The above phrase being the description, given by a friend of mine, of what life can feel like for a woman (especially one held, by conventional standards, to be attractive).
Contrariwise, what brings this to mind is, in part, this post, namely:
what is it with male music obsessives who figure that all girls who like music are going to fancy them, if only they can bombard us with enough muso arcana and pseudo-intellectual theorising? I have had boyfriends who were musicians, and a shared interest sure doesn't hurt, but, believe me, an encyclopedic knowledge of music trivia is not normally what floats my sexual boat. Too often what I thought was a nice chat to an apparently nice guy about fave albums has become a social nightmare when I've had to correct some kind of "wrong impression". I bet other women at ILM know whereof I speak. OK no-one at ILM is going to start touching my arm because I like "Paid in Full" or "Point of Departure" but women with musical interests do get subjected to a kind of aversion therapy as far as the male music obsessive is concerned.
I find myself tempted to picture this scenario from the opposite point of view:
"So I met this really nice woman at the party the other night, and we had this great conversation about albums that, as it turned out, we both love. It was great, she knew all about QQQ and LLL, and we had a good laugh about what happened to SSS's career after he tried to hop on the fusion bandwagon. I thought we really hit it off, but the moment I even hinted at anything romantic, she got really awkward, acted annoyed and bothered, and backed away as quickly as possible. What was I supposed to do? I wasn't trying to get laid, I was just attracted to her..."
So I guess my question (which of necessity is going to have a heterosexual context, I'm afraid) is: how much thinking have you done about how relationships, dating, and so forth feel from the POV of the opposite sex? Do you tend to think of them as the "mythical other", and how much do you try to understand their motivations? Do you feel like you appreciate what it feels like to be on the other side of the (heterosexual) fence?
Also, do you think the "rules" are, or should be, different for men and women -- that is, do their differences ("socially constructed" and otherwise -- the effects of testosterone injections are well-documented, just for starters -- and in the context of contemporary heterosexual culture) mean that any attempt at applying the same standard of behavior to both sexes will be fruitless?
Obviously these thoughts aren't well-articulated, but with luck you'll know what I'm getting at.
― Phil, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Answering part of my own question, "do you think the 'rules' are, or should be, different for men and women":
I don't know, and have to think about it more. The idealist in me wants to say "No", but real life is obviously far more complicated and seldom brooks mindless adherence to such things. One example would be a discussion on domestic violence I heard, in which there was a back-and-forth that went something like this:
"One of the things that people aren't willing to acknowledge is that police statistics show that women instigate almost 50% of domestic violence incidents, and yet in the media, men are portrayed as the ones responsible."
"Well, even if that's true, don't you think that men's greater physical size makes it more serious when a man does attack, and that men should be judge more harshly for attacking their partners than women should?"
"But statistics also show that women are more apt to resort to deadly weapons."
"But that's only natural -- most women can't outmuscle their male partners, and so if a woman's attacked she's going to grab a knife to defend herself."
"But don't you think, though, that women will attack their partners knowing full well that the man dare not hit back, since he's far more likely to be jailed, and will probably get laughed at if he complains of being abused?"
And so on, and so on, and so on.
(Having known an abused boyfriend, btw, the issue of woman-on-man domestic violence isn't a hypothetical one for me. When he told me, I almost laughed -- he was well over 6 feet, and built pretty sturdily, and the image of him getting a beat-down from someone half his size was almost comical. But he wasn't kidding.)
(It would also be disingenuous of me, however, not to acknowledge that I've known far more women than men who've been struck or otherwise attacked by their partners.)
― Phil, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
i think there are similarities and differences between men and women,
and a lot of this is contextually specific too. so, yeah, perhaps
there shouldn't be hard and fast rules as such, but an examination of
the context surrounding instances such as the domestic violence one
you described.
i have tried to see things from the POV of the opposite sex
sometimes. but its really difficult to truly understand their POV's
because in many instances i just cannot relate to males. eg, i can't
understand how in the shaggy thread, some men were implying its
perfectly normal to fantasize about having sex with a woman and
robbing her of her agency at the same time. i totally cannot relate
to that even on a fantasy level.
― di, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)