patrick.net

Well, with women, I have noticed that for every solution, there is an equal and opposite anti-solution that they prefer to pursue as often as not.

Evolutionary naturalists postulate that the human female's evolutionary strategy is to keep the male in a perpetual state of confusion and disequilibrium so that she retains her options to cuckold him with genetically more desirable specimens than the stale old breadwinner.

If that is indeed the strategy, I have to admit it works.

bg says

I don't think this is about males and females. It is human nature.

No, it's definitely a male/female thing. Men like to fix problems and see no point in talking about them other than to fix them. And yes, it's infuriating to us men when women complain ad nauseum about something but don't want it fixed.

Woman want to talk about the problems to gauge the level of empathy their partner has as this is a heuristic for measuring commitment. However, women misinterpret men's attempt to fix things as being non-empathetic when it's really how men show empathy.

There's a scene in the movie Message in a Bottle that illustrates the man's way well. Two men, Garret and John, had been fighting bitterly for a year, and John realizes that he was completely wrong and has to apologize. So he goes to the other man's garage where Garret is building a boat. Without saying a word, John starts helping Garret with the boat and Garret lets him. That's the apology. At no time a word is spoken in the scene. Quintessential maleness. The scene would have been entirely different if bother characters were female.

I actually /gasp agree with Dan.
This is most definitely a male:female thing. My wife showed me this video a week ago and we both laughted hysterically . . . For different reasons. She's like "see? Omg this is what I do!" And I was like "yah, that's what I do."

Of course it's even worse because I'm a fixer by nature, make my living by fixing machines, and get encouragement for fixing things faster. So this has been an ongoing issue between us. Took me years to really grasp the futility of fixing her problems for her.

Oh man, epic. There is a lot of truth in there. My wife and I just watched it and got a good laugh.