So men listen with only half their brains. Yeah, well … um, what was the question again? explores the issue.
I was rummaging around the refrigerator for a beer when I heard a report on the radio saying that men use only half their brains.

I was troubled by the finding because I thought I remembered that human beings as a whole, and I'm assuming this includes men, use only some tiny fraction of their brains, like 10 percent or, in the case of magazine columnists, 3 percent. I also seemed to recall that each human had something like 40 billion trillion gazillion brain cells, so many, according to a university study, that if just one person's cells were laid end to end and lit with a match, the fuse would be so long that you could blow up Venus.

The point is, years ago I had calculated the vast number of brain cells, divided it by the small percentage of them used, and figured there were more than enough left over to be killed off by beer. So when I heard that men used half their brains, I wasn't thrilled. This would mean I had fewer brain cells that could be killed, which, in turn, meant I could consume less beer.

At dinner, I told my wife what I had heard.

"Men use half their brains," I said. "I don't know what women use. They didn't say. It was on the news."

"To listen," she said.

"What?"

"Men use only half their brain to listen," she said.

"Oh."

I didn't hear that part.

Turns out the study found that women listen with their entire brains. The question, then, is this: If men listen with only half their brains, what are they doing with the other halves?

If you are a woman, you know one thing men are doing is talking, usually about themselves. You also know that another thing is interrupting, typically to talk about themselves. You know, finally, that what they are doing the most is not listening.