For some years now I have known that I am socially retarded. Actually “retarded” may not be a fair word to use since people that are mentally challenged are not so by choice. They are either challenged because of genetic, or physical trauma. My social issue is by choice so I would be more a social conscientious objector!
If you are a man you know from experience that you either start a conversation with a sports reference, or a conversation is started with you from another male about sports. I don’t follow sports. I don’t watch sports. I like sports. I enjoyed playing sports. Knowing how often men strike up conversations about sports, and being reasonably intelligent (thank God for spelling checkers so I can appear so) if I wanted to be more SOCIAL I would start following sports, reading about sports, and keeping up with the SOM (Sport Of the Moment). But I don’t. I can even see how this would help me in my career. Everyone likes a person they have something in common with, right? Well having something to talk about during all those boring hours at work would be a big plus to some I am sure.
Men, being pretty simple by design, sports is really the only thing I would have to learn. Women on the other hand, if you’ve ever dated one or been married to one, are much more complex. Even the most stubborn men are usually willing to learn a little bit about anything that makes it easier to have a conversation with a woman. Something you lean pretty quickly is that knowing too much about one of the womanly subjects will quickly move you from potential boyfriend to friend, to GAY friend. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that {Seinfeld reference}. For example. Knowing a little about shoes, or even just saying what you think. “Pretty!”, “Don’t they hurt?”, “Were they very expensive?”, are all reasonable things to say to a woman that will encourage her to tell you about every possible aspect of that shoe, and perhaps even a discussion about her feet, or her legs. 😀
Knowing as much about the shoe will move you into the friend category. Knowing more about the shoe, how it makes your feet and legs feel will move you into the dreaded third category mentioned above! Now just because you are viewed as a friend, or a gay friend isn’t necessarily bad, but most guys are talking to the woman because they find her interesting/attractive as a potential date (sexual partner). Most woman really enjoy their gay male friends!
I believe most people have welcomed the politically correct environment. Men may think the same as before, but at least now society has taught us to keep our mouths shut. Sexual harassment for example is a very real threat to your continued employment. One down side to sexual harassment is how confusing it can be, well at least for “less than sociable” man. Remember sexual harassment is only harassment if the person you are doing it to doesn’t like it. You know unwanted sexual advances, even Al Gore has learned about this. I have heard that you shouldn’t even risk giving a woman at work a completely non-sexual compliment, like how nice her hair, outfit, shoes, etc… look. Being happily married (or even if I wasn’t happy) you wouldn’t think this would be a big deal for me. Well, and perhaps I’m just overly concerned about it, I don’t want any of my remarks to be misunderstood. I don’t want to lose my job, or have any issues at my place of employment simply because I was so socially inexperienced!
I may be taking it a little to far. For example on a couple of occasions woman have mentioned to me that my food looks good. My first manly man reaction is to cover my food and growl at them, but my wife has broke me of that and taught me that people sometimes like to start up a conversation by talking about something they see you with, and it isn’t an attempt to steal your food. So now I’m faced with a dilemma. I react like my instincts tell me, grab food and run, or I can start up a lengthy conversation inadvertently say something that is misunderstood and wind up in a sexual harassment situation. The other possible outcome is that I’ll do just fine and I’ll make a new friend. Yeah I know what’s the odds of that happening?!?!?
So what I choose to do is try to achieve a balance between the growling/running and lengthy conversation. Here’s how a recent conversation went… I was taking my lunch out of the microwave in the company break area. Woman “That looks good!” Awkward pause while I calmed myself from grabbing my HOT food and running, remembering the coaching from my wife. Me “Well it is certainly hot!” “he he he” {horrible!} Woman looking at food through the side of the clear container, “What is that?” More comfortable now, fight/flight response squelched, I say “Chicken and green beans.” Woman “Oh! I thought it was asparagus.” Long pause and she turned and walked away. Oh my God how horrifying an experience! I still get a little jumpy just remembering the incident!
Apparently I did just fine. The lady from the above conversation no longer compliments me on my food and I haven’t been called down to human resources! Personally I think woman enjoy the lack of sexual harassment as I am sure they are just as uncomfortable, or more so, as I was in the above mention conversation. However I have noticed something happening over the last ten years. Woman are getting more aggressive. I first noticed this driving back and forth to work. Even though it may appear from what I have written so far that I am far from aggressive, that really isn’t the case. I am aggressive, perhaps overly so from time to time. I just try to use my ability to think to keep me out of trouble. This aggressiveness is perhaps more apparent in my driving. My point is I know what aggression is. On more than one occasion women have attempted to influence my driving on the road. Like speed up, get out of my way, etc… I was shocked to see that it was a woman doing the aggressive driving!
My theory is that because of the increasing politically correct environment woman feel that they are having to become more aggressive. Shows like “Sex in the City” and the follow up movies, glorify the aggressive (often sexually aggressive) woman. Okay I may be wrong about “Sex in the City” as I’ve only watched about fifteen minutes of a few episodes, and that would be total time watched, but to illustrate my point, lets pretend I am presenting the show correctly. Woman no longer can sit back and let the man come up and make sexual advances. The politically correct environment has taught the man to behave and that it is just too costly to flirt with any woman. I think this same way of thinking spills over into the private realm as well. I mean if you practice acting correctly in the work place your nature will be to do so in the public place.
Most woman know that a man will not cry sexual harassment. For two reasons. Men generally never considered a sexual advance unwanted, even if they know nothing will come of it. Also if men find out they cried sexual harassment they will teased and generally shunned for being so wimpy! So woman get a free pass. This means that women are now in the driver’s seat, so to speak. So they have two choices. They can wait and wait and wait for a man to decide that it is worth the risk to have more than a general or professional conversation with them, or they can just step up to the plate and make the first contact!
You know this reminds me of science fiction stories I’ve seen/read where the female part of the civilization had the more Earthling traditional male role . I don’t recall there being a story line where the male of the species was the aggressor and over time, through political change ,the women rose to that position, and the men decline to their new subservient role. Interesting.
Basically if you are a man in the twenty first century you are screwed. If you are aggressive you are considered to be socially repugnant. If you are subservient you are considered to be to feminine. If you have aggressive females trying to start up conversations with you the climate is just confusing and to dangerous for you to risk a misunderstanding, therefore the women have to be more aggressive.
As you can see even a married family man can have issues in this social world. Socializing is full of dangers, and pitfalls. No wonder we are embracing the online world, where we can be more anonymous and express ourselves with little fear of reprisals. Well that sounds like a future blog post.
Something that really scares me, now that I think of it! Aggressive woman learning about sports so they can strike up conversations with men! The horror… the horror!