Women often complain that men, especially their domestic partner, don't listen to them. Many of these women claim that men can't communicate. A woman said to me today, "All men want is a blow job."
Women would be wise to recognize that many men decide it's unwise to engage in certain conversations.
For example, a man may decide that listening to his wife or girlfriend "process her feelings" will not make things better. It will more likely exacerbate her illegitimate feelings of victimhood, often at the man's expense.
For instance, if a man forgot his wife's birthday, she might go into a tirade about how it makes her feel unloved. Often she exaggerates how bad it makes her feel so she can extract maximum guilt and recompense from him. To gain still more brownie points, she'll bring up some past faux pas he committed--for example, she caught him watching porn or, "John, and this is not the only time. Just last week, you insisted on watching that stupid football game when you knew it was important to me and the family that we visited grandma. I feel totally not loved. I don't count at all!" (Another deliberate exaggeration to extract maximum goodies from him.)
In such a conversation, he's aware she's overreacting, and to allow her to vent uninterrupted would give undue legitimacy to her grievance. Yet if he defends himself, for example, pointing out examples of her selfishness, she'd accuse him of expanding the argument. Nor is she likely to be assuaged if he offers examples of the many ways he has shown his love. She'll likely feel or assert that she's unheard, invalidated: "Does that really justify your watching porn or forgetting my birthday?! Just listen. Stop defending yourself! I just want to be heard. Can't you just listen for once?!" He's in a Catch 22; he loses either way. So understandably, he wants to avoid the conversation, whereupon the women incorrectly believes then men can't communicate, that all men want is a blow job.
Indeed, many women demand being listened to and that the man dare not offer a solution to her problem lest he be denying her her agency. "I just want to vent. I want to share my feelings. When I'm ready to solve the problem, I will."
Many men get frustrated when the woman he loves has a problem he could solve but he's forced to sit there with duct tape over his mouth. Rather than being frustrated, he preempts or short-cuts the conversation, or simply spaces out, whereupon the women often says or thinks, "Men can't communicate. All they want is a blow job."
A study by Georgetown gender communication specialist Deborah Tannen debunks the conventional wisdom that women talk more than men. Fact is, men talk approximately the same amount--16,000 words a day.
The difference, I believe, is that men more often talk when a constructive outcome is likely--Men are not as dumb as women proclaim. Nor is a blow job sufficient to manipulate a man...although it couldn't hurt. ;-)
