Let’s talk about Raccoons. In this corner of the world we talk about the Rationalization hamster a lot. The “Rationalization Hamster” is a woman’s natural coping mechanism, a picture of the female mind. You see, whenever a woman is faced with the terrible reality after making a profoundly poor choice (something ubiquitous in the female world) she must convince herself that she made a good decision.

She does this by taking her little hamster brain, putting it on a wheel and having it run at whatever speed necessary to power her brain into finding a way to rationalize said decision.  The goal of the hamster is to make sure nothing is her fault. Ever.

But what about Men? Do we rationalize? If so, do we have a hamster?

Short answer: Yes, no.

Men rationalize poor choices just as much as women. Rationalization is a human thing, not an innately female thing (though I would say it is one of the few things women truly do better than men).  The goals of rationalization between the sexes, however, are intrinsically different. As I said, women rationalize to make sure that something can plausibly be not their fault. Men rationalize so that they can feel like not so much of a shit bag later.

While these may seem to be the same thing, they aren’t. Women actually believe their rationalizations. My mom, now twice divorced, honestly believes she had nothing to do with two failed marriages despite being the only common denominator. A false rape accuser will actually convince herself it was rape. A fat chick will  honestly believe that her bones are that fucking big.

Men never believe their own lies. Men want other people to not think so much about their lies. We know we’re shit bags, but we don’t want our buddies to know, so we craft a rationalization that we hope will at least convince them to not probe any further. We know the truth, we just choose to ignore it.

For this reason, men don’t have a rationalization hamster. Men have a Rationalization Raccoon. For men, the Raccoon is what helps us come up with excuses and rationalizations (read: lies) good enough that people wont really probe too much further. Its what helps us sleep at night, knowing that we did a shit bag thing, but at least no one knows we did a shit bag thing on purpose.

The Raccoon works like this: You do something terrible on purpose (or maybe just something flagrantly homosexual) and you need to cover it up. The Raccoon goes into action by finding the nearest trashcan and diving in head first.

The little fucker begins digging tireless through the trash, tossing aside this item and that item – picking something up in its dirty paws, examining it, and throwing it away  – before finally finding something big enough, smelly enough, or shiny enough to distract people from the otherwise shit-bag behavior.  “Yeah, here! This’ll do!” It says as it wipes the shit off of the garbage excuse and then passes it up to you.

You take said excuse and deploy accordingly.

Now this isn’t to bash men, its just to say that if we’re going to be so honest about female behavior we should probably be honest about how our own minds work. So congratulations men! You now know and understand your pet raccoon.

References:

Appreciating Your Man

Fear And Dread – Or, as I call it, “Moist Panties”

Dating Game is a BS

Openers Coupled with False Time Constraints

8 Things I Love About My Wife

Strong Empowered Women — The Alpha Female Myth

Saying No

Healthy At Any Size: How To Be Happy With Yourself

Talking On The Phone