what does it mean when a woman says to a man what do you want with an attitude

A woman I was interviewing recently told me that a few months into a promising relationship, the homo she was seeing of a sudden stopped answering her texts. Worried, she sent him an email and so tried calling him, with the aforementioned results: No reply. Then she discovered that she was also blocked from his social media.

What had happened? She had just experienced ghosting, the increasingly mutual social phenomenon of being dropped without a word of explanation. "It's so wrong," she said. Like many women in this situation, she first tried to effigy out what she had washed to cause the problem. And and so she realized it was not her fault. "Y'all're a psychotherapist," she said, turning the interview effectually. "Tell me what is the thing with men? Why do they behave like this in relationships?"

Following #MeToo and all of the current criticism of male beliefs, I have heard variations of this question often: Why are men so controlling, then unrelated, so unfeeling? It might seem like a simple question, merely the reply is complicated.

For one thing, as a psychotherapist I have found that information technology can be extremely important (but besides very difficult) non to fall into the trap that author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls "the danger of a single story." There are many unlike reasons for men's "bad" behavior, as Anna Sale clearly pointed out in a special series of her podcast "Expiry, Sex, and Money."

One of the difficulties, she told us, is that men are not then clear nigh what it ways to be a adept guy. She said, "We're in a moment where what information technology ways to be a man is shifting — and to some men, it feels similar there are a lot of mixed messages floating around. Every bit one man put it to the states, there's a very unclear set of expectations every bit far as how a man should behave."

When I interviewed a group of men about #MeToo, they agreed that men need to change, and were actually more than critical than women of ambitious and rude actions by other men.

"I effort to teach my sons that beingness sensitive to other people'south feelings is part of beingness a good guy," said 1 of the dads I interviewed. "But in this world, with the function models they have, it's not an like shooting fish in a barrel chore to convince them." When one of his sons was bullied at schoolhouse, his teacher not but failed to reprimand the other boys, but too added to the injure, telling him, "What's the matter with you lot? Are you some kind of sissy, that yous can't have a little teasing?"

"Information technology'south hard to combat that attitude," this dad told me. "And it seems to be the ruling philosophy these days."

This human, like Anna Sale, is referring to what social scientists call social context. "Men deport badly," says psychotherapist and author Joan Kavanaugh, "because they tin." The men I interviewed said something similar. "Men nonetheless have most of the ability in our culture — in our world," said some other dad with teenaged children. A single guy in his 30s said, "Nosotros accept a very skewed vision of masculinity in our world."

"Men behave badly," says psychotherapist and author Joan Kavanaugh, "considering they can."

David Wexler and William Pollack, who wrote the book "When Skillful Men Carry Badly," repeat these thoughts. They write that some men who hurt others, whether intentionally or not, are but not expert people simply others are good people who, for a diversity of reasons, appoint in not-skilful beliefs. The social context in which many of these men take grown up teaches that emotions similar sensitivity, sympathy, kindness, understanding and dependency are signs of weakness, and that "existent men" are tough and hard.

Pew Enquiry has but released a report confirming that, as a social club, Americans skew towards not seeing men every bit being "emotional," but as being strong, protective, and administrative: 67 per centum of respondents viewed power as a positive trait in men (simply not in women). A lack of emotion, we communicate to boys from an early age, is the path to power, forcefulness, authorization and control — all traits we all the same identity positively with masculinity.

Equally long every bit some men in powerful positions act every bit though corruption and power-mongering is their right, others volition follow in their footsteps. But in that location are many men who don't purchase into this attitude. So, what can nosotros do about it?

Several of the men I spoke with said that we need to begin to brainwash boys about feelings and empathy from an early age — which, I agree, is an fantabulous thought. But until that happens, women might consider how we choose to react, which is really the just thing in our control.

For instance, if yous are subjected to a man'due south unfeeling, insensitive behavior, you might decide that there'due south an innocent reason behind it — maybe he only doesn't understand what he has said or done. Yous don't have to accept the behavior, even if you take that the intention was not to exist mean or hurtful, just, for some people, recognizing that the pain is unintentional tin eliminate the feeling that you lot are somehow at fault for information technology.

And in the case of ghosting, or otherwise beingness dropped by someone with whom you thought you had a relationship. Information technology's often hard to motility on from that kind of hurt, only in that location are ii important things you can endeavor to keep in mind. First, no thing what you lot did wrong, you deserve an explanation — 1 that you probably, unfortunately, won't get. And 2d, that there are men out there who practice not buy into the popular image of masculinity as unfeeling and unconnected.

In the long run, we all repeat patterns, and y'all might find yourself looking for the kind of guy you've always liked (and maybe have been hurt past). Then practice some soul-searching nigh what qualities you're looking for. You might find that you're drawn to guys who signal that they are stiff and in control because we, too, are subject to the aforementioned social context as men. And then, peradventure see if you can let yourself get to know a couple of men who are a little — can I say? — softer. Those men need to be sought out and historic.

The more than we reinforce the positive, the more likely they will get the role models for other men. And the more likely that we'll discover practiced guys for ourselves.

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Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/why-are-men-so-terrible-what-can-we-do-about-ncna895306

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