Blogs

By Renee Burns Lonner

As an older woman in a long-term (and happy) marriage, I have probably never felt so vindicated and understood as when Amy Schumer reflected on one of her husband’s reactions.

First, please note that Amy Schumer has talked for years about her husband being diagnosed as an adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder and she talks about the fact that he talks about it. Probably not as much as she talks about it, but he does not regard it as a secret. No, forget privacy, his personal mental health information is out there for millions to know. If he didn’t want this, he should not have married a comedienne, let alone Amy Schumer.

Back to the quote about his behavior. Amy described his unusual response to something and then said, “It's one of the times we play the game — autism or just a man?” Wow, up to that point, I thought I was the only one with that thought. The thought almost embarrassed me — so judgmental. Especially for a psychotherapist. Tsk, tsk.

Nonetheless, I have teased my husband about the following kind of exchange that often occurs when we leave a social event:

Me: What a lovely dinner party! Such great conversation, good food. And — what did you think when Clare said she’s getting a boa constrictor as a pet?

Or: Don’t you think their 12-year-old is too old to be streaking naked through the house?

Or: What did you think of their pet cockatoo that flew through the dining room during dessert? It would have been awful if the bird had pooped on the strawberry meringue.

Husband: Huh, what?

So imagine my shock the other night when I was getting ready for bed and my husband looked up from his book to say, apropos to absolutely nothing, “You have prehensile feet.”

Me: “Umm, could you share a little context? And what in the world are prehensile feet?”

My husband then explained that they are feet that can be used to grasp small objects. So far, so good, if you live in the Twilight Zone. So I asked what brought this up and he explained that the term was in the book that he was reading; he did not know what it meant, so he looked it up. (Ok, let’s be real here. He uses an e-book, which means that he put his finger on the word and the definition appeared, like magic. Looked it up, my foot. Pun intended.)

Again, so far, so good. On some other planet. Next question — what made him tell me that I had prehensile feet? Oh, he says calmly, as if one makes these kinds of observations every day, he noticed that while I was recuperating from hip surgery and could not bend down as well as usual, occasionally I used one of my feet to grasp a sock or something else that fell on the floor while I was dressing. That was weeks ago. OMG.

He then added, again as if prehensile feet are an everyday topic and he is an anatomy expert, that he did not have them. After staring at him for a couple of minutes, waiting for I don’t know what, I suggested that that made me closer to chimps than he is. I then headed to the computer to find out about prehensile feet. Which apparently I have. And yes, I am closer to chimps than he is. He returned to his book.

I have so many questions and just one teeny, weeny, itsy, bitsy comment — WHAAT? Clearly he’s been holding out on me! All those “huh, what?” when, in fact, here is evidence that he can be an astute observer!

In what seems like the last century (because, in fact, it was), John Gray, Ph.D., wrote about gender differences in the landmark book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. While Gray gets credit for several concepts infiltrating popular culture, his 30+ year-old book now reads like something of a cross between Good Housekeeping and I Love Lucy. Clearly, gender differences are here to stay, and our culture needs plenty of sensitive updating of our information in this area — without stereotypes or condescension. I am happy to report that many gifted researchers are working on this very subject. (An excellent example, "Sex Differences Matter: Males and Females Are Equal But Not the Same,” in the February 2023 academic journal Physiology and Behavior.

In the meantime, I’m going to simply enjoy my prehensile feet. Picking up socks is just the beginning.

— Renee Burns Lonner

Renee Burns Lonner is a management consultant for television newsrooms and a licensed psychotherapist based in Los Angeles. Her published work has appeared in many professional publications. During the pandemic, she shifted to humor writing and has been published by Medium, LOL Comedy and the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop blog. In 2021, she published her first humor book If You Give a Man a Tesla: A Parody and is currently working on a collection of essays.