msmith, how do more younger women at bars not throw themselves at you begging you to sleep with them and beat up their guy friends?
Also, can I request that every single time a guy posts a thread about some messed up female who won’t date him or give him the time of day that we refer back to this thread? It explains so much.
I don’t really understand what point you’re trying to make but I’ve known men who act exactly like the woman in your example. He says, “you’re smothering me! You don’t give me any space!!”. And finally the frustrated woman says, “WHY!?!? Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want me to come over on Friday nights so you could unwind on your own?” So what does being a confusing bad communicator have to do with sex?
My experiences and observations:
A man is either a straight-shooter or a bullshitter; there’s no in-between. After meeting a man for the first time, I can ascertain within a couple minutes which group he belongs to. Roughly 75% are always honest and 25% are always full of shit.
Women are much more complex. I’ve only met one who was a complete bullshitter, and I’ve never met one who was completely honest. They are all disingenuous to a greater or lesser degree. Unlike a man, every action a woman takes - and everything she says - is rooted in deception and disingenuousness.
I’m starting to realize how black people feel on the Dope when they have to sit through threads that say things like, “Why do you guys smell weird/tip badly/have such bizarre hair?”
I think it is women in relationships that are confusing. They sure as hell confuse me.
But women as judges are as predictable as men. I know what women judges are going to do perhaps even better than men judges. When I was young, I knew what my mother was going to do, except when it came to how she related to my father or sister (mom and sis have a tumultuous relationship). Women lawyers? I know what they are going to do if I am properly prepared (like Batman!).
Really now? And you’ve met men who are completely honest? Please forward one of those men who is never dishonest about anything to me immediately, so that I may declare him my boyfriend, and King of the Universe.
If I were MeanOldLady, I’d have a new custom title. Hell, I might steal it anyway. 
The women in your world suck.
Ooh, I like that. May I suggest a title - “The Doctor McCoy Principle” from Star Trek’s Doctor McCoy who made a career out of blowing up over reading too much into people’s words that they didn’t actually say.
The women in your world suck, too.
People are people. We come in all sorts of packages; some big, some small; some pink, some brown; some skinny, some fat; some with penises, some with vaginae. For all the vast physical, emotional, cultural, educational, sexual, habitual, and other differences between us, I would think that gender would be one of the least significant contributors.
Hell, how often on here do you mistakenly think someone is of one gender, only to learn later that he was a she, or vice versa. There are definite biological differences (thankfully!) but to categorically state that one gender is more confusing than another gender is ridiculous.
As for communications between a couple, I think a couple of assumptions from the start can help you. Assume that someone who loves you isn’t trying to hurt you; assume that if something they’ve said or done hurts you, you might be mis-interpreting it, or they might not be aware that it hurts you. Start off from a position of clarification - did you mean this that way? I’d say this would take care of about 99% of the fights couples have. Also, if they actually did mean to hurt you, they’re not the loving person you thought they were. I can’t think of any reason why this wouldn’t apply equally well to both genders.
Everybody knows that gin is MOL’s drink.
You seriously needed to be told this?
Don’t be silly. I do love gin, but I am also an unabashed whiskey enthusiast. And now to update my Netflix queue, just in case **Stranger **isn’t fast enough of a driver to make it by tomorrow.
Wait a minute, MeanOldLady. I think you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. You’re going to get with a guy who’s uber honest? What happens when you want him to pretend to tell you that dress doesn’t make you look fat or that he genuinely cares about watching chick flicks with you? God knows if he doesn’t lie, you’ll fly into an illogical rage and addle your lil irrational mind.
Right…and all the guys here who start threads that go like “I know she’s into me because she spent three minutes in my presence without running away in horror and even smiled at me once, but why won’t she date me?” are living totally within the realm of logic and reason. :dubious:
I like this one! As someone (on the previous page, so I can’t look up who it was) said, it’s relationships that are confusing.
I also have to say that guys are not always 100% face-value-up-front-dude either, but sometimes honestly don’t realise it that everything, even things that they are saying, have context and connotations and all that confusing stuff. Let me give you an example.
Man: “When’s dinner?”
Me: “Why are you asking?”
Man: Insert long story about how women are always thinking that things mean other things and why can’t I take a simple question at face value
Me: “Er… ok… 7:30, then?”
Man: (disappointed) “Oh, no, I have to leave at 7.”
Me: :smack:
Here, Man is sure that he has asked a simple question, “When’s dinner?”. Now if I had gone off on a rant about how he expects me in the kitchen or something, that would be reading more into the question than he intended.
However, it is highly unlikely that Man is asking this question out of a simple desire for information. More likely he has a practical intention. It could be because he’s hungry. It could be because he has to leave at a particular time. He could be trying to find out whether he has time to nip out for a beer before dinner. The answer to “why are you asking?” here is “Because I have to leave at 7”, not “Why are women so complicated, sometimes a simple question is just a simple question, blah blah fire hand-axe”. In other words, men infer things just as much as women, but we are socialised to believe that only women do it, so sometimes a man can do the same thing while insisting all the time that he isn’t, dammit! Which can get mighty annoying.
And, needscoffee, I agree with you there. If a man needs to be told that he really ought to object when his friend calls his girlfriend a bitch in front of “everyone”, it isn’t the girl who has communication issues.
Those are pretty much my all time favorite threads. I like the ones that include a 3 month history analyzing the hidden meaning behind every subtle sign the woman has given and end with “So, should I say hello?”
I think those threads are probably all started by homosexuals though because straight men all communicate extremely directly and don`t look for hidden meanings. Not sure why gay guys even care if women are into them…
So for those of you stuck in these bizarre-o funhouse relationships, please know this is a choice you are making.
See above.
While making broad assumptions based on gender would lead to poorer decision making, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the different conversation styles that men and women use.
Instead of thinking of them as the ways men and women talk I like to think of them as two different conversation styles used by most people where one is used more by women and the other more by men.
Once you think of these things without all their gender associations it just becomes a matter of hearing a person (of any gender) and then understanding that there are two ways to interpret the same sentence. If you’re used to conversation style A and you miss understand someone then you could try and interpret their words through conversation style B and see it makes more sense.
The ways that most men and women communicate are different, but that difference doesn’t apply to all men and women. Yet that doesn’t mean we should ignore these differences, it just means we should probably stop talking about them in terms of genders.
And it wouldn’t be to harmful to assume that when a man misunderstands a woman it was because the man is used to a conversation style used mostly by men and the woman was using a conversation style used mostly by women.
I’ve already my mind! :eek:
Wow. Just, wow.
My eyes have been opened the last few weeks to the bigotry that seems to be common amongst some men. I say some because I don’t know just how many men actually think the same way that the vocal men have been acting here.
I can’t even begin to imagine how my life would be had the women of the past not taken a stand for their right to be considered equal.
Fighting Ignorance Since 1973
(It’s taking long than we thought)
Indeed.
I’m sooo not getting into this argument. I just wanted to say that I’ve been mis-reading the thread title this entire time as “Are women confused by nature?”
I kept picturing some chick in a sundress standing in a meadow, all 
at the flowers and butterflies.