Do you? What does it tell?
Fair point.
furt and Jimmy Chitwood, I actually think that being competitive to the degree that’s celebrated in modern America is a bad thing, or at least is channeled in bad ways.
There are some areas- sports for insteance- where competitiveness is a good thing, but I think in the social and economic arenas we tend to place too much emphasis on competitiveness rather than not enough.
I totally agree. I think with almost all of this stuff you can’t deal in absolutes, because it’s all complicated. It’s true that hypermasculine stuff like competitive drive is idealized and that there are lots of ways that’s harmful for everyone. That’s a good thing to be aware of, especially when you’re driving on the highway with your wife and kid, say, and somebody is trying to cut you off getting into a turn lane.
But the OP, as a result of being aware of it, seems to me very obviously to be flatly afraid of things like competition because he has come to associate every single thing that he associates with masculinity with something wrong. And that’s a fucking tragedy, really. Trying to do the best you can at something that’s really hard is really good for you, and more importantly, just completely suppressing the natural drive for it can’t do good things to the machines in there.
I think that balance - being aware of the ways in which it can be a destructive influence while still embracing that it is what he is and that this is a good thing - is what the OP is really missing here.
That the idea is accurate, and that the person calling it “dangerous” knows it.
Of course, an idea can be both accurate and dangerous. In the event, though, you were mixing up two different things I said anyway.
I couldn’t possibly disagree more.
Quite apart from what we would like society to be, human nature is what it is, human beings are going to want to acquire scarce resources, and are going to find themselves in competition for them. You’re not going to overcome milennia of evolution with a bit of nice talk (though you will get the cleverest and most unscruplous to npd their heads and go along with you while they dip into the shared pot behind your back).
I do think there is a problem with teaching people, and especially boys, where and when and above all how to be competitive, and the importance of playing by the rules and knowing when the competition is over, and how to handle losing and how to handle winning. But the only way boys learn healthy and productive competition – which again, includes things like “play fair” and “don’t ever quit” and “treat the opponent with respect” – is by observing it, being taught it, and then practicing it.
Not being taught how to compete as boys just means that later on, when they inevitably do find themselves competing as men, they are less equipped to do so in healthy and productive ways, and less equipped to handle the outcomes. Certainly was my experience.
Sorry I’ve been quiet all day, but this thread has been on my mind most of it.
I’ve been very busy so I haven’t read every post yet since my last one. I have skimmed, and I DO plan to read all the replies ASAP.
As far as being competitive goes, I did think of one area where I was very competitive. In my art classes and college art courses I was very competitive with the other students. I didn’t want there to be any question who the best artist in the class was.
I never played sports because every time I tried I “failed”. And I DID try. Also video game, which I love, are still difficult for me to reach the level my friends are at as far as skill is concerned.
Please excuse my absence again as I have a lot to do tonight. I will read all the posts. I’m actually looking forward to it.
Seriously, thanks to everyone. Furt and others have really made me think. I don’t want to resist the truth and there’s a lot of valid points here.
Edit: I DO like peeing while standing.
In my limited experience.
Men can turn off / control worrying much better than women.
A man will either worry about something or not. And he seems to be able to turn that thought process on or off at will. And if he is worrying about something, he will DO what he can address the issue. Then move on.
Women seem to worry more. And worry even if everything that can be done has been done. And the worst are the professional worriers. They don’t actually DO anything productive. They just worry.
Wait, you’re asserting that it’s true that women should be treated like objects because we are objects? :dubious:
There you go, OP. Men largely don’t get objectified the way that women do.
If they are the recipient of a woman’s niceness, they don’t have to worry that she believes he owes her a romantic relationship/love/sex because of it, so most men never will worry about whether they can be nice to a woman without her reading too much into it. If she does read too much into it, the vast majority of the time they still have no reason to fear that her response to his rejection will be violent - unless you know someone extraordinarily unlucky you hear about women who respond to rejection violently over the news, not from other men you know who have had it happen to them.
The last I read was that generalized anxiety disorder (pathological worrying) is more common in woman. But obsessive-compulsive disorder is found in women just as often as it is in men.
That’s some really poor reading comprehension there. Note that
- I didn’t say what he cites me as saying (he mixes two things)
- The whole objectification shtick is his/your opinion, not mine.
I didn’t mix them. I said you said 1. it’s important to be defined by what you do, not what you are, and 2. men desire to be respected, which is something you do (“must be earned”), while women desire to be loved, which is something that happens to you (“given for intrinsic qualities”). I’m comparing them, and I’m saying that the assertion you’re making is dangerous. I don’t think elfkin misread anything.
And yes, dangerous, not untrue. I addressed that in my first post. Your assertion wasn’t a factual belief. I think it’s a political argument. So it doesn’t make sense to address it in terms of truth. Politics are harmful or helpful, not true or untrue. I think the perspective you presented is a harmful one, in that, as I said, it’s a very direct objectification. It isn’t clear to me where I’ve misunderstood what you’ve written to get to that conclusion.
You cite two different statements, “compare” them, and then refer to them collectively as “the assertion,” singular.
What I said was
The first statement is a truth claim. It is a statement of what I believe to be a fact. You can dispute it and say your experience is different, and other readers can decide for themselves whether they find it accurate or not. The second statement contains another truth claim: whole books have been written about the love/respect thing, including ones by psychologists and using academic research. Again, you can disagree or not, but it is indeed a factual claim about the way I think things really exist in the world currently.
If I was saying “these describe the way things are, and it’s the way things should be,” it would be something more like an argument. But I didn’t, and in fact I specifically issued disclaimers like “for good or ill.”
If you disagree with my observations about the way things are, by all means say so. If you want to agree that they are accurate generalizations, but that they shouldn’t be, and in a more enlightened and less phallocentric society they wouldn’t be, well, that is a political argument, and one you’re free to make (though I’ll pass on responding).
What I’d prefer both you and elfkin not do is respond to my claims about the way things are as if they were claims about the way things should be.
From my perspective, calling this a political argument was giving you more credit than this, but I’m happy to treat it as a discussion about your averments of scientific fact, if you like.
As unrelated statements of facts, I think those two assertions are facile to the point of meaninglessness. I think it’s preposterous to tell the OP, a man, that he desires to be respected, because he is a man, and does not desire to be loved, because he is not a woman. I think that is a statement so baldly unreasonably framed that no reasonable reader would interpret it as anything but a statement of gender politics, as opposed to something intended to be taken at face value. At face value, I think it’s demonstrably false.
Cool, thanks.
I agree. Whoever said that is an idiot.
One that recently came up with a friend:
She had recently met a guy who was wearing a wedding ring, and he spun her the line that he is not really married and just wears it to not get unwanted attention. My friend actually believed him, but I had to say, I was dubious any guy would ever do this, because men generally don’t feel threatened in such situations.
In my youth I was a male model, and there was no point I was concerned about getting “too much” attention from women, and I doubt any guys would see it as a problem, until you take it to the uber extreme of a pop star being in danger of getting trampled by a mob of fans (in which case a fake wedding ring won’t help much).
My friend commented that it must be great being a guy. I just said “sometimes” 
OK. Help me out here. Maybe there are others that are as bad at the construction of what you’re saying as I am. The thing that you said, and that I’ve been responding to, is:
Before that you had said that men are assessed by everyone based on what they do. This in response to the question what are the benefits of being a man, apart from having all the power.
So I called that a political argument, because I think that’s what it is – a soundbite in a conversation, not intended literally, but true in a certain way if you accept a certain (Biblical, in fact, I think?) perspective. Like what you probably meant was something more nuanced than men are from Mars; women are from Venus. You objected to that characterization and said that no, in fact, this was just a straight recitation of the facts of the thing as you understand them.
How was the OP supposed to take your statement of the facts if not the way I characterized it (as a political argument that I think is dangerous), i.e. that since he’s a man, he should do things, because then he’ll get what he wants, which is respect, because he’s a man, rather than worrying about what he is, which is what makes people love you, which is what women want?
Sigh.
The problem is that I am have made broad generalizations in the spirit of IMHO and with the goal of giving the OP practical advice, and you keep receiving them as either categorical absolutes or moral imperatives.
The generalization that “Country music fans tend to be caucasian” does not imply that non-caucasians never like country music, nor that all caucasians like all country music, nor that other caucasians don’t like hip-hop, nor even that there aren’t people who like both country and hip-hop, and it certainly doesn’t equate to “country music is racist.”
“Actually, Garth Brooks is huge in Asia” or “half of the Tim McGraw Fan Club are hispanic” might cause the speaker to question their claim. “Guess you’ve never heard of Darius Rucker” just indicates you are missing the point, and “That’s a dangerous idea,” at least to this speaker, tends to validate it (in the “if I was wrong, you’d just say that” sense.) IMO it equates to “I draw inferences from that statement, and I don’t like those inferences, therefore I dislike your statement.” Like it or don’t, I don’t care, but don’t hold me accountable for your inferences.
“For good or ill, men are measured and assessed primarily not by what they are, but what they do,” does not imply that women are not also judged for what they do, nor that they are incapable of doing things, nor that men are not also assessed on their intrinsic traits. If you see those ideas in there, that’s on you, not me.
A fuller summation might be: acheivement is relatively more valued in men, essence relatively more valued in women. Note that that sentence does not imply approval or disapproval; in fact, this very phenomenon is one that has been cited by feminists as something that is wrong with society and which they describe as part of “objectification.” I’m declining to weigh in whether or not it’s wrong or right (“for good or ill”) and merely noting that yes, those feminists are correct that that is the way the world is. And there again, if you want to draw inferences from what I don’t say, that’s on you, not me.
“Men desire respect, women desire love” is, as I’ve already said, a “blunt instrument,” i.e. a broad generalization of the idea that men and women have different relative emotional priorities. It does not imply that women don’t want respect, nor that men don’t want to be loved; once more: making that inference is all on you.
That’s my opinion based on my reading, my thinking, and my 40+ years of observation. If you think I’m wrong, by all means say so; if you’re a guy who’d rather be loved than respected, or a gal that would rather be respected than loved, or if you have some other data/anecdotes/opinions, shout 'em out.
The OP, as I read him, was seeking practical advice for finding happiness in the world he’s currently located in (that wasn’t precisely what he asked for – it’s what I think he was seeking). I gave him my advice, based on my understanding of the world.
Ergo, I hope he takes it as “this is the way one random dude on the internet sees the world, and other random people on the internet see it differently, and it’s on me to figure shit out for myself.”
It’s what IMHO is for, and it’s why the thread is here and not in GD where all the heavy sociopolitical conversations go.
Boy, it’s hard to keep reading after the first word is “sigh.”
IMHO it is. I’ll leave it there.
Ok. It turns out that I have pneumonia. Sorry, but I’ve been sleeping all day.
I really think that you all make some great points here, (or not so great points, or good points that are just poorly expressed. )
I feel bad that there’s some hostility here. I suppose I have some issues with my identity, something I talked about with my shrink before she let me leave early in the session to go take a nap.
I feel like I can relate to what everyone is saying. And I know this is a place where you really have to watch what you say, so may I humbly ask that people understand that no one here is trying to say that everything regarding men and women is black and white, at least as far as I can tell.
I’ve ALWAYS craved being loved over having be respected. But I understand that a lot of men feel differently. There also sure seem to be a lot of women I know that put love in the back seat while being successful has shotgun.
It’s weird. My shrink is less of a feminist than I seem to be. Or at least she’s acting that way to make me feel better about being a man.
For what it’s worth, I’m learning a lot here, (not just about myself). It’s cool that people disagree… but I guess I feel a little responsible for people getting angry at others for trying to help me.
A week I go, I ended up in a part of the city where I rarely go. It was a pleasant night with fresh air, so I decided to walk home.
I discovered a few shortcuts through the adjacent dark alleys.
I realised I wouldn’t do that if I were a woman.