it, maybe
there's hope after all.

John Lengyel lives in Cohasset. He has a ball and most Friday evenings
free if anyone is interested.