Do you think men understand women better than women understand men?

I was talking to a friend a few days ago and he said that girls were to confusing to keep up with, and all his friends agreed. I also think that men are easier to understand that woman.

Probably not

LOL!

flutherother, you must be very careful with that black knob, white in the middle. It is very dangerous..NOT THAT ONE! Oh my God, what have you done?

LOL! There are 14 black knobs with white in the middle!

@Here2_4 Yes, I know. That one led to divorce.

My perspective may be flawed, but it seems to me that on the whole men are still the ones chasing women rather than vice versa. Men don’t understand women, and women feel they don’t need to understand men. Women set rules for men to follow with the peculiar belief that those men who navigate more or less in adherence to the rules can be molded and adapted. I have never met a woman satisfied with her man just the way he is. There’s always something that needs working on. Men on the other hand, and particularly those who are successful with women, have learned to keep their mouths shut regarding the flaws in the women with whom they’re involved. As a result, it’s an extremely rare occurrence to come across a nagging man, Women will claim that men just aren’t good at expressing their feelings, but every man is fully aware that “expressing his feelings” to the woman in his life is a path to interminable misery.

@stanleybmanley well said. It’s been true in my case. My wife is slowly figuring out that nagging simply does not work. If you appease the nagging it will never stop. If you want to guarantee something will not get done then nag to me about it. She now knows how to get me to do things indirectly and says please and thank you. She’s stopped trying to change and mold me. Once we got over that hurdle we have been working together quite well. I personally know for a fact that women don’t understand men very well. I can only assume the reverse is also true. As to which gender has a better overall understanding I think like a hundred years ago it used to be women. I think it’s more or less equal now though.

Some men understand some women better, but it’s a widely held belief that women understand men better.
I gave up years ago trying to work women out, just happy to get my way once in a while & live in perfect ignorant bliss.

I can hardly understand my “self”, never mind other people. That said, men and women are different. Our brains are actually different, and this results in development, language, spatial, and multitasking differences. The male/female confusion isn’t necessarily rooted in cultural explanations. However, I do think that culture exaggerates these biological differences, and plays on them in a way that make ‘the other” seem more foreign than we are.

To answer your question – I don’t think women or men are better at understanding, but I think it’s possible to understand better than we do.

I think both sexes have a little trouble understanding each other. If you make me choose I say men have a harder time understanding why women think and act as we do, although they can often guess what we are going to do. Especially women they spend a lot of time with. My husband often knows what I am going to do and say and worry about, but he thinks I am an idiot half the time for spending energy on half the stuff.

@JLeslie: “If you make me choose I say men have a harder time understanding why wmen think and act as we do”

But why would you have to choose? When I hear women explain what they understand about men, it sounds like they are describing a toaster oven. It is way off. My assumption is that men are equally as confused.

Do you guys think that women can put themselves in men’s shoes more easily than vise versa?

I put myself in the wife’s shoes all the time, very comfy & they do show off my legs a treat.

@stanleybmanly God, Roger that. And if it wasn’t for the incessant whining, I might consider having one around for more than a week. The death knell is always when they get it in their heads that you are supposed to apologize for something you either haven’t done, or an occurrence for which I have no control over, like bad weather.

What they want, it seems, is a caricature of a man like the fat clowns they see on their sitcoms every night, ala King of Queens or something, some weak marshmallow with zero self-esteem, planted on the couch living out his days vicariously though the territorial and hunter-gatherer games on ESPN. Fuck that life.

Luckily, there are a few, and they are far and few between these days, that don’t want to make their man their own little bitch. I don’t understand that behaviour at all, and I certainly won’t tolerate it.

@hominid LOL. Agreed. I don’t have to choose. That’s why I said at first I think both sexes have troubles understanding the other. But, if I have to choose…

@Dutchess_III The shoe thing is the wrong way of looking at it. Men in relationships are basically on the defensive. If there’s any goal to be realized, it can best be stated as “What must I do to minimize the nagging?” I think it has something to do with nesting and women’s necessary dominance and control of the nest. Women feel a need to discuss and comment on the negatives of their partners, but a reciprocal approach from the man involved is a guaranteed trip through hell. The result is that a woman will nag and tug at a guy who from appearances just sits there and takes it. Then she is devastated and perplexed when he just up and leaves her.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l5aZJBLAu1E

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug8WeZyTxXg

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rfAraUEgDJk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BqDjMZKf-wg

Neither understands the other in any great amount. For the most part women try to figure men out but miss the obvious, or do not want to humble themselves to manage that low denominator. Men on the other hand don’t care to figure women out other than enough to get what he wants from her, aside from that, the rest is useless. It is easier to figure out what each will do in a given set of circumstances than to figure out why they do certain things.

The nagging comes about when the guy says he’s going to do something that really needs to be done…and doesn’t do it. It’s really not fair to blame all that on the women.
What’s that joke…“If a man says he’s going to do something, he’ll do it. You don’t need to remind him every 6 months.”

My response, after waiting a reasonable amount of time, say a week or two, is to do it myself. And that pisses him off! Oh well. At least it’s done.

For example, the change oil light was on on the car. He kept saying, “I’m going to change the oil in all the vehicles this weekend.” He said that for 30 weekends in a row. I finally took the car to Walmart, which pissed him off. “I SAID I was going to do it!”

@hominid I would love to know what women say about men that you think it is so far off it is like we are talking about a toaster oven.

If the OP will allow it. We could do a separate Q.

Hm. Shall I allow it or not. Oh, the powa is going to my head!! NO! NO MEN/WOMEN QUESTIONS EVER AGAIN!!!!

Just kidding. I don’t care.

I don’t get women—and I am one.

@JLeslie “I would love to know what women say about men that you think it is so far off it is like we are talking about a toaster oven.”

I hear similar things all the time…men being described as simple creatures, incapable of multitasking, worrying, noticing details…

@longgone Oh that. My husband is like that. LOL. He is great at being focused and he finishes everything he starts. It makes him incredibly successful combining the focus with his ambition and goal oriented personality.

I think @JLeslie posted a list recently that was supposed to be representative of ‘men’. It didn’t represent any men I know. I’m sure the same would be true of a list that claimed to characterise women.

Similarly, there was a post where the discussion turned to womens’ orgasms and one member pointed out what men needed to do to in order to ensure a woman had an orgasm. Now perhaps that list of instructions worked for his partner, but it wouldn’t have worked for me. Again, we’re all individuals.

We’re all individuals. We may share some traits and characteristics, but none of us are the same. So how can any man ‘understand women’ or a woman say she can ‘understand men’. She might understand some men and he might understand some women but they can’t understand all women or men.

I hope I’m never so transparent that a man I don’t know can say he understands me without having to spend time getting to know me. I hope I’m a lot more unique and interesting than that.

@JLeslie – I didn’t literally mean that it sounded like they were describing a toaster oven :). I meant that it sounds nothing like what many men think and are motivated by.

No, I don’t think men understand women better. I think, for the vast majority they have figured out they will never be able to understand and so just don’t get too involved in trying to figure it out or too upset that they can’t.

@hominid Yes, I understood. I am genuinely interested in what men think and are motivated by. My husband seems motivated by money, wanting to feel successful at providing for us, by wanting to acheive his goals in his career and his hobbies, and wanting to prove any naysayers wrong. I also think he doesn’t get caught up in emptional bullshit that will weigh him down or cause him to lose momentum. Sometimes it can seem selfish or indifferent to some of us, but it helps him to be successful. I am in awe of him a lot of the time. How he thinks and his process. I still learn all the time from him and about him.

@Earthbound_Misfit I made a list? I don’t remember it. I’m not disputing I wrote it, I just don’t remember doing it. Can you make a search for it from what you remember was on it?

I thought you shared (not wrote) a list. You put up a question with a list. Perhaps it wasn’t you. I’ll try to find it again.

It was this question. It was an article with a list.

Oh right. Good memory.

I can hardly understand my “self”, never mind other people

Ha! I was just going to write this.

I understand men better than women. Men are emotionally more steady in general, easier to get along with.

Neither. Men always expect women to think like they do and vise-versa.

Does anybody really understand anybody else? What do you mean by understand? Your question is too simplistic. All (wo)men are not the same. How could I make such a blanket statement?

Now, as for being with some men and some women, I find some women needlessly complicated and some men willfully ignorant.

All I can give you is my opinion based on a small census.

Bro, I don’t even know myself.

(Note: I posted this by mistake on a similar thread while meaning it to go to this one. But it works for both, so…)

Actually, as women find their place as equals in society, they seem to be succumbing to the same temptations as men have throughout time, and in the very same ways. My guess is, when women finally reach full parity, they won’t be much different than men in their behaviours. You can’t be a whiner or a gossip and be a good leader. You can’t practice passive-aggression once you come to the seat of power, and expect to sustain that power. You must make tough decisions of brinkmanship when dealing with enemies. Women won’t me much different as leaders. And they apparently are proving not much different in other ways, as well…

I think you all would be surprised at some of the latest stats on human behaviour in the United States. In women’s struggle for equality, they have made great strides in child molestation and domestic violence. Witness the all too frequent news reports concerning female teachers molesting their students of both sexes in the past 20 years. They are quickly reaching parity among their male counterparts in this endeavour.

I think people are incredibly misinformed as to what is happening in our society and some of the effects of rapidly changing roles among men and women. Many of these people are willfully uninformed. They don’t want facts to get in the way of their comfortable preconceptions.

Our continued societal theme of women victims may address the majority of the incidents, but as a result it implies that violence against men is so rare that there is little to discuss on the issue. In 2010, the CDC found that 40 percent of the victims of severe, physical domestic violence are men.

According to one study, “63 percent of males as opposed to 15 percent of females had a deadly weapon used against them in a fight with an intimate partner.” Likewise, men are raped and in some cases forced to pay child support for the children resulting from the rape.

I wish people could resolve their differences without violence, that rape as well as physical and emotional abuse were so rare that reporters lacked sufficient research to write news stories about the subject. But domestic violence, including rape, is gender neutral. If our media and government could recognize this and stop using gender politics to slant the story, maybe both men and women could get help.

Women understand men better.

^ Then why do they keep choosing douche bag thugs and dogs then complain when he acts like it?

That’s a good point. I think this question is trying to cover a very broad spectrum of people, There are good men, and creeps, and women who are gross, and women who are ladies. There are smart, and stupid, and victims, and preditors, and…
So, in general, who knows who best? I think neither knows the other so well as they think, but men are usually quicker to admit they are stymied. That gives the illusion men are more confused, when in reality, women are quietly not admitting we are confused by what keeps those funny, warm, lazy, tough, vulnerable, exciting, intelligent dummies ticking.

@Espiritus_Corvus I’m kind of surprised. You act like there is no such thing as a passive aggressive men. There are. There are men who whine and nag too. They just don’t display that outside of the home, and the media doesn’t display it, unless it’s a gay character. It isn’t the media’s idea of how a “real man” should act. But there are plenty of them out there, and the more we discourage overt aggressiveness, the more of them there are going to be.

For some reason that song, Take a Look at Me Now by Phil Collins is running through my head. I like the song. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also kind of whiny, don’t you think?

@Dutchess_III Of course there are men with the characteristics you have mentioned, and they are marginalized by other men. Gossip, whining, passive aggression, back stabbing; all these things are related. These are characteristics of weakness and of someone who is completely undependable in times of crisis and worse: they are untrustworthy with confidences and they are invariably cowards. They cannot be trusted in any respect. In closed, male environments, such as jails and on crews aboard ships, they are shunned and soon leave ship, or sometimes just simply disappear at sea. I say good riddance to them, because like many of my cohorts, I find them disgusting, unreliable, and useless.

I am sad because it seems like you characterize ALL women as passive aggressive and whiny bitches. Those same awful behaviors would accompany women too.
Hopefully I misunderstood you.

People who can understand the other sex are the mature ones, either male or female, and they’re also the ones who are unwilling to judge the other side, but see things clearly without bias. This takes time, but they have no agenda. Every once in a while I find such a person.

You have to take into account that most women have, in the past, had a lot more to do with the upbringing of men and, therefore, had more influence on the adult result than the father.

Unfortunately, women have tended to mold their sons in the pattern of the grandfather, with the expected results.

The problem, @Dutchess_III, is stereotyping “men” and “women”, “black” and “white”. We all shape each other, and in this question I believe women have ultimately had more influence on their sons than the fathers have.

@ibstubro I think that most people are not so much molded by day to day stuff but more by memorable and profound experiences. I think influences depend on context and that more exposure is not the final word on what actually influences someone. I would say that I was much more influenced by my father as a role model even though my mother spent more time with me.

I’ll give you that, @ARE_you_kidding_me, with the equivocation that had your mother disliked your father, she probably could have interfered with that.

I do not remember a time when my mother and father expressed any affection for each other. Tolerance was golden.

Day-to-day defines your memorable and profound experiences.

I think my point was that you have to overlook your life experiences sometimes, to see someone else’. Empathy. I struggle with this constantly. Trying to put myself in someone’s shoes, if I disagree but otherwise find them sane.

@ibstubro “women have ultimately had more influence on their sons than the fathers have.” especially when the father abandons the family when the son is just 4 years old. It’s OK, though. I have an incredible son and I’ve gotten so many compliments from people telling me what a good job I did. :D

I’m pretty lucky, blessed really that my parents got along so well and still do… at least in everything but politics.