Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site watrose.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watrose!dmmartindale From: dmmartindale@watrose.UUCP (Dave Martindale) Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women Subject: Who asks who, communication, etc. Message-ID: <144@watrose.UUCP> Date: Wed, 21-Dec-83 01:32:01 EST Article-I.D.: watrose.144 Posted: Wed Dec 21 01:32:01 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Dec-83 06:54:02 EST References: <367@watdaisy.UUCP> Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 115 Some comments on Sophie Quigley's comments: I would not want to be in the position of believing that I could not ask someone else out. Sitting waiting for someone to come along and ask me would be incredibly frustrating, I believe. The passive role does have the "advantage" that if you don't get asked out enough, you can more easily blame the rest of the world if you want to; I don't consider this a real advantage. Feeling that you have some control over your own destiny is worth a great deal. But it IS much more difficult to get up the nerve to ask someone else out than it to just wait for an invitation. On the other side of the coin, getting asked out by someone you like is awfully nice (particularly if you are not used to it). I still remember rather clearly the first time a woman suggested that we do something together and I had not previously invited her to do something (in other words, she made the first significant move). It made my week. Such experiences have been rather rare; in an environment where there are about 5 times as many men as women, this is to be expected. I have not yet had to deal with being asked out by someone who I was not interested in. I doubt if I'd handle it very well. I'd feel very uncomfortable making up some sort of excuse, or "subtle hint" - I much prefer frankness. Yet I'd feel uncomfortable being frank, since that doesn't seem to be socially sanctioned. How do women handle this? I think the best world would be one in which either sex felt free to ask out someone they were interested in and, more important, people of both sexes had some EXPERIENCE as both asker and askee. If you are the asker, there is nothing like having spent some time in the shoes of the askee to give you an understanding of what they might be feeling, and how they might see your actions. The same is true in the other direction. Now, on to the topic of communication, or lack thereof. People often have trouble communicating with each other, particularly about important things, particularly when they try to use subtle forms of communication rather than clear ones. It is true of both sexes; men are not particularly inept at it. It depends on the people involved, and how much attention they are paying to each other, and how much they have in common in how they look at the world, and other things. An example: I like people. They fascinate me. They are all different. When I start to get to know someone new, I tend to ask all kinds of questions. I try to understand what their world is like; more precisely, I try to understand how they understand the world. I try to "get inside their head" to understand what their values are and how they interpret what goes on around them. I want to know how they think. And I've never found two people alike, or even particularly similar. And they are definitely all different from me. So when I don't know someone well, I tend to assume that they are DIFFERENT in as-yet-unknown ways. Also, I grew up rather on the fringes of normal high-school-in-ontario society - there are things which "everyone understands" that I may not. So if I don't know you well, and you give me a "subtle hint" about something, I might miss it entirely because I simply don't KNOW that it is supposed to mean that. Or I might notice it, but not know how to interpret it. Or I might think I know what it means, but give you the benefit of the doubt until I'm sure. Now, if you think that there is some sort of common language that "everyone" understands, then you might very well think that I'm awfully dense. (It took me the longest time to figure out that passiveness in women didn't necessarily mean disinterest - some women were just trained to be that way and to them it's perfectly normal.) On the opposite side of the coin, I expect other people to also assume that each person is different. I expect them to spend time trying to understand how I think, what I assume, what I care about. Sometimes I encounter women who seem to assume that all men are more or less alike, or that at least I'm like the other men they've known who they think are similar to me. In any case, they simply don't take the time to get to know me. Sometimes, there are situations where it seems that they have no idea what I mean. We seem to be talking with different vocabularies. They seem to need to be TOLD something before they understand it. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?). Sometimes even explaining it to them in words doesn't get the idea across. Now, can I complain that the woman has a problem with communication here? Can she complain that I'm just different and nobody should be expected to understand what I feel anyway? Both complaints have an element of truth; neither one is the whole truth. And then there is the matter of how you should behave before you know the other person well. Doing this "correctly" all the time requires knowing what the other person expects, and what you yourself want. Well, how the hell can you know what the other person expects? There are no "standards" anymore. I once knew a women who explained (once I knew her as a friend) that she assumed that I was not interested in anything more than friendship since I hadn't indicated any sexual interest the first time we went out somewhere. To avoid being misunderstood on this matter again, should I make some sort of sexual advance to every woman I'm even slightly interested in on the first date, in case I become more interested later? What then about the woman who assumes that I'm already very interested in her if I kiss her goodnight? Oops. The simple fact is that there is no single behaviour which is appropriate for all women, and it's often impossible to tell what this particular one here right now expects, particularly if I'm just starting to get to know her. So I muddle through as best I can, and usually err on the conservative side, and usually get it wrong somehow, but hope that it won't matter too much in the long run. The point of all this is that communication between two people is often imperfect, and the world is a varied and complex place. Try to see situations from the other person't point of view. As a woman, you may find than many men are either too agressive or too passive for your particular taste. Most men will have the same complaint. Women may "lead men on" with false signals just because they like having someone pay attention to them. Men will do exactly the same thing. Enough for now. It's late and I'm getting incoherent. Dave Martindale {ihnp4,allegra,decvax}!watmath!dmmartindale