I guess I'm atypical "for a woman." I don't vent for or really seek "affirmation"; if I'm talking about a thing, it's almost always either because I'm just telling a nbd story or I'm thinking out loud to problem-solve it myself, or because I specifically want input: either improvements to my own thinking/ thoughts about what I'm missing & where my blind spots are, or at least another perspective or creative ways to approach it. And yes, I say which it is.
"Gee, that sucks, honey," is...nice, I guess, but not what I'm looking for. Let me speak, pay attention and engage, offer possible perspectives or solutions if there is a problem to solve that I'm asking for help with. My experiences getting this have been mixed; I've made the error of having relationships with people who don't typically have the experience or perspective or understanding of specific things I've struggled with, and to be honest, if they can't or don't offer any of that, it's a disappointment.
Something that has always stuck with me is I read about a study where, under the auspices of a written test, some grad students put a bunch of men in a room and had them socialize for fifteen minutes while they prepared the "test", and then had them take the test and sit silently for fifteen minutes while they waited for supposed stragglers to finish the "test"; I don't remember if it was self-report data or if they measured it but men were supposedly more stressed when they had to socialize, but relaxed when made to sit silently. They did the same thing with a room full of women and got the opposite result: they were comfortable when they were socializing but anxious when they had to be quiet. Similarly there are stats floating around that women speak on average anywhere from 50% to 100% more words a day than men do. Women like to be talking, men sort of don't, at least not to the same extent, and we run out of patience for it faster. Sort of like the idea that extroverts feel energized by socializing while introverts feel drained. Obviously there's more nuance to it than that, but it's a good heuristic to set your expectations by.
As for the legendary, "men fix things," I've yet to be with someone able or willing to solve anything difficult or important for me or take some of it on in any concrete way. Rather, it almost always ran the other direction. Some were decent at small things, but most of it was superficial at best
Pick better men. Every time I've gotten to know a man like the ones you're describing it was because they had some sort of childish vice that they would rather be doing instead of being productive. Mostly weed and video games. When you cut that shit out, you start looking for stuff to fix out of boredom. That said, there's also a bias in the sense that the things that feel satisfying to work on and fix, at least in my experience, are the things that have no ambiguity -- cars, appliances, software, plumbing, things where the outcome is plainly apparent: it either works or it doesn't. If you asked me to sort out government documents or something I could probably figure it out but it's not something I'd get any sort of innate satisfaction out of. We like to fix things in the most literal sense.
On the other hand, the whole "Mr. Fix It" mentality can be neurotic and border on savior complex, where you take on someone else's challenges in order to save them from discomfort, which only succeeds in stunting their growth while subtly... I'm not sure how exactly to say it, making the recipient feel like negative feelings are unwelcome, something to be stopped and avoided and rescued from rather than a necessary part of life that you have to experience and tolerate and process. Neither extreme is good, there's a balance to be struck somewhere between robot and manchild.
there are times when my thought process is more ‘I have had a really terrible day at work. There is no ‘problem to solve’ here, I just need to tell you how absolutely fucking retired what I saw today was, and have you say ‘wow, that’s retarded’ and then on we go.
This is the key. If you just tell us what you need from the conversation up front we'll be better equipped to provide it rather than A) falling into whatever default predisposition we have or B) dividing our attention between listening to what you're saying and guessing at what role we're supposed to be filling. Men are not as attuned to the weird subtle social cues women are used to because we're more capable of surviving exile from the tribe if we fuck up socially so we don't have as much of an instinct to read the room -- I have heard that this is actually observably correlated to testosterone levels, that when men have low test they will overthink social interactions to a much higher degree than otherwise, but I haven't seen any hard data on that. We don't have to worry about that shit so we're not good at it or used to it so if you don't want us to get it wrong then just tell us what you want. Yeah sure that takes some of the romance out of it or whatever but not nearly as much as feeling like you're talking past each other.
Men don’t suppress crying, we just don’t have the physiological reaction in the same way.
I've cried a lot but I've had a pretty fucking hard life. I've noticed that I don't cry from sadness so much as from something akin to helplessness, when I have exhausted myself and I cannot see a path forward. Which I think is the purpose of crying in the first place, signifying to others that you need help. Though I've also noticed that I typically don't cry when bad things are happening, I cry when they're over, like the emotion is set aside while there is action to be taken and then revisited when it won't get in the way. But that was all during some pretty fucking tough times. It's also commensurate to what I've bottled up, if it's the end of a years-long struggle I'm going to cry a lot more than even the loss of a loved one. Anyway, point being, I've cried quite a bit. But I've had ample reason to.
I see sniping at small stuff as a manifestation of deeper resentment within a relationship. If you love someone, stuff like that doesn’t bother you, and if you’re past that and it’s going downhill, everything bothers you. The guy in question’s relationship is in trouble because she’s just just annoyed at HIM and looking for any excuse to have a go.
“When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes. When they do not love us, they forgive us nothing, not even our virtues.”
