…or so my recent experiences would demonstrate. The awful stereotypes that rotate through our culture that women are emotional, dramatic and needy while men are jerks who just want sex and space fall apart when we shift overall power dynamics.
Let me explain.
Scenario: Being that I’ve settled into a new place and am in a good place in my life, I decided that dating would probably be a good idea. However, I spend most of my ‘going out’ time with mostly men and a few women from the technology scene. This makes it difficult to find time to go out on my own and meet people outside of my field (people who I can casually date without rumors flying around). So, I turned to what most modern singles turn to in our day and age: online dating. I looked at a few sites, but they just seemed so cheesy until I came across OKCupid, a hip and fun site that is also without those awful ‘sign up for 3 months to be able to talk to anyone and give us all of your information while you are at it’ caveats.
This was in October. Then I got really busy with travel and work so I didn’t check in for a long time. While I was offline, I had a few messages that I missed and that sort of thing, but a few of them had me baffled. I logged onto find a couple of threads where I got not one, but multiple messages from the same men. They started out sweet and chatty, moved into ‘Hello? Hello?’ territory fairly quickly, then spiraled into crazy, dramatic, “Listen here you snotty beotch…you think you are better than me?” depths within a couple of days. Okay, so I could dismiss these threads as troll-like online behavior.
Then as I was checking these messages, I got pinged in the IM feature by someone who had just joined the service. I was procrastinating anyway, so I decided to give it a whirl. Now I KNOW most men out there understand this, but leading with overly sappy comments is a sure fire turn-off for most women. I had to tell him, “Dude. You don’t even know me. How could you say that I’m the woman of your dreams? Hell, I could be a guy!” We finally got into a regular conversation until he asked me to phone him. I told him I had work to do (I did) and that I didn’t phone people I just met on the internet (I don’t) and said that I had to go (I did). I woke up this morning to a similarly crazy spiraling message on how I was missing out.
There are several other instances since I’ve gotten to the point in my life that I have enough self-confidence to not need a boyfriend or the external validation of anyone else where some degree of this has happened. I find myself blocking texts, ignoring emails and sometimes having to sit down with men I barely know to let them know that their behaviour is not helping the situation. I genuinely try to give them advice for ‘the next woman’ they want to woo…advice that starts sounding a great deal like ‘He’s Just Not That Into You‘ or ‘Dating Without Drama‘. Advice that was meant for WOMEN.
But I’m still a woman…and the dozen-odd cases I’ve encountered in the past 6-8 months are, well, men as far as I can tell. Men of many ages. 20′s, 30′s and 40′s. Varying incomes and stages in life. Good looking in general. That sort of thing. So what is the difference?
Power.
The dynamic shifted for me this year more than ever. Between doing a great deal of soul searching, CBT and just getting to a point in my life where I’m not feeling like I need someone to complete me, I have started to occupy the control position in relationships. (not controlling, but ‘I make my own decisions and I will survive if the other party doesn’t reciprocate’ control position) Therefore, I have power in many situations. And when another party approaches someone with that power, the human reaction to that often comes from a place of defensiveness. A rejection manifests in hurt, anger, sadness, drama, neediness, etc.
What’s most interesting to me is the genderedness of these situations. I am aware of the odd reaction from these guys because I don’t expect it. I expect a shrug and move along. I’ve been completely flabbergasted. And I certainly don’t advocate women en masse turning the tables, but I do think this gives a good example of how gendered behavior can be unpacked. It’s not actually due to being a woman or a man at all. The reaction comes from a loss of power over a situation. A loss of control. In a world where power was balanced (not only between genders, but between cultures), drama and emotional outbursts wouldn’t be attributed to a stereotyped group of people, it would be attributed to a reaction to feeling disempowered. Which is, in the end, what it has always been.
The ‘men from mars, women from venus’ thing and all of the other self-help battle of the sexes books out there mainly reinforce the power dynamic that already exists. They teach us to game the awful system we exist in where one gender DOES hold more power than the other when we SHOULD be questioning it. It’s why we hear things like, “Men love bitches” and why women often won’t date the ‘nice guy’. Personally, I aim to question it and continue to experiment with it as long as I have the ability to, while at the same time being aware of where I’m at and how I can help balance the dynamic for future generations.
Most women are screwed up. Most men are screwed up. Blaming it on the Planets is easier than doing the work on ourselves.
I completely agree. Power (and self-confidence) play a huge part in determining who plays which role in the dating game. Since I’ve been married, settled and stable in my career, I often find myself thinking, “Man, if I had been in this position while I was dating, with this level of self-confidence, I would have gone after any man I set my sights on” rather than, “I could never get him.”
Most of my dating men experiences, ever since high school, have ended up with the guy being the one who’s very much into me being his one and only and wanting marriage/kids/etc. There’s been big disappointment and similar behavior to what you’ve described, when his either realized that’s not what I want or I’ve left.
Probably should have mentioned in my comment that I was the one who used to play the crazy role…
It’s always interesting (and a little sad) for me to see guys take this stuff so personally, and then to blame it on some kind of gender difference. It’s like some kind of devolutionary double header–’first I’m going to use this interaction as more evidence that I suck, and then I’m going to make it mean that your entire half of the species sucks.’ A few years ago I was offered this perspective by someone more wise than me–the notion that in the interaction b/t two people, there is always a third party – the relationship. It consists of the way two people combine (chemistry on a number of levels), the sum of your actions and words exchanged, trust, etc. If it ain’t happenin’, it’s about a combination of two people and not the worth or value of one. It’s too bad we as a society haven’t focused more on educating people on how to go through this process (I didn’t get that piece of advice until I was in my early 30s). That being said, I also think there is a place for conversations about gender difference where it empowers us as men and women. For that conversation, check out Alison Armstrong’s work…www.understandmen.com.
Women are almost always the ones with the power in relationships, especially when starting out. I’m somewhat puzzled as to why you seem so surprised…
@Barry – Hmmmmm…I think you may misunderstand what I’m trying to say here.
In my former life I was a therapist. You know, psycho- family- group therapist. One of the dynamics taught then (mid-80s to mid-90s) was men approached relationships from a one up/one down position. Women assumed the position, so to speak, when relating to men. And yet, when relating to other women, the premise was one of equality. By the way, one male in a group of females changed the group dynamic.
Stereotypical, anecdotal and biased? Perhaps.
I believe a catalyst for the growth in online social networking is the presumption we are meeting as equals. Or is it we meet with the same pre-conceived assumptions about power, court online, develop trust, and then come to see ourselves as equals?
You raise an interesting point. My plan is to dig into my psychotherapy roots on social dynamics. I wonder what is being taught today.
Halo thar
Fun article to read, and very true as well.
Dissapointment of losing control aside, aren’t these guys just trying to flip off girls that aren’t so self confident? Convincing them to chat along by force?
Great article, Tara and incredibly insightful. While I don’t know your age, I’m struck by the degree of self awareness you have achieved. My quest is to find ways through coaching to help women and men discover these truths without having to wait until they’re 60. Would love to know more about your journey. In fact, I’d like to invite you to be a guest on my weekly web radio show, “Leading the Way to Success,” where I explore the personal path of leaders like Warren Bennis, Beth Kanter, etc. Let me know if you are interested but most of all, keep writing!
Dating is easy and fun, but can very time consuming as well. Tough when starting a business.
OkCupid works really, really well for me. Best online site so far.
Having dispensed dating advice in the past (to both men and women), my experience is largely that they don’t want to hear it. What they want is validation for what they already believe (which isn’t working, which is why they asked). Nowadays I just mumble something like “You’ll figure it out” and change the subject.
I have not much experience dating. But I’ve been in a couple of situations where the girl i was dating had more power, because she was a couple of years older, which at age 20 is like a whole deal because of how fast you can grow in a couple of years. I believe that you’re right sometimes when we are not in power we can turn defensive and ‘emotional’ and it’s not about genders. My experience went well because I knew I had to go through a process sometimes it takes a little sometimes longer. We all need to go trough this process if we want a true, good and lasting relationship. Finally what matters is that the power find a balance where the woman is what the man wants and the man is what the woman wants (or at least they try hard to be).
Well to make it short I felt pretty bad because I thought the process was supposed to be fast and that I could control it (mainly because somehow all the media and history tends to tell us we can in every situation and reality is we can’t). Finally I ended up realizing that getting in a relationship is a team work and you need to think of what process the other person wants and is going through and be patient sometimes you have control and sometimes you don’t ( though you never really have control over other person). I hope to mature more in this area as I grow older.
Thanks for sharing this with us Tara it sure will help us think and question stuff we don’t usually think about a lot.
I’ve not dated online, but do recall similar encounters where I could confidently approach a bruised ego with “some friendly advice” on how to approach the next woman. I’ve realized too that the shifting balance of power doesn’t change once you’re in a relationship, however I think the difference is that both parties at that point realize this, and hopefully you can navigate the dynamic politically instead of contentiously. Relationships – whether it’s a first date or a 40 year marriage – are just a series of negotiations, and neither party should ever hold all of the power all of the time.
this is a fascinating perspective. I’ve been told by women many times that they wanted the “rogue,” the guy who was pushy and broke rules to get what he wanted – I’ve even been dropped for not being forceful enough. Meantime, I don’t know any guys who actually *like* bitchy behavior, though they all seem to appreciate a woman who isn’t shy about asking for what she wants.
Could it be that some of the jerk behavior you’ve experiencing has to do with the safety and insularity of being on-line, in the same way that people write comments on blogs or on-line articles that are much harsher than they’d be willing to articulate if forced to “own” their words in a “real life” context? Okay that’s too many quote marks, but I think concurrent with the inherited power-structure relationships that burden us all, being on-line adds the complication of perceived imperviousness – I think a lot of people go further on line than they would in person, both amorously and confrontationally. And once you go too far out on the first of those limbs, it’s awfully easy for it to turn into the second…
Good luck with the dudes. Mostly they’re like people, more or less… it’s the jerks who get noticed, though!
I came to a similar conclusion when I realized that almost all the terms used to describe any currently oppressed group have, throughout history, been used to describe every other oppressed group. I was studying Venetian history at the time, and Venetians were looked down upon for being greedy, gold-digging, mysterious, manipulative, secretive, back-biting, overly emotional, and hard to read — all of which are pretty necessary traits if you’re trying to succeed in a world in which you don’t have as much firepower as the empires around you. I’ve heard variations of these same terms used to describe women, blacks, Jews, Asians… and again, it seems that these are not inherent characteristics of any race/gender/religion, but instead REALLY SMART SURVIVAL STRATEGIES for people who don’t have the power to ask for things directly or the expectation that their reasonable requests will be honored.
On the “nice guy” thing… I think that the reason the “niceness” so often turns into hostility from dudes when it comes to dating comes down to one thing: entitlement. There’s a fairly hilarious compendium of resources on the topic of fake-nice-guys here if you haven’t seen it already… and another good rant here that I think does a good job of detailing the genderedness of the issue.
At the first hint of “desperation”, e.g. “Hello?”, run. Relationships aren’t, imho, about that “deep relationship based on mutual yak yak yak”, it’s about fun. My wife and I have a lot of fun together, still, after 14 years. If it isn’t fun… run.
- Matt H
I agree terrible stereotypes are destroying our world, such as black and white even other as if ANYONE is 100% the same as a PhD sheet of plain white or black copier paper. So if you cannot match the PhD copier paper you are fooling yourself and exalting yourself wrongly above others that will get you now-here. Men are from Womb as Women are from Womb and yes it is earth we all stand on. Nominate your Mother or motherly figure http://www.mother-of-the-year.com today and make your world a better place.
A good electrician might understatedly suggest a single-wire earth return! And I would just say, grounding is critical!