The Men of LFAD

[Hollandia]

We all know this forum is mostly female and the male opinion's seem to get drowned out or squashed by the females on occasion. I thought it would be cool to create a thread to hear from the MEN of LFAD about some of the more male related posts that been arising lately. I know there are more than a few of you out there, so let's hear it from the horses mouths'.... and please if you are not male, you don't really have insight into being one you just think you do. Let them talk and let's hear what they have to say.

I am not saying for females not to respond, but not to judge or question the various male opinions and perspective just because you don't like what you hear or it is not what you feel your SO would think. This is based on the honour system so if you respond as a male and you are in fact a female, then you have no honour.

My hope is for this to be an interesting and insightful thread.

[Davidvs]

We need tv, beer and pizza in this thread.


But what are you envisioning for this thread? Do you mean for people to post a general question and then have the LFAD guys respond with the way we see things, or something different?

[silvermoonfairy3]

the male opinion's seem to get drowned out or squashed by the females on occasion.

I think a lot of the time the women are pretty good about listening to a male opinion.. it tends to get "squashed" when the man seems or claims to be speaking on behalf of all men. As it does when women here try to speak on behalf of all women.

[Luc]

I think a lot of the time the women are pretty good about listening to a male opinion.. it tends to get "squashed" when the man seems or claims to be speaking on behalf of all men. As it does when women here try to speak on behalf of all women.

What I find funny is that when a man speaks about men in general, and male behavior in general, some women tend to reply with a general statement that no, men aren't like that, etc. etc. etc. Isn't that essentially speaking on behalf of all men? Isn't that exactly the thing you accuse some LFAD men of doing?

When I make a general statement about men, or when I voice my male opinion, I speak from experience. I speak from what I know most men are like, what most men feel, what most men think. Of course I don't know what ALL men in the world think or feel, but I know what I feel, I know what my friends feel, I know what my male colleges feel. Us men talk about our feelings and share our experiences with each other too you know, it's not only women who do that.

[iamj]

I think it's fair in some circumstances to make a general statement about men as long as you acknowledge that it is a generalization (that may or may not agree with your personal position).

At the same time, my hypothesis is that the men on this forum are of a particular type solely because it takes a certain type of man to A) be in a long distance relationship and B) actively seek a forum like this + engage on a regular basis

[Hollandia]

I think a lot of the time the women are pretty good about listening to a male opinion.. it tends to get "squashed" when the man seems or claims to be speaking on behalf of all men. As it does when women here try to speak on behalf of all women.

This is what I am talking about. This thread is all about letting more than one male speak and hearing all of our LFAD men ,and no that is totally different unless other men were squashing the other men and not woman. You are not a man so you can only guess that any of them are wrong or right to any extent, so again let us hear their opinion's. Your male SO's are welcome to join in, but your female opinion of your male SO's are just that.

[Hollandia]

I think it's fair in some circumstances to make a general statement about men as long as you acknowledge that it is a generalization (that may or may not agree with your personal position).

At the same time, my hypothesis is that the men on this forum are of a particular type solely because it takes a certain type of man to A) be in a long distance relationship and B) actively seek a forum like this + engage on a regular basis

Do you make that same statement everytime you speak about being a female? This is nuts people. This is a forum. We all just have opinions. That is what forums are based on. The males know more about being male than you do so please let's stop scaring them off and hear what they think.

As far as this thread, I leave that up to the men to figure out what they wish to discuss. The are big boys and handle it on their own , or not.

[silvermoonfairy3]

What I find funny is that when a man speaks about men in general, and male behavior in general, some women tend to reply with a general statement that no, men aren't like that, etc. etc. etc. Isn't that essentially speaking on behalf of all men? Isn't that exactly the thing you accuse some LFAD men of doing?

Not really.. it's a much broader interpretation that allows room for what men think to be what they actually think, instead of a presupposed notion.
Saying "Men do/think X" limits their behavior to that one thing.
Rebutting with "Not all men do/think X" opens it up to suggest that men might do C or M or purple. It indicates that men are *people* who are complex and unique creatures capable of being different than each other.

It's the difference between saying "men are like this, for the most part" and saying "men can be and are however they want to be." Pigeonholing vs. allowing for their own actual personality.

Now, my issue isn't even with talking about how men might be sometimes, or how they may tend to do things. Sure, there's probably patterns. My issue is the notion that "men are just like this. It's how they are." Because it's usually not applied to something biological, like being strong physically, it's usually applied to a social construct that continues to exist because we keep saying it and accepting it as true without further examination. It's also used as a "welp, never gonna be able to understand men! They're so different and confusing!"

There's an awful lot of things in this world that a person won't understand if they go into it thinking that they can't possibly get it.

I speak from what I know most men are like, what most men feel, what most men think.

No, frankly, you don't, and it's pretty arrogant to assume you do. To make a claim like that, you'd have to be most men. And since you aren't, since you're one man, you can extrapolate your own experience and that of your friends, you can rely on stereotypes, and you can make guesses.
Do you think you know what everyone of your age group thinks and feels? Everyone of your race? Everyone of your monetary bracket?

I don't think that I can speak for what "most" women are like or think or feel. This board alone constantly shows that women think and feel different things, and that the ones people try to claim are biological are often social constructs.
Some women are jealous if their guy goes out with a female friend, others are like, what's wrong with that, my guy stays at his female friend's apartment sometimes, no big deal.

My biggest issue is simply the idea that men are like X or Y because, well, that's just how it is. I give men more credit for being more than sheep who all think or act alike, and I have more respect for them than to pigeonhole them like that.

[differentcountries]

A perticual type of man in a LDR? Well, hopefully a serious kind of man - and the same goes for women. But there are lots of serious CD relationships, too. A perticular type of man on this Forum? Well, I know other forums where there are less active guys and the overall feeling is that generally men don't like to talk about their feelings/ relationships online. Unless the feeling in question is anger, of course...

In this case I think it is fair to make a generalisation because it is as much about male and female culture as it is about actual men and women. Whenever I feel and act like Luc describes, I am very aware that I don't act the way women are supposed to, and that someone may ask for/give an explanation - one female friend described me as "rational" and herself in touch with her feelings (or depressed, as I called her). One guy fell in love with the way I would react to his retreats by retreating myself, I suspect he never had a women react like that, and I belive he still ththinks I am superconfidant to act this way as a woman (because he knows women tend to cling when they panic), while I was really probably just as scared and pissed off by our miscommunication as he was.

[Hollandia]

How about we let them F#cking speak and stop debating whether or not they should or not so F@cking much?

You know, it feels like the women here are afraid to let them do it. So if no, stop scaring them off long enough to hear them post their opinions. This is not for one of them it is for any of them so let's hear what they really think and that means you actually have to just let them post for awhile.

So to be blunt ladies, can we just shut the frak up for a bit, and let them just talk or can you not handle that? If not, then you really are just proving the point.

[differentcountries]

My biggest issue is simply the idea that men are like X or Y because, well, that's just how it is. I give men more credit for being more than sheep who all think or act alike, and I have more respect for them than to pigeonhole them like that.

True, but at the same time psycolocy and statistics teaches us that women and men have different tendencies, they vote for different parties and don't even get the same psycolocial disorders. There are real statistical differences between women and men, saying something about it is just a discription. That is something different than saying that women or men SHOULD be like this or that. But agree with you the two tend to blur.

[silvermoonfairy3]

True, but at the same time psycolocy and statistics teaches us that women and men have different tendencies, they vote for different parties and don't even get the same psycolocial disorders. There are real statistical differences between women and men, saying something about it is just a discription. That is something different than saying that women or men SHOULD be like this or that. But agree with you the two tend to blur.

Absolutely. There are legitimate, documented scientific/biological differences between men and women. But sometimes we apply the logic of "men and women are biologically different" to things that aren't biological differences, but societal ones.

[Hollandia]

Again, this was a thread for the men to speak.........................hello?

All I hear is women talking about them, please let the actual MEN speak, you all can feel free to make your own thread "about" men but this one was mainly to hear from the men.

You all are just talking about them behind their backs, you get that right?

[silvermoonfairy3]

Or, looking at it a little differently..

Women were once stereotyped and pigeonholed as less intelligent.. women shouldn't vote, they don't have the brains for that. Women can't be in business. Well, okay, they can, but only as secretaries, they don't have the head for the real business stuff.

I'm guessing most people here today wouldn't think of suggesting that women are mostly all less intelligent than men, or that most women should be secretaries. But it took time, and it took women saying "uh, no I'm gonna do this job instead" and it took men being willing to hire them for harder jobs because they didn't buy into the stereotype, and thought the woman could do it.

And while that's not a direct comparison to saying "most men can't clearly communicate their feelings", there are similarities in how it can be self-perpetuating. It's only by stepping outside of the thought that "men are just destined to be bad at this" and "most men suck at it, it's just a guy thing" that it could improve.

Fortunately, a lot of men HAVE started believing that they are capable of communicating well, or whatever else, and more women have started believing it as well. But yeah. Not getting sucked into the overall stereotypes has a lot of positive effects.

[silvermoonfairy3]

Again, this was a thread for the men to speak.........................hello?

All I hear is women talking about them, please let the actual MEN speak, you all can feel free to make your own thread "about" men but this one was mainly to hear from the men.

*Let* the men speak? I missed where someone is actively preventing the men from speaking.