My wife is so mean she strains the dishwater to reclaim the grease.
My wife is the most kind-hearted, generous soul on earth (tho she can be queen bitch after a long day at the office). I, on the other hand, am a sarcastic, arrogant, cantankerous bugger with barely a kind word to say about anyone. What she ever saw in me is anyone’s guess, but she’s basically stuck with me now.
225, you sound as if you were made for GQ…
Yeah, I did give that a go, but my predilection for shouting the odds without either reading previous posts properly or doing any research meant that I didn’t last very long!
Hasn’t stopped the others! Shout LOUDER.
I, for one, will not have a battle of wits with unarmed men.
Post #10 in this thread offers a contrary data point.
Must say I’ve never yet won an argument just because the facts supported me – it’s always been about me being clever with words, or “always having to be right”. :rolleyes:
what even sven said. The last line is a complaint I have about my professional life as well as my social life; I’m an engineer, why do you expect me to be nice while you expect my male coworkers to be efficient? (general, impersonal “you”)
Are women in couples meaner?
Yes.
My experience is the opposite. I’m generally meaner than she is and less diplomatic. Oftentimes, she tells me that she can’t believe I said something out loud, albeit usually laughing.
I think gender is a red herring. I think that it’s more about attractiveness than anything. If you’re attractive, people want to be your friend. However, you can only have so many friends, so you stop being quite as nice to thin the herd. Unattractive people have to be nice to make friends because they don’t have the attractiveness thing going for them.
However, that doesn’t explain why little old ladies can be your worst enemy when you work in retail. Hmm, I guess I’ll have to work on this theory a little more.
These personal data points are good and all, but it would really help if y’all thought about the couples you know.
In your mind, go over the 4 or 5 couples closest to you and think about who is a nicer person (e.g. “Bob and Mary? Hmm, Bob’s an asshole. Jack and Jill? Equally nice.”)
In my experience and in looking at four couples Mr2U and I know, to be honest I have to say that out of the four, three couples are equally as jerkish, and the other couple, he’s the jerk.
Couples I know: usually about the same, though I tend to see the guys pull more “asshole behavior” and the women be more diplomatic. I ascribe those to gender role differences more than inherent meanness or niceness. And these are middle-to-upper-middle income (I don’t use “class” in these discussions).
In my own situation:
I was formerly married to a guy who was nicer than me. I think I walked over him a bit.
I’m now married to a guy whom you might prefer to hang out with over me, but he is much nicer to strangers, acquaintances, and friends than to family. He is a completely selfish person in relation to his women and children. He is capable of saying & doing the most emotionally cruel things I’ve ever heard to me and his daughters. I always try my best to govern my emotions with some empathy before I open my mouth, but he claims to be incapable of it.
My father was a lot like my current husband, which is probably why I put up with it, and why I tended to treat my first husband with less respect. Sick & twisted, I’m sure.
I don’t know how helpful that is, but I don’t agree with the basic premise that women in couples are “meaner.” Just sayin’.
OK, I did 7 - 5 in my family, and 2 others close enough where I think I see the “real them” and how they interact.
In 4 the guy is nicer, in two the women are, and one tie.
Of the couples I know using your guidelines:
Couple 1: He’s generally a nice guy but can be an sshole, she is standoffish and just short of being cold (I guess I’d call this one equal)
Couples 2&3: Love them both, both are great people (Equal?)
Couples 4&5: He’s a great guy being manipulated by a btch (mean females)
Couples 6&7: She’s a sweetheart, being run all over by an *sshole (mean males)
Couple 8: He’s got anger management issues, she’s a social climbing keep-up-with-the-Jones’s. He’s nicer to me, but I think he’s an ass to his family, she’s a jerk to everyone.
All middle class except for couple #8 who leans towards affluent.
So using your criteria, I would be lumping couples 1 and 2 together in the same category, which doesn’t really seem right. Girl from couple one isn’t really mean, just less nice than the guy, even though Guy 1 can have his moments of ass hattery. Also, I just don’t click with her. That doesn’t make her mean, just that we wouldn’t normally choose each other as friends.
To the OP: Have you considered that maybe you just don’t get along with your friends significant others because maybe you just don’t connect with them? If you are a girl do you behave in a way that other females might percieve as a threat? (I guess I just have some trouble believing that you’ve never met a guy that was a jerk.)
Are you kidding? That prick Jack left that clumsy slut Jill all by herself at the bottom of that hill. I think it’s pretty obvious who the bastard is here.
But seriously, to the OP: You do know you’re asking an unanswerable question, don’t you? I know plenty of women who have been in abusive relationships, and I’ve also known plenty of men who were dragged around by their balls by someone who only married them for their money (for example).
There are just too many variables here…
I never said I never met a guy who was a jerk. I have met jerks, but none of them are in my social circle.
Maybe I’m wrong here, but in my experience, women who have been in abusive relationships, especially physically abusive, are from less well-educated couples, while men who were dragged around by their balls are from more well-educated couples.
Maybe the data contradicts the above picture I have.
If only life were as black and white as you wish it were.