Women Want You To Sympathize ...and then she says quit trying to fix my problem

[verdant 0]

okay, honest to god here, males are action orientated. i've had a lot of people ask me what the purpose of life is and since they were all guys i told them "the purpose of man is to do." i had actualy just made that up on the spot, but i was'nt really surprized when i read about the same advice coming from a guru in the east. it makes perfect sense when you think about it, when you are doing somthing you have a purpose. the only time you dont have a purpose is when you dont have something to do. you start asking yourself "why are we here, whats our purpose" at this point get up and do something and there you will have a purpose.this is one of the pivotal issues of guys today in relation to women. no not the purpose of life but rather the fact the guys need purpose. now the fact of the matter is that women think differently. not because we're extreamly different but because women are raised to think from a different perspective. unlike guys, women look at life from the prespectives of weaker bodies, attracive bodies, and emotion. we guys ought to count ourselves as lucky to have our concerns simple and clear cut. now if you've been in a relationship before you no doubt at some point ran into an issue, problem or something in which the women you are with says someting that makes no sense what so ever to you. its usualy starts with some problem she has, you in turn come up with a sollution for this. but the woman refuses it and you are baffeled. you may very well come up with the most perfect and complementing solution ever. but she doesnt want to hear it.at this point, take my advice and shut up! if possible get close to here and show some intrest in her day, her opinion, ect. listen and pick up as many details about the issue as you can. and dont try to point out mistakes or better ways to go about things. what she wants right then is to know that you are on her side. she wants you to agree that her boss is a jerk, that her best friend needs to break up with what ever loser so-and-so, she may also want some brownies (i dont know why, but it can happen) the whole reason she came to tell you about her problem isnt so she can get your guru like advice on her problems, she most likely has better people for that. one of the main point of have a relationship with a woman is that you need togetherness. once my best friends girlfriend called him up at 3 in the morning to ask him what seemed to her to be a vital question "Grant, are we a team?" lol.

[Vera 0]

I agree with you. Men want to be fixers. If we women complain about our boss at work to our girlfriends, our girlfriends will give us sympathy. Then they'll usually talk about their problems and the sympathizing would be returned. With men, they offer advice and things we should try. Women just want to complain and get it off of their chest most of the time. When women want advice, they will ask for it, but most of the time it's just nice to have someone to listen.

[dcshaw.en 0]

I disagree with so much of that post (The original one).

 

No intent to be hostile in any of this, just stating my opinion.

 

The first, and most dominant part of what I need to point out, is that the first post took, not only the entire male gender, not even only the entire female gender, but both genders AND every heterosexual relationship and generalized all three under one blanket.

Fact is, not all men want to have purpose, not all women just want "togetherness" out of a relationship/not want purpose (Was implied by your post), and not all relationships focus on "Just agree with her and tell her what she wants to know" (Paraphrased).

 

I'm going to tackle those three points backwards.

 

First Point : Not all relationships focus on "Just agree with her and tell her what she wants to know"

Personally, the "Just tell her what she wants to hear" part is something I would never do.

Honestly... I'm going to be honest to anyone who I'm with. If I think they did something stupid, or if I simply don't think they are right about something, I'll tell them. I see no reason not to. I'd want them to do the same for me. Empty compliments and cooperation doesn't entirely appeal to me.

 

Second point : Not all women just want "Togetherness" out of a relationship/not want purpose (Implied)

There are plenty of women out there who want a purpose, just like you claim all men want.

Those women will hear a problem and immediately try to fix it.

"Your boyfriend is cheating on you? Dump his *bottom*" (<-- I don't even have to hit Submit to know that word's censored)

Granted, that may have not been -the- best example for me to use, because I'm sure most of the time, if a female went to one of her female friends and confessed that her boyfriend was cheating on her, the girl would probably be looking for someone to tell her to leave him.

But that could be the same as anyone;

People have problems that have obvious solutions, but they are reluctant to decide what to do on their own because the solution may not be pleasant, so they confide their problem to someone because they know they will encourage them to take the reluctant solution.

This is true of both genders, by the way, and should not be limited to any group of people.

I apologize if they above paragraph doesn't make much sense, my vocabulary shot itself a little and crapped out before I finished.

 

Last Point : Not all men need to have a purpose

Just to use myself as an example:

How many times do you think I've really been hanging around doing nothing and thought, "God... I wish I had something constructive to do."?

Now, I know you don't know me at all, but I can tell you... Almost never.

I'm fine without a purpose, it doesn't bother me.

While I can function fine if I do have a purpose, I know how to delegate my ambitions between constructive purposes and useless purposes.

Constructive Purposes are those that are shared between every (Most reasonable) person/people, the basic fundamental desires that everyone (Again... Most people) have.

For example : Finishing school, decent education, a job you don't want to kill yourself with, not being homeless, that kind of thing.

 

Back to one of my original statements,

I won't candy coat my opinion for anyone, not a stranger, a friend, or a girlfriend. I will also not hold back an opinion unless I know that it would be detrimental to verbalize it. It's just the same basic respect I would want out of anyone else.

And yes, I do consider that respect.

[Vixen_Poetic 0]

I've got news for you, you're all right.

 

Yes, as Verdant points out, once you've stuck your foot in it by giving a solution instead of sympathy shut up and start listening, not to what she's saying it but to why she's saying it. But... no it is not because we were raised to be different but because we are biologically different.

 

Yes Vera, most of the time women are just looking to share their experience and confirm their self identity and social identity.

 

Yes dcshaw, there were times when Verdant generalized but they were usually fair if simplifications of the truth. You reacted badly to some implications of Verdant's post, odds are you've recently had a bad experience related to this male/female relationship interplay or felt unfairly characterized by someone spouting off about this social interaction psycho-babble.

 

Guys, in general, think in concrete ideas, it is part of the genetic programming which means it holds true to varying degrees for each individual example. Guys, if needed, can communicate in grunts. This is because in the context of the moment given an attention getting, querying or definitive grunt the male mind will latch on to the most likely topic at hand and interpret it in that context, and will most often be right. I have seen an example first hand of a conversation consisting solely of grunts, and there was no question that it was genuine comunication where both parties understood the entirety of the conversation. Guys' social worlds are simple, consisting of pecking orders like a wolf pack; alphas and betas and rankings within the group, once these are established they rarely change. And women do not fit into that pecking order anywhere, to the guys' pack, theirs is a social ranking that is separate and individually ranked.

 

Girls, in general, think in abstract ideas, again it is part of the genetic programming which means it holds true to varying degrees for each individual example. Girls understand quickly the complexities of an outlined situation and the implied consequences should action be taken. Which means that they understand that the person expressing their frustrations has already seen the implications and are merely wrestling with the descision process, to act or not to act, (because there are always more implied consequences stretching out like fractals) not the possible solutions. Girls' social worlds are complex, each individual ranked separately against each other individual and potentially changing in each situation and with any change of status. Yes, it is confusing. Each communication becomes not just a chance to share commonality of experience but to confirm status relative to the other participants in the conversation and other's status in the eyes of those you respect or dismiss. Men do fit into this social order but are not expected to understand where or why. Which is good because they don't.

Edited January 21, 2008 by Vixen_Poetic (see edit history)

[dcshaw.en 0]

Yes dcshaw, there were times when Verdant generalized but they were usually fair if simplifications of the truth. You reacted badly to some implications of Verdant's post, odds are you've recently had a bad experience related to this male/female relationship interplay or felt unfairly characterized by someone spouting off about this social interaction psycho-babble.

I don't mean to sound like I'm arguing with anything, I just want to clarify some comments.

I didn't mean for anything in my first post to appear hostile in any manner, whether or not I was successful in that attempt is probably a matter of opinion, I apologize if I came across as hostile.
I also, really, haven't had any bad experiences related to relationships or such, not recently anyway. And I happen to be in a good, healthy relationship right now. My only issue is generalizations which I have a strong distaste for.

Also, I'm aware I forgot to mention it as a sort of Disclaimer in my previous post;
I meant to add in that I am aware that for the most part, a large portion of men, women, and relationships do fall into the categories he put out. In fact, it's probably upwards of 80%+ of them, my biggest issue with that was the wording of his post. Which may or may not have been intended as a generalization, but could be construed as one.
I felt I should toss that in now. Which is the main reason why I try to go an extra step and explain every separate point/opinion that I lay out. I don't want people to be able to mistake what I say for something else. I feel it better for myself to eliminate any irrelevant arguments against my post without having to wait for them to be brought up.

Also: I suppose you may be right on some count, I do feel unfairly characterized by 'someone spouting off about this social interaction psycho-babble' frequently. I just have a thing against generalizations. And maybe a bit against amateur theories that aren't verbalized with any attempt at sounding professional.
And I do apologize for my use of the word 'amateur', I mean no offense by it. I meant it in its fundamental definition, something along the lines of "Not professional' or 'For pleasure, not payment'.