Monday, April 8, 2013

Do Men See in Monochrome?

As an observer of the human condition, I'm solidly convinced that most human males can only see in 8-bit color palette. (Maybe 16-bits if he's really evolved.)  The essential guy is like: "Yeah, I know all the colors: white, black, blue, green, yellow, red, green, purple and orange."

Honestly, I don't understand. Little boys have access to the same box of 64 Crayola crayons as little girls. Yet, my two-year-old daughter is already more color sensitive (and aware) than her father. 

On occasion, an outraged toddler shout has emerged from Miss Bear's bedroom over Mr. Snark's faulty fashion choices.

"What? What?" Mr. Snark bellowed. "What's wrong with what I picked out?"

"No!!!!!" Miss Bear sobbed.

"Really, Mr. Snark," Mrs. Snark said, rushing to the rescue. "You should know that Miss Bear does not like to wear that shade of blue."

My teenage son has an entire wardrobe composed of exactly three colors: black, green and red. As a child, the boy wore an entire spectrum--he was a rainbow of Skittles. However, as he's gotten older, his wardrobe has grown increasingly homogenous. 

I tried buying him a nice white tee shirt once but he never wore it.  "What happened to your new shirt?" I asked a few weeks later.

"What new shirt?"

"The white one."

He shrugged, claiming no knowledge of the item. 

I performed a thorough inspection of his closet but it appears to have disappeared into a black hole in the far back. I'm afraid to go in too deep for fear of falling in. As he gets older, I suppose eventually everything that's not black will be sucked in also.

Out of curiosity, I Googled it and here's actual scientific evidence to support women perceiving color differently than men, and also: some women may see 100 million colors.

They're expending time, money and effort to conduct tests that reach a conclusion any wife or mother of boys could've told 'em--most men can't tell apricot from peach, and I ain't talking about fruit.

Recently, the Snarks went carpet shopping at Home Despot, and Mr. Snark's color perception deficits became glaringly clear. Before the ordeal was over, Mrs. Snark wanted to scream in frustration and pummel the man to death with carpet swatches.

After the installation, Mr. Snark stood in the living room, proudly admiring the shiny new carpet.  Then, he exclaimed, "Hey, the new carpet matches the cat tree!"

"Yes, dear. I noticed that too!" 

Actually, the cat tree is tawny whereas the carpet is chocolate, but shhh, don't tell Mr. Snark...




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