Differences Between Boys/Men and Girls/Women

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

There’s currently a threadgoing on about gorging one’s self on mini Reese’s Cups (you can make it to 65!). Only a guy would do that. So it got me to thinking that there are other only-male or only-female kinds of experiences that aren’t necessarily biological.
So I started thinking back to childhood. Every time I tell this story to a woman, it becomes apparent that a girl would A) never do this and B) put the kibosh on it when she had the chance.

So, a few doors down from me, when I was a little sprout, there was this double lot. This second lot was overgrown, and the neighborhood kids (there weren’t many of us then) would hang out there. We’d have a makeshift treehouse and all that crap. Well, one day, I was back there myself, pondering life and looking at a big, overhanging tree branch when a eureka moment happened.

If I put something heavy on the branch, tie one end of a rope to the weight and the other end to my ankles, I can hang myself upside down!

This is right about the point where girls start to veer away.

So, it was also the time where they had an ordinance saying that a large concrete wall had to be built between residential and commercial neighborhoods. They were constructing that wall. A bunch of cinder blocks could do the trick. So I grabbed a bunch of cinder blocks and hauled them up the tree and balanced them on the thick branch. I tied one end of the blocks and the other end to a pair of old Rollerblades (so I wouldn’t get rope burns around my ankles…I was thinking ahead!) and poked the cinder blocks with a stick. I learned real fast that if the rope was a little too long, it’d just yank the feet out from under me and knock the wind out of me. So I found out the right length and found how to hang myself upside down.

So I told a friend, Bob, about this.

This is the part f the story where a girl would have said “NO!” or threatened to tell.

I told him about the idea and what I had done. He, of course, thought it was a great idea. So we spent the better part of three days straight hanging each other upside down in a tree. So we told a mutual friend, Craig.

Yes, the girl would have stopped the Fun Express at this point as well.

Craig also thought it was a great idea. We kept this up for about three weeks, just hanging each other upside down. No broken bones, no permanent injuries, nobody dropped onto their heads (more than once).

Got any fun stories from childhood? I’m also convinced that boys dodge death about three times from childhood to adulthood and I’d like to see those stories as well.

2

Boys actually do have more injury accidents that girls. Apparently, among other things, according to at least one study boys are more susceptible to the Optimism bias - the belief that a bad thing will not happen to them. Girls are also more likely to attribute accidents to themselves, boys are more likely to attribute them to bad luck.

3

Interesting. It also explains why my mother always said that if my shoes were untied, I should tie them or I’d “trip and fall and break my neck”.

On my side, I just figured it’d be because I wasn’t careful enough.

4

Does not compute.

5

Oh! and in the spirit of the thread –

One afternoon while my brother was watching me (I was probably 10 and he 13) somehow the discussion of whether a penny was solid copper came up. We decided that only Science could answer the question (the interwebz was still far in our future).

So we got a penny, and a pair of needlenose pliers, and a hammer. We heated up the penny over the gas stove. We got frustrated when the copper did not appear to be melting. So, we hit it with the hammer to see if it was even softened - and liquid nickel squirted out! A very small amount of which hit me on the back of the wrist, giving me a very tiny very serious burn that gave me a scar I bear to this day.

My parents never knew!

6

I know of a guy that did something similar. He heated up a penny really hot and got some pliers to try and bend it in half. He bent it and slipped. The penny shot up in the air and came right down the inside of the back of his coat. It never touched him, but it left a long burn mark.

7

Different genitalia. K thx bye

8

I’ve thought before that I sometimes feel like a lesbian trapped in a man’s body (not really). I never had the urge or desire as a young child to participate in outdoor athletics (especially team sports), cursing/acting rude, or foolhardy stunts. My favorite thing to do was to act out pretend situations (action movie-type situations, granted). I am also a lot more commitment-minded than most guys. I am rather competitive, though, and I’m not very “emotional”.

But overall, I’m just not a very “guy” type of guy (I hesitate to say effeminate, since I definitely don’t act like the stereotypical gay guy).

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

ETA: I would never have done anything like what you’re describing.

9

:slight_smile: I am a girl. But I was huge tomboy too (I have gotten a bit more girly with age, tho I’m not very girly at all).

10

I was also never really inclined to do the kind of stuff you describe (although I climbed trees a lot as a child, and still do when I have the chance) - I think I’d probably have bailed at about the same time the hypothetical girl in your story would have. As an adult, the thing that most commonly comes across as a ‘guy thing’ is building stuff. If I have an idea of building some ridiculous thing, my male friends are much more likely to come to my ridiculous-thing-building party than my female friends are. But, it’s only a small subset of my male friends that are interested in such things, and obviously this is a very unrepresentative sample.

For what it’s worth - and this is an unashamedly uncited claim but hey, it’s MPSIMS - there was apparently a survey conducted by some videogames-for-girls type developer a while ago that asked adult women whether they considered themselves tomboys when they were children. 50% said ‘yes’.

11

When I was about 8 or so, my friend (12) and I found a brick pile. We started by throwing bricks at walls but that became boring quickly. Luckly a small flock of birds were pearched nearby so we began throwing bricks at them unfortunaty they quickly flew off leaving us without live targets, kind of. It turns out that your friend is a live target. So we began having a brick fight, it was a blast. Until I bent down to pick up a new brick and Ryan hit me in the back of the head and busted my wide open. Luckly his mom was a nurse and she badedged me back up. For the record we were throwing bricks for 5-10 min before I got hit.

Yep, boys do stupid things.

12

I would be interested to know what it is exactly that makes the OP think that no girl would ever involve herself in any of the activities he mentioned.

13

I’ve never (personally) talked to a girl that would have hopped in the festivities.

14

Some youthful morning of mine, while snails were engaged in their slow race across the concrete patio in my backyard, I created a large maze out of table salt, trapping several of them to see whether they could escape before the sun fried them to a crisp. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until it was too late that snails come to a dead stop the moment they hit a salt wall. They have no sense of adventure at all, really.

Girl thing or boy thing?

15

Yes.

16

So, we are all equal-opportunity snail torturers?

17

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a snail/slug in person.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

18

Eh, I did lots of stupid stuff when I was a kid and I am a (girly) girl.

Climbed trees. Hung from trees. Jumped off the roof of the house into a pile of leaves. Shot my cousin in the ass with a BB gun. Chased boys and pinned them down and kissed them till they cried (interestingly, the stopped crying when the lot of us hit about 13). Got in fist fights with boys (and won at least some of the time).

Essentially, I behaved exactly like a little boy only I wore a dress at my mother’s insistence. I think she thought if she made me wear a dress, I wouldn’t climb trees because boys would see my underwear. Didn’t work.

In fact, the only boy affectation I really do not get is taking doodie pictures of each other. That is, taking pictures when the other guy is laying a turd. It’s just not funny.

ETA - my (girl) cousin and I crushed about 50 snails with rocks just for shits and giggles. I actually still feel quite guilty about this.

19

Not a childhood thing (or maybe it is,) but the whole hands-down-the-pants-thing in the evening while watching tv. As far as I can tell, it’s not a sexual stimulation thing…just kind of hey my hand fits nicely in here and I might as well (I don’t know, adjust/air out) while I’m in here. I think it looks disgusting and slovenly and have never seen a woman do anything remotely like this. Also guys will dig around in their ears, look at the finger and then wipe it on their jeans. Eeeeewww!

20

I have yet to meet a female who snorted a Pixie Stick during childhood. I’ve met the occasional male who claims not to have done this, but he’s lying.