Why are woman so inconsolable sometimes?

Being a woman myself, I should understand this. But sometimes I feel like such a guy when it comes to the ways of the female. Seems like everytime I try to present a rational and positive way to look at a situation that is irritating to them, they think I’m on some moral high-horse. They respond really well to, “it’s because they’re stupid and you’re so much better than they are!!” What’s up with this? Is this a human thing, or a hormonal thing? Maybe I’m just an obliviously inconsiderate prick :tongue:

er, what?

Are you talking about living women, or women in dreams, or what?

Women IWL. The ones in my dreams don’t really give me problems :wink:

I’m a guy at still at school, so I don’t have a clue! And probably never will, acutally!

I have two sisters though. So I do know some women stuff.
Er… yeah, I still don 't know.

And you’re not an inconsiderate prick.
The “it’s because they’re stupid and you’re so much better than they are!!” happens all the time when my sister has friends over and they’ve had a stupid little break up or something. They act like it’s the end of the world. It’s so damn stupid. They all expect a relationship to last 4… what was it? 4 LYF (they don’t even speak in real words).

Anyway, yeah, women, at least my sister anyway, has an obsession with some girl she hates. And some guy. She has a hobby of insulting them. So yeah. That might be why they respond well to:
“it’s because they’re stupid and you’re so much better than they are!!”

They like it when you insult them. Or something.
My mind is broken.

I generally think women get emotional as a means of testing other people. It usually relates to testing males, but females are pretty competetive amongst themselves, so it probably happens in that sense sometimes too.

For instance, lets say a girl and a guy are talking on a date. The guy mentions how he has a female room mate. She attempts to discern if he really likes the room mate. She mentions how she’s had 20 boyfriends before, in an attempt to make him jealous. The man becomes confused as to what to say (this guy doesn’t know how to deal with women), and actually does get pretty jealous. Boom! He fails the test, and the woman becomes irritated.

It’s all very subtle communication, as most communication is. I generally find the more attractive the girl, the more that these tests matter.

Haha, my usual response to that situation Amused mentioned is: Wait…what?

Nah, I agree that they are tests. But if you look at the situation from an emotional point of view, even a guy can get it. I can pick some girls’ brains (I know them, but it still counts!) I just really don’t like doing it because it’s so foreign to me, it’s weird territory. I like sticking to analytical. The best way to brain pick is with both though. A combination of their emotional point of view analyzed in an analytical way with some intuition thrown in works most of the time for me.

Who really knows though?

You can present a rational and positive way to look at a situation, but you’re forgetting that in the heat of the moment, most women aren’t rational. When a problem occurs their first response is an emotional one: how do I feel about this, what would others feel, are my feelings good or bad, does this make me feel better or worse? And here’s an important one: women will often express their emotions as a way to sort out their thoughts; only after that, they’re able to consider things more rationally.

Men are generally more rational and practical. When a problem occurs they’re not all over the place with their emotions; they consider various options and try to come up with a solution. Whilst at first, the woman doesn’t necessarily want a solution, she just wants someone to understand her feelings. When you point out logical and rational things about a situation whilst a woman is still in the middle of sorting through her emotions, she is going to feel like you are attacking and/or criticizing her, and not understanding how she feels at all. Later on she may look back and see you have a point, but not right away.

So yes, when you say “it’s because they’re stupid and you’re so much better than they are!!” a woman responds well to that because she then feels her feelings are validated and that you understand them.

Of course, this doesn’t have to be true for all women, or all men.

There’s nothing more therapeutic than active listening.
When somebody is upset, let them talk. There are some basic rules to follow which work really well:

  1. Don’t give advice - it ignores the emotional element
  2. Don’t judge or criticise
  3. Don’t change the topic - it’s rude
  4. Don’t analyse their situation - it’s frustrating
  5. Don’t tell them that everything will be ‘just peachy’ - it’s condescending
  6. Don’t ask questions - as they can be overly controlling

The things that I’ve found work, are:

  1. Active listening - reflect back to them what you have heard, focussing on the emotions rather than the events
  2. Eye contact, open, accepting and friendly body language
  3. Shut up. Yep, just keep that mouth buttoned and let your friend get all her emotions out, and when she runs out of air say something along the lines “yeah, you’re frustrated because , that would be really annoying”. Which shows your friend you’re listening, and it’s okay for her to continue.

Sorry for that lecture, but you hit on a personal topic of interest for me. Hopefully I was listening and paying attention to your original post and provided some useful reflections :tongue:

Those are excellent rules, Snape :happy: It’s so frustrating when somebody changes the topic when you were just getting stuff off your chest.

Sometimes, people with troubles (women and men alike) simply want to be heard. When you start offering advice, counselling them, etc. you just frustrate their efforts to get some sympathy and comfort and the undivided attention of another person. We all need that, especially when we’re hurting.

Once I learned this, I was of much greater use to my wife when she felt upset. I listen, I comment but don’t advise, and I try to be understanding and supportive of her feelings about what happened. Oddly, however, she still tries to give me advice or tell me things to make me feel better when it’s the other way around.

Oh well, all relationships are works in progress…

:peek:

The Rev

Yah I experience the same thing - unfortunately just because we become better listeners doesn’t mean the people we talk to pick up the habit. Sometimes, even if you tell somebody dozens upon dozens of times to stop giving you advice, they just don’t understand. The willingness to actively listen to somebody else seems to be a desire that has to originate from within.

I have to add one thing here, not everyone are like.

This girl i know, she is just so kind, the thing that really makes her good to be with is the lack of “he is so <insult”. :content:

I mean, some shit trowing, or telling or whatever is ok, but when you start mocking someomne, its not good :confused:

i’m female but for the longest time i couldn’t deal with “emotional women”, especially my mother. i had no idea what they were talking about. i would seriously tell these women, “I think you’re wrong.” like some oblivious stupid idiot. but eventually i’d learned to just listen to whatever the emotional woman is saying, doesn’t matter what she’s saying just pretend i’m listening. but i never knew why this works. now i know!

I agree with Amused Himself to Death

I think some women try to make others jealous, I think thats not cool.

Everybody plays games - we get emotional and psychological ‘strokes’ for playing a particular role or game in our lives; we role play with friends, with family, with colleagues and with partners. It’s very difficult for many people to move away from this form of communication (ie trying to make somebody else feel jealous, or giving the the guilt trip, or trying to score a verbal goal) but I find that adult to adult communication, which is both logical, cooperative, respectful and constructive, to be the highest goal that most people could wish to achieve.
I think :tongue:

For me personally, I am going through a process of assertive communication and responsibility for my own behaviour, thoughts and emotions, while at the same time crystallising the concept that other people are responsible for theirs also. This can be an incredibly liberating realisation.
My partner and I are going through this process together. In fact, I was told off for playing the ‘guilt trip’ game the other day - I laughed. I WAS playing a game, without realising it, and was glad to have it pointed out to me.
It takes a lot of effort and self reflection for this level of self development to take place, as well as the ability to look at your own behaviour, thoughts and emotions objectively and with detachment. You have to be able to accept criticism.
It’s worth the effort.

There I go again… :tongue:

EDIT: Slightly off topic - but anybody else been through a similar process?

:content: My mom is very picky also, I’m taking care of cats, and she says move around toys so it looks like I played with them. :tongue: The lady who gave me this job probably will care of every detail, and I think that can be good in some ways, such as doing good at school and trying your hardest. I think that can also make you have stress. So being picky, I just don’t really like that, I’m just way more stressfree, and probably a little more lazy, :tongue: but at least I don’t stress about such little things. The lady who gave me the job, if she does notice, whats the worst she can do? She has to pay me anyway. :tongue:

ya, I hate that

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but eventually i’d learned to just listen to whatever the emotional woman is saying, doesn’t matter what she’s saying just pretend i’m listening. but i never knew why this works. now i know![/b]
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lol so true

laughs That sounds a little like me. :grin: I am in general a very rational and practical person but if I get really upset about something, (like two days ago, my sister wound this comb up to my scalp and it took us 5 hours to get out. :scream: I was really afraid that I was going to have to cut my hair and it’s never really been cut except for trimmed, :bored: ) all rationality goes out the window. I was starting to feel better after the whole hair ordeal then my mom tried to talk to me about it and made it much worse. She kept saying how “It’s out now”, “don’t be mad at your sister”, “don’t try to get revenge”, (which I wasn’t even planning on doing, I never do so I don’t even know why she brought it up,) “let it go”, “stop even thinking about it”. It got to the point where her trying to to talk to me was even more annoying then then what my sister did. The only reason I didn’t snap on her and tell her to shut the heck up is because she’s my mother. I don’t know how true this is for most girls, (probably a lot,) but Ashvura pretty much hit the nail on the head. We don’t really want you to fix it, we just need someone to listen to us rant about whatever is bothering us. After I’m done being a spazz-case anyway, you can offer solutions but I’ll usually think it up myself. I don’t know anything about “relationships” though, I’m not into the whole “bf/gf” thing, I’m not getting married anytime soon so I don’t see the point of drooling over guys at this point but that’s just me. :grin:

very true

you have very good self control :content:

Thats deep, I’ll have to remember that :content:

I think thats so stupid, that kids in 5th grade, are saying “I’ve got a girl friend” stuff like that. SO stupid. They can’t even drive