Why Are Men So Difficult and Confusing?

What he says is never what he means.

Guys play games. They make you believe one thing, only to turn around and do the complete opposite.

So never take him at face value. Always get a second opinion from your girlfriends. And try to stay one step ahead of him.

Everyone knows men are difficult. They’re confusing. You need a special translator just to figure out his texts.

But what if we’ve got it all wrong?

What if men are a lot simpler than we think?

You’re Asking the Wrong Person

When you want to know what a man is thinking or feeling, who do you ask?

If you’re like most of us, you ask your girlfriends. You tell them what he did, or you show them his texts, and you ask for their interpretation of the situation.

That’s what girlfriends do. We try and help one another. We figure out men together.

But we’re hindered by the fact that we’re women.

We only know how a woman’s mind works. We’ve got our theories on male behavior, but we don’t have any firsthand experience of actually being a man.

So why don’t we go to a man when we need answers? Surely men know what other men mean.

Well, let’s try it. Let’s say you got a text from a guy, asking:

What u doing tonite?”

What’s he REALLY saying?

If you ask your girlfriends, they’ll probably say he’s looking for a bootie call. Or maybe he’s trying to avoid rejection by making sure you’re not busy before asking you to do something.

Now, ask a GUY what it means when you get that text.

He’ll probably say it meant the guy wanted to know what you were doing tonight!

What?

Um, that was no use…

The Stories We Make Up

No one wants to take a man’s words at face value. It’s not satisfying. There must be more to the story.

Shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown says that our minds are meaning-making machines.

We’ll take the smallest of gestures and build an entire story around what it meant. Then we’ll get upset with that person—not because of what they did, but because of the story we made up about it.

Making up elaborate explanations for other people’s behavior is incredibly satisfying. It feels GOOD. It feels better to make up your own explanation than ask someone why they did what they did.

We see this play out in dating all the time. If you ask a man directly what he meant, the game’s up. You’re not supposed to do that!

But guessing what’s going through each other’s heads gets us into all sorts of problems.

We react to what we think he’s saying, and he’s like, “What? That’s not what I said.”

If, for whatever reason, you can’t take a man’s words at face value, and you think there’s more to what he’s saying…

Don’t go to someone else and ask them what THEY thought he meant.

Take the direct route. TALK to him.

Brené Brown recommends using the phrase:

The story I’m telling myself is…”

You think he’s looking for a booty call because he texted you, “What u doing tonite”? Okay, that’s the story you’re telling yourself. It’s bothering you. So text him back, “Why are you asking?” Or, better yet, pick up the phone and call him.

Men are Simple…

They just APPEAR difficult and confusing.

We have a natural tendency to make up stories to explain what the people around us say and do. But it often turns out that our stories were wrong. We didn’t have all the information. We should have just gone to the other person and asked.

So bypass the middleman. Don’t get someone else to translate a man’s behavior for you. The only one who REALLY knows what he meant is him.