This topic may turn into a bit of a rant, so please- bear with me!
I study people - everyone I spend time with, converse with, or even see in passing gets subtly analyzed in terms of personality, character traits, (etc. etc.) and one of the things that has really started to bother me in the past two years or so is this continual war of words between the guys I know and the girls.
It’s not direct- statements are aimed at ‘girls’ (e.g. girls are so manipulative!) or at ‘guys’ (guys are so insensitive!). No one goes at it directly, no one even usually opposes the other side’s opinions beyond making a statement that points out the other side’s flaws. I was going to stay out of this indirect cold war of relationship warfare, but I’d like to just get out here and say some things, for the record.
First of all, for the guys- yes; girls tend to be very manipulative in order to get what they want. We do it to each other; we do it to you. We fight the way we love- on a very mental and emotional level; our brains are hard-wired for it, and turning it off isn’t nearly as easy as you might think. Going along with this- yes, girls are stupid and emotional. We’re girls, ok? We’re stupid about these kinds of things- we cry, we get hysterical, and we can hold a grudge even longer than you can, and that’s saying something.
And the big one I’ve been hearing a lot- girls ‘lie’, or don’t tell the straight-up truth. Ok, guys- I know that it’s in your nature to say exactly what you think and how you feel about any given subject. We literally cannot do that; if a girl comes out and says exactly what she thinks, she’s a shrew. If she comes to her friends, even, and says she even likes a guy, she risks either being ostracized or just starting world war three. So we learn from a very early age to play this game of not saying exactly what’s on our minds, of edging around a topic, of saying what we mean in forty different ways in order to avoid making anyone angry or hurting anyone’s feelings.
We do this with you, believe it or not, a lot of times because we care. The much hated ‘friend zone’ is often used so that we can say ‘I’m just not interested’ without making you think we’re saying ‘you’re a terrible guy- there is some awful, unforgivable flaw that makes you completely unacceptable as a potential companion.’ I mean really- how would you feel if a girl just said ‘no- I’m not interested; and I don’t even want to be friends with you, because that would just be too weird.’
How horrible would that be???
Now, to the other side. Girls, give the poor guys a break, would you? They honestly don’t get it- they can’t understand when you dance around the topic and think you’re being so obvious they must understand, right? Wrong. All they see is a girl, being a girl, and they generally misread every ‘obvious’ cue you give them and end up just making a fool out of themselves in your eyes, just for trying.
It’s a no-win situation, and the good guys all get burned. Please, girls- just be direct, and don’t play games. Guys are physically and mentally tough by nature, in a way that few girls will understand. They can take a beating every which way except emotionally. Break a girl’s heart and she’ll go out, eat chocolate, and then be generally okay in a fairly short amount of time, unless you really did a number on her. Break a guy’s heart, and from my experience, you just crushed his entire world.
It’s not a bad thing, either- it’s that soft, sensitive side we girls keep asking for- and then when we get it, we rip it apart because we expect them to be able to take as much of an emotional beating as we do. I honestly don’t think they can- it’s just not in their nature, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Girls learn to be emotionally tough from all of the backbiting and feuding we do from the time we start making friends. We form emotional callouses over our feelings, we build walls, and then we expect these poor guys to scale these walls, break through every barrier we’ve spent the last decade constructing, all while we’re virtually attacking them trying to keep ourselves safe. And in order to fulfill this dream of ours, they open themselves up for that attack- and very few of them have those experience-hardened callouses without turning as cold towards us as we sometimes are towards them.
So, yes- be direct, but don’t break his heart! They expect a complete contradiction… just like we expect a complete contradiction from them- be sensitive, but be strong enough to take everything we’re going to dump on their heads.
How is that fair, for anyone involved? It’s not; it’s not fair to the guys, it’s not fair to the girls. And you know what? It’s not likely to change any time soon. So let it go. Seriously- stop dissing on the people of the opposite sex. Girls are not evil, and guys are not stupid. We just are, exactly the way we were made at the beginning of time. We misunderstand each other; we spend our whole lived just trying to find a way to effectively communicate only to fail 80% of the time. It’s hard, and it’s painful, and it seems like it’s never going to get better. But that’s no reason to be bitter towards an entire half of the human race.
Let it go, guys and girls- be nice, don’t let past heartbreak define your future, and keep trying if you can; because from what I hear, eventually it’s worth it.
-Rebecca
