What Women Don’t Understand About Men
A glimpse into how men think, feel and experience life
Men and women don’t always understand each other clearly. I believe that the reason for this is because men and women in some ways think differently. There seem to be some fundamental differences in how men and women communicate, think and experience the world. In this post I will focus on things I think women don’t understand about men.
This post is inspired by a Joe Rogan clip where he tried to answer what women don’t understand about men in a discussion with Danica Patrick. This article is inspired by both the video, the video comment section and my own life experiences. The Joe Rogan clip is linked at the bottom of this post.
(1) Men can enjoy life quite easily:
Firstly, I think that women vastly overestimate how complicated men are. The contentment of a man can to some extent be thought of as an equation.
Example (1): If a man likes beer, sports and sitting in his chair. Then he will be fully content with his life and focused if he is watching sports with a beer in his chair. Nearly no matter what is happening in the world at that moment. If the team is winning he will be happy, if his team is losing he will be frustrated.
Example (2): If a man likes to fish, particularly when the weather is good. Then he will want to go out fishing when the weather is good and that will make him fully content and focused. If he catch fish he will be happy and if he fails to do so he will be frustrated.
A man does not like to be disturbed when he is content with his life and focusing on something he likes doing. Furthermore, he does not like when someone trivialises the outcome. What do I mean by this?
If a man is watching an important game for his favourite team. Then he does not want to be distracted by “stupid questions” while he is watching the game. He wants to sit, enjoy the moment and take in what is going on. If the team loses he does not want someone to come and say that it does not matter or that the sport is stupid. The emotional pain when a man’s sports team loses or he fails to see any fish at all on the fishing trip can be quite dark. But on the other hand if they win or he is successful fishing he will want help celebrating and sharing in the happiness.
(2) What do men think about?
When men are appearing distant women like to ask what they are thinking about. There are two reasons for men appearing lost in their thought which women seem to have a hard time understanding.
- It is often the case that men are sitting not thinking about anything. Simply enjoying the moment.
- It is often the case that men think about really strange thought experiments about reality
Here are some funny quotes from the comment section of the Joe Rogan video:
“I could sit in a chair for an hour and think about literally nothing. And let me tell you, it’s great.”
When a man says “I’m thinking about nothing” Translation. “I’m appreciating this peaceful moment not worrying about anything, please leave me be”
Woman: “I bet he’s thinking about other women” Man: “When you say ‘Forward’ or ‘Back’, your lips move in those directions.
Her: “What are you thinking about?“ Guy: “ When you buy a bigger bed you have more bed room, but less bedroom“
(3) How men process problems:
Even though men sometimes think about nothing and sometimes think about strange conceptual problems. Men often have problems in their lives which they want to solve.
However, while women enjoy talking about their emotions. In particular they like to point out emotional problems they have so that other people can empathise with them. Women are more interested in talking about emotions in order to be understood while men nearly only talk about emotions in order to solve them.
As a result, if a man has a problem he will often be reluctant to share it. Simply because he does not yet know how to express it with sufficient clarity for someone to offer help. He does not want to appear weak, or burden anyone else with his emotions without being able to state his problem clearly and sufficiently.
Here is a quote from the comment section explaining this:
The difference is that when men are going through shit before they talk about it they try to rationalize or make sense of it. The annoying part comes in when a woman demands you say what’s on your mind while you’re still processing it. I don’t want to talk about something that I am still in the process of understanding…
(4) Men are generally open honest and straight forward, except when they are trying to get a woman in bed:
Men are quite straight forward. If you are in a relationship and you ask your man if anything is wrong as if you really wanted to know. Then if he says that nothing is wrong. The most likely answer is that nothing is actually wrong. The exceptions where he would lie to this question would be:
- If he has a problem that he feels ashamed of and don’t want to talk about because it would make him look weak or pathetic.
- If he has a problem that he wants to shield you from having to see or deal with.
- If he does not trust that you will react reasonably to his honesty. For instance, if he thinks you will freak out if he says his honest opinion.
So in general men are mostly straight forward in how they answer questions from the woman they are dating and men are particularly direct and honest with their friends.
However, you should be very careful about trusting a man when he is trying to get you to have sex with him. It is very likely that he is radically changing his speech, actions and behaviour in order to portray what he thinks will optimize his chances of having sex. The defence against this is that if you wait a few dates before having sex with guys you meet. It will be quite easy to see through this behaviour since it is hard to keep up this facade during more than one evening and when alcohol is not involved.
(5) When men hang out in groups testosterone will trigger competition and men trying to “outdo” each other with stupid shit:
Men are competitive with each other. The result is that when men are in groups and are trying to outdo each other they make stupid decisions. Doing stupid things is not necessarily something to encourage. But doing stupid things together is a great way for guys to bond together and create a sense of community. Furthermore, doing stupid things and observing the results is a great way to learn about how things work.
However, this competitive instinct in men, in particular when it involves danger to oneself and others. Is something that should clearly be controlled, at least to some extent. So that it is kept from spiralling out of control.
(6) Men like to talk about things, in particular to debate them:
Men generally talk about things and not emotions. When it comes to these things they generally talk about the physical qualities of the thing. Since people have different views and opinions these discussions quickly turn into debates. Men find it very stimulating to debate things, even within topics they know almost nothing about in order to see how their arguments will intellectually perform against the others. Guys enjoy this the most when they talk to other guys who are deeply interested in the same subject as themselves.
Example: A group of guys who are interested in cars begin to talk about cars. It begins by one person pointing out that a new … car will be released soon and how he looks forward to it. Another guy responds that it does not matter because the car is stupid. Now the guys have a debate on if the car is stupid or not. The debate might involve categories such as the specifications of the engine, how nice the “ass” of the car looks, how it compares to previous versions of the car or what lap times it has performed on certain test tracks compared to other cars. The other guys around might jump into the discussion at times but it is often entertaining to watch the debate to see who will win.
The annoying thing about women pointing out how men “mansplain” is that speculating on topics beyond our intellectual knowledge with others is what men do all the time for fun and in order to figure out the truth. What women don’t understand is that when a man raises his more or less ill informed opinion, it does not necessarily mean that he is certain that he is correct. It is generally an invitation for others to jump into the argument and intellectually debate out what is actually correct. It is like the first move in chess. I am throwing something out on the table and if you have something to come forward with yourself I invite you to sit down and play. At the end of the game we might have a better idea of what the truth is or which arguments are still standing.
The Joe Rogan Clip:
Ending thoughts:
This was one perspective on what women don’t understand about men. I will probably do a follow up article on what men don’t understand about women. This article is informed by this Joe Rogan post as well as my life experiences. I would be happy if you shared your reflections in the comment section.
Sincerely,
Bright Blue Dot
