Temperature regulation.

I don't know if this a problem all men have, or if I'm just lucky in my encounters lately, but it seems to me as though men have no concept of temperature regulation.

Eric's heating and a/c settings in his car are always either off or on high. "Oh," he thinks, "I'm cold." He blasts the heat. "Oh," he thinks, "it got hot." He turns the heat off. He never turns it DOWN. Just off.

I'm on a plane, and it's freezing in the cabin, so I call my pilots and ask them to turn the heat up. They oblige. Since I told them it's freezing, they blast the heat, for which I am grateful. Twenty minutes later, people are getting a little too warm, so I call the flight deck back and say hey it got warm, thank you, can you turn it down a little now? And they turn the heat off. Um, guys? We're still in a metal tube at 30,000 feet. You turn the heat OFF, and it's going to get cold again. This has been happening to me on every trip lately. "Hey guys, it's getting a little warm in the back now that people are boarding, but it's still cold in the front with the door open." Heat off. Um.. guys? I can't feel my toes.

Eric has the bonus problem of not recognizing when it's stifling hot in his apartment. All summer long, I'd show up, and go immediately to the door to get some fresh air in the place. I'm usually colder than most people around me, but I'm coming to learn that if most people are comfortable, Eric is apparently freezing. A few days ago, we had some weather in the area, namely a pressure system above us that was the same as a category 3 hurricane, and thus it was a bit windy. He doesn't have a cover for his a/c unit, so wind was charging through and making his apartment legitimately cold. We were buried in blankets, cowering from the wind. We determined that heat was necessary in this case. (Also, we rigged up a pretty sweet temporary cover out of a fitted sheet.)

Yesterday I show up, and it's a little warm, but I don't think much of it. He had the door to his room closed, but again, I don't think much of it. When it is eventually time for sleeping, I head into his bedroom, and am immediately stifling. Having previously been asleep on the couch, I don't have the available faculties to problem solve the heat, so I lay down and attempt to fall back to sleep. After about ten minutes, I cannot ignore how hot I am. I get up to check the thermostat, and he has it set at EIGHTY DEGREES. Eighty.

So I turn the heat off.

This morning we wake up, and it is freezing. "In hindsight, I should have probably just turned the heat down instead of off. I took your extreme approach." Turns out, the balcony door was cracked open, so not only was the heat off, but the outside was also getting in. We close the door, turn the heat back on (at a reasonable temperature), and all is well.

But I have to wonder why the door was open. Could it be that he realized it was too hot, and decided to let in some fresh air? Maybe he's learning. I, however, may be regressing.


Edited to add: Eric's friend Ed is in town this weekend, crashing at his place. This morning, when Eric and I were freezing, Ed was perfectly comfortable. "Guys, it's not even cold." What does it all mean?