Why men are confused most of the time

[Loonman]

You want to be protected when YOU want to be protected.

If, however, you don't want to be protected then we men are acting like "cavemen".

You "hate people who fight" but want guys to fight for you when YOU want them to fight for you...


Go figure......

This is a legit question.......

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. what was the question?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. huh?

[VelmaD]

3. Apparently you're confused...

about the difference between a question and a statement.

And it's not like men are any better. You want us to be smart...but not smarter than you. You want us to be funny...but not funnier than you. You want us to be independent and able to take care of ourselves...except when you want to be in charge and "take care of the little woman".

See how stupid those stereotypes sound when the shoe is on the other foot.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. you want us to know what to do in bed

but somehow be virginal while at it

[Loonman]

6. off topic

not valid

[Loonman]

7. Good point

Touche'

[Misunderestimator]

10. Touche ... n/t

[m-jean03]

5. Maybe you could tell me, 'cause I've always wondered. . .

Are men confused when I hold the door for them and do the whole "after you" chivalry thing?

It's natural for me, but some people say it seems backwards. But I think, just progressive, no? :D

[ProfessorGAC]

27. Don't Overthink That m-jean

Courtesy is courtesy. I hold the door open for ladies as a matter of course, and i never let my wife get in or out of the car without going to her side and opening the door.

(Who drives is a non-issue. She doesn't like driving and does it only because she has to. If she has the choice, someone else will drive, and that someone else is me.)

But, i might take over door holding from someone else, man or woman. Depends on how long they've been holding it. It's not a gender reflex, just a courtesy action.

If you're doing what you described, don't overanalyze it. It's a nice and polite thing to do. Just keep doing it.
The Professor

[m-jean03]

29. Thanks Professor,

Appreciate the input. :-)

[histohoney]

54. Yes,yes.

I can't imagine it ever being wrong to be polite and courters no matter what your gender.

[MissMillie]

47. I think just courteous

If I get to the door first and someone else is right behind me... I'll hold the door for them. Period. It's not about who is a man and who is a woman. It's about courtesy.

[SOteric]

8. I'm not seeing a question here, but more importantly,

it would be better all around, I think if your post didn't assume all men are confused, - with it's very broad brush; or that the subgroup (women?) to whom you address your statements weren't all-inclusive either.

People really are individuals. :hi:

[FarmerOak]

9. OK, there's an unspoken agenda in Loon's statement.

Speaking for myself, I love women. Women are, as a rule, better people than men.

I have my quibbles with the girlies, but, by and large, it would be a miserable world without them.

Yes, the ladies can be confusing, but they DO make it all worthwhile.

I, for one DO like women who are smarter and funnier than I am... because they make me smarter and funnier when I learn from them.

So, at least one man here is going to stand up and say...

God Bless The Ladies! Long May They Wave!

Also, I am a fan of boobs.

[Loonman]

13. Yeah, the agenda is

I don't stand for man bashing.

[VelmaD]

14. But you making broad sweeping generalizations...

about women that could be interpretted as woman-bashing...that's somehow ok?

Whatever.

[Loonman]

16. No, I'm making a generalization about broads

:evilgrin:


Men have no recourse.
Nobody wants to hear about it.
When was the last time somebody told you they were being physically/mentally abused by their wife/girlfriend?

Because guys just get laughed at or it is assumed they deserved it.

[FarmerOak]

17. Loon, you don't know what you're talking about.

The final time we broke up, they took Mrs. Oak away in handcuffs. If you want to laugh at me or assume I deserved it, go ahead. But there's a bajillion stories out there, and your generalizations don't cover but a scrap of them.

You make vague statements and broad generalizations, but you aren't saying anything. Why don't you say what happened, or ask a question in a respectful manner? You might be surprised at the feedback you get. As it is, you are coming off as malcontent and a whiner... is it any wonder you're not getting what you want?

[VelmaD]

18. Oh spare me...

women didn't have a whole lot of say in creating the societal norms you're complaining about. If you're stifling under the patriarchal system that your gender put in place...well then you need to get the rest of your gender up off their ass to help do something to change it.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. Our Gender Put In Place?!?!?

I think you're guilty of the broad generalizations that others tack to Loonman.

Now, i don't agree with Loonman's premise, but to suggest that somehow i (or any other guy) have some culpability in the 30,000 year development of societal norms is as broad and as generalized as one can get.

I also know that you are expressing picque toward Loonman, but i'm a bystander in this, and now you are, indeed, taking generalized shots as men, as if we can actually do something about the situation in the short term.

Seems a bit unfair. No?
The Professor

[VelmaD]

35. Tell me how what I said isn't true...

if Loonman or any other man doesn't like the system of gender expectations currently in place, as a man he is in a much stronger position to do something about it.

And yes, while you do not have culpability for the 30,000 years that preceded your birth...you are culpable if you aren't doing anything to help change the situation NOW.

on edit: Saying don't blame us, we can't do anything about it is a cop out as far as I'm concerned.

[ProfessorGAC]

39. Then I Guess I'll Cop Out

If we have to use your definitions, i'll admit it.

However, since i believe that society is evolving and things are changing, i would suggest that the system is NOT like it was even 50 years ago, let alone the way MEN put in place several thousand years ago. To even suggest otherwise is either blind ideology or obstinance.

Parting Note: I do not believe in the concept "If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem." I think the inverse is true, in that "If you are NOT part of the problem, YOU ARE PART OF THE SOLUTION!" IOW, if i treat everyone equally, regardless of any physical distinctions, i am not part of the problem, and i will refuse to accept any culpability for the past or the present.

I treat NOBODY badly. NOBODY! Got that?
The Professor

[VelmaD]

41. The world may not be like it was 50 years ago...

here in the US but it is still like it was 1000 years ago in some places. And it's not like there isn't a concerted effort by some right-wing nut jobs to roll back any progress women have made in this country. I think it is a fine thing that you treat everyone equally. But as long as there are people out there actively working to deny me full rights as a human being I would hope for more from men of good will.

[ProfessorGAC]

42. Fair Enough

I don't disagree with you in principle, in any way, shape, or form. Your initial argument with Loonman seemed to me to be painting "men" in the abstract all in the same color, and an ugly color it was.

If you can accept that some of us are color, or gender blind, then we are sympatico.
The Professor

[VelmaD]

46. I was drifting off into behavior I don't like...

in others. *needs a self spanking smiley* I got a little annoyed when Loonman came in here spewing stereotypes about women and then wanted some sympathy about having to deal with stereotypes about men.

I really do like men. The vast majority of my friends are men. I just get understandably irritated when men complain about having to conform to gender norms that they don't like. It's not that I'm unsympathetic. I'd like to bust those roles to pieces for both genders' sake. I just get frustrated because the women's movement and its efforts to change those norms got so little help from men. If we could figure out a way to get people of goodwill of both genders to work together on this one...we'd live in a better world and they'd probably put up statues in our honor after the revolution. :)

[Guy_Montag]

33. I think that it's the breakdown of the patriarchal system...

that's causing the confusion. As a woman, you may feel it's not being broken down quickly enough, but for (some of) us men our position in society is unstable & varies with time, place & person.

So where in the past, we were supposed to be the dominant figure in a couple, we are now supposed to be equal partners. Now, that's fine, I always try to please my girlfriends - however, as it happens every girl I've gone out with has wanted me to take charge over virtually everything anyway.

What I'm trying to say is I was brought up to believe that I should always try to please girls only to find that most girls (that I've ended up with - not a large smaple in fairness) prefer me to be more of an old-fashioned dominant man.

I hope you follow my vague rambling argument.

[VelmaD]

36. I don't want you to take this the wrong way...

but have you ever considered why you pick women like that?

[Guy_Montag]

40. I don't pick up women as such

I'm just trying to think back to the last few women I've gone out with... & I'm not sure how I ended up with them. That makes almost no sense.

How can I take that the wrong way?

[VelmaD]

44. I guess I'm speaking out of personal experience...

I tended to date men who ended up having some very similar personality traits that always drove me nuts. After a while I had to sit down and do some heavy thinking about why I did the same thing over and over.

[Guy_Montag]

45. What personality traits were they?

Why do you think you did the same thing over & over again?

What did you end up doing about it & have you had more success recently?

[VelmaD]

51. The men I dated were very passive-aggressive...

although they would claim they were just passive. I have a very forceful personality so it was very easy in the beginning to be in charge. I would imagine I got involved with men like this over and over because in the beginning their willingness to let me be in charge looked like a willingness to dispense with traditional notions of how a woman is supposed to act.

But I got very tired of always having to make the decisions and therefor always being the one to blame if things didn't work out. After a while it gets tiring not having an equal partner in things...someone who will willingly shoulder some of the load.

Anyway, as to whether I've had more success...that's still up in the air. It hasn't been all that long since I figured this stuff out about myself and there hasn't been a long-term relationship since I did.

[geniph]

21. That is absolutely not true

Look at the arrests for domestic violence. They are split almost 50-50 between men and women. Ask any cop. The difference is with hospital admissions; because of their greater size and the increased likelihood that they'll use weapons, men do more damage when they go wacko than most women do.

Cops will arrest a woman just as fast for shoving her husband around as vice-versa, if the man presses charges. Domestic abuse laws are not gender-specific. And I know a number of men who have been abused by their partners, because they were taught not to raise a hand to someone smaller than themselves and they married crazy women.

Domestic abuse is horrible, no matter what the gender of the perpetrator is.

[Angelus]

30. I agree with that, Loonman.

When men do get abused by their wives or girlfriends, they get made fun of all the time.

[Scout]

37. Who is making fun of them?

Other men?

[Angelus]

38. Of course.

As well as other women.

Don't try to lecture me, though, ok?

[Guy_Montag]

11. Actually - he does have a bit of a point...

when I was growing up, my local council had a big campaign of "no means no". It went on (tv, radio, billboards) for most of my formative years.

I rather missed the point, for years & even now a little, whenever I asked a girl for a date, dance or anything & I was told "no". That was it - I gave up, there was never any pursuit because "no means no", I now realise that most of the time "no means convince me", although it's still hard not to revert to type & give up.

On a slightly different note, I was also bollocked by a (female) teacher for holding doors open for girls ("She's quite able to do it herself"). Which on reflection is appaling, but when you 10 or 11 you think you've done something serious.

So while I find I've just about got the hang of women now (at a most superficial level) it's taken long enough.

I hope this makes some sense - I do tend to ramble.

[Misunderestimator]

12. No in response to a request for a date....

is NOT the same thing as a no in a more intimate situation. I think you missed the point of the "No means No" education you got. All due respect, of course. :)

[Guy_Montag]

15. Yeah I figured that out now! Only took about 10 years.

But the problem was it wasn't education as such, not for my age group anyway. It was a series of adverts absolutely everwhere - pictures of couples in nightclubs, pubs and sort of thing - with the something to the effect of "when she says no she means no". I think that had I been a little older I would have picked up on it.

Anyway - it probably had only a fairly minor part in molding my personality - it just feels like it did.

[Lizz612]

19. This is not just a women thing

This is a consistency thing, this is a communication thing, you may see this more in women but I've seen men do it too.
Yeah sometimes a person wants to be protected, sometimes they don't, they have a right to change their mind. Some days people feel more vulnerable, and some days they want to fight their own fights. The real problem is knowing which time is which, thats a communication thing, and thats not specific to one gender or the other.

It sounds like you recently had a bad time of this, I'm sorry and I empathize. But damn it, you men do just as confounding things too!

edit grammar

[Loonman]

20. Well, I was out and this girl got her ass grabbed

So I elbow-shotted the guy and he hit the deck.

Then she calls me a chauvinist pig.

Next time I just won't bother.

[VelmaD]

23. You left out a lot of pertinent info...

like whether the woman in question was out with you. Did she know the guy who grabbed her? Did you actually know either of them? All that kind of thing makes a difference. There's a world of difference between decking some stranger who tries to manhandle one of your friends and decking someone who was touching a woman you don't even know.

[EstimatedProphet]

22. It IS a legitimate question, with a certain kind of woman...

The kind of woman that has serious self-worth issues. The kind that only want attention from someone, in order to prove their value. But far from ALL women.
And I would say (looking at it from the outside):yes, next time, just don't bother. Unless this is someone you know of course, and can gauge whether their reaction is genuine or a ploy.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

24. Relies too much on interpretation to be valid

You want to be protected when YOU want to be protected

Fuck yeah...if a person is coming at me with a knife and you are there..by all means please protect me. I would think the request is a no brainer...but when I make friends and you wish to "protect" me from them by trying to alienate from everyone but you...then it is important to understand that no request for protection was made and you aren't protecting ME from anyone, you are protecting you.


If, however, you don't want to be protected then we men are acting like "cavemen".

Well banging your club and draggin me by the hair because you are ready to leave is a bit over the top.

You "hate people who fight" but want guys to fight for you when YOU want them to fight for you...

Beating up someone for complimenting me is not the same as taking a passive approach when your mother calls me a whore.

(taken from real life observations of my hetero friends)

[Angelus]

25. Yes...I'm confused all the time as well...

when I'm in a relationship. That's why sometimes it seems better to jump into one-night stands rather than jumping into a relationship. :shrug:

[ZenLefty]

26. If I may make some broad generalizations here...

Just from my experience with the opposite sex, I'd say that women want us to know when to do these things. They want us to know when it's okay to protect them, when we should act tough, when we should act sensitive, when we should hold the door open for them and when we should not. They want us to know when no means no, and when no means maybe. A lot of these things depend on the mood of the lady at the time, and this is something we are expected to read and understand without being told. If they have to spell it out for us, that means we don't really understand them as well as they'd like us to.

Sometimes ZenLeftyGirl doesn't like it when I choose the restaurant we're going to - she thinks I'm being too overbearing or dominant, and feels her opinion gets minimized. And sometimes when I ask her where she wants to go, she thinks I'm not being decicive enough or assertive, and she would prefer if I just picked a restaurant. Sometimes I pick a restaurant and we go there and she's cranky because she wasn't in the mood for that kind of food (not that she told me this). I'm just expected to know.

She and I have talked about this. I've promised to try and be more perceptive of her feelings and understanding of what they mean, and she's promised to try to communicate these things to me more clearly. But I think these traits within us are so hard-wired that it's almost impossible to change them, because things aren't much different between us since we talked about it.

[VelmaD]

28. Broad generalizations are the problem...

I get really damn tired of getting tarred with this particular brush because the behavior you ascribe to women is NOT behavior I engage in. My last long-term relationship was exactly the opposite of what you just described. In fact you might as well have been talking about my ex boyfriend in describing ZenLeftyGirl.

And as much as I've heard some men complain about how they wish women would make up their mind what they want and just tell them...I can guaran-damn-tee you that the men in my life haven't seemed to really appreciate me being more straight-forward. But I'm not generalizing that to all men...I'm holding out hope to meet guys who aren't like that.

[ZenLefty]

43. I'm not tarring anybody

A generalization, by definition, is only generally true, and it does not apply to all persons. If you want to make the generalization that "republicans are assholes" or that "Men are pigs", I'd likely agree with you on both counts. But I know several republicans who are nice people, and lots of men who bear no resemblance to swine.

What I described in my post above is true of just about every single relationship I have ever been in for my entire life. Every single woman I have ever known does that to some extent. And I hear other guys talk about this same thing, so I know it's not just some phenomenon unique to my own little world. I know it's not true of every woman.

I don't consider this observation to be bashing or demeaning or even being critical. I'm not judging women by this at all. I'm just pointing out a difference in the way men and women think, generally speaking. It's not bad behavior or unreasonable behavior, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Communication is the key to any relationship, and if one person communicates on a different level than another person, the result will not be long years of happiness. If one person comminucates with blunt use of language, and the other communicates via the subtleties of emotions, then they both need to get on the same page somehow, and learn to listen to each other.

[VelmaD]

52. Truer words were never spoken...

than your last paragraph.

[FarmerOak]

34. Yep, that sounds about right.

So you learn and you learn and you learn some more.

You learn to say "Hey, I thought we might eat Thai food tonight... sound good?"

Or you learn to say "You in the mood for anything special?"

Or you learn to be a world-class masturbator.

Let's face it; it's their world; we just live in it.

As Kinison said, "It's either that, or you suck a big dick for the rest of your life. Thanks, God! Thanks for the Big Menu!"
(Note: Does not apply to homosexuals)

[SOteric]

50. I have to observe that these issues cannot be hard-wired

to a gender.

I'm well able to communicate my preferences in a constructive way, to share my feelings without launching a conflagration, to negotiate choices on dinner/movie dates, - and - I have that double XX chromosome configuration that makes me a female.

My relationships have been known to flail and die for any number of reasons, but communication and/or a lack of mind-reading skills on the part of either party has never numbered amoung them.

[MissMillie]

53. To be honest

If someone I was with were genuinely confused, I wouldn't fault them for it, and I'd be happy to clear up any confusion if they'd be willing to ask.

For when I want someone to fight for me, it's usually not about violence. Stick up for me when I need someone on my side, and if someone is showing me some interest and you feel threatened, don't say you're going to punch his lights out. Instead, fight to keep me so happy that I won't even look at another guy.

I'd do it for you.....

[Champ]

32. I think you may need better examples

Yes some women want you to fight for them, if an attacker comes after them for example but that is different then trying to fight someone over "Are you looking at my girl dawg?" That's being a bit immature. From my experience some women like to be protected not overprotected you know what Im saying? Someones ability to fight should be used for self defense and the defense of others, not for dumb shit which is where the term "caveman" comes in. I wish you used better examples because it is difficult to understand the point you may be trying to make it so I countered whatever that point may be the best I could. But don't wrap your brain around trying to figure out the opposite sex, you'll just end up more confused.

[camero]

48. Better to err on the side of safety

Fight for them and protect anyway. I'd rather take a little ribbing than to see somebody get hurt.

[sus]

49. call me crazy...but something tells me..

that SOMEONE is having girl trouble...





am i right?

hot? cold? luke warm?