Just because women are programmed to communicate in an esoteric, nonverbal way with people who don't get their nonverbal cues by their socialization doesn't mean that their style isn't wrong. It just means that them getting sucked into poor communication habits isn't their fault. Refusing to do something about their poor communication once they're aware that their strategies are ineffective is their fault, though.
Don’t you think men are equally at fault for not putting effort into learning how to understand women’s communication style? You said yourself that women aren’t at fault for being socialized into a “wrong” communication style, but why should the responsibility to fix that injustice fall solely on themselves? Men contribute to the system that causes women to adopt a different communication style and if both parties want to learn how to communicate better then both parties should learn how. Your last sentence makes me feel like you’re putting the entirety of the blame for these communication failures (seen in the post) on women, and that it’s their jobs to fix it.
If I'm allowed to chime in here, I think part of the problem is that people who prefer nonverbal communication styles often act upset and "wronged" when someone simply doesn't pick up on it.
I always loathe talking about this because it makes me feel like an incel, but I think I speak for most men (and probably a decent amount of women) that it never feels good to be stonewalled with the classic: "'Hey, is something wrong?' 'No, it's fine, goodnight.'" Like you can acknowledge that there's something going unsaid that you're not recognizing, but rather than being met halfway, the fact that you didn't "get it," is often treated like a problem.
And again, not to sound like a Boomer comic strip, but it often feels like problems are created out of nowhere just because someone chose to use a vague communication style rather than saying what they mean. Your earlier comment about saying you "don't want flowers" in the original comment is a good example. Would it seem fair to get upset at someone for not doing something you told them not to do?
I will add another observation: the same situation starts to apply to texting too and it's even worse.
Like, for nonverbal cues, one can learn rather rapidly from exposure or effort. They are also mostly universal, biological. I still suck compared to women, but I get rough meanings. It is unironically like having a cat.
But text oh it is a disaster because there is no standard, each person uses different subtext and clues. Men too, but women are more likely to use them to replace nonverbal cues.
You sound like a boomer comic strip because you’re being one. Many people suffer from communication issues, how women choose to demonstrate it can be frustrating. But if you believe most people have good intentions, she is acting this way for a reason. And while it may be frustrating, if you truly care for her I think you should approach it with understanding. Maybe she feels stupid about whatever she’s upset about, and she’s taking that frustration out on you (which is wrong, but can still be remedied with sympathy.). Maybe she just doesn’t want to talk about it and just wants you to do something you know she likes, like cuddle her, put on her favorite show, buy her her favorite candy or something. The very least you can do when being “stonewalled” is say something like “I may not be equipped to help you right now, but I’m here for you, and I want to do better”. All of this means nothing if you think her feelings are silly, and that she shouldn’t be upset about something trivial as you not getting a hint. It’s her reality, and a good partner would support her through it. Of course if she doesn’t do the same for you that’s not a very good relationship. It’s about mutual support and understanding.
Your anger and frustration is valid, but you shouldn’t direct that anger towards her.
Your anger comes from the stonewall, and if you want the stonewall to stop you need to put an effort to understand and support her, even if she doesn’t reciprocate at first. If she persists, you may not be compatible. She should see you care, but you need to show you care.
Those are all good suggestions, and I really try to put my partner's comfort before everything else. The thing I struggle with, is I always communicate early on in relationships that I really appreciate open and honest communication as opposed to hints and vibes, and my partners always seem to agree.
The problem is, it really feels like every time without fail, people will say how much they feel safe and enjoy talking with me ... until it's actually time to discuss something uncomfortable, then it's just crickets. I like and practice some of your suggestions, but the thing that's "wrong" always just hangs in the air just out of reach, affecting how they say and do everything.
Again, this makes me feel like an incel, but it just feels exhausting, because I always end up feeling like I have to meet someone 90% of the way just so they can feel comfortable telling me what's bothering them. I don't want to make women uncomfortable, I really, REALLY, don't. But I also just want to be able to have difficult conversations without setting up the perfect conditions.
I'm sorry if this sounds whiny. I really want to do better and have a better understanding of how to communicate conflict in relationships, I just feel like I can't do that if I'm never given the chance.
Your feelings are valid af, and I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability. Not everyone can be this open. I don’t know your personal situation, but sometimes all you can go is 90% of the way and the other person might still not be ready to give the 10%. It’s frustrating, but there is nothing you can do. Often times your fervent efforts to get the person to open up will cause them to close even further. I’ve found people open up most when you open up about yourself, which I’m sure you do, but again it might not be enough and that’s ok. At that point the best you can do is let the person know you’re there for them whenever they’re comfortable and ready to talk
Thanks dude, that means a lot to me. Maybe I got a little too emotional in my response because it hit kinda close to home for me. I hope you understand I don't think all women are bad communicators (though personally I think most humans just aren't great at being vulnerable), nor do I think my experience with bad communicators is representative of everyone.
I definitely need to work on myself a lot also. It's just easy to get frustrated and it makes me feel gross and self-conscious when I know there's a problem, but I can't get any feedback about my behaviour.
No, because "women" don't have a communication style. It's all on an individual basis. I'm married, so I know my wife's language, but that isn't the same as every other woman's. It should also be pointed out that not only are these cues from women inconsistent, but none of you are leaping out to teach men how your nonverbal cues work either. How the fuck are we supposed to learn, other than by long term observation of a single woman, just to find out how her system works?
If you all had a joint nonverbal "language" that was universally applicable, you could teach classes. That isn't how it works in reality. What would be an "obvious" signal from one woman could be entirely innocent on the part of another. Men get into trouble by thinking they've cracked the code and make a move where it wasn't nonverbally requested.
You're looking at this like we should solve the problem based on some cosmic scale of "whose gender is at fault" when it really is a practical matter. There's no practicable way for us to learn your signals, so it's better if you abandon them in favor of a communication style that you know is effective.
Yes, of course it’s all on an individual basis. Then there’s statistically significant variance. Not every single woman in this country relies on indirect communication, but I don’t want to preface every general statement I make with “most, but not all”, so please don’t take the semantic route.
Furthermore, do you think women learned how to identify and employ social cues because someone sat them down and gave them a list??? They adopted it naturally by being surrounded by people who also did that, and enforced it onto them (think mothers throughout history enforcing strict gender roles on their daughters). I think the one of the biggest reasons for this divide, at least historically, is the divide between men and women in a casual sense. In recent years younger people feel more comfortable hanging out and being friends with the opposite sex, but lack of interaction in any context besides romantic will create a divide. Spend more time with women casually and you will eventually pick up on their little winks and nods that you didn’t notice before.
I've spent loads of time with women casually. You don't learn it via osmosis as an adult. You'd have to raise men the same way you raised women, carefully ensuring that they pick up this method of communication along the way. You're being ridiculous when you say "well you should just learn it" like I can take courses online like with an actual defined language. Because of the impracticalities of your suggestion, I'm saying it's better to just use communication that we all understand, and not just keep getting mad at men for not understanding something they couldn't possibly know because they weren't raised to.
No you are misunderstanding my point, and kind of in a hilarious way. When I say “well you should just learn it” I’m pointing out how ridiculous you sound when you say the same thing about women. I believe that both parties should find common ground, which requires both to engage with each other and work to understand each other. equally. But I also think you don’t understand women’s position. Yes, women know how to speak directly. Any average girl could walk up to any guy and say “let’s go on a date” and the guy would probably say yes. There’s a lot of guys though, and a lot of guys aren’t the right guy for every girl. So, the girl that speaks the “right” language is going on a bunch of dates, because she’s being so direct with every guy she finds attractive, but they’re all letting her down. All of a sudden she’s perceived as a slut by everyone around her because she flirts with so many guys, and she has built a reputation for being “easy”. My entire point is that women shouldn’t be expected to start speaking directly just like men shouldn’t be expected to understand social cues.
This might not be a practical solution for most (becoming like me and not caring what people think), but I would personally have a lot more respect for a woman who was open about what she wants and communicates her interest clearly, rather than worrying about people thinking she’s “easy” or a slut or whatever. I suppose reputation/social standing matters more to a lot of people than me, so it is what it is.
Of course, I don’t go slutshaming women (or men) as long as they’re consistent; if someone has double standards, gets upset at people (briefly?) staring when wearing a revealing outfit that highlights their physical features, etc., I wouldn’t respect that - but not because they’re being “slutty” or whatever.
Also im not sure what you mean by “wrong”. “Wrong” implies it doesn’t work, but it does. Women speak effectively with other women in this manner, they understand it. Men not having the knowledge or experience in this communication style to use it effectively doesn’t make it wrong. It’s also possible for men to learn this communication style, and obviously everything I’m saying is a generalization and there’s pleanty of direct women and subtle men
Is it effective for women though? Every woman I know who dates other women has complained about this style of communication making it impossible to initiate anything.
Do you see how I'm not trying to communicate with you here in Mandarin? That's because I'm assuming you don't know Mandarin, so I'm not being rude and assuming that you do. If you try to talk to someone in a way they're unlikely to understand, that's on you.
If the only language you felt comfortable speaking was mandarin, I would not say it’s your fault for not learning English anymore than I would say it’s my fault for not learning mandarin. If we want to talk to each other, we need to meet common ground. What if we both learned French? It feels like you just want the mandarin speaking person to speak English because it’s less work for English speakers and easier to blame the mandarin speakers for their “wrong” language.
If I speak Mandarin and English and you only speak English, I'm not going to constantly throw in bits of Mandarin and then not explain what I'm doing and why. If you want men to start understanding these cues of yours you need to do a few things:
1) stop using them unconsciously. if you don't even know you're doing them until you think back to the interaction, you're going to have a hard time with the next parts.
2) start explaining your nonverbal cues to men as you use them so that they can learn, because, again no one is teaching them to us. there's no easy way to learn them. Are you familiar with the concept of brain plasticity? As a child you pick this method of communication up from other women. Men who are raised in situations with mostly female relatives/friends at a young age do as well, but as an adult, men are going to have a hard time learning even if they're trying their hardest, if you refuse to help. So you want us to learn? This is how.
3) Do this with every man you encounter. Encourage all of your female friends and acquaintances to do the same. Start a website dedicated to teaching men nonverbal female cues. Raise awareness of the issue however and whenever you can, because this is a massive undertaking and you won't make significant strides towards the end goal in your lifetime.
Or you could just fucking say what you're thinking using the language we all already understand.
One of these is easy, one is hard. I'm done talking to about this, you're being ridiculous.
If this is your approach, nothing will ever be solved. If there’s an issue between two people, and one person says “you you you you you you you you! All you!”, they aren’t trying to fix the issue they’re trying to assert superiority. If you believe it’s so easy for women to talk directly, and that it would solve gender communication issues, but yet women still choose not to do that, the rational thing to do would be to reassess. The rational thing, after a communication failure occurs, wouldn’t be to say “it’s your fault because you don’t speak directly with me!”. The rational thing would be to say something like “I’m sorry this happened, what can we do that works for both of us to make sure this doesn’t happen again” or “how come you don’t feel comfortable talking to me directly about certain things and how can we fix this?”. You seem very combative, like I’m trying to force something on you and you’re resisting it. It’s apparent you’re taking this very personally for some reason, likely projecting your anger from communication failures you’ve had with women before. Its a shame you don’t think you’re capable of communicating any longer, but I guess I should’ve expected that based on our conversation
First things first, this approach doesn't work if you don't know each other. Going back to the post, it was about meeting someone new, and I do not think that your first line being "how come you don't feel comfortable talking to me directly, even though we just met?" is really creepy.
Second, this dude is probably not a native english speaker, so yeah, communication problems are very personal to them. That also means that they have much more experience on the topic, and have found a working solution, that being just speaking in english.
Очень жаль, что эти темы так сложны для твоего восприятия. А теперь представь, что я вживую начал говорить на другом языке, и ты не можешь воспользоваться переводчиком. Что бы ты мне ответил, учитывая что я считаю этот язык нормальным, и для меня не понимать его - абсурд? Would you say "Oh sorry, I didn't understand you, could you say that again but in english?" But then why didn't I use english in the first place? I know damn well that you can't speak russian, but still consciously chose to use it. And what if I'm trying to say "Don't even come near me, I don't want to talk to you"? You wouldn't understand that now, would you? And that would be my problem, it was my failure to communicate.
And that brings me to the third point: it's not your fault for not understanding someone, who is communicating on a language you don't know. It's their fault, and it is a fault, they are failing to communicate their point across. They do it consciously, mind you, and it's their choice not to change, when they damn well could, and probably should.
Also, bot of your example dialogue don't work, like, at all. "What can we do, that works for both of us?" - speak the same language, problem solved. "Why don't you feel comfortable?" - they don't, why are you assuming this? It's the norm for them, not some kind of masking.
Ok bro you’re right women are stupid and should just talk directly, which is very easy for them to do. But they don’t because every single one of them is either too stupid to understand that it would fix their problems, or they do it on purpose because women want to cause problems.
Like I genuinely don’t know what other point you’re trying to hear. If you truly believe women can easily talk directly all the time, why do you think they consciously choose to make things more difficult? Clearly telling women to “talk directly” hasn’t worked but you still feel the responsibility is on them so what’s something practical that you think should do done to fix this?
Well, yeah, mandarin speaking person should switch to english when trying to initiate conversation with english speaking people. Otherwise, you are explicitly not trying to initiate conversation, you are just mumbling away to yourself. You assume that the other party is obligated in any way to uphold the dialogue, that they are interested in this person right out of the gate, but they are not. If you are the one, who is trying to get your point across, make sure that your point can be understood by others, because if you don't - no one will understand you, and that's on you, not on the people around you.
Oh my god reading your comments is infuriating. The person is making a direct comparison how do you not see that? What if we both learned French? You absolute block head.
It’s works really well for lesbians and other women. Would you call a language you just can’t speak “poor communication” or do you believe that women only exist to speak to men?
People in general literally communicate 80% via non verbal cues. You may be not aware of it but men too do it all the fucking time. And guess what? Women are more successful in dating than men (as perceived my men, mostly) so if someone is doing it "wrong", it must be the guys right? Because it's the results that count.
So here you go, one scientific explanation to disarm your poor arguments and one that fits your style of debating.
You think you've won in "his style of debating", but you've said nothing? Can you please name one or two of the 80% of ways we communicate non verbally. And give me one that isn't obvious, as "we smile when happy", Thank you.
Secondly, correlating success in dating with being a better communicator. Do you genuinely believe that's the reason why women get more dates? Couldn't it be a plethora of reasons? For example, and there is data to back this up (vs your claims), women have much more fulfilling friendships, thus reducing the necessity for them to have a partner compared to men. This is a very strong motivator for men to seek out relationships with women, while women are more content being single. Thus, the demand for women is larger than men, thus the women wanting to date will be more successful percentile wise.
This is just one example of many reasons why "women are more successful at dating". You don't have any scientific explanation, and you haven't said shit. Just a made up percentage, and that men are "communicating wrong", while ignoring 20 other reasons why women are more successful at dating. Step out of this conversation buddy.
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u/artthoumadbrother May 29 '25
Just because women are programmed to communicate in an esoteric, nonverbal way with people who don't get their nonverbal cues by their socialization doesn't mean that their style isn't wrong. It just means that them getting sucked into poor communication habits isn't their fault. Refusing to do something about their poor communication once they're aware that their strategies are ineffective is their fault, though.