One of the sad things, for me, reading your list of stories was how I'd heard all of them before, from other women (fortunately not all of them from all other women; but I don't think that there's a story there that I haven't heard from one woman or another -- including the abusive ex pressuring you for sex every night :-( ). Individually many of the stories are at a "that probably shouldn't have happened, but c'est la vie" level, as a one off, but the "flood" of occurrences turns that into "constantly defending the battlements".
In your example 7, "well, it's all about the chase, isn't it?" strikes me as a product of Guess Culture. In the sense that she clearly believed that not only was he supposed to "just figure it out", the answer you report comes across very much like "how dare you try to cheat that by asking directly", with a side of "keep trying and maybe you'll figure out the answer".
Your example 2 and 4 also seem to carry parts of Guess Culture, and "keep trying and maybe you'll figure out the answer". It wouldn't surprise me if at least some of those men, at least at the beginning, believed that they were "supposed to make a move". And possibly carrying on believing that throughout much of the interaction, since the way you describe it looks rather similar to the received (western) culture "man initiates, woman plays hard to get" pattern of interaction. (FTR, many of the men seem to indicate Over The Top levels of Just Not Understanding the Words said, later in the stories. But the initial steps seem, to me, as a man, as equally explainable as "supposed to make a move".)
It seems to me that the expectation in general (Western) culture of a Guess Culture approach to "dating" interaction (for lack of a better general term) almost inevitably leads towards some of these situations, particularly when coupled with the (still fairly accurate in my experience) expectation that men are always supposed to "make the move". Even given that, many of the situations you describe should stopped well before the point you describe (there seem to have been Olympic Levels of Failing To Get The Hint). But that seems to me at least as much of an indication at how poorly Guess Culture really works out.
So possibly somewhere in here the "received culture" view of how "dating" interaction is supposed to work needs a new model which is less Guess Culture, and less fixed in its roles. Sadly such widespread social change seems, to me, to take a generation or more to bring about, on a widespread basis. But maybe there's a chance of teaching individual people who want to learn, given actual positive examples of what people should do (as opposed to avoid doing).
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Everywomen's stories
Date: 7/7/11 09:03 pm (UTC)From:In your example 7, "well, it's all about the chase, isn't it?" strikes me as a product of Guess Culture. In the sense that she clearly believed that not only was he supposed to "just figure it out", the answer you report comes across very much like "how dare you try to cheat that by asking directly", with a side of "keep trying and maybe you'll figure out the answer".
Your example 2 and 4 also seem to carry parts of Guess Culture, and "keep trying and maybe you'll figure out the answer". It wouldn't surprise me if at least some of those men, at least at the beginning, believed that they were "supposed to make a move". And possibly carrying on believing that throughout much of the interaction, since the way you describe it looks rather similar to the received (western) culture "man initiates, woman plays hard to get" pattern of interaction. (FTR, many of the men seem to indicate Over The Top levels of Just Not Understanding the Words said, later in the stories. But the initial steps seem, to me, as a man, as equally explainable as "supposed to make a move".)
It seems to me that the expectation in general (Western) culture of a Guess Culture approach to "dating" interaction (for lack of a better general term) almost inevitably leads towards some of these situations, particularly when coupled with the (still fairly accurate in my experience) expectation that men are always supposed to "make the move". Even given that, many of the situations you describe should stopped well before the point you describe (there seem to have been Olympic Levels of Failing To Get The Hint). But that seems to me at least as much of an indication at how poorly Guess Culture really works out.
So possibly somewhere in here the "received culture" view of how "dating" interaction is supposed to work needs a new model which is less Guess Culture, and less fixed in its roles. Sadly such widespread social change seems, to me, to take a generation or more to bring about, on a widespread basis. But maybe there's a chance of teaching individual people who want to learn, given actual positive examples of what people should do (as opposed to avoid doing).
Ewen