Women who have bosom buddies that they do everything with and have known since they were three.
I don’t “get” movies like the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, where all these women have been bestestest friends forever and would kill people for the other women. I don’t have those sorts of relationships with women. I don’t make friends easily with other women, and I can’t figure out why, exactly. I do have good friends, some of them for quite a long time, but we don’t spend all day on the phone with each other or wear each other’s clothes and do each other’s makeup. And when I see relationships that seem like that, in the media or in real life, it makes me wonder just what the heck is wrong with me, anyway.
StuffLikeThatThere, if you think there’s something wrong with you, you at least have company - me and my female friends. Heck, I’ve never even had that sort of relationship with my own sister.
I don’t understand why, all other things being equal (e.g. both partners are working full time outside the house) women still default to expecting to do most of the housework.
If this is changing I’m glad. But I still hear it a lot from female co-workers, about how they have to do it because obviously he can’t/won’t. I think it’s a disservice to both sexes.
But then I also don’t understand the corresponding learned helplessness about traditionally masculine tasks (comments about needing to keep men around so they can fix the roof/take out scary insects) and I’m glad that at least among my immediate peer group I see a lot less of that than I used to.
I blame Mum, she was never very big on gender roles. If something needed doing, it got done by whoever was on hand for the task.
Ditto what other guys have already posted about the teamsports thing, the violent-aggressive thing, the homophobia thing, and the not-liking-women thing.
Me, I don’t get the tits thing, the really intense “whoopie, boobies!” reaction in which “attraction to women” gets reduced to “attraction to tits” as if nothing else counted or mattered (visually or otherwise).
I definitely don’t get the emphatic confirmation of gender-role stuff, I don’t mean in the pragmatic sense of “unfair or not, <example> is how things are, why waste my time complaining?”, but rather that whole “In the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man and now that I’ve reached that age I try to do those things the best I can”, coupled with “and any guy who doesn’t isn’t doing it right and should be ashamed of himself”. The women seem to have figured out that a good portion of this bullshit is harmful to them and that we’d be better off with rules and expectations for people and not separate ones for each gender… what the fuck is with the guys, that so many of them don’t seem to ever arrive at “fuck this ‘be a man’ bullshit”?
And yeah, OK, I do get annoyed at the pragmatic “unfair or not, that’s how things are, man” stance. So, fine, you and I aren’t going to be able to do anthing to fix “how things are”, but doesn’t it still make you mad? I hear plenty of anger towards women, so don’t give me that pragmatic-shrug thing. Why don’t men ever want to serously talk about the ways in which things between us and women are unfair? Why would men rather talk about what pisses them off about women in ways that have nothing to do with “unfair” and only with “because it’s not how I like it”? It’s not reasonable to expect to always have things the way you want 'em, but it’s reasonable to demand “fair”… I just don’t get it.
Ow. See, that’s the attitude I was talking about that I don’t get at all. Don’t you want an actual companion?
I bet you like dogs more than cats, right? I’d hate hate hate to be in any relationship that was unequal. The TV shows and movies (and some IRL events) in which men are considered hapless boobs to be ridiculed and pitied by women make me ill.
Which reminds me of my other puzzlement - women who seem to think that men aren’t actual humans with actual human feelings. Now, I know pop culture and society tried for years to teach both men and women that men are emotionless robots but we know that’s not true so I don’t get why it seems some people still buy into it. I think that whole issue also explains the men socialized to treat women as objects but that should be falling by the wayside now, too.
I don’t get the tendency of women to be bitchy and “put-down-y” to other women based upon looks, sexiness etc. Especially when it comes to being around men. I’m lucky to be in an industry where this isn’t an issue, but I’ve worked interim temp type jobs where this “feminine competition” reaches the ultimate heights of bitchiness and catiness.
It’s very odd.
Along those same lines, I don’t get why women get murderously angry at “the other woman”. Idiot!!!, it’s the MAN who’s cheating. You really think that kind would be miraculously faithful if that specific woman weren’t in the picture?
FWIW, not all lifelong friendships between women take that form. My two best friends and I enjoy things like taking long walks and having long conversations, writing silly poems and making up word games, playing DDR, going to museums, or teaching each other the things we’ve learned from books by Joseph Campbell or John Ralston Saul.
We’d all rather die than spend a day at the M.A.C. counter getting makeovers and we’d never fit into each other’s clothes.
Being “bosom buddies” isn’t the same thing as “doing shallow stereotypical uber-girly crap”.
Not a blessed thing is wrong with you, IMHO. If the stereotypes don’t appeal to you, that’s cool, obviously I don’t have much use for them either. If you’ve never met a woman with whom you could share a profound friendship, that’s cool too, sometimes it’s just how it goes down. But if you think that having a longtime female friend means that you necessarily have to participate in some kind of fluffy Ya-Ya Sisterhood crap, I am telling you that there is another way. Just my $0.02.
The prevalent aversion to discussing ideas. There’s a quote somewhere about lesser people discussing people, average people discussing events, and above-average people discussing ideas. I have no interest in conversations driven by Katie Couric’s wardrobe choices. The occasional event is worth discussing, but it seems a lot of women just stop thinking conceptually.
Harriet, I’m not sure that’s a male or female thing. If anything, “average” women are at least willing to talk about interactions between people, whereas “average” men are all about who-what-when-where-how (why, why not, and what if are usually off limits).
Perhaps there’s a hierarchy of attraction, with arousal at the “whole woman” (anything and everything from scent to sense of humor to definition of calves to passion for good books) at the very top - except to men who Don’t Get It. And there are a lot of those. For them T and A are about the whole gamut, with a passing attraction to legs, while more esoteric arousals – say, a love of eyes or a foot fetish – border on the shameful, weak, or even effeminate. (I once heard it theorized that feet equal women’s penises :rolleyes: - ie: a man who loves women’s feet is a sublimated homosexual.)
Probably because manhood is usually defined by forces outside oneself. Manly virtues preach self-reliance, yes, but that’s only supposed to go so far. Traditionally it’s about not depending on others for your material needs and your (I wanna say) “concrete” beliefs – beliefs that affect your tangible actions in society, like whether you believe in firearms or nonviolence. You have principles about things that matter to the world outside your own skin, and you stand by them. But at some basic, universal level, you owe allegiance to the tribe of men, because manhood must be earned and defended according to the code of that tribe. That code is raddled with bullshit and toxic psychology, but it contains enough that feels true and powerful that it’s awfully hard to repudiate. The call of “faggot” has little to do with who’s hetero vs. who’s homo. It’s an all-purpose social ostracism for any man who doesn’t Measure Up.
I’m a confirmed cat person, actually. And yes, I do want a companion–I don’t think that the rotten kind of husband I described can be a companion at all.
You may misunderstand what I mean. I’m not after simpering adoration and admiration of every single thing I do. I had one of those once–I called him my “golden retriever” and got tired of him in two months. I do need someone who’s biased in my favor and who doesn’t need me to be a patient goddess every minute of every day.
So someone who accepts you as human, then. Sorry, I missed the reaction to the past event. My shorthand for the kind of fellow you describe is ‘reasonable’.
This always drove me crazy in high school. Going to the bathroom in groups was considered some kind of social event and I knew girls who would get pissed if they were “left out.” I HATED going to the bathroom in huge groups - it was not my idea of the ideal place to socialize (especially in high school; the bathroom was filthy).
I don’t get the fear of being single thing. Not the loneliness part–I get that–but the fear of being seen socially without a partner. I don’t really mind going to restaurants alone, or movies, or whatever. And the “I’m nothing without a partner” business. Yikes.
Ya’ll are taking me too literally. I guess some best friends might wear each other’s clothes, but I was just trying to convey the intense, in and out of each other’s lives and business all the time vibe that I get from some “best friend” pairs and is sometimes portrayed in the movies.
Thanks for telling me I’m probably not crazy, though. It’s nice to hear.
And Harriet, thank you for stating so concisely something I frequently try to express and usually get all wrong. That’s something that drives me crazy, and I was actually trying to say that in my earlier post, couldn’t get it right – I just sounded like a jerk – and gave up and deleted it.
I love reading the comments from other men here. I agree with them all so far, especially this one…
I don’t like being around men when they talk about women as objects, or they complain all day about their girlfriend or wife. Often, these same men will say “check out this hottie.” I always wonder how their wife/girlfriend would respond if they knew how much effort their husband/boyfriend spent on lusting after other women. Also, most dirty jokes are at the expense of women. As one who admires and is attracted to women, I am not amused by them.
I think the thing I understand least of all is the alpha male, macho bullshitism. If I enter the vicinity of another man, he does not need to become territorial and prove he is stronger than me. Any effort to do so will be interpreted by me as weakness.
I wish men were as emotionally sound as women. Men are the biggest wimps of all when it comes to dealing with challenges. The men who work hardest to establish themselves as the alpha male are also the ones who fly off in a fit of rage when a slight problem crosses their path. To them, they are being manly, to me they are being astoundingly weak. I think of it as announcingly, loudly, their ineptitude.
I just don’t get violence against women, and its close companion, the need to control every moment of a woman’s life.
I once heard a conversation among three men about the time when each guy kicked his dad’s ass. Two of them had sons of their own, and they talked of staying in shape in advance of the inevitable time when the boy would try to beat up the old man. I was so baffled I couldn’t think of anything to say. I hated my dad, and I had no respect for him, but I never dreamed of beating him up.
