Before I help them, I ask if they have made any effort to locate the item on their own. They swear they've looked everywhere.
Of course they haven't. What they've done, is have a 'man look'
The 'man look' is a name given to the type of searching effort done when someone really can't be bothered looking hard for a lost item. You make as little effort to search as possible, until it's feasible to ask someone else to look for you.
Having a 'man look' enables a person to be looking directly at the lost item and still not see it.
For example, an 8 year old who can't find their shoes will come to you, citing lost footwear. You will ask if they have searched and they will say yes, convincingly. You will obligingly stop what you are doing (usually something family centric, like folding washing or cooking dinner) to help them search.
You will almost immediately find the item. It may be slightly under a couch, or peeking out from a bed. It will be visible enough to show that the original seeker made no effort whatsoever to find it.
This is a 'man look'. It is called thus because men are very skilled at it. Kids are a close second.
Well, today it happened to me. For the first time I have experienced 'man looking' from the other side. And boy was it a fresh perspective.
Here's how it happened:
Josh has to leave the house particularly early on Mondays. I wake him at 6am and he is picked up at 6:30. It is quite an effort and he is hard to rouse and very hard to jolly along. I have taken to frying him an egg as the protein seems to help.
I fry the egg in a little copper frying pan I have had for about 20 years. I stole it from my mother.
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| Isn't it cute! |
This morning I couldn't find the little pan. The weather was questionable, training looked like being cancelled but the confirming tweet had not yet been sent by the coach so we were all systems go.
Mike had been in charge all weekend because I was away. Not wanting to bother him, I looked everywhere (I thought), and tried to be inventive in location scouting.
No pan.
Confession: I didn't take a good look in the roasting dish drawer because, well, it's for roasting dishes.
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| Not the place for a frying pan? |
I finally asked Mike and he stalked (he's clearly learned this behaviour from me) to the roasting dish drawer, hurled it open, looked under the top pan and pulled out my little copper favourite.
And do you know. I felt great. Not because I'd made him stop shaving to find it. But because someone else had the knowledge. Someone else had been in control. When you let someone else find your stuff, you're letting them be in charge.
Now some people love being in charge. Me, not so much. I am in charge of the household organisation whether I like it or not. And it does become tiring. That's why it felt so good when Mike knew something I didn't. I felt all floaty and useless.
Now I understand how good it feels, I may even be a bit more understanding the next 20 times I'm asked to find something hidden in plain view.
