We're not lost. There’s a 7-11

One of the tasks that guys are inherently incapable of performing is asking for directions. There seems to be only one reason for this incapacity which is a fear of admitting to being lost. Never mind that they are lost; that is irrelevant.
Why "lost" is such a problem for men is unknown. Even guys don’t know why they can’t admit to being lost.

But the unnatural phenomenon explains why men have such a fascination with Google Earth, GPSs and maps in general. It doesn’t explain why they are occasionally lost, however.

Guys don’t even want a girl who is with them to ask for directions. They will wander in circles. driving both counter- and -clockwise, past the same neighborhood convenience store several times and refuse to stop and let her walk inside to ask for directions.

Maybe they have heard women use that query as a pickup line a few too many times to let their spouse or girlfriend use it for locating an actual destination. I don’t know.

Also, I suspect that sometimes the guy doesn’t actually want to find the spot in question—like when it is the location of Great Aunt Polly’s 80th birthday celebration or the handbag store.

Nevertheless, men tackle the problem of being lost by driving around in circles, while women ask for directions. Of course women will want to know the answer in terms of landmarks, not in terms of GPS coordinates or compass points. Say "over by that Maverik station," not "west on 500 South."

So as I was looking for reasons for the behavior in question, I checked some online references and found the following news story:
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City police arrested a Virginia couple over the weekend after they asked an officer for directions. WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions…

Collins said somehow they ended up in the Cherry Hill section of south Baltimore. Hopelessly lost, relief melted away concerns after they spotted a police vehicle.
"I said, ‘Thank goodness, could you please get us to 95?" Kelly said.

"The first thing that she said to us was no -- you just ran that stop sign, pull over," Brook said. "It wasn’t a big deal. We’ll pay the stop sign violation, but can we have directions?"

"What she said was ‘You found your own way in here, you can find your own way out.’" Kelly said.
Collins said the couple spotted another police vehicle and flagged that officer down for directions. But Officer Natalie Preston, a six-year veteran of the force, intervened.

"…the officer screeched up behind us and got out of the car and asked me to step out. I obeyed," Kelly said. "I obeyed everything -- stepped out of the car, put my hands behind my back, and the next thing I know, I was getting arrested for trespassing."
"By this time, I was completely in tears," Brook said. "I said, ‘Ma’am, you know, we just need your help. We are not trying to cause you any trouble. I’m not leaving him here.’ What she did was walk over to my side of the car and said, ‘Ok, we are taking you downtown, too.’"

Okay, alright. Maybe I will have to rethink my strategy for finding places. Maybe the fear men have of asking for directions has a completely sensible underlying rationale: what they really fear is spending a night in jaul, with or without their wives or girlfriends. I can’t fault that.