to hurt or not to hurt

Everyone probably remembers the above commercial from the Super Bowl. It was one of the more funny commercials, though I don't think it was in the running for the funniest. Something else stuck out about it to me, though.

Many years ago when I was in high school a friend who was a girl asserted to me that women have a greater tolerance for pain than men. Her argument was that women deal with pain that men couldn't even imagine, therefore women are more capable of handling pain. I never really accepted her argument because this would be very difficult to prove (How can you really know how much pain someone else is experiencing?). Since then, I have always noticed when the issue of pain and one of the sexes becomes a topic of discussion.

It is my guess that there were probably a lot of women who saw the commercial above who laughed at the idea of men being able to deal with pain. In looking around, I did find an article that notes that women tend to respond more sensitively to pain, as if it is more acute. The problem is this says nothing of who copes with pain better.

There is a good chance that I am not someone who copes well with pain. The things that I have gone through in my life that were painful are not things that I have much stomach to go through again, and when I am sick or in pain I am incredibly impatient to get past whatever the issue is. That probably describes most people to some degree, though, so this again illustrates the difficulty in knowing who is best at dealing with pain.

The long and short of it is, if something like the above happens to me I will probably say that I'm good to appear tough. I might whine about the pain a little if I think I can get away with it as well, though.