Husbands,  Marriage Confessions

The Birds and the Bees

My bird.

My bird.

Did you ever stop to think about the phrase, “The birds and the bees?”   What do birds and bees have to do with each other anyway?   Well, I’ll tell you.

Absolutely nothing.

Did you ever stop to think about how men and womens minds work?   What do men and womens minds have to do with each other anyway?   Well, I’ll tell you.

Absolutely nothing.

Allow me to explain…

This week I was spending some time chatting with my BFF, Oprah.   Oprah was doing a show on what women really want.   The show went off on all these tangents about men and women – what makes them attractive, how money factors in, what each gender finds desirable.   All that good stuff.   Most of it was out of my reality, but there was one part that stuck in my head.   Oprah had a sex therapist on the show who said that couples who kiss for at least 10 seconds, at least twice a day, are happier and less stressed.

Well, hot damn!

I loves me some kissin’ and Lord knows we have plenty of stress at my house right now.   So when Chris got home that afternoon, I met him at the door and told him all about what my friend Oprah’s sex therapist friend had said.   Chris said that maybe I should think about ending my friendship with Oprah if she’s hanging out with sex therapists now, but I said no dice.   Pucker up.

So, Chris and I kissed for 10 seconds.   He was pretty annoyed.   He had just walked in from work.   He hadn’t even put down his lunchbox yet and here I was lecturing him about Oprah and kissing.   But I made him kiss me for 10 seconds.   Nothing fancy.   Just a little 10-second smooch.   Chris complained some more, but he did it and that was that.

Well, lo and behold, a couple hours later as I was cooking dinner, and here comes Chris.   He just walks right up and kisses me.   Again, nothing fancy.   Just a little 10 second smooch.   This time I’m the one whose annoyed.   I’ve got 5 pots on the stove, Beanie was crying for his bottle, the dogs were barking to be fed.   I did not have time for no kissin’!   But Chris started counting by tapping on my shoulder while we kissed and 10 seconds really isn’t all that long, so I thought what the heck?

This continued for the next day or so.   One of us instigating a 10 second kiss, the other being slightly annoyed at the timing.   But before I knew it, we started extending all of our kisses to 10 seconds!

“Honey!   I’m running to the store.   Back in a minute!”   Ten second kiss.

“Honey!   Thank you so much for emptying the dishwasher!”   Ten second kiss.

“Honey!   You didn’t put your socks in the freaking clothes hamper again!   I swear, one day I’m just gonna…”   Ten second kiss.   (Although, for the record, I don’t think it counts when the kissing is used to shut someone up…)

Now, I instantly noticed a positive effect that 10 second kissing had on me.   I started to be happy whenever Chris came in the room.   I started looking for things to compliment him on.   I started wearing mascara, for crying out loud.

Chris, too, had an instant reaction to the 10 second kissing.   But it was slightly different than mine.   And by slightly different I mean completely the opposite.   Chris wanted to rip clothes off.   Mine.   His.   It didn’t matter.   10 second kissing meant someone’s clothes were getting ready to be ripped off.

I sweetly remind him that the 10 second kissing was just supposed to be a way to connect in the middle of a busy day.   It wasn’t supposed to wave home the troops, if you know what I mean.   Chris stands there and listens to me for a minute and then cocks his head to the side like a puppy.

“So, let me get this straight.   10 second kissing doesn’t make you want to rip your clothes off?”

“No,” I said.   “It makes me want to smile and give you a hug and cook you a big dinner.”

Chris sat there for a minute, thinking this over.

“After the smile and hug and dinner, THEN does it make you want to rip your clothes off?”

“NO, CHRIS!   YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT!   WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE CONNECTING.   NOT MATING!”

Again, Chris contemplates this, head cocked to the side.   Its like the thought of kissing without immediately ripping someone’s clothes off has never entered his head.

“Huh,” he says.   “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”

And that, boys and girls, is why they use birds and bees to reference sex.   Because they are two completely different animals who see things from completely different angles.   The bees see things up close and in the trenches.   They are moving from flower to flower, dropping some pollen at soccer practice, picking up some pollen from the grocery store, using pollen to make some bottles, making sure that each flower has enough pollen to grown and be happy, and she’s buzzing around doing all of this at warp speed.   Meanwhile, the stupid birds are soaring with their heads in the clouds, enjoying the view of the pretty flowers, not paying the slightest bit of attention to what that bee is busy doing to make the pretty flowers grow.   And THAT is why the birds are all about the sex and the bees are all, “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!”   The very LAST THING ON THAT BUSY BEE’S MIND IS HAVING HER LOVELY YELLOW JACKET RIPPED OFF OF HER BECAUSE OF SOME STUPID 10 SECOND KISS!!!

Wait – what just happened?   Oh, I’m sorry.   I must have blacked out there for a second.   What was I saying again?

Oh, right.   Birds.   Bees.   Mars.   Venus.   Men.   Women.   Call it what you want.   10 second kissing has a million different names.

37 Comments

  • Mandy

    I’m a weirdo… I find the differences in the way men and women’s minds work totally fascinating. My husband and I even did this sort of “experiment.” There are books out there called “For Men Only” and “For Women Only” that sort of reveals to the opposite sex why their partners think and act the way they do. We bought both, Joe read the book that explained men and wrote in his own comments about whether things were true for him or not, and I did the same with the book that explained women. Then we switched and read the other. So Joe not only read about women in general, but also about my own little quirks in relation to those topics, and the same for me reading his book. It was so insightful… I finally understood why he did certain things and what he needed from me when he did it. It’s amazing how different we are!

  • Lyndsey

    Ok did you not see that coming? haha. I saw the same oprah thing and I thought about instituting it with my boyfriend. Then I thought… if I kiss him for 10 seconds there is 0 chance I will get anything else done for the next hour. And I don’t have that kind of time every single day. So, I still haven’t tried it out because I KNOW this is what would happen in our house. 🙂

  • Sarah Hash

    This is great!! I would do this 10 second kiss thing if I didn’t think it would end up with just that..clothes ripped off. I know my husband, haha. Maybe all I have to do is explain it?? Yeah right.

  • Sarah H.

    Oh and another thing–you’re doing a really good job still talking about marriage. At first I thought “Boy, she’s going to a lot of trouble to seperate her posts,” but now I get it, and I like it 🙂

  • Jordan

    I sent this post to my husband to read. I think it’ll be good for him to read that when we kiss it doesn’t always have to equal clothes coming off.

  • Emily

    Maybe the ripping-clothes-off aspect of this 10 second kiss rule is half of the point. Ripping clothes off would help you connect throughout the day and also help relieve stress. I don’t think it’s a problem at all.

  • Kathie

    Hysterical! This is sooo true. I don’t know why guys find it so difficult to just kiss without the ripping of the clothes! I’ve tried this for the past 3 years and still… he’s ready to get it on every darn time!

  • Kate

    HILARIOUS! I often say to my husband that I want us to kiss more WITHOUT it leading directly to sex. He reacts the same way as Chris. And while I’m flattered… it would be nice not to be accosted while in the middle of things like cooking dinner 🙂

  • Hilary

    Okay, I do have to agree with a previous post that this is not surprising info nor is it particularly a revolutionary insight (no offense to you or Oprah – I loved the post!). I can’t imagine my husband and me kissing for a full 10 seconds without him going for one of the twins. If he didn’t, I would be convinced that aliens had indeed come down as human doubles and the earth would be blown up war-of-the-worlds style. In fact, I kind of see kissing, at least in my relationship, as an invitation, not the party itself. I think most guys view it that way.

  • Katherine

    LOVE IT! This initiated a similar conversation and experiment with me and my man when I saw this episode too, and he also confirmed this male-stereotype of wanting to make it more than just one 10-second kiss. I definitely don’t think its a bad thing though, yay for us ladies 😛 Have fun, you two!!

  • Courtney d

    LOL. So true! I try to kiss my husband all the time, and he always expects it to lead to more. The other night, I was feeling moody and asked if we could makeout–sweet, right? He immediately asks, “JUST make out?!” Men.

  • Ashley

    Hahaha this is the BEST POST EVER! I think it will remain my favorite of all time! I sent it to my boyfriend and cant wait to hear his reaction about it! Having decided to wait until marriage for “everything”, I am proud to say that after three years of dating we have still kept our promise to ourselves and God!!! I think maybe we’ll wait and do the 10 second kisses on a later date 🙂

    Thanks so much for your honesty!! Its definitely what I love about reading your blog.

  • Kim

    This cracks me up from start to finish. I tried the 10 second kiss…. we started laughing at about second 6. I guess we have more practice to do. =)

  • Sarah

    Oh my goodness this is the best post ever! Hilarious!! And oh so true 🙂 I’ve written about your blog before on my blog, but I’m going to post a link to this post — too funny!!

  • The Rambling Housewife

    I had to laugh about this. Now, my dh and I love us some good smooching. And it is indeed a great stress reliever. But it does frequently lead to…ahem…OTHER things (that are also good stress relievers). And probably not as often as he would like. 🙂

  • DeAnna

    Awesome!! Freakin Awesome!! I have really never read anything into the whole Birds and the Bees expression, now I will have even more of a laugh attack when it comes up.

    Lucky for me I never got the whole awkward Talk from my parents, I had friends and read a LOT as a teenager so I knew the basics & learned the rest firsthand. My parents had a dumb philosophy that us kids didn’t need the Talk until the night before our weddings…YA RIGHT!! The whole sex is bad, sex is evil speel will only get you so far as a parent. My 3 siblings were quite a bit luckier or not so lucky (all depends on how you look at it) they got the Talk from me. Since my very religious, abstinence without-any-knowledge-of sex is best attitude weren’t going to give it to them the talk and ss the oldest I felt it was my duty to make sure they were properly informed. To this day my sister is very thankful for the talk I gave her, her talk was a little different I wrote her a very long letter with my version of the Talk. This letter is somewhat of a smutty legend, but was so well worth the paper it is written on.

    Again, great post!!

  • Jennie

    Haha. The day doesn’t really start until I kiss my partner. Sometimes we’ll start bickering and one of us will be like, “Wait, I know what’s wrong! We haven’t kissed yet!” I’ll have to start counting the seconds!

  • Kaitlyn

    Oh my gosh! This was absolutely hilarous! I was way behind in my reader and just got to this today. I had never thought of the birds and the bees in that way, but it’s perfect!! You are so funny. ;o)

  • Jennifer in CA

    My friend Abby directed me to your blog and I love it! This is too funny and when I shared it with my spouse he completely identified with your bird Chris. Too funny!

  • Ashleigh

    I just found your blog and really appreciate it because my husband and I are 23- and 24-year-old grad students and just got married 3 months ago. I was the one that thought it was crazy at first–because while all of HIS friends are married, almost none of mine are! It’s nice to know about some other young people out there. :o)

    Also, nice to see a blog that’s actually well-written every once in a while! So refreshing!

    Enjoyed this post, even though I think were both birds. ;o)

  • bree

    i read the comment you left about ruining your husband’s terrabyte drive on PW’s site and I had to check your page out. i love your writing and this post was hilarious! 🙂

  • april

    My co-workers mustt think I’m crazy when i start laughing in my cubicle….they don’t know I’m reading your funny entry! Anyways, studies show, laughter also makes for a healthier person. Kissing and laughing, God knew what He was doing. When I see my husband tonight, I’m going to kiss him! He may or may not want to rip my clothes off 😉

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