I have pulled this up from the "Different languages" discussion because a member has been showing it to men and women and getting very different reactions. What do you make of it. If the woman asking a straigh-forward question and the man being evasive or is the woman being aggressive and the man trying to avoid an argument, or what?
You need to be a member of David Brazier at La Ville au Roi (Eleusis) to add comments!
Replies
Thank you, Maitrisimha. Are you suggesting that we read the man's comments as being said by a woman and the woman's as being said by a man? Is your question: would this make any difference? Do the words said by a man mean something different when the same words are said by a woman and vice versa? Or is your point something different?
Hello Maitrisimha:
Your suggestion stands very well. The point seems to be that, woman or man, trying to find self worth, stability, security in another amounts to dipping a bucket in a dry well. Only inside, only in our own hearts and bodies do we see the wounds of life. Once there the wounds become familiar and not really attached to anyone else. Then the practice of love, as difficult as it may sometimes be, goes out toward the other as a flow of energy, not a grasping. What do you think of this?
Maitrisimha Kouwenhoven said:
Charlene Diane Jones said:
When a man and woman having a misunderstanding like in the cartoon, the relationship don't have to be in a very bad shape. The conversation is stuck for a moment. A perfect example of a classic misunderstanding between a man and a woman.... My suggestion; notice that you are stuck for this moment and take a break for a couple of hours... It can make a huge difference...
Carol English said:
Thanks Carol for chipping in with your research results. Yes, it is a bit of a minefield. Of course, as you say, in real life there would be further cues from tone of voice, but they can also be deceptive. What sounds like rejection can actually be fear. What sounds like criticism can actually be anxiety. Finding out what is actually going on underneath the surface may take time and sensitivity. However, talking about it is not a panacea because people then have feelings about the feelings that the other is expressing (all of them based on fantasy projection, anyway) so the whole thing can easily go into a tailspin.
When I first saw the cartoon I read the woman as saying that she really liked the man and wanted to take the relationship further but because the man never seemed to initiate she wanted to check in before trying to move forward. She could just let things continue but she really wants more so she takes a risk and asks him if he really likes to be with her. She appears to me to be looking for clarification and, ideally, for reassurance, though she is risking quite the opposite. Instead he seems to be almost deliberately misunderstanding her. He answers all her questions with questions as she tries more and more to clarify. The irony is that her line of questioning is not neutral, in asking she is actually creating the very situation she feared. It something I could see myself doing.
So I asked a man I knew what he thought and he said started out by saying that the woman had brought this on herself because she begins the communication by attacking the man and that he saw her as being aggressive. I was completely taken aback by this response. So I started showing the cartoon other people I knew.
Here are three other responses to begin with: Ron: the communication is a mess on both sides. This doesn't bode well for the relationship. If it has come to this then it is probably already too late for the relationship to work. It has already broken down. Bert: the woman is asking for more certainty then the man is willing or able to give so he gets uncomfortable and tries to use avoidance to get himself out of a situation he doesn't know what to do about. Susan: well, the man is obviously being passive- aggressive. The woman is trying to get some clarity and he isn't going to give it to her but she keeps trying. This is familiar to me. When I was much younger I got caught in dialogues like this. Now I would never engage. The man is already giving plenty of clues, she needs to learn to pay attention to his actions as they are more truthful than anything he would say anyway. If he isn't interested enough to initiate and engage with her than asking him about it isn't going to change anything.
Overall Ron is the most neutral. Bert sees this as the woman making a demand and the man getting uncomfortable. Susan sees the man as passive-aggressive. Generally it seems that the men's sympathy lies with the man and blame with the woman. For the women it is the other way around.
I have been stewing over this for a while now, wondering what it all means. Writing this I have looked at the cartoon again. Now, seeded in way by all these other comments, a funny thing has happened. What I call the necker cube effect, that I can shift my perception back and forth and actually hear the character's voices in different ways. I can still hear what I originally heard but now I can hear it from the man's point of view. It isn't a cognitive understanding, it is a direct feeling/perception... This is a relief — phew those men were not all crazy... But it leads me to feel quite a bit of general perceptual uncertainty particularly when talking to men. How can I trust my own responses? Am I doomed to nasty surprises thinking I am being reasonable and clear and sensible when, in fact I am conveying who knows what?
Finally is it for sure what was said? Is it possible that the reactions are biased because the readers identify with their own sex? To test this I am thinking that I could switch the cartoon around giving the man the woman's dialogue and vice-versa and see whether responses change.
Thanks David. Yes, I found it a little funny in the vein of "human, all too human." And Elja I'm glad you see this as improvement. That is what is meant. Thank you!
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
of 4 Next