To be heard is something that I hold very dear to me, when I am not heard I feel all sorts of things that might seem small to the next person but way bigger to me. I have come to the conclusion that both men and women don’t listen to each other, yet each one wants to be listened to. For example when I speak – I want you to be completely silent even if I’m digging my own grave, let me do it – let me finish even if I take the longest route, even if you know what I am going to say. When you cut me off you are saying that you don’t respect me, you are not interested in my story, you don’t value my story therefore you don’t value me, therefore you don’t love me. Obviously this doesn’t happen over one session it happens over a period of time, then I get to a point where I don’t try to get you to hear me which is a dangerous place for any man. I have spoken about this in other articles as well.
Men don’t listen to women because we don’t know how to, we don’t know what that looks like, even if you were raised in a household with both parents. I am learning now that even my father didn’t really listen to my mother he just did things to shut her up, which is not really listening or understanding where she is coming from. Women get frustrated with us because they have a certain level of expectation with regards to being heard and the level of engagement. Most of us men don’t know what listening to a woman looks like, we go with what we have and figure out what you like and what you don’t and hope for the best really but we don’t know.
That being said, women also don’t know how to listen to men – the biggest gripe with men everywhere is that their women don’t listen to them. I sometimes wonder if God made us this way on purpose so that we can actually figure this out ourselves – to bring ourselves to the level of the next person and figure out how to communicate with them on that particular level. Also, as much as women love to say that they want an emotionally aware man, I think having an emotionally aware man would frustrate women. I say this because then men would call out women on their behaviours and that will not go down well, because as men we know that women don’t like being wrong. I find it interesting that men will apologize for things even those they know they didn’t do … and the women are the opposite.
I think many of us men don’t have the same capacity as women, we are still Pentium 1 and women have upgraded to iMac G5. Most of the time women would say that we are capable, we are just lazy or if this guy can do it then why can’t you do the same. Also there is nothing wrong with being a Pentium 1 because they gave us Windows 95 which in turn gave us the great years of technology. A lot of the times my girlfriend thinks that I’m upset and all I am doing is trying to focus on one thing that I am trying to do at that time, a lot of the times we are not equipped to date the women we date hence why it was said that we should date younger women, it makes sense now. When you are an older man, you are calmer, have more money (because relationships need money) and there is some level of respect that comes with your age at some point. Dating someone your age becomes problematic because mentally you are not balanced.
Back to men not listening to women, it is such a big issue because as men we don’t know how to listen and women get frustrated with us – as if we chose to be like this. It doesn’t help that we cannot articulate how we feel or how the issues that women cause in our lives affect us, because if there is anyone that hurts men, its women – but at most times we cannot articulate how we feel therefore we look for other ways to express ourselves. Sometimes email helps because it doesn’t get interrupted, sometimes it takes two or three days for me to understand what my girlfriend is trying to say because we don’t have the capacity to grasp. So ladies, we need time, please be patient with us.