The Ginger Factor

[**DONOTDELETE**]

This is off topic, but I\'m putting it here because I want guys to read it -- sorry to be a pain and give you something to move, Bruce.

There\'s a famous Gary Lawson (Far Side) comic strip that goes:

What we say to dogs

Okay, Ginger! I\'ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage, or else!

What they hear

blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah...

FarSide by GaryLarson, 1983

Sometimes conversations with men make me think that they hear women in the same way that Ginger hears people. Women go blah blah blah blah, every once in awhile you get a glimmer of what she could be on about, but generally your reaction is wtf.


Or, worse, you think you know, and you butt in before she\'s finished talking.

This has been done better in so many other places - if anyone can site work on the communication styles between men and women, it would be helpful to us all, I think.

What I\'m getting to is this: YOU HAVE TO LET HER TALK

because this is what it\'s like for us, and it sucks. ...

Woman\'s Internal monologue: I think this guy is someone a cut above the herd - he shows evidence of being someone who I could talk to. I\'m going to talk to him. I think I can trust him to talk about something personal.

Aloud: I was walking in the park last night, and

MAN: Well, you shouldn\'t walk in the dark.

Woman: Yes, dear, thank you for that. As I was saying, I was walking in the park last night and thinking about the conversation I had with my friend So and So last week and I\'m still a little upset about that conversation because

Man: What you need to do is make some new friends. So and So will never change. Learn to accept it and move on.

Woman: I\'m sure you\'re right. What I was saying is that the conversation still upsets me because it reminds me of the conversation you and I had that time when we went to that place.

MAN: You\'re still thinking about that? You think too much, is your problem. You need to get out more.

It just becomes too much work when the man keeps butting in to solve what he thinks is the problem every time the woman stops for breath.

And every time you jump in with a solution and cut her off, it feels like a slap in the face, and I\'m not kidding. It hurts. It\'s about the worse thing you can do.

If we can\'t talk to you, we lose interest in f*cking you. That\'s the long and the short of it. (I\'m talking about relationships, here, not sport f*cking, which is an entirely different thing.)

Women don\'t talk intimately to get solutions. Most problems are fairly obvious and they can solve them themselves. They talk intimately to share experience and to bring you close.

If you keep butting in and fixing things, you know what you end up with?

I\'m leaving you.

Why?

I don\'t want to talk about it.


Must be her hormones. Women are incomprehensible.

[cuddlebear]

I request Bruce NOT to remove this ... I find it extremely relevant ... I don\'t want to have to go to off-topic to find it ... Cuddles [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Elana]

What irks me is when the men here ask for advice or opinions about women. All of the men will chime in giving them advice, but when a woman says something that the man doesn\'t like....they go into Ginger mode.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Or they argue.

About stuff that is basic to us, and we\'re trying to put it out there as a help. They\'ll jump right on and tell us we\'re wrong, we don\'t feel that way.

??!?

[Wolfe]

sweetie, do you think i did that from our conversation this morn?

[Elana]

Exactly. That\'s why the women PM each other and have a good laugh at some of the men behind their backs. They don\'t want us to tell it to their faces.

[Elana]

Wolfe...obviously this does not apply to all of the men here.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

No, not you. Someone else. I was so pissed off at myself for even trying again that I blasted him all to hell and then had to apologize because I know he is my friend and he wishes me well, but he didn\'t let me talk, I said I wanted to and he said it was fine, go ahead, and I was just about to spill when I got a whole speech on what\'s wrong with me and what I need to do about it.

It hurt my feelings and my pride.

It happens so often I just use y\'all for sex anymore. If I didn\'t have such a sex drive, I\'d swear you off altogether. I\'m not kidding.

Somebody somewhere should learn from this or it\'s worthless, so I\'m sharing.

I don\'t want to talk anymore about me personally because that\'s not why I brought this up. It\'s women\'s most common and bitter and sad complaint, that you don\'t listen.

[cuddlebear]

Actually, I\'m finding this to be one of the more instructive threads of late. I, for one am NOT telling the women to shut up! All the mone-manipulation in the world isn\'t going to do us one bit of good if we don\'t get certain basics right. Cuddles [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Wolfe]

whew!!!
had me worried there, i know that i\'m block headed at times, i\'ll be the 1st to admit it, but i do my best to try to listen(and learn). While being thick headed might serve me well while fighting it does make it harder to learn too (squeezes the brain i guess) [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I don\'t want to say men are stupid, although I have said it -- I\'ll admit it because I know ya\'ll have said it about women, too, from time to time.

I don\'t think men are stupid. But I do think what most of them know about women they could write on a postage stamp, and the first rule of women is LET HER TALK.

And this seems to be one of the most threatening things.

But it makes a woman SO lonely not to really be able to talk to a man she cares for, even as a friend.

Meanwhile, like the guy in the example, I\'m sure he\'s thinking, I was just giving her good advice. It\'s obvious I care about her. She doesn\'t appreciate that I care about her and give her good advice.

Every time you butt in, it\'s a piece of her heart. The more you keep on, the more you push her away.

[Whitehall]

\"It happens so often I just use y\'all for sex anymore. If I didn\'t have such a sex drive, I\'d swear you off altogether. I\'m not kidding.\"

Substitute \"whining and complaining\" for \"It\" above and you have most men\'s position on women.

I\'m not kidding.

[Irish]

To get along I think we have to become tolerant, and to some degree adopt, the conversational style of the other gender. In some ways we signal exactly the opposite idea with identical words.

You gave us the example of a woman wanting to express and be fully understood concerning her feelings about a bad situation. One writer calls this \'trouble talk\', and she points out how women engage in this for solace and to bond with others. They aren\'t looking for a solution - women use the discussion for another purpose.

In male-male conversation that style would be anathema. A problem is discussed only with a view of possible solutions. The solution plan is the goal of the conversation, not to explore their feelings about a bad situation. A man who fixates on the problem itself will be accused by other men of \'wallowing in his misery\', and rejected as weak or unworthy of a solution.

If the problem is so bad as to be hopeless and without solution, then it must be minimized, not explored. You even hear little boys comfort their buddies this way in the face of a traumatic situation: \'It\'s not so bad Jimmy. Everything will be ok\'. If a man tries this male-speak with an upset woman he will be branded as uncaring about her feelings - actually quite the opposite of his intent.

Men view problems as enemies that must be defeated. To defeat an enemy you must have a battle plan. Fear must be minimized - the enemy must never be magnified for danger of you losing heart to face it. So if a man talks in detail about how bad the problem is and how bad he feels about it, he is undercutting his own courage to face it, and making the \'enemy\' (the problem) seem bigger in his eyes. Bad battle strategy, to ruin your own morale. And in the case of the hopeless problem with no solution, his comrades ease his pain by minimizing the problem (since defeat is ineveitable), in the hope he won\'t be totally devastated by the trauma.

In a real sense men and women have completely different conversational agendas and expectations when discussing bad situations. The styles that work within own own gender are at cross-purposes when we converse with the opposite gender.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I know that, and Whitehall, I love you but you\'re an a$$hole sometimes with the sensitivity of a cold toilet seat.

You do your share and then some of complaining.

[Wolfe]

Red,not sure what happened ,or why, and really doesnt matter at this point in time as it\'s not the point of this note to you. But i do want you to know what it\'s meant to me personally to have you be there for me and to help me with my problems..many thxs. and thats from the bottom of my heart -HUGS to a great lady

[Elana]

Perfect example...Wolfe, that\'s why you actually get real dates, not just hair flips and foot shifts.

[cuddlebear]

Actually, in my relationship I have the OPPOSITE problem. I can\'t get her to talk and would be overjoyed if she would just start talking and talking. Actually if I stop talking, there is total silence. I assume this is due to past incidences where she tried to speak but got cut off. I hope in time she will realize that I am not going to do that. How might I get her to talk?

[Wolfe]

when all else fails..just hold her

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I don\'t know, Cuddles. A lot of us have quit trying.

[cuddlebear]

Now that I can handle ..

[cuddlebear]

I hear you, but does that mean there is nothing we can do??

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Thank you, Wolfe.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Cuddles, I don\'t know.

WHAT IRISH SAID. WHAT IRISH SAID.

And it\'s THIS - it\'s one thing to say men and women are different and try to understand the differences. My complaint with many men is that they openly denigrate women\'s style. We\'re just complaining. We\'re just bitches. We just want to feel bad.

It\'s not constructive and it WILL, EVERY TIME, make the woman\'s heart harden against you to the point it hurts just to look at you, much less even think about opening her legs and letting you inside.

[cuddlebear]

If someone, or a whole bunch of someones, has made my sweetie\'s heart harden, then what I would like to know is what I can say to start the healing process? By the way, this is the most informative thread I\'ve seen in some time .. hardly off topic if seduction is what\'s on a guy\'s mind ... Cuddles

[Wolfe]

\"I love you, and if you ever need someone i\'ll be there for you\"..then do it

[Elana]

or you could read some of those great ebooks like fukdembitches. Those seem to offer the men really great advice on women. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[cuddlebear]

Sounds good to me .. ladies is he on track??

[**DONOTDELETE**]

She may be ruined for good.

I have constructed my relationships with men so that they\'re ONLY sexual. With new men I try to meet, I set it up as an erotic encounter and I tell them NOT to talk. I don\'t want to talk anymore.

I was relating an incident to a close girlfriend about something SDR said and she said, \"WHY do they always have to ruin it with their stupid mouths?\"

I hate to say it, but it\'s the truth. Men talk too much, they know it all, they\'re constantly at the ready to shoot off their mouths about their superiority, cut the woman off when she\'s trying to articulate something, and tell her how it should be or how it is -- we just hear that as \"Shut up. I don\'t care what you think. I don\'t want to know how you feel.\"

If she\'s not talking anymore, she\'s watching even more closely what you do. Keep acting right and one day she might open up. For now I\'d say just be glad she\'s sticking. You must be doing something right.

[Wolfe]

i hope that was a \'dig\' at some of the jerkoffs i\'ve seen post on this forum before cause i for one find that title offensive

[cuddlebear]

One point I do want to clarify, there is no difficulty whatsoever in our relationship at this point. It is as close to fairy-tale perfect as one could imagine, but I do notice she is not particularly talkative ...