Why do men usually say (maybe jokingly or maybe not) women are complicated and not easy to understand? I don't get that. I think it's men that are difficult to understand lol. But then again, I am a woman so maybe that's why?
So men...why do you feel this way? Or are you one of the few men who do understand women? Tell us about it.
Women, do you find men difficult to get? Do you ask them for something and they still don't understand what it is you want?
In what ways could the sexes come together and communicate better with each other?
This is a great topic, LM.
The more time that goes by, the more I wonder how many miscommunications occur because people are simply used to handling things in different ways, and don't know or recognize that there are other ways to handle those same situations. I think many people also can't find the words to explain what they feel, or the person they're talking to doesn't understand what they're trying to say because they've either never experienced it, or have experienced it differently, which leads to the conflict ("You don't understand!!!")
I think men are socialized to hide or brush off their emotions, while women will process both their own and other's emotions right down to the last raise of an eyebrow. There are a myriad of other factors as well, such as someone who was raised in an abusive household where a person's true emotions had to be suppressed or hidden. If you put two people together and one has no experience with expressing/interpreting emotions, and yet the other one is constantly expressing and interpreting emotions, there is bound to be a serious level of miscommunications.
A while back, I was trying to make social plans in which a guy friend and I were going to meet up with another group of people. I had the trip all planned out one way while he had planned things a different way, and I couldn't understand why he didn't understand why I wanted to do things the way I had suggested. At one point, he pointedly asked me, "Why are you so oddly insistent on doing things that way?"
If that statement would have come from most anyone else, it would have been GAME ON and then some, because I honestly couldn't understand why HE didn't understand. My immediate thought was, "Well because that's just the way it should be!!!" Fortunately, we had enough of a history in our friendship that I took a few deep breaths before I answered
, and knew that if he was asking, he wasn't just trying to push my buttons and honestly didn't know where I was coming from (but wanted to.)
To be perfectly honest, I had to step back and ask MYSELF why I wanted to do things that way too, and then I realized that he was approaching the situation from the perspective of convenience, shorter travel times, and lower cost, whereas I was immediately set on what might be safer, even though it cost a bit more. Eventually, we found a compromise, but if he wouldn't have given me some time and space to answer, it would have been a disaster.
That situation really taught me a lot about my own communication - if someone asks me, "What's wrong?" or "Why are you doing something that way?" and I can't answer immediately, it is NOT because I'm trying to be moody, petulant, or trying to force someone to read my mind.
Rather, it's usually because I have the emotions there but don't quite know how to put them into words - just yet. But if you'll give me a little time, patience, and a few gentle questions, I'll find the words (which will probably make you want to run in the other direction when I do.)
I've also found that writing is my default form of communication vs. speaking, so I might not actually be able to "TELL" you what's wrong, but I might write a 20-page letter about it and give it to you at a later time.
Sometimes I even have to ask God what's bothering me and why because I truly don't know, and then I have to ask Him how I can explain it to another person.
There's no doubt that communication is complicated. I personally suspect that a lot of frustrations people have today is because they feel something or want to express something, but they don't know how to understand why they feel what they do or how to get it out, which causes some people to EXplode, and others to IMplode - usually at other people.
Personally, I have always wished that I could be an artist, because I think artists are capable of expressing emotions far beyond words (after all, a picture is worth a thousand words.)
I once asked a young artistic co-worker to show me her drawings - her style was very much like "The Nightmare Before Christmas", but every person she drew, while original, had one thing in common - all the figures had their mouths stitched shut. Those pictures were telling their own story in volumes, but without words.
I wished, more than anything, that I could have drawn a picture back to her (so that I could communicate to her in her "own" language) that could tell her I understood and that she wasn't alone, because somehow just speaking the words to her, in my opinion, fell woefully short.
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