Men are obstinate bastards. I know because I am one of them. We dig our heels in over stupid things, take positions on things we know little or nothing about and then defend the stance like we were the first to put words to it. We say “I know” when the truth is we are guessing. We run hard with stuff we “think” rather than finding some evidence, and sometimes we get a scrap of evidence without checking its real or sufficient.

I think it’s great to have opinions, anyone who knows me will tell you I have one on just about everything. My bride once threatened to buy me a T-shirt that said “Often wrong- never in doubt”. Having put up with me for thirty years, I guess it was the accumulated weight of 10,000 days of my obstinance that caused her to squeal with delight when she chanced upon the printed shirt in an online catalogue.

I do not have many male friends. I work in a male dominated environment and that may play a part. I prefer the company of women, they just behave better than most men. I know it’s a generalisation but there you go, see, Ive done it again.

If a woman is driving lost she has no qualms about stopping to ask for directions, but blokes would prefer not to ask and keep driving perhaps compounding the situation. They get themselves out of trouble with this technique just often enough to convince themselves that the petrol wasn’t wasted at all, it was an activity closely related to sightseeing really.

I have no idea where the obstinance stems from either. I belong to a generation that very much believes in the equality of women, but it seems they are not sharing the obstinance load. Sure you see it from time to time, but it’s not at plague proportions like is for us. I am waiting to see if the obstinance factor is handed down to the next generation at the same level of intensity. Certainly the generation before mine has it in spades, and my generation is all over it, so it will be interesting to see if it starts to fade away.

In the archive at work we have a store of magazine dating back to the 60’s and the “letters to the editor” section has revealed to me that the old guys in the 60’s mainlined the trait. Some of their letters were so outrageous, it had me wondering if the editor published them just to make fun of them.

It is not an attractive trait either. I have decided to make a concerted effort to be more flexible in my thinking and approach to the world, to ask for help before I think I need it and to not spend as much time being lost. It was Tolkien who said, “Not all who wander are lost”, he wasn’t talking about me.