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SilasBarta comments on How to understand people better - Less Wrong
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or 3. Bob is too lazy to take the time and effort to understand Alice, and saying "I don't understand women" is a great excuse to never bother.
Usually, men in this situation repeatedly ask Alice what they did wrong, and Alice will adamantly refuse to say. Whatever they're doing wrong, it's not failing to take time and effort. How many times do you see something like this:
"What, what's wrong, Alice?"
Nothing.
"It ... doesn't sound like that. Really, what's wrong."
NOTHING. EVERYTHING'S FINE.
"Please, Alice. I want to know what I did. Just tell me."
...
Some possibilities about what Alice is thinking:
One possibility is that being understood intuitively feels so good that actually explaining what one wants feels like settling for something grossly inferior. There are cultural ideas about what true love is like that can be really destructive, and aren't any living individual's fault. It would, of course, be nice if people had better sense than to fall for such stuff, but this may be expecting clear communication from the universe, and I don't think it's reliable about that. Sometimes the universe won't even show it's angry until it drops an anvil on your head.
Another is that women are sometimes trained to not be clear about what they want-- it isn't nice. I can't be sure how common this is, but I've got a streak of it myself, and I've heard other women complaining about it. Having the conditioning is extremely unpleasant (if you want to ask for something but have a high internal threshold to get past to try), and I think the conditioning can produce a background fund of anger which isn't about the current situation.
I don't know whether it was necessary to explain this in such detail, but sometimes I get the impression that a lot of the men here are aware of that sort of conditioning in themselves, but don't realize women might have a variation of it.
Given as everyone seems to want to pile unjustified extra assumptions onto the scenario, here are several actual scenarios that I know have occured that took this form:
Alice is angry/upset because of something Bob did. Bob is unaware of what he did, but has picked up on Alice's anger and wants to help her. a. Alice is trying to convince herself that it doesn't matter. -----b. Alice thinks Bob knowing what caused her anger will cause further problems.
Alice wasn't actually angry/upset at all. Bob believed she was, but was incorrect. His repeated questioning has resulted in her getting angry; making him more confident that there is a problem.
Alice is emotionally abusing Bob, manipulating him so that he will grovel for an explanation, such that when she tells him what she wants him to do, he'll be forced to do it.
Alice is angry at Bob for something he did. Bob is aware what this is, but wants to pretend he isn't in order to be able to make Alice feel as though she's over-reacting
Alice is angry/upset for reasons that have nothing to do with Bob. Bob is concerned for Alice's wellbeing, but Alice doesn't want to share.
Alice is angry. Bob knows this, but Alice is actually, honestly, unaware of this fact.
You leave out the fact that there is a common belief in women that "I shouldn't have to explain. You should just know." -- thereby rendering the need for explanation a further injury to the initial insult.
I usually find that this is what needs to be bypassed early on if any real communicating progress is to be achieved. Generally speaking I resolve this by making it perfectly clear that if the injured party is unwilling to communicate the injury, they are not "allowed" to require redress in any form. Including being angry -- thereby making them the party that is acting in the wrong, and requiring them to make amends. (This usually makes me quite "unreasonable" and causes a bigger blow-up than was necessary, but it gives me a vehicle towards more successful resolution after that initial blow-up and furthermore prevents similar scenarios from arising again. Mainly because I will have firmly estabilshed that that belief is not valid with regards to me. Those whom are capable of learning instead of just adding to their cached beliefs will have better relations with me.)
Yep, seen that many times. Happens with men, too, just not as often. And I think that your approach is quite sensible, if you can see it through.
As rare as it seems others find this to be true, I've found that being an ass on a routine basis is actually quite useful. Makes people tolerant of the dickish things you do and far more greatful for the helpful things you do. Of course, as with everything, there's an art to pulling it off.
In my experience this sort of conversation tends to act very much like a cached behavior on the both sides of the conversation
As a side note: in several of these scenarios I saw, Alice was male. In several, Bob was female.
Upvoted. The general phenomenon is interesting, the gendered aspect could also be interesting, but is also potentially a big distraction. In my relationship, I am definitely often Alex. Although my girlfriend is better at being Bob than most men are, including me (in terms of resolving the issue in a way that we're both happy with, not 'winning the conversation').
Relevant
It seems to me that even a completely unprejudiced person in Bob's shoes may very well rationally decide that it's not worth the trouble to try to understand Alice's problem. Indeed, I've yet to be convinced that empathy is worth the effort required to achieve it in more than a handful of cases.
When this sort of thing has happened to me, I've said more or less "I'll be here if you decide you want my help with whatever it is," and then turned my back. It seemed to me, then and now, that any other response would have been a complete waste of time and effort.
I guess that depends on how much Bob cares about Alice...?
Copying my example from another reply:
Let me build on this hypothetical example to explain why she does that:
Bob has clearly done something wrong. Alice is currently in a highly emotional state and recognises that she is likely not able to talk reasonably about what has happened without either becoming very angry or extremely upset and crying.
Therefore she really doesn't want to talk about it right now.
Bobs insistence on demanding all the answers right now is not helping her highly emotional state and is, in fact, just adding to her feelings of anger and panic... given that clearly he did something wrong, she believes he has no right to currently dominate the timing of when she discusses this highly sensitive issue (whatever it is).
But right now, she is too emotionally fraught even to be able to say that without shouting... so she just blocks.
The best thing for Bob to do is to courteously withdraw for a little while until Alice calms down... then to return at a later date when she's clearly had some time to reflect... and ask then.
What if Alice does want to talk about it right now, and is using this to gauge the depth of Bob's remorse? "Hm, he only asked three times then gave up. I guess he doesn't really care."
Yes, that may also be an alternative reading.
I never said my own hypothetical was the only way to read it... just offering an alternative viewpoint of what could be happening, to make sure we have more than one hypothesis here.
One should not assume that there is a power play involved... one should not assume that there is not a powerplay involved. One should not assume that Alice wants Bob to stop pestering her... one should not assume that Alice wants Bob to pester her...
One should consider all of these as possibilities... and then figure out which one is actually reality.
I was just offering a possible "inside view" to show that "power play" was not the only feasible option available.
I've seen this scenario occur several times where Bob HASN'T done anything wrong. Alice is annoyed for some reason, and is passive aggressively taking it out on Bob, and Bob wants to solve the problem that's causing them both to suffer.
The assumption that it's Bobs fault is entirely unjustified from the scenario presented.
Yes, quite right - in which case it is a power-play, pure and simple.
I just wanted to present an alternative to show that it's not always so cut and dried.
What makes you so sure anyone's playing for power in my scenario?
Bob is attempting to solve a problem that's causing both Alice and Bob suffering.
Alice may be playing for power, or she may not want to burden Bob with her personal problems, and may be honestly unaware that she's causing Bob to suffer.
passive-aggressive behaviour is a power play.
If Alice is being passive-aggressive (as you stated) then she is trying to be manipulative... in this case(as you stated) by causing Bob to suffer when he has (as you stated) done nothing wrong.
She is punishing him for having done nothing. This is a power play, pure and simple.
A non-power play solution to the problem would be for Alice to sit Bob down and explain why she's so upset, or just to say that she doesn't want to burden him with her personal problems and can he please stop bothering her about it? or similar...
Note: generalisations from personal experience and anecdote follow:
men in my experience, are generally not as sensitive to emotional nuance as women, and only tend to ask "what's wrong" if the woman has made it very clear and obvious that the man has done something wrong through emotionally-laden body-language. From my experience, men don't realise that women actually have to wildly accentuate their body-language before their men "get it" - thus, byt he time the man actually does "get" that they did something wrong - the woman has already worked herself up into a state of anger and may no longer wish to actually talk about whatever it is anymore.
By contrast, women will often pick up on when they've upset another woman much quicker (through subtler body-language cues) and women (being used to having that noticed) find men unusually insensitive... and thus get more upset with them because they seem to not notice when they've "done something wrong" without being explicitly told.
It's part of "female culture" that you shouldn't need to tell another person when you're upset... the other person should "just know" by noticing these cues. Amongst women, that's usually the case. However - men are generally not as well "trained" on female body-language cues as other women are... and therefore don't pick them up, and therefore actually have to be told... in words.... that the woman was upset by some action. For a woman this is very frustrating.
Note: that I am referring to a perceived "average" here - some men are very capable of noticing these cues and some women are not very capable...
Also note: I am not actually agreeing that any of this is a "good idea" to do... just explaining what actually generally goes on in the female mind when the given hypothetical example is actually happening.
This is certainly something that actual women do often enough for it to be a noticed part of the general culture. (Google "women nothing's wrong" and find hosts of examples.) Going from the majority of actual women to the usual woman whose man complains he can't understand women is a difficult transition to make- obviously those groups should have some systematic differences.
Indeed, it appears a common explanation for this is that the woman is testing the man: does he care enough to draw out why she's upset? If that's the case, advice given elsewhere in this tree to back off and give her time would backfire. (If that's the case with this particular scenario, though, then Alice would probably start talking about it during one of the questions. The sticky part is how far the man has to probe, and when the man should decide to leave it alone vs. be persistent.)
That experience seems in line with the scenario SilasBarta posits. For the woman, it's frustrating that the man doesn't understand the message she's sending; for the man, it's frustrating that he doesn't understand the message she's sending. The communication breakdown is that neither of them seems willing or able to use the language the other is using; the woman is unwilling to explicitly articulate the problem and the man is unable to implicitly understand the problem.
(Typically, I see unwilling as easier to fix than unable, and I suspect that's true in this case. I'll talk more about that later.)
So, is the man "lazy"? Well, he's certainly putting in time and effort attempting to fix the problem- which to Silas is evidence that he's not lazy. One solution method is for him to create an effective model of Alice, which requires getting training in female culture, which requires a lot more time and effort than just asking her what's wrong now. But it seems to me that 'laziness' is not the reason why Bob doesn't choose that method- he probably doesn't know that's something he can do. (It may even be the case that he can't. Perhaps even after hundreds of hours of training Bob will be unable to correctly parse signals sent by Alice.)
Now, why is Alice unwilling to explicitly talk about why she's upset? Perhaps Bob is quick to dismiss reasons Alice thinks are significant. Perhaps Bob has different standards of proof than she does. Consider: "I don't think Carol likes me." "Did she say she didn't like you?" "No... but she crossed her arms at me." "But that could mean anything!" Alice crosses her arms at Bob.
If that's the case, then Bob might be able to make Alice more willing to talk by being more willing to listen, and slower to judge.
Alice's reasons for being upset could be embarrassing for a variety of reasons. Maybe Alice is mad at Bob because she had a dream that Bob did something mean to her. (Yes, this actually happens.) She can't just stop being mad at him, but she can't explain why she's mad because Bob will think it's crazy. In cases like this, Bob can't do as much.
Oh certainly - I never claimed that it was not present (or even common), I was reacting to Silas use of the word "usually" which implies that a majority of women do this, possibly a majority of the time.
I just find this attitude a little negative - as nasty as women suggesting that "all men are lazy" - which I do not agree with... though I have certainly seen many examples of it happening... and it's another meme that I'm sure you can google for to find plenty of examples ;)
Actually, you might notice that I edited my original comment to remove the wording you've replied to, as on further thought I decided it was just a bit too reactionary. I changed what I was saying purely to the anecdotal discussions about how women often perceive men... based on their own maps of how people "should behave" or "should notice" them emotionally.
Again - not agreeing with that - I believe such views are laden with map-territory issues.
It took me personally a long time to realise that "he isn't being insensitive... he just hasn't learned the same cues I'm used to and he probably has lots of cues that I persistently fail to notice"
Agreed - in some cases there's a kind of emotional mexican stand-off - where both partners are unable or unwilling to take the steps necessary to solve the problem.
I also agree that in this case, Bob is not being lazy, though perhaps he's not acting in an optimal fashion (or perhaps he is, but Alice is not). I offered my original "number 3" as just another possibility - not "what all men do", after all :)