Women's Tears: Instructions For Use (for Men)

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

Women's tears: instructions for use

(for men)

We cannot understand another person

if we do not admit the idea of his otherness

We, men and women, are different. This is an axiom. Different, despite the constant persistent attempts of the last hundred years to prove the opposite. At the same time, often chasing the idea of equality, its apologists begin to ignore the idea of difference. Although even a simple glance at the morphology of a man and a woman becomes enough to notice this difference.

The psychological differences between the sexes, although not visible with an external gaze, nevertheless, here you can find significant differences between the male and female world. Ignorance and rejection of this difference often leads to an inability to understand each other and, as a result, to increasing alienation in gender relations.

In this article, I do not pretend to be a comprehensive description of the misunderstandings between the sexes arising from their difference. I will confine myself to analyzing only one rather typical situation and consider its psychological mechanism.

So, the situation is as follows: a woman cries in the presence of a man for reasons unknown to him. And the reasons for women can be many: from sadness to joy, from anxiety to enthusiasm, from tenderness to hatred.

Who among the men was not present in such a situation and did not feel helpless at the same time?

I will try to describe what is happening in the soul of a man and the typical traps of misunderstanding that he falls into. As well as various possible options for his reactions to the described situation.

I will highlight here 3 options for male behavior:

Option 1 - standard. Once in such a situation, a man meets his own impotence and tries to quickly complete it.

The typical feelings of a man here are annoyance, guilt and irritation. Annoyance is associated with a misunderstanding of the woman's state and her own powerlessness to somehow end this state. Guilt is supported by the idea of being responsible for a woman's emotional processes and is irritating. As a result, a man tries to either awkwardly reassure a woman, or devalue her experiences, or even blame her for them.

What does a woman want from a man in this situation?

Presence. Host presence. The presence of her man next to him, with whom you can safely cry, buried in his strong shoulder. What she does not want at this moment from a man is to hear the banal "Everything will be fine, baby", and even more so his reproaches "for his inappropriate behavior."

As a result, the woman feels misunderstood, lonely and offended. A man feels rejected, helpless, and annoyed. Alienation inevitably grows between them.

What prevents a man from understanding what a woman wants from him in the described situation?

The man here gets into introject trap - a woman should not cry next to a man! And if a woman is crying next to a man, then the man is to blame.

Having made a series of clumsy attempts to fix something, a man encounters his own helplessness and experiences the aforementioned feelings - guilt, annoyance, irritation.

This variant of male behavior is automatic due to the introject. It is triggered as a conditioned reflex in response to a stimulus-situation and becomes a skill.

If it is possible to realize and work out these feelings, then others, hidden under guilt, irritation and annoyance, begin to come to the fore. Having worked introject trap, causing guilt, you can find interest, curiosity, sympathy. And these feelings, unlike the previous ones, contribute to maintaining contact and closeness between partners.

The two options described below for responding to the situation under consideration is an opportunity for a man to act outside the box. They provide an opportunity to break out of an unconscious behavioral pattern. They become possible only with the awareness and elaboration of introjects and those feelings that trigger typical "male" behavior.

Option 2 - interested presence

The man admits that women are arranged somehow differently and he gets curious: How? A man shows interest, attentiveness, sensitivity, asking questions to a woman: What's wrong with you? Why are you crying? How can I help you? A woman feels that a man is not indifferent. A man feels that he is needed by a woman. Closeness is maintained and strengthened between them.

Option 3 - receiving presence

Almost not found in nature). A man knows that women are made differently. And he accepts it, just accepts it without any conditions! Then he is able to give her what she needs: presence, a strong shoulder with the ability to cry on it, without feeling guilty. As in the previous version, the quality of contact between them increases.

For the second and third options, only male experience is not enough to understand a woman. He is simply inaccessible to him due to his different, male psychology. Projection and causal attribution, as mechanisms of understanding, are powerless here. This requires the assumption that women are "somewhat differently than men" and the ability to empathize.

We cannot understand another person if we do not admit the idea of his otherness. Only then do we have a chance. Or take an interested position: How do you do it? And through this, try to understand the other. Or just accept it without any conditions.