I’m not a man, so it’s hard to say if guys don’t see how women are with one another, or they deliberately block it out for the “ignorance is bliss” effect.
Male culture is more of a “wear it on your sleeve” culture & repress or ignore painful emotions. I’ve heard some things about male culture that maybe women don’t see. For example, guys telling other men, “treat em like shit & they’ll keep coming back” or men actually educating another man on how to be a player.
Locker room talk, or construction site talk, isn’t a secret – but their are women who are clueless, and we have to assume it’s because they choose to be.
Yet, women have a whole other way in which they share stories, & there are agendas & schemes going on between women which come from a competition standpoint. This is the kind of thing that men seemingly don’t know, or willfully ignore.
The obvious kind of scheme, played by a woman to make another insecure, is to flirt with a guy to piss off his date/girlfriend. I’ve seen guys react to this like “yeah she thinks I’m cool” and not be able to digest what really just happened – she’s not even interested in you, she’s jealous of your pretty date and wants to make your date feel insecure.
You might be thinking – “Yo, she is flirting with me so she thought I was cool. Why is that a scheme?”
As a woman, I can tell you, if she really wanted you, she wouldn’t alert your date to what she was doing, she would be sneaky about it. She might watch you and when you head to the restroom, she’d go that way too, run into you, and flirt then.
When a woman seeks to undermine another women, it’s usually because she feels threatened in some way, or just jealous and “less than.” She will use the tools around her at her disposal to get what she wants. And what she wants is to feel like she “won” in some way.
If you pay attention, you can see if a woman is “hating on” your girl. Let’s say it’s a co worker who is using little tactics like trying to find mistakes your girlfriend is making, and cozying up to the boss. If you’re just wanting your woman to stop complaining about this chick she works with and pay you some loving attention – you’re likely to overlook something about female culture that she needs your support on!
Let me say that last part again – She needs your support on this.
She needs your support any time she feels like she is being sabotaged by another woman, or by a man. One thing to keep in mind is that women still experience a pay gap in the workforce. It’s still a male dominated workforce. It’s still a male dominated world as far as leaders go. Women are put down by men, and by other women in this dog eat dog world.
That’s something that men don’t have to naturally think about. So it’s easy to overlook something that’s happening to your girlfriend as drama, or gossip, or worrying too much. That may be true. And if it is constant drama, you’ll probably know the difference if you’re really trying to support her.
If it’s all drama, notice if your girl is the instigator in the story. If she’s the one who is feeling threatened by other women and playing mind games or creating explosions, you probably want to drop that like a hot potato, put on the running shoes, and go.
If you’re with someone who seems very solid, and you want the relationship to last long enough to find out if you could go the distance, you want to consider female culture and what it is like for women. You’ll want to let women in on what male culture is like – there’s a lot of abuse there. Trying to understand one another and relate to one another creates an environment of support – that’s what most people want from a partner.
Women don’t posture up on each other when they see each other in a crowd & feel threatened. When a woman wants to provoke conflict or pull a power move, there’s a contrived plan, sneaky and subtle in delivery, so it can’t be directly identified as manipulation. Like accidentally cutting someone off in their path or bumping into them, accidentally on purpose that is.
In a conversation that seems normal to an onlooker, a woman can switch just a single word, with a smile, to try to dim the light of the other, and follow it up with a host of other moves that seek to undermine, subtly. If she’s attractive, she really gets away with it. If you’re aware, you’ll see through it. Once you do, you’ll start to get more glimpses of the culture.
I know, as a woman, I definitely want to know more about what it is like to be a man. I want to know how men feel about the fact that we have more men locked up incarcerated than any other country in the world. Poor men get locked up for years while rich men do the same and worse and never get arrested, or they can buy their way out of anything. How do men feel about male culture?
If you can give attention to your partner, when they are going through something that you haven’t had to face, it is one of the best things you can do for them. There’s going to be time for love and affection, if you build the foundation.
This advice is for anyone looking for the long term relationship, and for anyone who is dating a woman. It’s challenging to find a good fit when you’re exploring finding lasting compatibility and love. Being best friends is one way a relationship can unfold and survive the ups and downs of life.
Dating Jane 