Saturday, March 14, 2015

How to tell directions like a man (or at least how to be understood by a man)

100B5020Terms like “look” and “over there” do not communicate anything beyond that fact that you cannot describe where you are looking or what you want someone to see. Terms like “look left” are fine if a mountain fills the left horizon but is mostly useless for any object smaller than a mountain. “Look right” truly fails when you are looking at a flower and the person you told to look right sees a bird and you both agree it's beautiful. Vague terms seem to be sufficient between two people that each have two X chromosomes and how they every understand each other is beyond me.
Brown Bear

Directions are only useful to XY chromosome people if you can communicate where to look with enough specifics for others to understand. Compass heading work well so long as you are in an orienteering class, otherwise use clock headings where 12 o’clock is straight ahead (along the trail, road etc). It's also acceptable to use headings relative to well defined objects “a bear is at 12 o'clock, lets walk in the opposite direction”. Notice I have identified what to look at and where to go without ambiguity. Being clear about what you want someone to see is important, saying “look at 12 o'clock” and a man may only see the hiker in a bikini, if you intended him to see the bear walking up behind her you should have said so.