Men Versus Woman @ MindSay

my class/test was canceled, which was an uber yay for me since i didn't study for my test, however my next class isn't till 11 x_x As for how I've been doing, well I'm back on anti-depressants (yay!) and I don't feel like dying everyday!

 

Right now I'm kind of going out with a MUCH older woman. I'm not really sure how I feel about it though. I think I might just like her because she adores me. She's attractive and sweet but I'm not sure if I'm feeling her that much. That's alright though. It's still nice to have some form of attention, and even better that it be a woman.

 

It's just that at this point in my life the idea of having any relationship with a man makes me sick to my stomach. The stereotyped gender roles just agitate me, and it seems when it comes to men I automatically fall into that quiet, submissive category and feel I need to "girl it up" alot. oh yeah, and lose like 80 pounds. but I see no need for that with a woman. Whether I gain or lose weight, look butch one day and femme another, or wear no makeup, it doesn't matter. And even if she rejects me, it doesn't sting quite so much. There aren't those questions of "if I was prettier, or thinner" etc because in the lesbian/bisexual world you would be second guessing yourself all day. And as you know, women are indecisive and insane, so i really can say I did nothing wrong.

 

A friend of mine on here told me that to overcome these feelings I should treat men like they're lesbians. I tried for about an hour, and gave up. It's not that I don't like men, they just seem to piss me off alot more easily. Better yet, it's easier to write someone off as a jerky muscle-head who loves skinny blondes and ignore them when truly they're a creative genius who may indeed like skinny blondes, but finds you attractive as well. It's so easy just to walk about in a bubble and block everyone out, but at the end of the day you will have lost many potential friends that could enrich your life.

 

today I'm going to try to break the cycle.

Some isolated (or perhaps not) expectations and behaviors I have noticed by the two sexes recently:

- never married or divorced women who've attained financial independence and a decent economic standing long for a man with a big strong chest to lay their heads upon, and big strong arms to hold them. The women yearn to not have to be so much in control, to not have to be so alone, to not have to be so strong all the time. They either meet men with more financial means, who want to date younger women, or they meet younger men with less financial status than they have that can never really be more than a lover because equality is not really present from the start. Men of their own age sometimes seem to be from another planet, with totally different expectations about what love and marriage mean, and quickly remind them of the marriage they've exited...

- men who are married who've taken a 'yes dear' stance to living within the burdens of marriage. At work, to me, they seem very demasculated and resigned to doing as the woman asks, while passively resisting it. They seem to enjoy thrusting me, as their project manager, into a 'bitch wife' role when urging them to complete their tasks rather than just assigning the task, and getting it done.

- unmarried men (divorced and never married) looking for an easier woman. A woman with lower expectations, who has a job perhaps, and who provides companionship and affection. Could evolve into something longer term, but on the first signs it might, these men become very protective and even defensive over their finances.

- married women who resent that they may be the larger income-earner, and yet are still expected to do the majority of the housework and childcare responsibilities. They are angry at their partner for a host of reasons: for not earning more, for not doing more, for not being more. They find themselves on an icy landscape where they are making the house note and car notes, while their husbands enjoy football games or guy things and don't seem to have any ambition to propel themselves further in life. It appears as though the woman's success, rather than inspiring her mate to do more himself, has given him permission to kick back, and coast. He may have some household duties, but he does barely enough, and expects her to pick up the main part of it. However, should he have some pressing career concern or need to take a business trip, all household duties immediately shift to her.

- women tend to take one of three responses to men: an urge to merge and find THE ONE after exiting an imbalanced relationship; two, anger with men for not keeping up with the changes women have undergone; or three, indifference. Either women don't date, date 'down', or take lovers with no strings to fulfill their needs.

- men tend to take one of three responses to women: find someone younger and more accomodating than the ex-wife, with less expectations - a move to dating 'downstream'; two - move into severe anger with women over the split-up, the financial situation, and the sense of being left; three - a longing to find the right woman while navigating the slippery slope of online dating.

One wonders, after being granted access to this little view of the dating / relationship scene, if there is any possibility for happiness. Both approach the situation with completely different expectations, and to me, at least, it seems we are in the middle of a swing from the traditional relationship the sexes have had for centuries to some new model that has not yet worked itself out. Since at least Roman times, marriage was a way to unite properties, produce heirs and workers (depending on the marriage's financial standing), and guarantee a man property rights over his wife, and her protection since she often had no rights of her own.

Clearly, in the last century, all this has shifted. Women find themselves edging into men's territory far more than at any other time in history. Why wouldn't changing roles in the economic and power spheres roll to the domestic sphere? Science is showing that the Y chromosone is changing, and losing some of its power.  Men seem to be becoming more feminised, and yet in certain parts of the world, the repression against women has achieved new heights as a reaction to the perceived loss of men's power.

It seems to me that perhaps my daughter's daughter may see an evening of the roles, a new balance attained. However, for my generation, clearly the 'fairy tale' is lost, and the outcome of the shifting roles is far from certain.

I watch women exit marriages that have failed to satisfy in many areas, and do not generate sufficient financial reserves for the couple. These women enter the dating scene with high hopes that at last their dreams will materialize in the form of a man who will love and protect them, take care of them, treat them with respect, help with domestic duties, be concerned about their careers, and support the woman in achieving her aims. Instead, they find what I've described above: anger, resentment, fear, lust, distrust, and a sense that the dating world is a buffet where one can take and choose as they like. The men find themselves out of marriages rather unexpectedly, and immediately look for a lover or replacement, only to find women cagey, nervous, status-seeking, and expecting all the ritual courting behaviors while being unwilling to share the cost.

As I watch this collision of expectations, I find it no surprise that match.com and other sites have gained enormous popularity. The move here is attempt to control - find the expectations out first, see if you can meet them, or not, and choose accordingly. The more we know about a potential mate, the smarter decision we can make, yes?

However, this does not seem to be any more successful, because people can LIE on their profiles, and often do, or embellish their good points while masking their flaws. Craigslist seems to be the new hook-up zone in the virtual world, but the hook-up there is men seeking sex and women seeking soulmates - hardly a more successful model.

I suspect both sexes need a reality check, and women in particular need to divest themselves of the Cinderella myth. We can hardly expect to compete with men on their ground, and then expect them to fulfill all of our dreams romantically. Men had better divest themselves of the Ozzie and Harriet myth - you cannot expect to satisfy a woman carrying the financial load in the relationship while not lending your energies to support her career, and barely lifting a finger on the domestic front. Women are finding the sexiest men to be those with amazing culinary skills, who play instruments, or write poetry. They will accept the financial inequality if there are compensating factors elsewhere.

The times they are a changing....can't wait to see how it all turns out.

1. BREASTS
Call yourself a mastophiliac - it sounds so much less obvious than saying you like bosoms.
2. BACKSIDE
Men who enjoy nothing better than to gaze upon a shapely rump are technically known as gluteophiliacs.

3. LEGS
Think of yourself as a leg man? To physicians, you're just a lecherous crurophiliac.
4. THIGHS

If you like Beyoncé, it's likely that you've got a thing for thighs, thus making you a quadrophiliac
5. MOUTH
If it's the mouth of a woman that has you licking your lips, then that makes you an orophiliac.
6. EYES
If you're the kind of man who is captivated by a woman's eyes, then you're an optophiliac.
7. FEET
If the sight of a bare foot drives you wild, you're what we refer to as a podophiliac.
8. ANKLE
Now we're talking specifics - if it's the ankle joint that turns you on, be proud to call yourself a talophiliac.

9. EARS
Ear men are officially known in the trade as otophiliacs.

10. NOSE
And those who find nothing more erotic that a delightfully formed nose are nasophiliacs, naturally.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

Repost this if you believe homophobia is wrong