h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A timely reminder of the original topic. If I may re-interpret the question, it is really two questions.
1.Why does anybody pretend that they will not get emotionally involved with another person beyond a certain point, as if it is something that can be controlled?
2. Are the 'feelings' that men have different from those that women have?
Because I like setting my opinions up to be shot down by any passing sniper may I suggest
1.If you want to have some kind of contract, base it upon behaviour, which is measurable, not emotion. So called emotional blackmail is simply an unacceptable behaviour.
2.While both genders may demonstrate unwanted behaviour in their personal dealings with others, I suggest that there is a difference in the motivation leading to that behaviour. I suspect that men use emotional behaviour (in relationships with women)in order to get or maintain control over someone they desire and thus to enhance their self-esteem. Men do not want a long term commitment, just to 'own' the object of desire until such time as they change their mind. In an ideal relationship the couple, or more if one is into alternative lifestyles, grow to like and rely upon each other so that the man never does change his mind. Women, while not guileless in this respect, either want no commitment or a long term relationship which is more sharing than posession. This is a generalisation so there might be, and probably are, a whole range of intermediate and exceptional examples. Comments?

I can accept that at first sight. But upon trying to apply it to couples I know who have been together for a long time, I find it hard to imagine that these guys married their women in order to possess them and then later discovered they liked them. It doesn't seem to fit.

Thoroughly agree with the sentiment. Some people may be able to treat sex as a sort of game, for fun, for which one can learn rules and routines. Not I. There must be passion and you cannot learn that from a book. If you could bottle it you would make a fortune.
I have no idea if this posting will make it to the thread, which seems to have undergone some malign metamorphosis. I sent a rather verbose posting earlier today and am suffering agonies of paranoia in case our current incarnation of Windows 2000 has inflicted terminal damage on H2G2.

I barely understand myself, so what chance does anyone else stand?
As far as i can see, you're either too sensitive, or insenensitive, no one is just right.

I barely understand myself, so what chance does anyone else stand?
As far as i can see, you're either too sensitive, or insenensitive, no one is just right, or thats the impression i get.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I didn't study any of this because I want to know more about how to have sex, or because I want to heighten my/her pleasure, or whatever. I agree with you - it should just "happen". The reason why I took that particular course is because I'm majoring in biochemistry for my pre-med degree, and I needed a biology course without a lab . Otherwise, I wouldn't have taken it, to be honest.

And I don't think it's so much theory, though, either. We watched a couple of videos in class, which were on HBO in the US and the Discovery channel in Canada a couple of years ago. It was a short series called "the Sex Files" (I think... I'm not 100% sure if I'm remembering it correctly). And they were mainly on what happens during sex, and how men and women react physiologically, and most of the research presented was done by a woman who has been studying sex and sexual responses in humans, for over fourty years (I think they referred to her as the "sexpert").

I think I said this before, but I'll say it again. I agree with you - when it comes to actually having sex/making love/whatever, analysing it takes something out of it.

That above post was to Trillian's Child, btw. I hadn't been able to see any post beyond hers at first, so I didn't know who had written last, and I forgot to mention it...

Percy, I agree with you that you should look at a person's behaviours, because that is a tried and true measure of who they are. At least, that's what the behavioural psychologist inside of me says. Sometimes, if you talk to the person enough and know the person well enough, you can take their emotions into account as well, but you have to be able to trust that they are, in fact, the person's emotions, and not a manipulation of them (concious or not) in order to "say the right thing". If a person does nice things, you know she's a nice person. If he just says nice things, there's no way to tell. He could be nice, but not necessarily. One of the pitfalls of a spoken language is that we are able to tell falsehoods.

I don't agree on the second point, however. I don't think that men enter into relationships for control any more than women do. Some might, but not very many. I know that I personally had no intention of controlling my fiancee when we first started dating (still don't), and I'm sure that I didn't even have any subconcious thoughts of it, because I know that in order for a relationship to work, both sides need to make compromises. Maybe that's not what you meant, and if so, could you please clarify? My opinion is that "controlling" people may get into relationships in order to control someone else, but they can be either men or women.

As I said Marduk, a generalisation and one very difficult to demonstrate. I am positing a greater motivation in men to posession and status. I am not suggesting that this is a bad thing, nor that it precludes co-operation and compromise. Merely that, in answer to the original question, it may explain why men express 'feelings'.

Hmmm....I don't quite follow you there. How does it explain why men express feelings? I understand the more-posessive thing, and I can see where you're coming from on that one. I just don't get how it explains the feelings thing. Please explain?

I don't think it's so much that men are not understandable, it's that women don't understand them (us) the same way that we do. It's only fair, while we're at it, to also ask Who understands women? I'm certain the things you do make sense to you. They seem like good, sensible things to do. However, to a man, it may be an absolute waste. Similarly, men may understnad some things that women just take as silliness. I really don't think it's a good idea to try to understand the other sex, it will never happen, and you're going to end up expending a significant amount of time on the endeavor. Rather, I would try to figure out exactly how it is that you interact with your one special man (at least for now)
Good luck!

*There will never be a winner in the war of the sexes...
...There's too much fratternizing with the enemy.*

To manipulate, to gain advantage, to achieve an end. Raw emotion is a rare thing and men, as previously noted by another researcher, tend to demonstrate it only in extremis.

To manipulate, to gain advantage, to achieve an end. Raw emotion is a rare thing and men, as previously noted by another researcher, tend to demonstrate it only in extremis.

To manipulate, to gain advantage, to achieve an end. Raw emotion is a rare thing and men, as previously noted by another researcher, tend to demonstrate it only in extremis.

I seem to be repeating myself.

Blimey!If men can't understand men what chance have us females of doing so?Now I am depressed.

Percy - who says that men express emotions in extremes any more than women do? Have you never seen a guy only sort of happy, mildly surprised, or slightly sad? I think we need to define (a) which emotions we are talking about, and (b) what situations we are talking about.

Incognitas - take heart Just because you don't understand what makes them think or feel the way they do, doesn't mean you can't learn what they like, or dislike, and it definitely doesn't mean that you can't learn to successfully interact with them.

Marduk, I fear that I really am not making myself clear. I did not write that men show only strong emotion. I thought that I wrote, if I may paraphrase myself, that they seldom show strong emotion and that the emotion they show towards women is often (usually) directed towards some particular end. I think that it is self-delusion to believe that we are not manipulative, either consciously or instinctively. I refer you to Goffman et al.
Incognitas, the trouble with women is that some of them understand men all too well. I know that you teach\have taught and, on the assumption that you have at some point observed little boys, I suspect that you fall into this category.

I understand my own son(who is as transparent as clear glass) but my old man likes to keep me guessing.The trouble is that at times I can be really forgetful about what I did to annoy him in the past.Observation doesn't always get you where you need to be especially when the glass you are looking into is opaque.

Through a glass, darkly? It must be awful forgetting how you have upset someone. I make a point of remembering and then do nothing about it. This may sound callous but it is not as bad as remembering and then going out of one's way to do it again. There is a short story by Ian Fleming, in one of the James Bond series (Octopussy or OHMSS?), called 'Quantum of Solace'. It propounds an interesting theory about relationships.

Percy- now I gotcha I hadn't quite caught the connection before.

I still don't agree with the motivation issue, and I've thought back to my own emotions, and emotional displays. I really don't think that I do it for any other purpose aside from that (a) I feel a need to show how I feel, and (b) because I know that she will appreciate knowing how I feel. Am I the exception? Maybe. I don't know. I haven't read anything about that, and I haven't observed enough men displaying their emotions to women in order to give a truly educated guess So my opinion here is totally unsupported (just to make that clear), and based solely on my own experiences.