Women, Head Games, and The Sensitive Man

I consider this a gem of sorts---it's been on the Internet for a while now, and there's a great deal of truth here.

Women, Head Games, and The Sensitive Man

By BusterB

I've said it before and I'll say it again: modern women don't want a sensitive man. Traditional women didn't want him either. If you become a classic "new age" sensitive man, you'll invite scorn from both sides of the female spectrum. As much as women may say that they are looking for sensitive men, they act in exactly the opposite way: as though they are looking for insensitive men.

Have you ever noticed... I mean, really sat down and thought about how women react to emotional situations versus how women expect men to react to those same situations? Women judge the reasonableness of their own reactions based on how they feel; they judge the reasonableness of men's reactions on how those reactions make women feel. An angry woman will rant and rave and do her best to make her man feel bad. She calls this, "Getting [her] point across." That same woman will expect her man to keep a level head and watch what he says when he's angry so as not to upset her. If he says things to make her feel bad, then suddenly he has done something far worse than what she did in the first place to provoke his anger, and it is he who must apologize.

I have never in my life hung around with or dated a woman who didn't play head games on mates or prospective mates, although I've been out with only a few women who would admit to it. A woman will often tell her man that she doesn't love him, that he doesn't love her, that he never listens to her, or that she has done something outrageously stupid, all just to get him going. What she says doesn't have to be true; it doesn't even have to resemble the truth, and in fact it's better if it doesn't. A woman will bluff her way through something like this until he buys into what she is saying, at which point she will giggle and tell him that she was fooling, or add insult to injury by getting angry at him for believing such a thing of her. Women call this "teasing" and they love it. I used to be bewildered by this teasing, but recently the penny dropped. Now I understand it. Now it makes sense.

All of this teasing is women testing their men and preparing them to react properly in emotional situations. By "properly" I don't mean that she is teaching him to defend himself, or follow his own moral compass. She is not helping him to get in touch with himself. Quite the opposite, she is trying to find out just exactly how out of touch he is with himself, and help that along if possible. She wants to know where his breaking point is, so that she can use that information to control him.

By "teasing," she is sowing confusion, seeing how much emotional battering he can take before he snaps, and finding the hot buttons that make him feel guilty and apologetic. All three of these things help map the territory for her, and tell her how to manipulate him.

"Teasing" teaches a man not to trust his mate and, ultimately, not to trust his own feelings. She tells him that she mistakenly threw out his paycheque. His gut reaction is that this is a joke. She couldn't possibly have done anything so stupid. As she continues to insist that she did, and chides him for leaving it on a pile with the newspapers, he is torn between believing his wife and believing in his wife's intelligence. Finally, he caves in to the repeated assurances and gets angry, at which point she tells him that she was only joking, and gets angry at him for believing that she could be so stupid.

She has now taught him that he can't trust his own feelings. He knew in the beginning that it was a joke, but she convinced him that he was wrong, then turned the tables on him and blamed him for believing her. If she repeats this process often enough he will become completely confused and rely on only her to tell him what is right and what is not.

She has also determined just how long it takes him to cave in and simply believe whatever she says, no matter how outrageous. She has tested his boundaries to see how self-assured he is. The quicker he acquiesces the better, as it means that he is easier to control. She can encourage this by repeating this exercise over and over, causing him to simply accept whatever she says is the truth sooner and sooner each time.

Finally, in the process of blaming him for the whole event, she may have come across one or two hot buttons that will cause him to break down, feel guilty, and apologize. These can be anything from calling him a certain name, to shouting, to crying. She will remember these for use later when the two of them get into an argument.

If you think that this is over the top, consider how a woman would react to the same sort of "teasing" coming from a man. He tells her that he accidentally released her pet bird and it escaped out the window. At first she doesn't believe that he could be so stupid. (In the case of American women, they might skip this step due to their extremely low opinion of men.) After his repeated assurances, she gradually comes to accept the truth until she is finally in tears. At this point he brightens up and tells her that he is kidding and that the bird has flown into the den and is hiding behind the TV. He then explodes at her for having such a low opinion of him that she believed in his feigned stupidity.

We have a word for this in Western society: it's called "emotional abuse." We call it "abuse" because the intent is clear: to sow confusion and doubt in the person being "teased" until they no longer trust their own feelings or judgement. Notice, however, that it's called "emotional abuse" only when visited by a man upon a woman.

I claim that the motivation and methods involved in "emotional abuse" of women by men and "teasing" of men by women are exactly the same. To illustrate this, let's look at how women eventually use the information they gain through "teasing" and the conditioning that they instill in their mates through "teasing."

A thoroughly teased man no longer trusts his own feelings. He doesn't dare trust them. He has learned that to trust his own feelings means that he often has to accuse his wife of lying to him through a perfectly straight face. If it turns out that he is right and she is fooling him, then all is well, but if his feelings are wrong and she is not fooling him, she will make him wish he had never been born. In short, teasing dramatically raises the stakes for the man. Trusting his own feelings becomes an extremely risky endeavour, so he doesn't bother. He trusts hers instead.

A woman who teases her man mercilessly knows how long it will take him to cave in and believe whatever she says. She can use this to decide whether it is worth her trouble to talk to him and discuss her point of view or simply bulldoze him into agreeing with her. While men place a strong emphasis on reasoning and discussing options, women are primarily interested in simply winning the argument. Knowing his limit helps her make a more informed choice about which tactic is more likely to achieve the desired result.

She knows how long it will take him to get angry. This is perhaps the most important side-effect, as it tells her how far she can go in using him as an emotional punching bag when she's having a bad day. Women who are having bad days typically smile at everyone around them then come home and take it out on their mates. Women rarely if ever feel guilty about stomping around the house and yelling because they're in a bad mood. Their earlier experiments with teasing and mercurial emotions tell them how far they can push their mate before he snaps and gets angry too.

She also knows how to make him feel shameful and repentant. She will use this at every opportunity to turn the tide in arguments that are not going her way. Again, women place little emphasis on reasoning and discussion. To a woman an argument is a fight to the finish, and whoever wins, by whatever tactic, is the winner. Add to this the fact that women win arguments not by reason but by gaining emotional superiority, and one can easily see where the knowledge gained from "teasing" comes in handy. One day, if she really does mistakenly throw out his paycheque, she will use the knowledge that she has gained over the years to make him feel that it was his fault, and he should apologize to her.

Frequent teasing by women establishes them as emotionally superior, and sets them up to win every argument that they have with their man in the future.

Frequent teasing also affects men: it reduces their emotional security and increases their confusion and emotional pain, just as constantly prodding a caged animal with a stick reduces its sense of security and increases its confusion and pain. Most men cope with this by feeling less. Given a choice between "stuffing" their feelings and feeling anger and resentment toward their chosen mates, men usually choose to "stuff" their feelings. In this sense, women work to make their men less sensitive, not more sensitive.

In order to pull this off, women need insensitive men. A truly sensitive man, who was also sensitive to his own suffering, would become angry with his mate for his mistreatment. Only an insensitive man could tolerate women's emotional terrorism and continue functioning as if nothing were wrong. If a man starts off somewhat sensitive, his mate can and often will discourage his sensitivity with teasing, mercurial emotions, or plain unreasonable behaviour backed up by repeated assertions that she's done nothing wrong. All of these things have the same effect: they help turn him into the very same insensitive clod about which women complain endlessly.

So, if you're a truly sensitive man you can look forward to a lifetime of rejection as women discover that when they cut you, you bleed. Blood—even emotional blood—makes women feel bad, so they move on and look for someone with thicker skin. Thin-skinned, sensitive men make lousy emotional punching bags on bad days. They can't be bludgeoned into acquiescence during arguments because they feel the guilt and shame too readily and break down too easily. They can't be told that black is white and white is black because they're paying attention. They're not as easy to manipulate.

Even if you manage to become that peculiar kind of "sensitive man" who doesn't feel anything other than what his mate wants, you'll still lose out. Even if you manage to attune your sensitivity to her and only her needs, you will still likely be too sensitive. You will become too compliant. You will be too easy to manipulate, and she will lose interest. Most men think that they want a young, vapid, voluptuous nymphomaniac, but when a man finds one, he quickly becomes bored and leaves her. Men think that they want sexy, easy women, but in the end such women present no challenges and no opportunity to grow and learn. Similarly, most women think that they want caring, sensitive men, but when a woman finds one, she quickly becomes bored with him. She thinks that she wants a man who is kind, gentle, and agreeable, but in the end such men present no challenges and no opportunity to grow and learn. So she dumps him for a "real man" who won't pay her too much attention as she fumes and stomps about the house. She wants him to finally break down and give in, but she doesn't want it to be too easy. It's more fun that way.