Midlife Crises

[Hollandia]

Um.. that sort of makes them "not average" then. :P
If "most" don't fit some pieces of it, that speaks to the uniqueness and complexity of men. How many differences can a guy have from the "average" before he's no longer considered to fit the stereotypes? Because I bet just about every guy you know has several traits that don't fit the cultural constructs of masculinity.
I'm actually a little bit surprised you're not more insulted at the thought that "men behave/think a certain way" when you know and say that you yourself don't always behave or think that way.

FFS.

All men are not like your SO, can you open your mind and listen to other opinions?

For the record. My SO does indeed act the way Luc speaks of men. My ex was pretty close but in a different way and most other men I have known in my life, from my very happy and open gay brother and his BF to my first love have too.

SF, If you were a man and spouting this, it would have much more weight, your not. No, the planet does not all believe as you do. Some countries look at men and women differently than you do and it does not make them wrong, it just makes them different. Exactly who are you to judge this?

You want to cry to say we all have a right to believe what we want? Then know that includes countries and beliefs that will far contradict yours. Are the Muslims wrong? Are tribal communities of Africa wrong? You do know most of us came from those beliefs? What makes what you say right versus what they say?

[silvermoonfairy3]

FFS.

All men are not like your SO, can you open your mind and listen to other opinions?

I'm not actually talking about my SO, and you're the one who isn't opening your mind. I'm actually saying that there are lots and lots of ways that men behave and think. You and Luc are the ones who want to say NOPE MEN BEHAVE LIKE THIS.

For the record. My SO does indeed act the way Luc speaks of men. My ex was pretty close but in a different way and most other men I have known in my life, from my very happy and open gay brother and his BF to my first love have too.

That's fine. And mine, and my exes, and several of the other women who chimed in in this thread pointed out how their SO's don't.. which means, as we've been saying, men are different.

Why do you want us to listen to your point about other men who act like Luc if you won't listen to the women here saying their men don't?

No, the planet does not all believe as you do. Some countries look at men and women differently than you do and it does not make them wrong, it just makes them different. Exactly who are you to judge this?

That's EXACTLY WHAT I'M SAYING. That they're DIFFERENT, not all the same.

You want to cry to say we all have a right to believe what we want? Then know that includes countries and beliefs that will far contradict yours. Are the Muslims wrong? Are tribal communities of Africa wrong? You do know most of us came from those beliefs? What makes what you say right versus what they say?

They aren't! That's exactly my point. Muslim men are different than American men, but Muslim men are also different than other Muslim men. I'm saying that what you, what Luc, whoever, says may be right FOR YOU or your SOs and your experience, but it's arrogant and untrue to assume it's correct or right for *all men* or even *most men.*
You're sort of proving my point with this last paragraph.


This thread has gone on quite longer than anyone probably intended, so I'll leave it at that. Men are different than other men.

[differentcountries]

You can focus on the big variety, or you can focus on large patterns. Either way it is going to be true.

[AussieAmericanGirl66]

I think we should make a thread for the men on the forum and let them present their differing opinions instead of any females trying to lecture that one that does for presenting his.

That might be a good idea, but what would keep some of us women from barging in and lecturing them anyway. Personally, I feel it's a good thing for men to chime in here, and give us their version of things, share their experiences, and help us to understand men better, and see that our men are not always weird, not always cold, uncaring, nonchalant jerks, but just human beings who think differently, but have feelings, too. And really, when I see some of the issues brought up on these forums, I really appreciate how lucky I am with the man I have, in spite of the obstacles we have between us.

[Luc]

Um.. that sort of makes them "not average" then. :P
If "most" don't fit some pieces of it, that speaks to the uniqueness and complexity of men. How many differences can a guy have from the "average" before he's no longer considered to fit the stereotypes? Because I bet just about every guy you know has several traits that don't fit the cultural constructs of masculinity.
I'm actually a little bit surprised you're not more insulted at the thought that "men behave/think a certain way" when you know and say that you yourself don't always behave or think that way.

No, the average is still the average, I'm just saying I don't ALWAYS fit the description of the average man, and that goes for most men. We're basically all different shades of the same color, if you get my metaphor. On some occasions I fit the description of the typical average man like a glove, on other occasions I do not. That's why it's an average.

Not to sound insulting, but do you even know what the word "average" means? If we take a sample size of 1000 men and look at their behavior, and we see 600 men are X, 300 men are Y and 100 men are Z, then we can all say that the average man is X. That's what average means.

I'm not insulted at the thought that men behave/think a certain way because I know it's true most of the time. I can't change that fact, I can only accept it.
For example the whole saying that "men are like a rubber band" (if you never heard of that saying, google it) is pretty accurate. Most men I know are indeed like that, myself included.
The whole notion that men are insecure and find it difficult to express their feelings, also true, myself included.
The notion that men think about sex all the time (or at least very often) is probably also true, though I'm an exception in this case (I think about sex at least once a day, but I don't think that counts as "very often"). While this particular trope might not fit me personally in this case, I'm sure it fits a lot of men.
Yes, there are always exceptions, but in general these above mentioned tropes are probably true for the majority of men. But don't take my word for it, google it, search for articles, researches, books, etc. There is plenty of literature covering this topic.

[sarahjane1992]

No, it is not perfectly ok and it is much better to explain forhand and this should be the general rule. In a normal day this should not be a problem. Sometimes it can be understandable to not always give notice. Time management can get out of hand (I have seen for myself how Turkish visiting habits can be...people drop in at all hours and stay until late if they feel like it), phones/inernet somtimes don't work or a guy simply feel he does not know what to say. I know what it is like to be overwealmed, so I know it is not always easy to say or do the right thing - and I think this is often harder for guys who don't discuss feelings with their friends the way many girls do with theirs.

I can forgive my SO for not always being the perfect boyfriend, and he can feel understood when I say for him what he was not able to. He always apologize afterwords if I did not hear from him and I don't consider him rude at all, if he suspect in any way he hurt me that upsets him very much. If something went wrong, perhaps we need, as a couple, to make better rules - I can make better suggestions, especially when as his girlfriend I know he does not always have that much leverage in his own life. We are a team, so anything that goes wrong is on me too. The same goes for him; he had to forgive me when I did not give good notice for whatever reason, and work with me to find better solutions.

Well, from reading your original post, it sounded like you had no problem with it. In my mind, somebody can always send a quick text or email and give their SO a heads up. With all the technology today, there is really no excuse. Just ignoring somebody without a reason isn't right. If my SO did that to me, I'd be upset. And I have to think many people on here would be too.

[differentcountries]

Well. My SO lives in Turkey. He mostly uses internet to keep in contact, because the phone is expensive. Sometimes internet doesn't work. I am aware of all of this. I can see on Viber if he is on or not. Today, he was so tired after working and then searching for our flat that he simply fell asleep. Our deals are more like "try to make it ". If we have set a specific time there is more at stake. Either way, we are hardly ever upset at each other. We can always make it better the next day.

[silvermoonfairy3]

I don't think we're going to agree, so we may need to just agree to disagree for a bit.

Not to sound insulting, but do you even know what the word "average" means? If we take a sample size of 1000 men and look at their behavior, and we see 600 men are X, 300 men are Y and 100 men are Z, then we can all say that the average man is X. That's what average means.

Errr.. no. That means the majority of that group, but that only speaks for that sample group anyway. Not to mention that if 600 are X and 300 are Y and 100 are Z that means 400 of them are different than X. And that's a pretty big amount of them to just assume are going to be X.

I'm not insulted at the thought that men behave/think a certain way because I know it's true most of the time. I can't change that fact, I can only accept it.

You actually can change it. That was my point with the "women are too dumb to vote/work" story. That perception changed/is still changing.

I think the notions you're throwing out "men are like a rubber band" etc. are my issue. It just lumps too many that aren't into that bunch. Could we just go with people saying "I'm like a rubber band"?

But, like I said, it might be time to just let the topic go.

[Luc]

Errr.. no. That means the majority of that group, but that only speaks for that sample group anyway. Not to mention that if 600 are X and 300 are Y and 100 are Z that means 400 of them are different than X. And that's a pretty big amount of them to just assume are going to be X.

You're nitpicking. Those numbers are just random numbers I threw in for the sake of argument. I could easily have picked different numbers for my example.

And no, you're wrong. A sample size represents an entire group, in this case a sample size of 1000 randomly picked men would represent the entire male population. A sample size of 1000 men would give a small idea of what the entire global male population looks like. but of course the bigger the sample size, the more accurate your results are going to be.

If you research how often men think about sex, you take a sample size of 10.000 men and all ask them how often per day they think about sex, you're probably gonna get at least 1000 different answers. But we can then look at the average and a median and that gives us a pretty good idea how often men think about sex. We could then do the same experiment on women and we'd probably get a different average and median. We could then conclude whether men indeed think more about sex than women or not.

And guess what, the average man does indeed think more about sex than the average woman. That's not pigeonholing, it's the truth.

But seriously, this is getting extremely off-topic and redundant. We're deep in the realm of nitpicking and arguing for the sake of arguing right now. I love a good discussion, but I think discussions that don't go anywhere are a waste of time. So I'm just gonna leave it at that.

[CynicalQuixotic]

You're nitpicking. Those numbers are just random numbers I threw in for the sake of argument. I could easily have picked different numbers for my example.

And no, you're wrong. A sample size represents an entire group, in this case a sample size of 1000 randomly picked men would represent the entire male population. A sample size of 1000 men would give a small idea of what the entire global male population looks like. but of course the bigger the sample size, the more accurate your results are going to be.

If you research how often men think about sex, you take a sample size of 10.000 men and all ask them how often per day they think about sex, you're probably gonna get at least 1000 different answers. But we can then look at the average and a median and that gives us a pretty good idea how often men think about sex. We could then do the same experiment on women and we'd probably get a different average and median. We could then conclude whether men indeed think more about sex than women or not.

And guess what, the average man does indeed think more about sex than the average woman. That's not pigeonholing, it's the truth.

But seriously, this is getting extremely off-topic and redundant. We're deep in the realm of nitpicking and arguing for the sake of arguing right now. I love a good discussion, but I think discussions that don't go anywhere are a waste of time. So I'm just gonna leave it at that.

No, Luc, you have an incomplete understanding of statistics. I am getting my master's in linguistics, and one of the first things that you learn is that averages are basically statistically meaningless. They just don't account for much--if you take a sample of 100 stuffed rabbit owners, and 50 of them have 7,000 stuffed rabbits and 50 have 2 stuffed rabbits, the average amount of stuffed rabbits will be 3,501, which doesn't represent either group accurately. There's a great saying in French about this that I will translate for you: "With your head in the oven and your feet in the freezer, on average, you feel ok."

The reason why all of these arguments piss me off so much that I eventually just remove myself before I break my computer (which is worth more than my life, let's be serious) in impotent rage is that it's never, ever mentioned that we all grow up in a certain culture that we cannot remove ourselves from. Think about it: if we are told our entire lives that men think x way and woman think y way, that every joke, commercial, proverb, sermon, ad campaign, tv show, EVERYTHING that we consume from birth until death reinforces this collection of maxims, of course we're going to believe it's a natural, self-evident fact. We quite literally have never seen anything different. "Men think about sex every 7 seconds," "Men aren't in touch with their emotions as much as women," "Women are flighty," etc. etc. ad nauseum, these are cultural constructions created and reinforced for centuries, even millenia now, by a dogmatic, Judeo-Christian-dominated patriarchal culture. Men and women are biologically different, there is no doubt, but the extent to which these physiological/chemical differences influence our way of thinking can't be extrapolated to fact because it's impossible to account for all of the social factors. If men and women were raised in a culture where for the same amount of time, women were considered the dominant, logical group and men slaves to their emotions, I think we would see a lot more men fretting on message boards about why their girlfriends aren't talking to them. I wish people would think about this.

[differentcountries]

The cynial one is right that averidges is not all-telling. But statistics can be very detailed. If you ask the right questions and analyze them right, they can say something useful. Personally, I think the "think of sex" statistics are bullshit, especially since research shows women are often not aware when they are horny. Anyway, the only way to know for sure something about the difference between biology and culture, is to look at the questions historically and across cultures. Are there some universal tendencies? Are there tendencis that have persisted through time? I don't have the answers, but these are important questions.

Even biology is changing; medicines, technology and even food is changing our bodies, even the sexed part of it. Youth and especially women hit puberty sooner because the rich food set off the inner clock. I am a different woman for having an hormonal-inducing instrument inside that makes me not bleed and not conceive for uptil 5 years, and indeed most fertile women who are with men use hormonal bc. If they ever invent something like a birth control pill for men (I have some friends waiting eagerly for that), that will revolutionize sex and procreation.

[Malaga]

I'm sure that every single person on this forum who had multiple boyfriends/girlfriends can agree that between all their relationships, there have always been returning patterns, returning behavior, things that all your exes and current SO have in common. I'm sure we can all agree that we have learned a great deal from past relationships and that through our past experiences with our previous relationships, we're able to do better now with our current relationship. How would this be possible if all men and women are 100% unique and different? Answer; They aren't 100% unique and different. We all share certain similarities, and there are many patterns in human behavior, some patterns more common or even unique in the male sex, some more common or unique in the female sex.

I'm sure in all those books you read there was a bit about social conditioning, repression etc. Sometimes when you allow a person who is taught to act and think a certain way that it's OK if they don't, then they allow themselves not to have to be like that. And sometimes when you stop expecting people to act a certain way, then they actually stop. What Cynical, silvermoon etc are trying to tell you, but you're too stubborn to stop and think for a moment, is that just because there is a pattern of people acting a certain way, it doesn't mean it's male nature or female nature. Sometimes it isn't even that particular person's true nature, but a reaction to pressures and expectations. And it doesn't mean it's acceptable either.

It's a mind blowing concept I know. Think how many prevalent ideologies were refuted through time. Slavery, racism, women not having the intellectual capacities to vote or provide for themselves... All were based on the idea that certain groups of people are inherently different from each other, which invariably included ideas about them being incapable of certain things, and then people were shoehorned into these sometimes extremely harmful cliches.

I won't even comment on your suggestion that you, who's never met my boyfriend, understands him better than I do. Lets just agree to disagree on that one because it's so ridiculous I can't get into that.

I bet you were also taught that men are natural providers. Man the hunter because muscles etc, woman the gatherer because focus on details etc. One of many studies that countered this idea studied a primitive society who is still hunting and gathering. On average, men managed to secure a carcass every 30 days. Women found food every day. In reality, women were providing for men. (These people don't have fridges.) Science! Yet man the provider for his family is one of the most often repeated stereotypes from which so many other stereotypes and social constructs were derived. And that's just an example.

In the end, I can only wish for you (and Hollandia etc) to be as happy and harmonious in your relationships with your kind of attitude, as my boyfriend and I are with our approach to understanding each other.

[differentcountries]

ind it interesting that it is Luc who here use use words like "every single" and "always ", as those are emotional exerderations and not very founded. Such words also invites the kind of responses that Malaga gave. I will chime in with my own thing, and that is the gay issue is much overlooked here. In my relationship with my female ex, I was "the guy " so to speak. I would protect her and hear her out and calm her down and be more practical. The two other long term relationships I had, and still have, the relationship with my husband is quite traditionally male -female while with my boyfriend is more androgyn. Three relationships, three different dynamics.

[silvermoonfairy3]

I wish people would think about this.

<3 <3 <3

It won't let me give you karma again, but yes, exactly, completely. This is what I've been trying to discuss, about cultural/societal differences vs. biological.

There is a part of Samoa that has a cultural thing of raising a "third gender." It's usually children born biologically male. They're called fa'afafine, and embody characteristics that are considered 'feminine' and 'masculine.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa'afafine

[Luc]

<3 <3 <3

It won't let me give you karma again, but yes, exactly, completely. This is what I've been trying to discuss, about cultural/societal differences vs. biological.

There is a part of Samoa that has a cultural thing of raising a "third gender." It's usually children born biologically male. They're called fa'afafine, and embody characteristics that are considered 'feminine' and 'masculine.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa'afafine

Sounds like just regular homosexual men with feminine traits to me, even though the wiki article states they're not the same, they very much sound like the same thing. I don't really see what's so "third gender" about this. Not sure what the point is that you're trying to make here either.