On the other hand, if I had a nickel for every time I hear a woman act surprised and exasperated by how a man acted – which she should have absolutely seen coming if she “understood men” – I would be paying a lot of bills with bags of nickels. Maybe they don’t say they don’t understand men as some mysterious and unfathomable creature like we portray women, but they sure display it in action.
Ahhhh. OK, here in SA, non-chain restaurants (where I would usually take a date) burgers and fries are typically sold separately, therefore fries are commonly assumed to be shared anyway.
To the specific question, it means she wants fries but doesn’t want a full order and is looking for you to pick up on that and suggest sharing. And it’s a pretty easy clue to pick up on, given how our society ingrains weight consciousness into women.
In the general context of the question, however, I assume that my food is completely sharable and hers is hers. 
I’m surprised that nobody’s challenged this one yet.
Women and girls play basketball, baseball, and soccer.
If those sports are seen as less interesting when women play them than when men do, that’s got to do with societal expectations for who pays attention to whom, and is an example that shows the opposite of what you seem to be using it to mean. There’s nothing inherently more interesting in ‘men’s sports’, unless it’s that they’re played by men: which is to say that the society expects people of all genders to pay attention to men, but not necessarily to women.
And I think Elaine’s far more likely to conclude ‘Huh. I guess Roger’s not interested in anniversaries.’ This will bother some Elaines, and not others.
Plus which, if Roger’s getting visibly angry while driving because he suddenly realizes it’s been six months since the shop didn’t properly fix the transmission, Elaine probably ought to do the driving.
This is true of pretty much everything that’s often perceived as ‘men do this and women do this other thing’. There may be some average difference, but there’s so much overlap that the supposed duality is false. And the characteristics often don’t line up neatly together in any individual – somebody who’s very “feminine” on some items may be very “masculine” on others.
You forgot to add poorly to this statement. The reason we have women’s leagues is that in the vast majority of physical competition women are at a major disadvantage. The best women’s soccer team is the world is equalevent to the best high school boys team. The worst DIV I men’s basketball team would wipe the floor with the best WNBA team. The reasons that women’s sports draw poorly is the same reason my kids Tball team doesn’t have the attendance that the high school baseball team does.
The only sports where the women draw well is where it is a totally different sport like gymnastics or they wear little clothing like beach volleyball. It’s great when there is a woman can compete with top level competition and they tend to make a ton of money like Danica Patrick but inevitably a league of women turns into a junior league.
The late, great Sandra Schmirler would want words with you:
If you click on the video, you’ll see one of the most perfect, difficult shots in curling history, made under tremendous pressure, when a berth in the Olympics was on the line.
That was a very impressive shot. Outside of every 4 years I have little knowledge of curling. Don’t they play mixed sex teams?
What is the attendance of women’s curling vs men’s curling in Canada if they are separated? If they are similar it would certainly show that seismic isn’t why women’s events are lightly attended. Of course if the stands are empty while the men’s are packed it would go a long way the other direction.
“Schmirler” the curler. 
Awesome for that alone.
This is about high school sports, ‘poorly’ is also how the boys play. Nobody watches boys high school sports because the game is being played well.
If you’re referring to the abovementioned Dave Barry article, note that the man’s long silence immediately followed a remark that the woman made about their relationship.
If you’re having a conversation with somebody, it doesn’t seem particularly “arrogant” to assume that their behavior when you say something is related to what it was that you said.
Thank you for posting this! Great shot.
Mixed sex teams exist, but the main tournaments are men and women. They both get equal time on TSN, the major sports network. Don’t know any stats for the attendance at the tournies, but when I watch on tv they seem equally well-attended. But then, you’re watching some of the best curlers in the world, both men and women.
There are subtle differences in the way they play. Male upper body strength means that take-out weight can by heavier in male tournaments; I’ve heard women curlers at the top level say they rely more on finesse than men do.
But to the average viewer, that’s a pretty subtle difference, as the Schmirler shot shows - that was both a heavy weight and an amazing finesse shot, to play off one of her own rocks to take out the opponent’s rock from the side. (Take-outs are normally head-on.) If she had misjudged it, she could easily just have done a take-out on the outer yellow rock, or then have crashed out either of her own yellow rocks in the rings and possibly made the situation worse.
That skill is why she led her rink to world championships three times, and Olympic gold.
Died of cancer at age 36. The entire province shut down to watch the funeral on tv.
I’d agree with that statement. I’d also add that men know men better than women know women. Women are very complicated creatures.
One of my more insightful moments after 20 years of marriage was when I realized it wasn’t just me who was confused; my wife doesn’t understand herself either.
But recall that what we’re talking about here is boyfriends and girlfriends going to watch their partner’s games and cheer for their partners. Intrinsic athletic skill levels seem kind of secondary to that purpose.
I mean, if a high school girl was dating a boy athlete who was a mediocre player and/or on a mediocre team, I think it would be generally perceived as kind of cold and assholeish for her to tell him “Nah, I’m not going to come watch your game, you play too poorly to be interesting to me as a spectator.”
But you seem to be suggesting that that’s a perfectly reasonable justification for boys not coming to watch their girlfriends play.
Again, girls are expected to prioritize paying attention to their boyfriends and giving them emotional support. Boys are expected to prioritize other things, like whether they consider that their girlfriends’ sports meet some arbitrarily defined criteria of “interestingness”.
Right. I talked to the boys about this, and they seemed to sincerely believe that high school baseball is at such a level of play as to be inherently interesting, but softball is just boring. But there was no one in the stands at the boys’ games that didn’t have a personal connection to a player. The neighborhood wasn’t coming out to watch.
Question: suppose a partner is acting in a play or some other such production, is there still a difference in the likelihood that a boyfriend/girlfriend comes out to watch?
Because if it’s just a sports thing, then it’s likely that it’s simply a result of sports in particular being a male-oriented thing, which results in the boyfriend’s sports being a bigger deal than the girlfriend’s, but is not a reflection of male-female focus on their partners. If it’s more broad than sports, then it likely is.
In addition to what others have said:
Physical strength is nowhere near all there is to any of those games. Almost nobody’s watching them just to see who is stronger (though I suppose you might be.) And skilled play by a physically weaker player is not playing “poorly”.
I’m sure we could build machines that could get balls into a basket or over a line faster, harder, and more accurately than any human can. Most people wouldn’t find that particularly interesting. And for that matter a chimpanzee’s got more muscle, let alone an elephant; and nobody cares about that. What people are interested in is watching what can be done by humans, within human limitations. Human physical limitations do indeed vary on average between men and women, and at the upper levels of athletes the variation’s nearly always beyond the overlap. But both groups are using trained skills, wits, and determination to do the best they can within limitations – the men just as much as the women.
I think you misunderstand. It would be arrogant to think that there is only one correct reason to lapse into silence at the mention of “six months”.
? If you’re talking to your relationship partner and you make an observation about the duration of your relationship, and your partner goes silent for an extended period of time, I don’t see anything “arrogant” about inferring that they went silent about what you said.
I mean, when you’re having conversations with people, do you not assume that they’re thinking about and reacting to the things you say? Do you think it’s “arrogant” of you not to jump to the conclusion that they’re ignoring your remarks and thinking about something they’re more interested in instead?
A lot of men say they don’t know the first thing about women. Now, I’ll certainly admit that I don’t know the second thing about women, but the first thing is easy. The first thing about women is that they’re people. And it’s scary how many people, men and even women, who don’t seem to realize that.
Again, the issue of whether it’s expected for you to go to your partner’s game to support them and cheer for them kind of does reflect your focus on your partner. It doesn’t necessarily reflect how you personally feel about supporting your partner, of course, but it does reflect the relative level of importance society places on your partner’s activities.
I don’t think there’s any plausible way to parse this that doesn’t somehow take into account the sociocultural fact that in a traditionally patriarchal society, the things that boys do are supposed to be treated as a big deal and the boys are supposed to receive attention and support for them.
But the things that girls do are not considered a big deal,* and boys are free to dismiss them as “boring” and unimportant even if girls would enjoy receiving attention and support for them.
*With the exception of events that traditionally indicate their sexual availability and/or services to men, such as coming-of-age parties, engagements, weddings and so on.