Gender Communications

Alright tonight's topic of one-sided blog discussion is gender communications. I always thought this was kind of myth as most of the boys I knew did seem to communicate using the same language and syntax as myself. However, I had a bit of a communications issue earlier this week. Now, this will be boiled down and over simplified for the purposes of this blog, but it was huge for me, as I realized this may be the way he expected me to communicate with him. I speak Girl, start learning it or I will have to try to speak in broken Boy to you and that could get ugly.

We have thus far, the BF and I, had a large communications mishap with him hurting my feelings (it was an e-mail thing and easily forgotten) however, I basically had to lay out quite clearly in writing that he had hurt my feelings and that when he hurt my feelings and I told him this, I would need him to simply apologize and we would move on. I think this is a very forthright and fair way to handle miscommunications. Now, the BF's modus operandi is to explain to me why my feelings should not be hurt in the first place or why he has not done said thing I told him he did, which really does nothing more than lead to a full on argument as what I want is an apology (so I know he did not hurt my feelings on purpose and respects my feelings enough to say he cares that I felt badly). I.e. He stated that he has not been late to two dates and I am always ten minutes early anyway.

Really?

I'm early because I hate being late --for anything. Which should, number one, let him know that I am not so hot about him being late for things. I detest tardiness. It shows a general disrespect for the other person's time and importance, in any situation. And when people do it to someone who cares about them, it makes those people feel unimportant, insignificant, and disrespected. Number two, he acknowledged that he knows I am always early and still arrives late, what exactly does that say? That he is not interested in me and has better things to do (coincidentally that is the message it sent). And third, he may need to decide right now if being 'right' is more important than simply acknowledging how I felt about his actions and trying to make me feel better. Countering with a defensive comment about my timeliness is unnecessary and uncalled for, I'm not attacking him. As a 'reasonable' person, I can admit when I am wrong very easily, but that was not what was being discussed. The issue was that his actions made me feel unimportant and unappreciated, when I have been doing nothing but trying to be important to him. So, just tell me I'm important. To the female brain this seems so very simple. I mean, why wouldn't he want to express that? Damn it, I am way too hot to be waiting around for something like that to be said.

I have read several articles stating that men will attempt to reason when talking to women about feelings. If my early arrivals had made him feel badly, he would say something, and I would apologize and sincerely attempt to make him feel better. Not tell him that he is wrong about these unfounded feelings of his and the facts of the related incidents. Really, when all is considered it is true --I talk emotions and he talks literals. So, I have decided to try to learn to speak Boy a bit more fluently. I think it will be worthwhile. --And while this blog seems a little over analytical tonight, we saw Cowboys & Aliens and had a fabulous date which I enjoyed very much. Anything worthwhile is worth doing correctly. I will really get the hang of this someday, I swear. Dating Scientist is out of the office.