[QUOTE=fetus]
Sorry, you don’t get to decide the universal beauty of standard.
[/QUOTE]
That’d be ‘standard of beauty’, mate.
Actually, that’d be “beauty standard”–I edited the post before you put yours in–and I’m certainly not your “mate”. Or are you one of those “girly men”?
[QUOTE=fetus]
As a male who was once sports-obsessed and now has a more casual relationship with the wide world of sports, I’d guess it’s all about living vicariously. Which is also a primarily male pastime, it seems.
[/QUOTE]
dude, ever heard of soap operas?
[QUOTE=Sapo]
dude, ever heard of soap operas?
[/QUOTE]
:smack: Duh–and, of course, all those celebrity magazines. OK, so living vicariously is universal.
[QUOTE=fetus]
Actually, that’d be “beauty standard”–I edited the post before you put yours in–and I’m certainly not your “mate”. Or are you one of those “girly men”?
[/QUOTE]
Struck a chord, did I? …Okay, okay, I can see there’ll be no profit in playing with you. You’re obviously right about everything. How could I have possibly been so blind? Feel better?
Chick here.
At least in my experience, us girls go to the bathroom together to gossip in private.
I don’t get the expensive jewerly thing - I am a klutz and I wouldn’t trust myself with anything really nice. You can get cheaper jewerly that is nice too. I have an $80 dollar watch that is super nice, with the crystal things instead of diamonds. I get compliments all the time and I didn’t spend $800 on it.
I don’t get the giant sunglasses thing that most girls my age (college) are into. Every other chick on campus is walking around looking like a bug!
I do love to shop though. A good outfit makes me feel good. But if women’s sizes were standard I’d do all my shopping online - malls are annoying.
I’m not into shoes either. I’m too tall to feel comfortable in heels (already taller than the bf by an inch and most other men) and I prefer sneakers and flip flops. I have about four or five pairs of each.
I totally understand the sports and cars thing. I love sports and I love cars. I don’t know jack about either, but I love my teams and appreciate a badass car.
What I don’t understand about guys is why they HATE buying clothes. Do you not give a shit about what you wear? Yeah it’s a hassle but you don’t have to buy clothes every week or anything, just twice a year or so.
But I understand most stuff about guys. Learning the innate differences, mainly dealing with communication, in psych classes has helped with that. I like me some beer n’BBQ and a baseball game.
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia]
Struck a chord, did I? …Okay, okay, I can see there’ll be no profit in playing with you. You’re obviously right about everything. How could I have possibly been so blind? Feel better?
[/QUOTE]
No. If you don’t get it, you never will. Thanks for playing, though.
You’re kidding-right? If guys didn’t have the fun parts to play with then there would be no need to date them. Then again, I guess I’m not a typical female since I HATE shoes and shopping-although I do enjoy a pretty sparkly piece of jewelry-ooooohhhhhh sparkly-what?
[QUOTE=Litoris]
I Don’t. Get. It. You guys figure women out – clue me in. For now, I prefer computers – they’re logical, they do what they’re told to do, nothing more, nothing less – and they’re fast.
[/QUOTE]
So you’re saying… women… should be more like… computers…?
Innnnnnnteresting. 
[QUOTE=jools]
I am female but I never quite got the woman going to the bathroom in groups. Go out with a bunch of people, one woman will get up and ask the other women to go to the washroom with her… WHY???
[/QUOTE]
Whenever this has happened to me it’s either (a) one woman wants to talk about something she doesn’t want the guys at the table to hear, (b) she needs to borrow lipstick/mascara/tampon and would prefer to borrow it from a friend or (c) the one who asked others to go with her was scheduling a meltdown and wanted to have it in the ladies room rather than at the table.
Going to the bathroom in groups?
It’s about talking about the guys back at the table. Or the bartender’s cute ass. Or the hunk at the next table. Or did you see that hideous dress that Sandra is wearing?
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia]
Here’s my list.
-
Julia Roberts - Women love her and think she’s gorgeous. I don’t get it. Her mouth is kind of screwed up, she looks like a female version of her brother Eric, and she’s too thin.
-
Fake breasts - They don’t look natural, no matter how well they’re done. They don’t feel natural. They’re obvious. I don’t personally know any man who’d want his SO to get them. I also don’t know any man who’d want to have a relationship with a woman who has them. In many men’s minds fake breasts=easy, so I don’t understand why, other than lack of self esteem, so many women these days decide to mutilate themselves in this way.
-
Fake facial moles, or worse, accentuating real facial moles with makeup - WTF do women find so sexy about moles? I’ve actually heard women comment positively about another woman’s mole and how sexy it makes her. I don’t get it. Why would something that looks like a little, brown, nondescript bug on someone’s face be in any way sexy?
-
Short hair - Men prefer long hair on women. Period. The more, the better. Yeah, yeah, I know there’ll be a few girly men who’ll argue this point, but deep down you know you’d prefer your SO to have longer, more luxurious tresses. You can lie to me but you can’t lie to yourselves :). Why do women insist on giving men heart attacks by surprising us with drastic cuts that’ll take months, MONTHS I tell you, to grow back? I don’t get it.
-
The never-ending argument - Why do women (and I’ve gotten corroboration from other men as well, so it’s not just me) always bring up the past when having a disagreement in the present about an entirely different topic?? Just how many times will I have to pay for walking on the inside of the sidewalk, causing you to be splashed when that car drove by? I’ve apologized for it 50 bloody times at this point. And what can that possibly have to do with my forgetting the apples when I went to the supermarket last night?
[/QUOTE]
I must be male! (1) Yep. I can watch her on a DVD. I avoid seeing her in the theatre because Ye gods! Those lips! (2) Yep. Makes no sense at all. (3) Moles? Make you look sexy? The thing is, you can’t really cover them up, and the conventional wisdom is if you have something that makeup can’t cover, then accentuate it. But sexy? Well how would I know. (4) Ah, here we differ. People are entitled to wear their hair they way they like it. I guess preferring otherwise is a guy thing? (5) Walking on the inside vs. the outside? Hey, it’s forgotten. Insulting my best friend’s husband so that they never came over again and she’s no longer my best friend? You pay forever. One way or another.
Well, I don’t expect an answer, but here goes:
What exactly do men think will happen to them if they were clothing in pretty colors? Because it seems like they think they will instantly turn into little girls who play with dolls and makeup.
I love to see a man in pink. Hint to men: pink is very flattering to almost everyone’s complexion.
That should be “wear,” not “were.”
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
Why can’t the other gender find things? Do uteruses have built in radar?
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Yesterday when this happened, the two-year old uterus-bearer glanced into the tool box Daddy was rummaging through and immediately picked up the screwdriver and handed it to him.
[/QUOTE]
IIRC, studies have shown that females have a better memory for random multiple small objects, and are better at finding such objects in an assortment.
[QUOTE=bluethree]
Well, I don’t expect an answer, but here goes:
What exactly do men think will happen to them if they were clothing in pretty colors? Because it seems like they think they will instantly turn into little girls who play with dolls and makeup.
I love to see a man in pink. Hint to men: pink is very flattering to almost everyone’s complexion.
[/QUOTE]
We* don’t think anything will “happen”, it’s just that we don’t like to wear girlie colors.
We like to see women in pretty colors, so wearing pretty colors is the same as dressing in womens clothes. Pastels make men look effeminate IMHO, and while I wear whatever my wife tells me to wear, given a choice it won’t be pastels.
- I don’t claim to speak for all men, as I’m sure there are plenty of guys who wear pretty clothes all the time.
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia]
- Short hair - Men prefer long hair on women. Period. The more, the better. Yeah, yeah, I know there’ll be a few girly men who’ll argue this point, but deep down you know you’d prefer your SO to have longer, more luxurious tresses. You can lie to me but you can’t lie to yourselves :). Why do women insist on giving men heart attacks by surprising us with drastic cuts that’ll take months, MONTHS I tell you, to grow back? I don’t get it.
[/QUOTE]
Some women don’t like long hair. Long hair = many hours of maintenance. Plus, it’s damn hot and clogs the drain.
And I hope this doesn’t sound snarky, but here goes: some women are strong enough that they don’t care what men think. Do you think men care what their girlfriends think when they let their hair grow long, or when they don’t take care of that big ole bald spot? I know people questioned my femininity when I cut my hair, but they weren’t the ones who had to spend hours brushing and combing a giant mane every day. I have other things I’d rather do. And I also know I can be feminine without having flowing tresses. I define my feminimity, not the guys around me.
Also, I think many women over a certain age (like, 50) look better when they cut their hair to at least shoulder length.
Here’s what I don’t get about guys:
-
How they can’t know how arrogant and insensitive they come across sometimes. Women can be mean, of course but usually we know when we’re being mean. But often guys don’t understand when they are being a jerk or when their brutal honesty (Yes, you look fat in that dress) isn’t appropriate. Their cluelessness makes it harder to call them on their bad behavior because after a while you start feeling like a nagging harpy. But if you don’t tell them about themselves, nothing ever changes.
-
Why can’t guys control their tendency to leer at women’s bodies? I understand that men are visual creatures (hence, the popularity of porn), but why don’t they have more self-control about it?
Well, if I exhibit self-control, I’m not going to see anything, am I? Do you want my male wiring to go haywire because I might have missed something? There are only six billion breasts on this planet, and who knows when those few might disappear?
[QUOTE=DianaG]
I don’t get the (mostly male) fascination with cars. Seriously, it’s a car. If it runs well enough to get you from Point A to Point B, then it’s sufficient for it’s purpose.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t give a damn about car performance or speed (what’s the point of speeding? Cops are everywhere!) but I care deeply about vehicle aesthetics. That is something that both women AND men care very little about. It’s also something that nobody ever seems to understand when I explain it to them. It’s like I’m speaking a foreign language. I might as well be jabbering at them in Hopelandic, trying to explain why the way a car looks on the outside is important.
I’ll never understand people who care so much about their clothes but not at all about their car. What is a car, aesthetically? It is your exterior when you are on the road. It’s your suit of clothing while you are driving. You are inside of it, but when people see you, they see your car, not your body. You get out of bed in the morning and put on your outfit that will be your unique exterior to everyone who sees you as you go about your day. Then you step out of the house and get into your car - and that is your unique exterior to everyone who sees you on the road. If you live in an average city in America, when you go outside, most of what you see will be cars. In fact, if you count all the cars on the road and in parking lots, you will see more cars during the course of your day than you will see people.
And cars aren’t important? The way they look doesn’t matter?
For me, I want to have everything about my personal character fit together. And I like it when I see other people whose unique personal character fits together. It makes my life more interesting and less boring. The way I see it, if you want to make your personal “character” complete, it needs to have the right car to go with it. If you’re an indie rock guy and you wear faded earth-tone type outfits, a shiny new car just doesn’t fit you, aesthetically - you should be stepping out of a faded, earth-tone car. A used Saab 900, for instance.
That’s just one example. I love it when I come across “characters” in my life whose vehicle fits them. I’ll give you a few examples of people I know who just wouldn’t be the same without their unique vehicles:
A Serbian ex-punk-rocker turned physics teacher who has a collection of BMW motorcycles.
Another fully-tattooed punk rocker who drives a vintage 70s Mercedes 200D, in immaculate condition.
A Dwight Yokoam-esque Christmas tree farm owner with a vintage Chevy Bel Air.
A classical music radio show host and amateur bluegrass musician with a wood-paneled station wagon.
A hot indie rocker chick with a 20s bob haircut who drives a battered, faded BMW 5-series sedan.
A long-haired rock guitarist who looks like a Tiger Beat teen idol from 1990 - he drives a white 1994 Mustang with black racing stripes, which is one of the lamer Mustang years but fits him perfectly because he’s not rough enough around the edges for a real muscle car.
A hipster rocker guy across the street from me who has a beat up white Volvo 240 with a Ghostbusters sticker on the side. Classic.
None of these people would be the same with any other kind of vehicle. Their rides just fit them perfectly. It’s no different than trying to pick the right kind of hat or coat to go with the rest of your outfit - it’s just a bigger investment (which is why I think people should care more about it.)
People see cars in movies and think “I could never have a car like that.” But you could. Why do the people who make movies give the characters certain kinds of cars? Think about it - there’s a reason. In the original Sideways novel, Paul Giamatti’s character drove a 4Runner. But in Alexander Payne’s movie, he drives a worn Saab 900. Obviously, that vehicle fits the character of a quirky, bohemian intellectual who has been around the block in his life better than a 4Runner would. The movie people know this, because they care about design, but others don’t think about it. When you’re a “character,” you ought to have a fitting vehicle. And I think everyone should try to be their own “character.”
I guess I just care more about design than most people. For some, a car is “to get from point A to point B.” For me, that’s like saying “my shirt is just to keep me from being naked.” If you don’t care about your clothes AND don’t care about your car, that’s fine - you’re just not one of the people that cares about aesthetics, and puts form over function, which is a perfectly fine mind-set to be in. But don’t be inconsistent about it. If you’re going to care about your clothes, and care about your aesthetics, why block out the subject of your vehicle? Why not try to make it all fit together?
[QUOTE=psychobunny]
although I do enjoy a pretty sparkly piece of jewelry-ooooohhhhhh sparkly-what?
[/QUOTE]
I have a theory that women have some genetic material in common with raccoons. They are easily distracted by shiny things. And want to wash them in the river. 