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by Daydreamer on May 13th, 2005

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Why do so many men complain that they don't understand women? Aren't men just as confusing?

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  • by Robert McLaren on May 13th, 2005

    Robert McLaren

    No, of course not! We are completely logical and always understandable! Ha Ha!!! Just kidding of course. We men really are just as mysterious. There have been so many books written on this subject matter that they would fill a library all by themselves. Even the Bible mentions the difficulties of understanding people. There's a popular book called "Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus" that discusses this subject, and a popular play called "Defending The Caveman" that covers it on the lighter side. Read one, see the other. Enjoy the differences, but give up trying to understand the opposite sex....it's part of what makes them so much fun to be around.

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  • by Phillip on August 21st, 2007

    Phillip

    This is also very interesting. Men and women think very differently. They always have and always will.

    Men tend to think more logically and black and white. They usually dont care for fluff but want to get straight to the point. For example, when you ask a guy how to get to a certain place, he will usually tell you to go to street A and turn left, then to street B and turn right.

    If you ask a women how to get to the same place, she might give you a story about how she used to live in that area and then she will eventually get around to the directions. She will usually tell you to go to the Walmart and turn left, then go to the big tree on the left and turn left.

    It has nothing to do with right or wrong, its simply a different way of looking at things. Women see the world one way and men see it another.

    When my wife and I get in an arguement, I often say that she never told me something that she swears that she did. I think the problem goes back to men and women thinking differently.

    Most men need details and specifics. They need to be told something point blank without beating around the bush.

    For example, a woman has made dinner plans for her and her husband with the Smiths for Thursday night. When she sees her husband, she tells him that she met the Smiths, they discussed how there day was, the weather, what they ahd to eat that day and such.

    After 20 minutes, she eventually gets around to dinner, but by this time, the husband has already lost track of the original topic and does not hear the part about the plans.

    Then when Thursday rolls around, the husband comes home late and when he comes in, gets in trouble because he did not get home in time to go to the Smiths for dinner.

    The problem is that the woman needed to talk and needed to tell her husband a story and then weaved in the dinner plans.

    The man though needed to not hear the story but to just be told that they had dinner plans for Thursday night.

    So neither the man or the woman was wrong. We simply have different needs and we communicate differently. The challenge is to figure out how to communicate in such a way as to give both the man and the woman what they need.

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  • by Snooch on August 21st, 2007

    Snooch

    I think women make things more complicated than they need be.. we overthink.. overanalyze and I think all of us girlies are walking chemical imbalances to a higher degree than men due to hormones and other things that seperate the men from the women..
    Just my two cents!

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  • by Anon on June 18th, 2005

    Anon

    There are several factors at work, but one is linguistic:

    Men and women speak differently and use language in different ways. Though it is more distinct in some languages like Japanese, it is still very well documented for English-speakers.

    For example, women and men choose to talk about different topics when they are socializing. Women also use speech to socialize more than men do. As a result, men often misunderstand a woman's venting as blaming the guy, asking for a solution to the problem, etc.

    Something I've noticed between my husband and I is that he often misunderstands the tone of voice and even just my facial expression. It's not uncommon that he misinterprets stressed, nervous, tired, etc. for "angry" . In fact, at least has shown that men do in fact tend to misinterpret facial expressions more often than women.

    Are men just as confusing? I think so. On the surface, many guys seem easy to read, but deep down they are more complicated. I don't think that most guys can articulate their inner feelings as well, even to themselves. Face it, they don't get as much practice analyzing and taking about their feelings as women do.

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  • by Megamuzik on June 13th, 2005

    Megamuzik

    No.......even though I am a woman men are not as complex and confusing as we are...by far

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  • by Anonymous on August 19th, 2006

    Anonymous

    Because women are confusing and don't no what they want in anything. this would explain why it takes women large amounts of time to shop and why it takes guys shorter amounts of time to shop. guys are more simple and and know what they want end of discussion.

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  • by Answers101 on February 2nd, 2006

    Answers101

    Men and women don't understand each other due to the simple reason that they're two different beings.

    Women are raised to be polite, and considerate; whereas, men tend to be more aggressive and competitive.

    Because of biological differences between men and women, they don't always find common ground.

    However, in a nutshell, men and women are, more or less, cut from the same cloth, in that, they both have feelings.. More than anything, it's their reactions to people and situations that makes men different from women, in terms of, thteir attitudes and actions.

    Solution: Men and women need to understand that everyone is different and not everyone is going to have the same thoughts and react to situations the same way that you do. Therefore, being more sensitive, compassionate, and respectful towards other people can diminish the differences that men & women possess.

    I hope this helps to answer your question! :)

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  • by StoneyJ74 on August 21st, 2007

    StoneyJ74

    All I know is that I don't understand how a man and a woman can have such a great weekend together, seem to be so very compatible and have so much passion and be so comfortable together, make love about 4 different times, spend the night and wake up with still yet the same passion and comfort... then when the man decides to write a poem about his feelings and how great she made him feel, then go to Hallmark and find a card that says almost the exact same thing he wrote in the poem the night before, then drive 40 minutes just to order a vase of sweetheart roses and have all the card and roses sent to her at work... she calls him and tells him that was too much and to no longer contact her ever again. ????? Yeah... That's what just happened to me yesterday after everything seemed to be so perfect! So, now, ever since yesterday, I've been in deep depression and having a million thoughts run through my head as to what I did wrong. I mean, I've been talking to this girl and seeing her for a little over a month now, and WOW... a big freakin wall out of nowhere! I just want all women to know that there are some men out there that DO have feelings and are not the stereotypical male that's out for a piece and pretty much compared to a dog! I really liked this girl a lot and felt so comfortable with her as she stated herself just a couple of days ago to ME!!! It's all way too confusing, and I think I understand now how jerks are born. I always hear women complain about there not being any nice guys out there! I'm sick to death of that complaint! When you've got one staring you right in the face, who has pretty much fallin for you and treats you so good and puts you on a pedestal, you want nothing to do with him! You'd rather go find that jerk and complain about how terrible he treats you! Well, if anybody can help me with this issue, I would greatly appreciate some insight! You can check me out at http://www.myspace.com/StoneyJ74

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  • by Anonymous on December 29th, 2005

    Anonymous

    Some men complain like this for the same reason some women say all men are pigs. It's a problem of different expectations and expressions of personality.

    All people are confusing. The problem is, people get too attached to a person or situation and their vision of it, and do not act or think as objectively as necessary about it to understand it.

    Here's a common situation to illustrate. A guy sees a pretty girl and asks her out. After a few dates, she's so impressed she's ready to give her heart to him. He thinks she's a fairly special girl, along with about 4 others he's not willing to give up just yet. Her expectation is that he feels the exact same way she does, and of course when something happens to show her he's not digging her as much as she's into him, she acts like she's been utterly betrayed - because in her head, they are practically married already. Of course, most times the man doesn't realize this, and doesn't see why the woman is overreacting.

    Just a problem of expectations versus reality.

    But of course, men can be like this, too - confusing and human. Let me illustrate with a story from a life.

    I really fell head over heels for this guy. He wanted to be me for the longest time, but I didn't feel that way about him. Then when I finally starting feeling something for him because he made a effort to win me over, I fell hard. Then he decided he didn't want to be with me after I actually wanted to be with him. I'll shorten this story with the three letters that best describe my take on this - WTF?

    My point is, I asked similar questions - why are men so darn emotionally bankrupt and illogical and fickle? I saw no reason for him to just turn like that. "Why are men so confusing?" would have been a good question for me at the time. But after some analysis, I came to the conclusion I started out with - that the problem was in the personalities and expectations of the people involved.

    Men and women are equally confusing. However, with a fairly objective look at a situation, one can determine that what one "doesn't understand" is most likely a natural result of the interactions of the personalities.

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  • by A on January 6th, 2009

    A

    I actually don't think men are confusing. Then again, I don't think women are confusing, either. I think it has a lot to do with ....men and women generally don't WANT to take the time to understand each other.

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  • by Frank Tank on August 21st, 2007

    Frank Tank

    Well, men are pretty simple actually. We want food, sleep and sex (not necessarily in that order.) :)

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  • by MrWitch on August 21st, 2007

    MrWitch

    I think yes is the answer to both questions, and testosterone levels combined with differences in early socialisation are the reasons.

    If I think back, what did I do with most of my time growing up? I played sports and hit other boys. Certainly I did other things, but that's it on the socialising front. I can't remember a time when there wasn't something to 'achieve' - usually instant. Punch him, climb this, play this or that sport.

    I can also remember what the girls were doing while I was exerting myself. They were, literally, socialising. They had their competitive side too, but their lives seemed to revolve around who was a friend of whom, not how many goals you had scored. Many men come late and rather ill-equipped to the social world of adult-hood. Women have had a decade or more to practice and have developed subtleties in social interraction we sometimes don't have the skills to recognise.

    In anything like this, huge generalisations are the norm, but it is a truth that generally women grow up more social beings than men, leaving us with two sets of tools to deal with problems. This has incidentally served us well as a species. Hunter-gatherers usually have a distinct division of labour, based on and reinforcing each gender's talents.

    Unfortunately, it also leaves us with a set of almost automatic misunderstandings which happen over and over again. Until we've had time to catch up (if we ever do), I'd say we'll keep on having them. The happiest relationships, I've found, are ones where partners can and do talk to each other.

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  • by dashmaster on October 28th, 2006

    dashmaster

    I don't think men are confusing. Men can say really f'd up sh*t sometimes, and women will "pretend" like they didn't hear what they heard.

    We tend to make up our own new senario in our heads to rationalize the differences of the sexes

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  • by American-In-Training on October 13th, 2006

    American-In-Training

    All humans start out as female and so it is only later on in the pregancy that the possibility of the baby being a male, through testosterone, is decided. This is why men have nipples and that a penis is simply a more developed and enlarged top section of the clitoris.

    Women are more balanced and "full" than men because nature decided, perhaps many hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, that in order for the procreation of the species to continue, certain attributes are required and that those attriubutes are held in the female version of the human.

    Through time and evolution, women have evolved highly co-operative, communicative and sharing characteristics, whilst men were more competitive, aggressive and generally the opposite of women, as they played different roles in their existence.

    Although we can see in our society today examples of both genders which blur the distinction between the two sexes, how female or male a person has been made is essentially how a person is wired up (how much testosterone they have).

    ---------------------------------------
    EDIT

    I realised I didn't finish my point above, so here goes.

    The disparity between the sexes, due to the historic inheritance of roles and the various skill-sets/tendencies and evidenced by the generally co-operative and consensus nature of women compared to the competitive and decision-making focus of men (as well as other distinctions), is what, essentially, is at the root of most of the confusion and misunderstandings between the sexes.

    In plain language, men and women are animals, but different kinds.

    I saw an image once, of 2 TV remote controls - one had 2 large buttons on it, called "Food" & "Sex", whilst the other had a multitude of buttons, of various colours and shape and contains almost every conceivable human need and consideration. I think you can work out which one is for whom and even though it is a bit simplistic, it makes the point.

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  • by Zenrean on March 16th, 2010

    Zenrean

    How are we supposed to understand women, when they don't even understand themselves?

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  • by Libertarian_Fella on January 31st, 2010

    Libertarian_Fella

    Not on this planet sister!

    I think its important to distinguish between guys who are deliberately trying to screw with your head (sociopaths) and guys who mean well but just have no effing clue what you are talking about most of the time (normal guys).

    If your boyfriend looks like a rabbit caught in the car headlights when you talk to him, he's in the "normal guy" category.

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  • by TAPriceCTR s son is wearing his COAT on February 21st, 2010

    TAPriceCTR s son is wearing his COAT

    nope. not confusing at all. there are liars and honest men. the liars will say what ever it takes to get in your pants and the honest men are exactly what they claim to be. the only confusion comes with you fail to identify which type you are talking to.
    or often when women have found an honest man they fail to understand him because they want there to be some deeper meaning than what he presents... you can not blame a simple system for you failing to understand it when the only reason you can not understand it is because you refuse to believe it is as simple as it is.
    with women it is not a matter of this one wants A and that one wants B.... it is a matter of for the same one, today A is perfect but tomorow anything other than B is offencive.

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  • by TheJoker on February 22nd, 2010

    TheJoker

    Not really, no. Most men are pretty easy to work out.... women, on the other hand, are a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, while hogging all the Haagen Dazs!

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  • by Discipline on January 6th, 2009

    Discipline

    The battle of the sexes. When will it ever end?

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  • by drewbag on January 3rd, 2010

    drewbag

    I certainly understand that we guys do tend to look for a solution...
    problem at work? tell that chick off. problem with me? well, what is it,
    let's break it down and solve it... while it seems that men can't talk about our feelings
    it is the same way for women... yes I said it... because when she comes to me and says "oh
    you know what you said, I can't believe you said that you insensitive bastard" etc... that
    dosen't actually explain what she's feeling that's just saying that she's upset. she hasn't
    explained anything. what did I say?
    what I'm saying is women have as much problems telling men their feelings as the reverse.
    it's not that men don't tell you our feelings it's just that, you women are too
    concerned about your own. we really do just want to solve problems and get things back to
    an easy flow... I know when the women I'm with are mad the first thing I do is think,
    "how do I get her un-mad" but first I have to jump through hoops, make sure I don't say the
    'wrong' thing that just exacerbates the problem and try to figure out what is actually wrong...

    if ya'll just told us in plain english what you are actually feeling instead of talking in
    a round about way about what is actually wrong then maybe we could sit down, get to the root
    and change the behaviour - like the garbage - that is causing the problem... and as much as
    it's funny to say, "men just try to solve problems and don't listen" the truth is when we
    solve the problem we don't have one, when there are no problems, everyone's happy... the main
    problem is, women don't explain what the problem is.
    let's talk... I'm listening (and yes, most men are douche bags and don't listen but they
    still want to solve the problem)

    -----
    I guess I'm the only male that A) decided to answer the questions (thanks females for telling males how they think) and B) put some thought (as much as a simple being with an enlarged ciltoris with raging testosterone can) into it.

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  • by zana on September 18th, 2007

    zana

    I honestly think that en are just as confusing as woman, but maybe a little more if I may say. Men don't understand woman because they don't put enough effort in.I mean a woman can by a nice dress or hair do, but men never sees it. men only wants to hang out with friends, drink beer and lay on the couch. ok maybe not all men. men just don't appreciate the small things that women do for them. men don't like compliments where woman do. men don't like emotions where woman do.
    so if men are complaining about women why are they with them. men can't live without women where woman can. i think that's where the misunderstanding part come in for men.

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