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Less or More

Started by no_id, July 13, 2010, 09:02:59 AM

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no_id

Ah crap, no_id got inspired by some other thread again...

So, I was wondering... Along the phrases of person A: 'I don't understand women!', person B: 'I don't understand men', and in our little playground: person awesome 'I don't get either really...'

Do we understand less or do we understand more?
If you don't understand men or women because some jack ordered the wiring too late then does that mean that you lack navigation in this world/life? Do you simply compromise for it, do you miss out or do you actually acquire more freedom in understanding due to a lack of restrains?
Also then there's the... 'I understand both'.. Does that actually mean you might understand more? Or do you really just understand less to compromise for the complexity?...

I think it's an interesting enough topic to ponder about. Also, the AG section could use another thread. ;)
Personally I'm not sure... I realise I've taken some weird twists and turns at some places due to a lack of navigation and sometimes I still don't really 'get' why the right road was/is the right road.. But I guess I enjoyed the view along the way and the happy-happy-joy feeling when I was on the right track.  8)
Tara: The one time in my life I thought I was happy, I was a f**kin zombie.

True Blood S3E2
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Eva Marie

I get both sides, but not in enough detail to make me, say, totally empathetic like a GG, or to allow me full membership in a man's world.

So, i'm out here in the middle getting buffeted from side to side, not understanding enough of either side.

Its frustrating, and it's been frustrating as long as i can remember.

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Pica Pica

Quote from: no_id on July 13, 2010, 09:02:59 AM
Ah crap, no_id got inspired by some other thread again...

Thank goodness, someone's got to start new threads.

I am very much in the less camp, I don't particularly get how it would feel to be a man and be a woman, took me a long time to realise that people actually do feel like that. Means that either I have faulty navigation or have been using other instruments to do it for me.

I tend to navigate by using my experience and applying it to individuals - because i can't get their actions from the viewpoint of 'a man' or 'a woman'. I think this means that I connect a little deeper to my casual contacts than the average person does through necessity.


As for water - the answer is easy - if you are filling a glass it is half full - if you are emptying a glass it is half empty.
'For the circle may be squared with rising and swelling.' Kit Smart
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confused

i like to think of myself that i can understand both , but in fact no one can completely understand anything , but as a human , i have the ability and desire to 'learn' .
as weird as it might sound but i actually have two separate personalities one of which is masculine ,the other is feminine that one of them emerge and dominate just randomly or depending on the situation ,even my thinking voice (too weird?) changes accordingly. and sometimes it's mixture of both.

but over time and experience trying to 'know' myself better , i noticed that there are things and actions guys don't get about girls , i explain it to them. and sometimes the other way around .maybe that's why most of my friends (guys or girls) come to me if they have relationship trouble/complaints ,although i was never good at those (relationships i mean)
yet i still don't completely 'get' everything , like the stereotypical likeness girls have for shopping , or why completely stranger guys look at each other (in confirmation?) whenever they see a super hot girl in the street . or why hetero-guys have a (need?) that their gf is younger than they are , and the other way around for hetero girls , a lot of things tht i don't get i'm not sure if there's room for it though , most of them i know the logical possible reasons why or i just try to put myself in their place ,doing the same feeling the same and i get closer to understanding the reason , but still i don't "get" them

other things that at some point i used to not get , but when i find myself at a similar situation or doing the same thing i go like "oooh that's why"

so as i said , i like to think of myself as having extra-understanding abilities , but i'm not sure why i have it , and i believe it's all about learning
interesting thread

Post Merge: July 13, 2010, 01:15:13 PM

:o whoaa , that was long . sorry
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Pica Pica

maybe not a case of extra understanding or less understanding so much as different understanding
'For the circle may be squared with rising and swelling.' Kit Smart
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ZaidaZadkiel

Hello, I have returned since a longish absence which won't make sense to anybody without common sense, now after some suspense, I shall reply to the original topic...

Apparently, I can understand more. It's not "guys" or "girls", but people things what I don't understand. For example, society puts a certain restrictions on professional behavior, which don't really makes sense to me, like you aren't supposed to be empathic to your peers or you have to be somehow assholish... "It's a dog eats dog world" etc.

But these are not particular to men or women.

The things which appear to be particular to men and women, and as far as my own experiences go, I think I can undestand more or less better than your average person.
I often translate the other sex's actions to people... And sometimes I translate their same sex's actions.
However I try not to do that often, cuz I feel very responsible when I am wrong and my interpretation was far from reality.. So I rather let the person try to figure their own opinion with the least help I can give.
That way it's their fault if they're wrong :D

Also... The glass contains about 1/2 of liquid and 1/2 or air.
If it's half full of water, it's half empty of air.
Things are better when they're both correct and wrong.
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no_id

Reading the replies I wonder again: rather than actually understanding male and female behaviour do you think we simply apply a logically pattern to it and explain/predict behaviour based on a gendered frame of reference?... As in: we don't understand the behaviour because we understand the gender, we understand the behaviour because it corresponds with our expectations derrived from experience and logics?

If you look at the above it almost makes it seem that we are terribly prejudiced haha.

As for the glass of water... Why wonder about it if you can drink it?
Tara: The one time in my life I thought I was happy, I was a f**kin zombie.

True Blood S3E2
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confused

Quote from: no_id on July 14, 2010, 05:41:29 AM
Reading the replies I wonder again: rather than actually understanding male and female behaviour do you think we simply apply a logically pattern to it and explain/predict behaviour based on a gendered frame of reference?... As in: we don't understand the behaviour because we understand the gender, we understand the behaviour because it corresponds with our expectations derrived from experience and logics?
to be completely honest , i don't even like the "oh you are a a guy ,guys don't do that" or your a girl....." deal
i believe every individual is completely different , even within the common traits groups of people have . these common traits (IMHO) are often implemented by the physical differences and/or social rules/limitations . however if one puts themselfe in someone else's shoes , with all the possible factors and variables put in mind , you could easily predict anyone's actions (which always goes like 50% chance of you being right) or understand reactions (which since all you have is to follow the trace goes more like a 70% chance)
due to common factors/variables androgynes have , i think they get to watch from the 'outside' hence learning more and understanding more or rather differently as pica pointed out . but when you watch things from the outside you actually get to see the 'full picture' however you'll be missing some details still
this topic itself is too complicated for me honestly, i've never given it much thought really because of that . and that's why everytime i try to talk bout it i tend to write too much , i mean i'm not even sure i answered your question from my pov but i hope i did lol
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Bombi

more? less?. It is somewhat a matter of perception. Perception of how we see ourselves compared to the rest of the world. It would seem that a person who has amalgamated genders into the androgyne paradigm would be more understanding of the gender you aren't as a basic comprehension of that gender is needed to complete the perception.
Yes there is really bigender people
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tekla

Yeah, you understand.  But as my mom used to say: You understand wrong.  Just because you know something, does not mean you know a real thing.
FIGHT APATHY!, or don't...
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no_id

Yep I guess this thread doesn't focus on a very simple question, especially since the question holds bias on its own since it assumes that cisgendered sometimes communicate in a way that sounds like durka durka to the opposite sex. So there's already the arugment that this doesn't apply all the time... But still it seems rather common.

Maybe we just speak durka durka... Or think we do... 
Tara: The one time in my life I thought I was happy, I was a f**kin zombie.

True Blood S3E2
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rejennyrated

As to whether I understand less or more I have no way of knowing. I may be completely mistaken as to my degree of understanding.

All I can say is that I have never been made aware of any shortcomings in my comprehension of either group, and as anyone who has ever tried teaching anyone will know, and I think this is similar to what Tekla was alluding to, the real difficulty isn't in teaching them new stuff. The real trouble comes when you have to get them to UNLEARN things which they had previously wrongly thought were the truth.

It's like many peoples view of being trans, is really heavily influenced by the things they see on the internet. Unfortunately if you search on the net for Transsexual, in amongst the factual sites like this one, you will find a good assortment of naughty picture sites which deal with people who, to my mind, are somewhat physically half and half by nature.

Nothing wrong with that of course, but its not what I am about at all, and that can sometimes create some really difficult misunderstandings, if I tell someone that I have a trans past, because the sort of man who gets his information entirely from the net then often assumes that I still have male bits down below, which I of course I haven't. And of course if I mentioned anything as complex as Androgyne that would get a million times worse, because they simply wouldn't understand that, in my case, I would simply be talking of a psychological ability to act as a gender chameleon rather than any sort of physical androgyny.

Now the thing is with some of these people, it doesn't seem to matter how much you explain to them that reality isn't like that. They simply can't get the internet images out of their heads.

On one occasion I had a particularly cretinous individual, whom for some reason I had decide to be open with. He proceeded to grope me and then angrily accused me. In his words "As I thought, you aren't really a tanssexual. You can't be, because you've got a vagina!" (the actual word he used was somewhat cruder though). He then had the gall to ask if I fancied a quickie! I honestly felt like banging my head on the desk! Although in some ways I suppose if it wasn't all so darned offensive it would have been quite funny...

When you come up against incurable and willful ignorance like that you start to realise that it really is not what you don't know that does the damage in life. It is what you don't understand that you don't know! He honestly thought he had it all figured. All transsexuals would always have boobs and a penis, and no amount of explaining to him about operations would penetrate his skull, because he had assumed that postoperative simply meant someone who had undergone silicone breast augmentation.

In other words as Tekla says, it's what we understand wrong.

So I fear I am going to wimp out on this topic and say that when it comes to assessing my own understanding of others, I simply don't know the answer.  :)
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no_id

Quote from: rejennyrated on July 15, 2010, 07:19:08 AM
I simply don't know the answer.  :)
Bah, now I lost another bet.......

;) :P
Tara: The one time in my life I thought I was happy, I was a f**kin zombie.

True Blood S3E2
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ZaidaZadkiel

Quote from: rejennyrated on July 15, 2010, 07:19:08 AMIt is what you don't understand that you don't know!
Wise folks know they don't know, fools don't know they don't know.
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Nyctophile

Perhaps no one really understands other people, and gender is simply used as an excuse. Or it could be a result of unrealized double standards. A girl might say "I don't understand boys" (or vice versa) because society sets different rules for boys than for girls, and most people see only the results of that, rather than the cause.

As for whether we understand more or less... From a theoretical standpoint, most of us have probably read more gender studies/queer lit type material, so in that respect, maybe we understand more. But theory doesn't always translate into practice.
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Llewelyn

I think if someone were to say, I understand women but men perhaps it could cloud their judgement, to assume to know anything for certain I think is folly. So saying you don't get either at least leaves you with a blank slate to investigate.
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