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Your boyfriend lives in another part of the country, so you rely heavily on the phone to stay connected. Several days have passed, and you haven’t heard from him. Finally, he calls.

“Where have you been?” you ask.

“What do you mean?” your boyfriend responds.

“You haven’t called me,” you explain in an agitated voice.

“We just talked Friday,” he responds defiantly.

“That’s what I mean – it’s been three whole days!”

“I don’t get it,” he says. “It’s only been three days. What’s the big deal?”

It’s one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, and your husband says he’s going out to do a few errands. The hours pass, and by dinnertime he still isn’t home. Finally, at seven o’clock he drives up.

“Do you know what time it is?” you ask him. “You were out for six hours!”

“Gee, I didn’t realize it was that long,” he says. “I had a lot to do.”

“But you said you were going out to do a few errands – I thought you’d be back by dark for sure.”

“I guess I lost track of time,” he replies absentmindedly. “It didn’t seem like that much time had passed.”

“That’s an understatement – why didn’t you at least call me?”

“Why should I have called?” he asks in a puzzled voice. “You knew I’d be home eventually.”

Both of these examples illustrate one point: Women experience time very differently from men. After decades of observation and personal experience, my theory is that women experience each increment of time as lasting much longer than men experience that same increment of time. It’s similar to “dog years” versus “people years,” and according to veterinary science, a dog year is seven times longer than a people year. In the same way, I am certain that “female time” is much longer than “male time”! One of my girlfriends and I decided, unscientifically of course, that one male hour was the equivalent of ten female hours, one male day the equivalent of ten female days, and so on.

Doesn’t this explain a phenomenon we’ve all experienced over and over again in our relationships – that in so many instances, men think almost no time has passed, and women feel so much time has passed. I believe this is because:

Time shrinks for men and stretches for women!

The previous stories are perfect examples – the woman feels as if the three days without talking to her boyfriend were an eternity, and he feels as if it’s only been three days since they spoke – hardly any time at all. For her, the time was stretched; for him, it was shrunk. It’s the same with the husband who went out for errands and came back six hours later: To his wife that six hours felt really long, probably because she had expected him back earlier, but for the husband, it seemed as if he’d only been gone for a little while.

I’ve come up with some examples of words men use that illustrate the shrunken male version of time:

Just can mean anything from in the last few minutes to the last few years, as in:

“Didn’t we just get new carpet?” (five years ago)

“Wasn’t your mother just here for a visit?” (three months ago)

“I thought we just discussed that.” (six weeks ago)

“Didn’t we just have some intimate time?” (three weeks ago)

A lot can be used to describe amounts that range from noticeable to miniscule, as in:

“I think we’ve spent a lot of time talking and working on our relationship lately.” (one counseling session and one long talk in the past three months)

“I feel I’ve been a lot better about complimenting you, haven’t I?” (two compliments in two weeks)

“Why are you complaining? I call you a lot when I’m out of town.” (once a day if she’s lucky)

Why do men and women experience time so differently? It seems to me that men tend to plant themselves more completely in the present moment when it comes to relationships and deal with the next moment when it arrives. Women, on the other hand, tend to extend themselves through time into the future.

Men’s relationship to love and time is more immediate. Women’s relationship to love and time is more extended.

This principle doesn’t apply to all parts of our lives. Men obviously have extended vision when it comes to running their business or designing their career. But somehow, when it comes to love, intimacy, and related topics, the above descriptions do seem accurate.

The result of these very different approaches to and experiences of time is a lot of misunderstandings and hurt feelings in our relationships.

WHAT WOMEN WANT MEN TO KNOW:

When you don’t seem to be aware of how much time has passed since you spoke to us or saw us, or spent special time with us, or when you forget important events in time, we end up feeling like you don’t care.

It’s easy for women to interpret men’s casual, and sometimes even oblivious, attitude toward time as a lack of caring or commitment. The following are comments women made to me while I researched this book:

“How could he not call me for three days unless he just doesn’t love me?”

“Why didn’t he remember to let me know he arrived at the hotel when he knew Yd be worrying, unless he just wasn’t thinking of me at all?”

“It’s been weeks since we’ve spent any special romantic time together, but he says it’s too soon to plan another evening, that we just did it – maybe he doesn’t want to be close with me.”

“I always want to be with my boyfriend whenever possible, but he goes about his business for days and seems unaware of how much time has passed. It makes me feel like I am not very special to him.”

Guys, please understand that I am not saying you don’t care, because I know you do. You just may not be aware of how your more casual relationship to time feels to us as women. Remember the 10-to-1 Rule: If you don’t call for a day, it feels like it’s been ten days to us; if we haven’t spent special time alone without kids or distractions for two weeks, it feels like twenty weeks. Of course, this rule also works another way: If you’ve been dating a woman for one month, she may act like you’ve been dating for ten months, making you wonder why she is so serious so quickly!

I don’t believe that men and women will ever change their experience of time. However, men, if you really want to please the woman you love, consider experimenting with the following suggestions:

WHAT WOMEN WOULD LIKE MEN TO DO:

1. We would love you to remember that whatever increment of time you are experiencing, it feels much longer to us.

2. Keeping this in mind, we would love you to consider adjusting your behavior once in a while by doing things sooner than you normally would:

Call us more frequently than you think is necessary.

Do or plan something special before you think the effect of the last time has worn off.

Tell us you love us or compliment us more times in a day than feels normal to you.

Be willing to spend more intimate moments with us than you normally would.

One easy way to put this into practice with the woman you care about is to do everything that is an expression of love twice as much. That means DOUBLE the amount of calls, special dates, compliments, intimate moments, and so on. If you would usually call your girlfriend once a day, try calling twice a day. If you would normally agree to one romantic activity a month with your wife, try planning two a month.

It is safe to assume that she will be happy with more, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how this small investment of extra time and effort pays off in the gratitude, the sweetness, and the contentment you will see radiating from your partner.