Deteriorating social skills

[Priapism4tooLong]

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I SDN a lot less now, only on study breaks tbh.

The first step is acceptance. Stop making excuses. We all know how much you SDN.

 

[Brain Bucket]

If your only focus in life is on finding a wife to propagate your genes, then I can pretty much guarantee it won't be.

Why are you quoting me?

 

[Arkangeloid]

That's not settling, that's dealing with your problems and being completely honest with yourself (and others for the matter). If Arkangeloid is a real person and not a troll, he should be envied for being so honest.

I'm not a troll. But it saddens me that even though I'm as genuine as possible here, a few people do think I'm trolling.

 

[YeahNoMind]

I feel less inclined to pay attention to what people are saying. All I hear in my head when I'm not studying is a song I've been listening to, or Goljan's voice. I still enjoy funny tv shows and movies, but I think I'll have to make a conscious effort to reassemble into the world, and not come off as a weirdo when it comes to socializing after the exam.

 

[Anastomoses]

This is relatively accurate, I'm basing this off of a class I took about linguistics and gender. Another thing is that women are talk from a very young age to be quiet and not interrupt. We also tend to use hedging more often. This combined with a male's linguistic pattern usually ends up with the woman getting absolutely trampled in mixed company and especially if she's outnumbered. I've developed a rather masculine speech pattern which means I don't get interrupted as much as other women, but a lot of men find it off putting and bitchy. Because there's no winners here if you have a vagina.

But yeah, the objective seems to be very different when sharing personal stories. For myself and most women I believe it's about trying to gain greater insight, find common ground, communicate a problem, strengthen or form a relationship. When guys come in with the "not all men" or "patriarchy hurts menz too" it comes across as a silencing tacit. The conversation is shut down and I have no idea whether my words had any impact, whether or not I was understood. I was never validated and there was no sense of closure so I'm just left open thinking wtf, Ya'll don't give a damn what I have to say so fuk you guys. Make sense?

You hit on a zillion things here which resonate with me; I was exhausted earlier so I couldn't address them faithfully.
I remember reading an interesting book about successful women (in the business world) and it had a chapter highlighting this "hedging" women do. Except I had the habit of male speech patterns. Yet, like you said...while you are heard more often - you also come off as a bit harsh/bitchy when you assert things without "I think..." or "I believe", "In my experience..." or "Do you think it would be better if...". You walk into a room and say "So the way we're going to handle this is XY and Z." and you're automatically in the category of ball-busting bitch. You just have to practice softening it at the end with a smile and some compassionate sounding comment. You, as a female, are just not as entitled to being so assertive. And the irony? I have felt it too when it's done by other females - it's quite subconscious and sinister. I'm not sure everyone will see the connect but I never forget the great James Baldwin quote...“It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.”

I apologize for the following wall of text. I am going to poorly express the theories of Deborah Tannen, an anthropologist, to explain why we don't let you two talk about hardships of being a woman.

Here's a summary of what she claims (it's not a perfect description but it's interesting). It's soft science, so take from it what you will.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_theory

My crappy summary:
Guy basic goal in conversation: prove I'm worth listening to.

Story time for application/amusement:

Girl in a relationship after long day with her boyfriend : this is the ultimate time to share, with the person you should have the most in common with (and who should trust and want to talk to most). So you talk about day, tell how you feel, etc.

Guy does not reciprocate (thinking the whole time "why the hell is she doing this, she knows I care about her and think she's awesome"). I'm with person I trust. Why should I talk? "my day was good."

Girl (thinking "that's it? I shared all this. He should share back! Does he not care? Does he really have nothing to say?")

Later, go over to friends house. Cue guy feeling need to do one up stuff in group. Guy tells funny story about his boss being a jerk that day. Girlfriend is annoyed. He should have shared that with her, because she is closer to him than them. Wtf is wrong with him?

Guy doesn't get it. He told a funny story, the group liked it. He won. Why is the girl mad? Why didn't she tell that story about the cool stuff at work to the group? She lost. Stupid girl.

Angry silence in car on ride home.
Fin.
So that's why we interrupt you, according to da batman.

Enjoyed storytime immensely. And without a doubt those caricatures are spot-on with a large number of the population. I hadn't ever really thought about it and it seems to speak to @touchpause13. Personally I don't really have those issues come up much in relationships or in my friendships with males and I thought about your two depictions and realized it's because some males and females are closer to the middle on that spectrum.

What I mean to say is I relate to both "I win" mentality and the "I wanna share - now you share". My closest male friends and boyfriends have also had a reasonable mix so perhaps never felt much male/female mismatch in that sense. The theory is eye-opening though.

 

[Arkangeloid]

the kidneys bit is a little over the top. I want to assign you to 30 minutes of Netters/KLM/Aclands to learn the language used to describe the precise location of the kidneys and exactly what borders them.

Hah, I wouldn't be too surprised about the kidney bit. Remember, this is what the school admins think of me.

I took your words to heart, though. There was a time that I would have felt bad about such a designation. Now, I just laugh. As Weezy would put it, "when life sucks I just enjoy the head," namsayin?

I will study that stuff before STEP I, and again before the surgeons pimp me.

Now back to da statins.

 

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

You hit on a zillion things here which resonate with me; I was exhausted earlier so I couldn't address them faithfully.
I remember reading an interesting book about successful women (in the business world) and it had a chapter highlighting this "hedging" women do. Except I had the habit of male speech patterns. Yet, like you said...while you are heard more often - you also come off as a bit harsh/bitchy when you assert things without "I think..." or "I believe", "In my experience..." or "Do you think it would be better if...". You walk into a room and say "So the way we're going to handle this is XY and Z." and you're automatically in the category of ball-busting bitch. You just have to practice softening it at the end with a smile and some compassionate sounding comment. You, as a female, are just not as entitled to being so assertive. And the irony? I have felt it too when it's done by other females - it's quite subconscious and sinister. I'm not sure everyone will see the connect but I never forget the great James Baldwin quote...“It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.”

Enjoyed storytime immensely. And without a doubt those caricatures are spot-on with a large number of the population. I hadn't ever really thought about it and it seems to speak to @touchpause13. Personally I don't really have those issues come up much in relationships or in my friendships with males and I thought about your two depictions and realized it's because many males and females are closer to the middle on that spectrum.

What I mean to say is I still relate to the "I win" mentality and the "I wanna share - now you share" mentality. And my closest male friends and boyfriends have also had that so perhaps never felt any kind of male/female mismatch in that sense. The theory is eye-opening though.

I wish I could claim credit for any of that: but if you read any of her material or watch her videos (lots of documentaries on both the author and the theories) you'll realize I took it (almost verbatim) from her. I may have embellished story time slightly.

Those depictions are far from perfect, and some of her stuff on males (and probably females too) goes way off into left field.
But the basic theory is interesting and provides one perspective on why we all act so crazy. If you look into her other stuff, she also has some interesting ideas about female therapists dealing with males.

I think we all relate a little to the other gender's method of thinking, but that most of us fall one way or the other. And it isn't a black and white scale: there's gray, and even red, blue, violet, etc that have nothing to do with it. It's far from a universal explanation.

I don't know if it's a comfort, but usually the same behavior that makes me go "wow what a ball busting b****" in women makes me say "wow what a d***" if a guy does it. It's a matter of whether you're assertive or aggressive. Both will get you into a conversation, but being assertive is difficult. No matter how careful you are, some people will think you're aggressive. And if they're a sexist a******, that threshold becomes even lower.

 

[Anastomoses]

I wish I could claim credit for any of that: but if you read any of her material or watch her videos (lots of documentaries on both the author and the theories) you'll realize I took it (almost verbatim) from her. I may have embellished story time slightly.

Those depictions are far from perfect, and some of her stuff on males (and probably females too) goes way off into left field.
But the basic theory is interesting and provides one perspective on why we all act so crazy. If you look into her other stuff, she also has some interesting ideas about female therapists dealing with males.

I think we all relate a little to the other gender's method of thinking, but that most of us fall one way or the other. And it isn't a black and white scale: there's gray, and even red, blue, violet, etc that have nothing to do with it. It's far from a universal explanation.

I don't know if it's a comfort, but usually the same behavior that makes me go "wow what a ball busting b****" in women makes me say "wow what a d***" if a guy does it. It's a matter of whether you're assertive or aggressive. Both will get you into a conversation, but being assertive is difficult. No matter how careful you are, some people will think you're aggressive. And if they're a sexist a******, that threshold becomes even lower.

What's most comforting is that there are intelligent, reasonable, considerate people willing to mull things over even when it doesn't concern their primary interests. That there were people willing to store Jews in their basement during nazi occupation; and that there are people who pause to reexamine the status quo or multivariable possibilities. Weird thread turned happy. 🙂

 

[xffan624]

Why are you quoting me?

Sorry, residual effects of my original post.