joekerr31 said:
you ARE asking men to either be psychic OR understand woman's secret form of communication (ie. feelings).
What men need to understand is that both sexes communicate differently, accept that and work with it instead of against it. In study after study it's been proven that women have a far greater, inborn capacity for language and communication than do men. While more than a few women like to wear this as a badge of some kind of superiority, it doesn't necessarily mean that what they communicate is more important, or how they communicate it is more efficient, just that they have a greater capacity to understand nuances of communication better than do men.
joekerr31 said:
furthermore, let's also call a spade a spade and admit that the covert form of communication is NOT a functional one. not only does it create issues with men and women, it creates issues with women and women.
On the contrary, it is a very functional form of communication that's served women well for centuries. You don't need to be psychic to understand women's covert communication, you need to be observant. This often requires a patience that most men simply don't have, so they write women off as duplicitous, fickle or coniving if the name fits. Even to the Men that are observant enough, and take the needed mental notes to really see it going on around them, it seems very inefficient and irrational. And why wouldn't it? We're Men. We say what we mean and we mean what we say. Our communications are very information based, logical, rational, that's Men's overt communication. Blunt, to the point, solve the problem and move on to the next. Which is precisely why your response was this,..
joekerr31 said:
....,at the same time, it is a highly disfunctional form of communcation....,to be more specific its a childish form of communication. this is what children do! they say one thing and do another. they throw temper tantrums. they react emotionally to everything.
Yes, they do. And more often than not, they get what they're really after - attention. Women are crazy, crazy like foxes. Covert communication frustrates us every bit as much as overt communication frustrates women. Our language has no art to it for them, that's why we seem dumb or simple at best. This is the same reason we think of feminine communication as being obfuscating, confusing, even random. The difference is that our confusion and frustration is put to their ultimate use. So long as women remain unknowable, random, irrational creatures that men can't hope to understand (but can always excuse), they can operate unhindered towards their goals. "Silly boy, you'll never understand women, just give up" is exactly the M.O. Once you accept this she's earned a lifetime of get-out-of-jail-free cards. The myth of the 'Feminine Mystique' is entirely dependent upon this covert communication.
Now as Men we'll say "Evil, immoral, manipulative woman! Shape up and do the right thing, saying one thing then doing another makes you a hypocrite!" and of course this is our rational nature overtly making itself heard and exposing a woman's covert communication. An appeal to morality, that'll get her, but,..it doesn't. This is because women instinctively know that their sexuality is their first, best agency, and covert communication is the best method to utilize it. Appeals to morality only work in her favor, because all she need do is agree with a Man's overt assesment of her and suddenly he thinks he's 'getting through to her'. As Men, we have become so conditioned by the Feminine Mystique to expect a woman to be duplicitous with us that when she suddenly resorts to our own, overt communication method and agrees with us, it seems she's had an epiphany, a moment of clarity. "Wow, this one's really special, 'high quality', and seems to get it." That is so long as it suits her conditions to do so.
Have you ever been in a social setting, maybe a party or something, with a GF or even a woman you may be dating and seemingly out of the blue she says to you privately, "ooh, did you see the dirty look that b!tch just gave me?!" You were right their in her physical presence, saw the girl she was talking about, yet didn't register a thing. Women's natural preference for covert communication is recognizable by as early as 5 years old. They prefer to fight in the psychological, whereas boys fight in the physical. Within their own peer group, little girls fight for dominance with the threat of ostricization from the group. "I wont be your friend anymore if,.." is just as much a threat to a girl as "I'm gonna punch you in the face if,.." is to a boy. This dynamic becomes much more complex as girls enter puberty, adolescence and adulthood, yet they still use the same psychological mode of combat. Their covert way of communicating this using innuendo, body language, appearance, subcommunications, gestures, etc. conveys far more information than our overt, all on the table, way of communicating does. It may seem more efficient to us as Men, but our method doesn't serve the same purpose.
I'm fond of saying 'let a woman's imagination work for you', but this is really a reversal of what women have been doing for ages - covertly giving men just enough information to spark their imaginations. When an AFC vomits out his life's story all over the restaurant table on a first date, calls her incessantly to drone on for hours and then gets LJBFed, this is really little more than a conflict of communication methodologies. He wants to solve his problem of needing sex and does so by overtly blurting out as much information as he can to meet her approval - since he of course believes that women want complete disclosure and openess from the start (yet another fatal miscommunication). He can't help it. He's only using his natural deductive reasoning to solve his problem and coveys it overtly.
She on the other hand enjoys the communication
more than the information being transferred. It's not a problem to be solved, it's the communication that's primary. When our AFC supplies her with everything all at once we think, yeah, the mystery is gone, he's not a challenge anymore, why would she be interested? This is true, but the reason that intrigue is gone is because there's no more potential for stimulating that need for communication or her imagination.
Lastly I should add that women are not above using overt communication when it serves their purposes. When a woman comes out and says something in a fashion so as to leave no margin for misinterpretation, you can bet she's been pushed to that point out of either fear or sheer exasperation when her covert methods wont work. "Can we just be friends?" is a covert rejection, "Get away from me you creep!!" is an overt rejection. When a woman opts for the overt, rest assured, she's out of covert ideas. This is an easy example of this, but when a woman cries on you, screams at you, or issues an ultimatum to you she is powerless to the point of having to come over to your way of communicating.
Likewise, men can and do master the art of covert communications as well. Great politicians, military generals, businessmen, salesmen to be sure, and of course master PUAs all use covert communications to achieve their goals. It's incorrect to think of covert communication as dishonest or amoral, or even in a moral context. It's a means to an end, just as overt communication is a means to an end, and that end whether decided by men or women is what's ethical or unethical.
