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Zonie63 -> RE: How do women WISH men acted - and likewise - how do men WISH women acted, in turn? (2/25/2013 11:35:54 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Dyfrynt
Rather than wishing how people should act, I have spent a lot of time simply looking at how people act. Why do men do the things they do. Why do women do the things they do. It is endlessly fascinating. Both men and women do several entirely separate things. To start, they do what they "think" they should do, and at the same time they try to do what they "think" the opposing sex wants them to do.
Add to that a third factor. Doing what society expects them to do. We are all brainwashed to a greater or lesser extent by where we live, and the accepted rules by which we were raised.
Then put in the final ingredient, how we are biologically wired to act. This one in particular is given short shrift. Many people think we are now "civilized", and that the millions of years of our biological directives can somehow be overridden. They can't.
Add them together and it is a cocktail for disaster. Which is why so many people are completely lost at sea when it comes to how they should act. It is no wonder that men and women are constantly sending out contradictory messages, often ones they are not even consciously aware of.
I think the first step towards understanding why people act the way they do is to accept the reality that most of us don't really have a clue why we do what we do.
Good points. In addition to what you're saying here, I also find that what men or women do or how they act might also be perceived in different ways depending on what society says their actions might mean. That can also lead to misunderstandings, since someone might assume (wrongly) about another person's actions.
One thing I heard on the radio the other day (and I'm not sure where they get their information) is that a higher percentage of women nowadays become suspicious when a man offers to open a door for her. I never really realized that offering to open a door for someone could generate a level of controversy, but that seems to be what our society has come to. Back in the old days, such a thing was automatic. A gentleman always opens a door for a lady. But now, such things are fraught suspicion and possible ulterior motives.
I remember when we were kids, they used to tell us that we should act like good "ladies and gentlemen," so we used that as a general blueprint of how we thought men and women were supposed to act. I don't think very many of us acted that way, though. The rules seemed to be changing when I was growing up, so I think we relied more on popular culture as a guide, as our parents' and grandparents' ways seemed "old-fashioned" to my generation.
The biological hard-wiring may still be there, but with an ever-changing set of rules and a variety of competing and often conflicting influences out there, it might be expressed in ways which can be confusing and incomprehensible to a lot of people.
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