Should He Or Should I?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Metro. No vacant tables. Mostly men are sitting. A woman stands with a heavy bag and is angry that a seat is not being given to her. The scenarios that I saw.

Zero option

The woman continues to get angry all the time of the trip, gets out of the metro irritated, with the thought "what morals have gone."

Educational option

The woman herself or those around her begin to shame the man that he does not give up his place. I think you've heard it too: "Young man, shame on you to sit when an elderly woman is standing." A man most often gets up, a woman sits down, but she feels uncomfortable or feeling satisfaction and the restoration of universal justice:-). Yes, the "man must give up" postulate helps to use shame to manipulate.

Rescue option

Another woman, who sees this picture, asks the man - please give the older woman a seat. More often than not, the request sounds a little annoyed. Our heroine says thank you and sits down. The codependent Karpman triangle is played out: a standing woman with bags is a victim, a sitting man is a tyrant, a woman who made him stand up is a savior.

Equal option

The woman herself asks the man to give her a place, thanks and sits down. Personally, I saw this option once (!!!) times during my entire journey on the metro.

So. What's going on? Why is the last, the most logical, in my opinion, option (which, by the way, is very common in Europe) practically does not occur in the countries of the former CIS?

It's hard for a woman with bags, she wants to sit down, but …

- she is ashamed to ask to give her a place (and therefore can be angry - anger generally accompanies shame);

- she does not risk asking, so as not to face a refusal - after all, this refusal still needs to be somehow experienced … or rather, not the refusal itself, but the emotions that arise in response to it. It can be the same shame, anger, guilt, and so on.

And the idea "a man should give a woman a place" perfectly saves from all these experiences. The woman shifts the responsibility for taking care of herself onto the man, and he is already to blame if he did not give up his place. And he should be ashamed if he doesn't. Even the picture for the article is about shame.

The subway story is just an example. In fact, in many cases it’s easier to say “should” and get angry or offended if the person doesn’t, than to ask to step down, stepping over shame and awkwardness, risking rejection. It is easier to be offended by a wife if she did not cook dinner than to ask to do it, it is easier to be offended by a boss for not raising his salary than to ask him about it, and so on. I'm sure you can come up with tons of options just by looking around:)

PS I'm not in any way talking about the fact that a man does not need to give up his seat. This is his choice and his principles of life.

And one more important addition: I describe situations when there is no agreement between people. The family may have an agreement that the wife prepares dinner for the arrival of her husband, and then there is no need to ask her about it every day. But even if she did not prepare, there is no point in being offended or angry on the sly. But that's a completely different story:-)))