[quote]groo wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]csulli wrote:
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
Conflict is stressful, and disappointing someone you care about is even worse. Which is why we tend to suppress stuff and then eventually blow.
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No man appreciates this lol. Search your feelings; you know it to be true. That’s okay though; at least you seem to possess uncanny loyalty. That trumps most faults imo.[/quote]
I’d never really thought about it this way, but I suppose it makes sense considering the general differences in the ways girls and boys are raised. Specifically, in the ways they deal with confrontation. Boys seem to be taught to deal directly with reality from an early age, feelings be damned, whereas girls tend to be more coddled.[/quote]
I think this is wildly inaccurate. Women have a much more solid grasp of rational self interest than men in my experience. Just because they go about it differently doesn’t mean they don’t deal with reality. Its just likely often much more calculated than you see out of many especially young men.[/quote]
Scratch the last sentence of what I wrote. I was trying to provide an example, but worded it poorly. I meant it more in the sense that boys are taught to take a more direct approach (either actually taught that, or through modeling), and girls are taught to take a more indirect approach.
I still think the rest of my post is correct, that there are differences taught during childhood about how to deal with conflict and confrontation that lead to conflict later on because of differing value systems.[/quote]
Not to turn into Orion but I think that many things are learned by women in childhood in the Western world that lead to duplicitous behavior that benefits them. I can’t really find fault with say holding onto double standards that benefit them as it is really self interest but its certainly often calculated and certainly less straightforward.
The first post of the thread would sort of point to this. Instead of simply being honest there is some deception involved to allow one party to maintain a bit of a double standard. Either to be able at some later date to use the unclear nature of the situation to claim either an exclusivity or a free reign to circumscribe the behavior of one party or to excuse the behavior of the other.
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But my goal in starting the thread was to better understand how to be clear and honest without being insulting. Because men are supposed to be the ones playing the field and reluctant to settle in with one person, I seem to have no script for slowing or pausing forward motion without seeming to indicate that I’m not interested in monogamy, which I am, very.
Also, I think coddled is partly accurate, but we’re also taught not to make waves. Girls are expected to be sweet and pretty, and assuming we meet that standard will be coddled when hurt. “Difficult” or unfeminine girls are not coddled. I see that as the origin of the communication issue. We hesitate to create conflict because we’re taught from the cradle not to.
In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I love being coddled and am always anxious to report any terrible injury I’ve sustained (“my finger is hurt!”) in order to get verbal sympathy from women and hugs and such from men. 
