In General, Are Men or Women More Aware of Interpersonal Goings-On?

[RustyShackleford]

Men are good at manipulating world of physical reality, women are good
at manipulating the world of people and their emotions. (That's a tendency,
not an absolute; certainly there are very emotionally perceptive men, and
women who are good at designing airplanes). It's a nice synergy between
us, so let's all dig it and try not to get all frustrated about it. Our bodies are
pretty different and that tends to lead to some serious fun, so why should
the complementary differences in our minds be a surprise and why should we
let it be the source of so much grief ?

 

[haha]

I see a huge majority favor the proposition that women are more sensitive. Agrees with my observations, and also with the stereotypes.

At times women seem to me to be excessively concerned with protocol. My ex would get really mad at me for just walking up and asking for whatever I wanted, without checking to see if there was maybe some shy person hiding in the corner who had some kind of imaginary prior rights.

I say if the coast is clear, go for it. If it were that important to someone else they should be in front.

When she got really into it I just said, maybe you are too sensitive. If I were that bad people would be hitting me, and they are not.

Ha

 

[Sarah in SC]

I know girls like that Ha, and they exhaust me. I don't know that I am all that attuned (like Khan, I think maybe the other girls should kick me out for not knowing the rules) to social nuances.
I am, however, considered an extremely good judge of character among my friends, both male and female. I have sniffed out some skunks that no one else figured out, and my "passing judgment" has made the difference for a friend to keep or discard a potential mate. I don't think I share this trait with many other girls though, as it is the skunks they are running by me to consider that they can't see at all!

 

[Moemg]

At times women seem to me to be excessively concerned with protocol. My ex would get really mad at me for just walking up and asking for whatever I wanted, without checking to see if there was maybe some shy person hiding in the corner who had some kind of imaginary prior rights.

I say if the coast is clear, go for it. If it were that important to someone else they should be in front.



Ha

That may have been more of where she was from than her sex . I grew up in the Northeast and most of the women there are the go for what you want type (sometimes too much so ).

 

[Khan]

I know girls like that Ha, and they exhaust me. I don't know that I am all that attuned (like Khan, I think maybe the other girls should kick me out for not knowing the rules) to social nuances.
I am, however, considered an extremely good judge of character among my friends, both male and female. I have sniffed out some skunks that no one else figured out, and my "passing judgment" has made the difference for a friend to keep or discard a potential mate. I don't think I share this trait with many other girls though, as it is the skunks they are running by me to consider that they can't see at all!

I don't know the rules, I can't 'read' the gestures or facial expressions or voice cues. Probably why my BP has gone down so much since retirement (and selective hermitude).

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

We all know what's going on. Men just don't spend 2 hours on the phone dissecting the same situation from 20 different angles.

 

[Shawn]

A girlfriend once told me that she didn't want anything for her birthday. So that's what I got her. Nothing. She was upset.

There's two ways to look at this. Many people will argue that I was not in touch with her feelings because I should have known that no means yes. However, a more reasonable explanation is that she was not in touch with my feelings because she didn't know that I would take her for her word.

Many women think they're more in touch with emotional nuance, but they're not. Unfortunately, in our politically correct world where women are better at everything than men, men are often brainwashed to believe this too.

Women and men may be different in how they assimilate emotional clues, but this doesn't make women superior when playing the sensitivity game. Women, for example, often interpret meanings that simply aren't there. They will formulate irrational explanations for benign expressions. This often gets them into trouble, and it aggravates men to no end. "No honey, when I said you look good in that dress, it doesn't mean that I think you're fat."

 

[Khan]

A girlfriend once told me that she didn't want anything for her birthday. So that's what I got her. Nothing. She was upset.

There's two ways to look at this. Many people will argue that I was not in touch with her feelings because I should have known that no means yes. However, a more reasonable explanation is that she was not in touch with my feelings because she didn't know that I would take her for her word.

Many women think they're more in touch with emotional nuance, but they're not. Unfortunately, in our politically correct world where women are better at everything than men, men are often brainwashed to believe this too.

Women and men may be different in how they assimilate emotional clues, but this doesn't make women superior when playing the sensitivity game. Women, for example, often interpret meanings that simply aren't there. They will formulate irrational explanations for benign expressions. This often gets them into trouble, and it aggravates men to no end. "No honey, when I said you look good in that dress, it doesn't mean that I think you're fat."

I find this crap annoying. I do feel sorry for men trying to figure out wtf is going on. Indirectly it means that men have to guess whether or not I'm lying when I say 'yes' or 'no'.

How can I mean 'no means no', when men have been conditioned to think 'no means no' only occasionally (dependent upon unrevealed circumstances).

Sorry for the rant.

 

[dex]

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Khan]

Men are from Earth, women are from Earth; deal with it.

 

[donheff]

A girlfriend once told me that she didn't want anything for her birthday. So that's what I got her. Nothing. She was upset.

There's two ways to look at this. Many people will argue that I was not in touch with her feelings because I should have known that no means yes. However, a more reasonable explanation is that she was not in touch with my feelings because she didn't know that I would take her for her word.

This is a tough nut to crack. I once dumped a GF because she was nutty on stuff like this. If you didn't see through her false denials you were not caring. If you didn't take her real denials at face value, you were insensitive. Bye, bye, whack job.

DW is pretty straight forward. Neither of us likes to shop and we have all the stuff we need. We have a mutual agreement not to get expensive presents but it doesn't fully remove the tension. We both still worry about getting "something" for fear of being or appearing uncaring. Gift giving tied to occasions sucks. Much better to spontaneously give a gift.

 

[W2R]

This is a tough nut to crack. I once dumped a GF because she was nutty on stuff like this. If you didn't see through her false denials you were not caring. If you didn't take her real denials at face value, you were insensitive. Bye, bye, whack job.

Part of the reason for dating, in my opinion, is to find out if a potential partner is compatible or not. Obviously this GF and you were not compatible. The same would be true for Shawn and his former GF. No big deal. At least, that's the way I see it.

It's not like women find "Mr. Right" the first time either, y'know. But when a good match is established, it's worth all the frog-kissing we had to do before we found that prince.

 

[CuppaJoe]

Back in my Mega-Corp days, I remember the big gossips appeared to be men. One guy would say, “ever notice” and go into something I never noticed like “Lucy” is unhappy when “Fred” is out of the office, “Judy” is unhappy when “Steve” is out. Those two women worked for the two guys and my gossip’s theory was that Fred favored and protected Lucy while Steve did the same for Judy. There wasn’t even anything interesting going on like an affair. Oh, I get it now, maybe there was, only I didn’t pick up on the nuances?

 

[Bestwifeever]

I think part of my feeling that women are more in tune to nuances is age-related--back in the olden days sometimes you could get things done only by reading between the lines of what people (often men) were saying, but things changed. My first job--all the women got flowers for secretaries' day, even those in managerial positions.

I don't think my daughter has the same radar. I also don't think the social nuance radars are particular worthwhile, as they pick up a lot of false signals, resulting sometimes in angst, paralysis, and overly thought out behavior.

 

[freebird5825]

I voted women, but it is really case-by-case.
Years of training to observe and measure things has made me highly attuned to people's body language and speech patterns. The visual cues are easy once you know them. I can spot a phony a mile away.
dh2b does not really notice how people act. A hearing problem since childhood has caused him to evolve into a very poor listener.
I'm the watcher and listener.

 

[clifp]

I don't think my daughter has the same radar. I also don't think the social nuance radars are particular worthwhile, as they pick up a lot of false signals, resulting sometimes in angst, paralysis, and overly thought out behavior.

I think this is a important observation. I think social radar (and agree with the consensus that woman's is generally superior to men.) is often overly sensitive and picks up a lot of false positives. It is like when you go through the airport security and the metal detector are turned up to a super sensitive level so that even a couple of nickels in your pockets sets them off. Sure you keep the boxcutters of the flights, but you also cause a zillion folks to angst about missing there flight because of the delays.

 

[freebird5825]

A very short summary of methods of reading human body language.
Traits
I read an introductory article in Discover magazine years ago, got curious as usual , and did some extensive reading about this area of human behavioral research. It came in really handy with dealing with difficult and detecting insincere people at w*rk.
Read an article, then go out in public and observe people. You'll see what I mean.