THE HUMAN CONDITION / MEN AND DIRECTIONS : Going in Circles

Joan Kradin and her boyfriend had just landed at London’s Heathrow Airport, and she couldn’t wait to see the English countryside.

As they settled into their rental car, she asked if he knew the way to their destination, a village called Upper Slaughter. Of course he did. After all, he had been to England before.

“We circled the airport I don’t know how many times,” groans Kradin, a Los Angeles businesswoman. “We circled for probably an hour. I felt dazed.” Kradin says she didn’t open her mouth because she didn’t know where they were either.

Finally, her boyfriend discovered the right route and they arrived at the hotel before their reservation was canceled.

It’s now years later. The boyfriend is an ex-boyfriend. Still, Kradin can’t help but ask herself: Why can’t men just stop and ask for directions?

Pose that question and women sigh with frustration. Most men, meanwhile, go on the defensive, offering solid reasons for why they act that way.

It’s a question that has piqued interest among readers of the best-selling “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,” says its author, linguist Deborah Tannen.

In the book, she offers only one example of men’s reluctance to seek geographical help. But, she says, “if I had to point to one thing that has gotten the most attention from the book, that’s it.”

There seem to be no formal studies of men’s unwillingness to seek directions. Professional and personal theories abound, however, including Heathrow-circler Joan Kradin’s: “I guess they feel it’s an admission of inadequacy.”

Bull’s-eye, say therapists who study the male psyche. Men often consider it their job--even their duty--to find places, says Michael Mills, an associate professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University.

Never mind that these days women pump their own gas and men flaunt their culinary skills. When the world is suddenly reduced to a man, a woman and a map, it’s he who is supposed to be omnipotent.

Men’s reluctance to seek geographical help also reflects part of a larger, gender-related problem, Mills says. “Men do not like to communicate anything to females that presents themselves as looking weak.”

The reluctance may originate in childhood, says Dr. Joyce Brothers, the syndicated newspaper advice columnist. As youngsters, she says, men were likely to take orders from their mothers and female teachers. Once they gain independence, they’d rather not let women tell them how to do things, including drive.

Faced with a choice of toughing it out over an unfamiliar stretch of road or asking for help, a man often will choose the former, risking the wrath of weary passengers and expectant hosts with fallen souffles.

“Asking directions, for a man, is like removing makeup for a woman,” offers Warren Farrell of San Diego, author of “Why Men Are the Way They Are,” a 1986 bestseller. “It leaves both vulnerable.”

When a woman is lost, she doesn’t think of seeking help as a sign of weakness, says Mills. “Excuse me if this sounds sexist, but women are just more comfortable in a role that elicits help.”

A woman who is lost usually decides fairly quickly to ask for help, says Alvin Baraff, a Washington psychologist. There’s no loss of ego, no sense of shame. Once she has the directions, she is likely to see the experience as a success because she solved the problem, Baraff says. The fact that she didn’t solve the problem single-handedly doesn’t matter.

To be fair, though, male ego isn’t the whole problem. Men do more than their share of the driving, says Mills, who researches gender differences. Look around. If there is a couple in a car, chances are the man is driving. Therefore, the onus of finding the destination is more often on men. And some women may become spoiled if they are accustomed to the passenger’s role.

While personal theories suggest that men won’t ask how to get from Point A to Point B, ironically, if they used a map, they’d probably reach their destination sooner. According to studies, some men are superior map readers. One study, published last year in the Educational Review, found little difference in map-reading abilities among young children. But by adolescence, the boys performed better in both map drawing and reading.

“Men and women process maps in different ways,” says Neil Schwartz, an associate professor of psychology at Cal State Chico, who has studied gender differences in map reading. Women tend to use their verbal skills when trying to remember locations and how to get to them (“Turn left at the Italian restaurant--the place we had the great lasagna”).

Men deemphasize semantics and “emphasize the actual spatial relationship of that location to other locations,” says Schwartz (“Turn east two blocks after exiting the freeway”). Men who are very good at this make the best map readers, he says.

For many couples, verbal warfare can erupt once it’s clear the driver doesn’t know where he is heading. The trouble, experts say, is miscommunication that may begin when a well-meaning female passenger suggests that the male driver do what she would do if she were driving.

She says: “There’s a gas station. Why don’t we pull in and ask directions?”

He hears: “You’ve failed. You couldn’t find your way out of a paper bag.”

He then often responds with impatience, belligerence and--if all else fails--even blame: “Are you sure you copied the directions down right?”

Whether this freeway skirmish escalates to an all-out war of wits depends partly on the length of the relationship, Mills says. Men are much less likely to admit they are lost at the beginning of a relationship, he says. It’s the “good-impression stage.”

According to Kenneth Wetcher, a Houston psychiatrist, men’s and women’s behavior in the car isn’t so different from their approach to a tightly sealed pickle jar. A woman will try to open it and, if she can’t, she’ll usually ask for help after a reasonable number of attempts. “The guy is going to get a hernia before he will hand it over (to someone else),” Wetcher says with a laugh.

To keep the peace, some couples have learned to strike a middle ground.

One Los Angeles couple, together for 15 years, follow this guideline: He will ask directions, but only if he can easily ask passersby. “I won’t get out of the car to ask directions,” he says, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It’s too embarrassing.” If getting directions involves walking into a store or a gas station, it’s understood who does the schlepping.

Beverly Harmeier, a Long Beach secretary, relies on humor when her boyfriend gets temporarily misplaced. “Taking the scenic route again?” she’ll ask. “Um-hmm,” he’ll answer, and she knows to settle back and try to enjoy the ride.

“It is the hardest thing in the world to button your lip and circle endlessly,” says Brothers, who nevertheless recommends doing just that.

Cathy Connelly has childhood memories of long car rides with her stubborn father at the wheel. He’d never stop to ask, always insisting that he could find the way. Connelly, who has a public affairs firm in Los Angeles, married a man who doesn’t hesitate to ask for directions, but plenty of her clients are from the same mold as her father.

Modern technology, though, has given her hope.

When the lost souls en route to her office call in for directions via car phone, not only does it save time, she notes. “It helps them save face.” After all, it’s just their little secret.