# Do adult men need women to be the best people they can be?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 18, 2011, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812 "2011-04-18T07:48:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheWhoToTheWhatNow)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/41 "2011-04-18T20:01:35Z")
> [@Malthus](#):
>
> On a more serious note, I’ll say this: that in our culture at least, both men and women who are _not_ in a relationship tend to hang about with peer groups of their own sex, who often as not drive the individuals in a lowest-common-denominator sense. For men, this sometimes takes the form of an extreme laddishness - excessive drinking and drugging is encouraged, along with low personal standards. It’s more a tendency than a rule of course.
I agree with this. I think the problem is common to both sides, but I think there’s enough “a man should take care of a woman” mentality left in society under all the “a woman should be independent” feminism that if both a guy and a girl are low-quality people the girl is more likely to find a man who accepts her low quality than the guy is likely to find a girl who accepts his. Not that girls have it easy but again going by dating sites and stuff, a woman’s profile can be “lol I liek rainbowz k” and she’ll get a thousand messages if she’s cute\* but a guy who’s profile is awesome except his income is listed as low or he has no car will get skipped over.
\*(this isn’t to say that those men represent intelligent high-quality Dopers, just the mass majority of single guys perusing dating sites.
- TWTTWN
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/42 "2011-04-18T20:02:08Z")
Nah. A man needs a woman like a fish needs a bicycle.
Seriously, if you asked the question with the genders reversed, you’d be a raving sexist. I’ve been married, I’ve been in relationships, and I’ve been single. The most productive times of my life have been when I was single, and it’s not close.
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### Author:  [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheWhoToTheWhatNow)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/43 "2011-04-18T20:04:45Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> You definitely seem to think all women are motivated by the same or similar things and all men are motivated by the same or similar other things. This is simply not true.
Why is what you’ve experienced in your life and the people you’ve met what’s true and what I’ve experienced in my life and the people I’ve met not true?
- TWTTWN
---
### Author:  [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheWhoToTheWhatNow)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/44 "2011-04-18T20:07:27Z")
> [@StusBlues](#):
>
> Seriously, if you asked the question with the genders reversed, you’d be a raving sexist.
Agreed. Society currently encourages girls to be independent and take on the world, but now men are macho morons who buy into gender roles too much and see the world through too sharp a lens if the same message is given to them.
- TWTTWN
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/45 "2011-04-18T20:09:01Z")
> [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](#):
>
> Why is what you’ve experienced in your life and the people you’ve met what’s true and what I’ve experienced in my life and the people I’ve met not true?
>
> - TWTTWN
All it takes is one case example to disprove a theory.
‘‘All women are one way and all men are another way.’’
‘‘People are shaped by their experiences, which may or may not include their biological sex and gender identity.’’
Which seems more reasonable to you? Which one seems easier to disprove?
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/46 "2011-04-18T20:09:23Z")
> [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](#):
>
> Why is what you’ve experienced in your life and the people you’ve met what’s true and what I’ve experienced in my life and the people I’ve met not true?
>
> - TWTTWN
If you say all birds are blue, I need only present a black bird to prove your claim false. If I say some birds are black as well as blue, you can present as many blue birds as you like and it won’t prove me wrong.
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### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/47 "2011-04-18T20:20:30Z")
> [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](#):
>
> I don’t subscribe to the notion that everyone is exactly the same except some people have vaginas and some have penises and that’s the only difference. It’s not a judgement, I’m not saying one side is better than the other…
Taking the polar opposite position, that women and men are widely different animals that are predictable based on the number of X chromosomes they have, is just as unenlightened as assuming the sexes are exactly the same. You can acknowledge differences between the sexes without making the kind of statements you have.
> [@](#):
>
> Why? Because it doesn’t fit the current norm of “everyone is a special wonderful snowflake and no one is different from anyone else and let’s all just get along”?
No, because the manner in which you talk about men and women marks you as someone whose experiences are quite limited and yet (like another 20-something poster who has been recently pitted) you seem blissfully unaware of that. For one, your pronouncements about how desperate men are just don’t even make sense, but you think they do because you can’t see beyond the IT/barfly crowd that comprises your world. How many doctors, lawyers, car mechanics, starving artists, plumbers, soldiers, political staffers, truck drivers, police officers, EMTs, assistant principals, college professors, store managers, contractors, concession stand attendants, and \ meet this stereotypical loser profile that is apparently the antichrist of your version of masculinity? You seem to have a fixation on that guy.
For two, you seem incapable of talking about the opposite sex without resorting to oudated tropes about “how women are”. Women get pregnant for 9 months and have PMS, so _of course_, this means relationships benefit women moreso than men. Right. Makes perfect sense to me, especially the PMS thing. Because if it’s anything we girls know, it’s that men are the cure-all for PMS.
Amiright, ladies? (I am mocking you right now. It’s all in good fun, though.)
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/48 "2011-04-18T20:25:59Z")
My extensive experience with pregnancy and PMS leads me to… oh wait a minute… I don’t have extensive experience with pregnancy and PMS.
No intuition, no deep connection to the earth, no PMS, and no babies. I’m terrible at this “being a woman” schtick.
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### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/49 "2011-04-18T20:28:35Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> No intuition, no deep connection to the earth, no PMS, and no babies. I’m terrible at this “being a woman” schtick.
Me too. Sometimes I doubt I even want to be married.
“But how can that be?”, I ask Sejourner Truth. “Ain’t I a woman?”
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/50 "2011-04-18T20:39:55Z")
> [@Bosstone](#):
>
> If you say all birds are blue, I need only present a black bird to prove your claim false. If I say some birds are black as well as blue, you can present as many blue birds as you like and it won’t prove me wrong.
**TWTTWN** , what it comes down to is this:
I’m not a fuckin’ blue bird, man.
You can either take us at our word that we know ourselves better than you do, or you can learn nothing. Given your stated values, it seems like you’d come down on the learning side of things.
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/51 "2011-04-18T20:43:32Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> No intuition, no deep connection to the earth, no PMS, and no babies. I’m terrible at this “being a woman” schtick.
No PMS? In my infinite generosity as a woman I feel compelled to let you have mine!
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### Author:  [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheWhoToTheWhatNow)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/52 "2011-04-18T20:45:03Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> ‘‘All women are one way and all men are another way.’’
I don’t see where I said that all women or all men are anything.
> [@Bosstone](#):
>
> If you say all birds are blue
I didn’t say that.
I sure would like to meet the guy who’s making these absolute statements you guys are annoyed with, he sounds like a dick.
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#):
>
> because the manner in which you talk about men and women marks you as someone whose experiences are quite limited
I suspect I’ve interacted with more people and a wider variety of people from a wider variety of walks of life in a year than you have in your lifetime. It’s my hobby, after all. 🙂 But I’m not making fun of your lack of experience, just expressing my views based on my experience.
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#):
>
> For one, your pronouncements about how desperate men are just don’t even make sense
Again, look at the stats from any dating site.
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#):
>
> meet this stereotypical loser profile that is apparently the antichrist of your version of masculinity?
I don’t know, do you know any cops, doctors, lawyers, teachers, contractors, concession stand employees, etc. working in locations they don’t want to, or hours they don’t want to, or for less pay than they want, etc. etc.?
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#):
>
> Women get pregnant for 9 months and have PMS, so of course, this means relationships benefit women moreso than men. Right.
Which part of what I’m quoting you said right here do you disagree with? Is a woman who’s near-labour capable of holding down a 9-5 job plus handling the household chores plus raising whatever other kids are in the household plus driving herself to the hospital when her water breaks?
Logically, a teamwork relationship benefits a woman more than a man because a man doesn’t get pregnant.
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#):
>
> Makes perfect sense to me, especially the PMS thing. Because if it’s anything we girls know, it’s that men are the cure-all for PMS.
Any guys reading this thread ever had their GF/wife come crying to them or full of emotional distress during their period and had that woman be glad that he was there to support her during that time because she knows that she’s acting irrational?
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#):
>
> Amiright, ladies? (I am mocking you right now. It’s all in good fun, though.)
Feel free to mock me, but I think you should re-read what you write before you Submit it and realize that all you’re doing is re-stating what I’m writing and adding “Amiright?” and sarcastic "Right."s to the end of it without really saying why it’s not right. I don’t know if I’d call that mocking so much as looking silly.
- TWTTWN
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### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/53 "2011-04-18T20:45:10Z")
I don’t have PMS either. Maybe that’s why I’m still single.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/54 "2011-04-18T20:56:38Z")
> [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](#):
>
> I suspect I’ve interacted with more people and a wider variety of people from a wider variety of walks of life in a year than you have in your lifetime. It’s my hobby, after all. 🙂 But I’m not making fun of your lack of experience, just expressing my views based on my experience.
How on Earth is that not an arrogant asshole thing to say?
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/55 "2011-04-18T21:00:01Z")
> [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](#):
>
> I don’t see where I said that all women or all men are anything.
I said this:
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th]
You definitely seem to think all women are motivated by the same or similar things and all men are motivated by the same or similar other things. This is simply not true.
[/QUOTE]
I said this so that you would understand how you were coming off to a lot of people. Rather than correcting me (i.e. ‘‘No, that’s not what I think. What I think is X…’’) you instead replied
[QUOTE=TWTTWN]
Why is what you’ve experienced in your life and the people you’ve met what’s true and what I’ve experienced in my life and the people I’ve met not true?
[/QUOTE]
This is a response that indicates I was correct in understanding your position, and that you felt it was a reasonable position to take based on your own experience. In fact, you seemed upset that I would declare it untrue.
If I’m wrong, and you don’t think all women are motivated by the same or similar things and all men are motivated by the same or similar other things, then by all means, explain what you do think. Because when you make broad statements about women and men it does indeed seem like that’s what you think.
(To the OP: If you feel this is hijacking your thread, we can move the discussion elsewhere.)
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/56 "2011-04-18T21:05:24Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> No PMS? In my infinite generosity as a woman I feel compelled to let you have mine!
I do have world-shattering cramps, though, with barfing! Just no mood swings or anything leading up to the big day. Always a problem in my younger days when I was completely irregular, cycle-wise. A bit of warning would have been nice before the vomiting started. :mad:
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### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/57 "2011-04-18T21:09:41Z")
> [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](#):
>
> Again, look at the stats from any dating site.
Why? I don’t gauge desperation by going to a dating site. I look at the world around me. Most men have managed to be married at least once, most men are currently in some kind of relationship, and few men die virgins. I don’t see how you could dispute any this.
Really, I’m curious what you really think dating site statistics is supposed to tell you about the real world? Are you assuming that guys on these sites are representative of all men? Or just the ones who have trouble dating? It shouldn’t be surprising you’ll find plenty of desperate men on these things. There are desperate women on there too, but consider, for a minute, that desperate women do not necessarily behave the same way that desperate men do. Which might be why you don’t find them on dating sites to same degree you men.
Aha, a gender difference really worth discussing!
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t know, do you know any cops, doctors, lawyers, teachers, contractors, concession stand employees, etc. working in locations they don’t want to, or hours they don’t want to, or for less pay than they want, etc. etc.?
Yes, I do. There’s actually a support group for these people. It’s called Everybody. Never heard of it?
Seriously, most people aren’t in their dream jobs and regularly put up with crap to pay the bills. Most people aren’t losers though, and still manage to score and maintain relationships, and function like everyone else does.
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### Author:  [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheWhoToTheWhatNow)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/58 "2011-04-18T21:10:35Z")
> [@Bosstone](#):
>
> How on Earth is that not an arrogant asshole thing to say?
Arrogant or true? My hobby is pickup and socializing so I go out with the express purpose of starting conversations with a ton of random strangers wherever I am and discussing male/female dynamics with them because I find it interesting subject matter.
- TWTTWN
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### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/59 "2011-04-18T21:25:33Z")
> [@TheWhoToTheWhatNow](#):
>
> Which part of what I’m quoting you said right here do you disagree with? Is a woman who’s near-labour capable of holding down a 9-5 job plus handling the household chores plus raising whatever other kids are in the household plus driving herself to the hospital when her water breaks?
Don’t most women have relationships even when they’re not pregnant or have zero intent of being pregnant?
Your explanation is as much of oversimplication as saying that men desire relationships because they _can’t_ get pregnant. They need to be with women to accomodate their reproductive desires and nurture the needs of their offspring, right? Then it makes perfect sense that they seek out women for that kind of support.
But you don’t say this, probably because you’re not considering the advantages afforded to _both_ genders on the basis of biology. Instead, you opine that if anything, being with women holds men back. By what mechanism, exactly? In a hetero relationship, a guy increases his access to sex, emotional comfort, companionship, affection, _and_ a reproductive legacy. Oddly, the same things a woman gains.
Without appealing to gender stereotypes, please explain to me why men and women would not be equal beneficiaries when it comes to relationships.
---
### Author:  [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-adult-men-need-women-to-be-the-best-people-they-can-be/578812/60 "2011-04-18T21:26:57Z")
Seems like things are getting a little off the rails here, but I did just skim until the end…
Anyway, I believe that all grown adult people need another person or persons in their life who they see as their equal, who they respect and about whose opinion of themselves they care. That way, every now and then, that person or persons can that can tell them that they are being a shithead.
It’s easy to go through life thinking you are god’s gift, but you really need a caring, supportive partner (who 99% of the time is on your side) to take you down a peg when you really deserve it. My husband and I do that, and I think it’s made us both better people. It’s very hard to see your own flaws and it’s easy to ignore when someone you don’t respect or care about, or someone who is always being a downer points them out to you. Having that partner there to help you through is essential to being an adult human.
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