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There are obvious differences between men and women that don't involve genitalia or chromosomes. One such difference is how men latch onto completely inconsequential, contrived things and become completely competitive about them and have a great time. Women, for the most part, are totally unable to successfully complete this task.

Women do things like form knitting circles (or younger, sassier ones form "stitch and bitch" groups). They have dinner parties, write emails about personal news, go buy stuff for self-/life-improvement purposes and generally foster relationships that focus on being productive and cooperative.

Sometimes women have "frenemies" or whatever, in which women undertake the same aforementioned activities but instead of cooperation and enjoyment, the activities foster competition and stress. After the activity has taken place, the woman usually comes home and bitches to her other friends or a significant other about what a bitch the other person(s) involved is. This, especially from the male, elicits the response, "Why do you hang out with her then?" This is, for the most part, not a part of the male MO. Men have learned since the dawn of time (the playground) that other men who don't play nice get beat up. And now that we're grown ups, they get ignored.

Men, on the other hand, do this wonderful thing where they create little competitive games, signifying nothing, that they enjoy greatly. Example: Flatbarrel phenomenon. While we have seen numerous examples of men engaging in lengthy interrogative dialogues to avoid the flatbarrel and arguments pertaining to a given flatbarrel's validity, I guarantee you, the flatbarrelling game would be no fun with a group of women. Because women don't care. Because if I thoroughly explained how and what a flatbarrel was and then flatbarrelled one of my female friends, I'm sure the response would be, "...okay. Anyway, today I...." Which completely defeats the fun, because obviously the person's reaction is what makes it fun.

Similarly, if I blew up another woman's spaceship, they'd keep right on chatting and would silently think I was weird. And even if I explained that there's a whole community of people who would find it hilarious, I think that because this game has no basis in reality and is essentially a competitive activity in which the only thing it produces is bragging rights, the average woman would just shrug.

In fact, studies show that while both men and women have elevated testosterone levels when they beat someone else in a skill-related challenge, men have elevated testosterone levels whenever they beat someone at any challenge at all. For example, if I tell 2 men to draw a card from an uno deck and the first one to draw a "skip" card wins, the man who draws the skip card first will have increased testosterone and the "loser" will have decreased levels. Women's levels stay the same. Actually, men's testosterone levels increase when they don't even do anything. If their sports team wins, it'll go up.

How did they find this out? You get people to spit in a cup. A female researcher was studying this effect during the World Cup finals one year. A group of Italians were watching the game, and Italy lost. One man had been screaming so much and cheering so hard there was blood in his spit when he brought it to her. When she commented on how raw his throat must have been, he replied, "No, saliva girl. It is my heart that bleeds."

So, now that I'm writing the longest post ever, I might as well continue my thought process, which is that men, necessarily, tilt if they run bad. Even if you know you just got 1 outtered and your opponent put all his money in bad, your testosterone level necessarily drops. Because you lost. Because you can tell your brain all you want that you're a good player, that you completely out played that SOB, that he's a moron, but, frankly, your hormonal system is having none of that. You, as a man, can use your frontal cortex all you want, but the more primitive parts of your brain are way too hard-wired to care about your logical rationalizations. Your brain thinks you're a loser. At least for the moment.

Which is why I've had a hard time understanding why more people don't go on winner's tilt. I go on winner's tilt. I win, I think I must be playing well, because I'm winning and I get sloppy/impatient. Losing makes me think harder about what I'm doing wrong, what the correct play is, what my opponent is thinking. (As opposed to when I'm on winner's tilt and I think, I has bottom pair! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) Many people (men, ldo) go on tilt when they lose, which has never made any sense to me until now. Higher testosterone levels = more confidence and possibly increased concentration.

Wow, I just found the holy grail of poker psychology, imo.