Do women communicate, while men commiserate?

I was talking earlier with a friend about how men and women communicate in relationships.





She was lamenting the fact that most of the guys she has come across don't open up and talk with her on the same level as her women friends do, so, we got into asking whether it was a male female divide, or something else.





I'm inclined to think that we guys grow up as keen to talk about what we think and feel as women are, but as we grow older, it's looked down upon to have heart to heart chats with other guys. It's seen as sissy.





Instead we go watch the football, and share or joys and sorrows over activities that have little or nothing to do with our home lives.





Paradoxically, we attract women by coming over as ';being a man';, yet what we value most about women is being able to open up without fear of being judged for being emotional. Yet, because many of us aren't used to that, because sometimes it is literally beaten out of us, we clam up and resent our own weaknesses. Or think of ourselves as being feminized for sharing, even with a girlfriend.





It's fine and its manly to suffer over a favorite team losing a match, but to suffer and grieve over a relationship, or mourn the loss of a friend, or just to be open about our hopes and failings is almost taboo.





What do you think?





Do women communicate, while men commiserate?Do women communicate, while men commiserate?
I witnessed something which, more than anything, proves your point to me. My ex's father was dying. Now, ever since I met him I knew how much he loved and respected his father because he always told me. He praised him to the moon and back as a hard working family man who taught him everything he needed to know to be a man. He was so proud of his dad.Yet, he couldn't bring himself to tell his father how much he loved him, even when he knew his father was dying. It wasn't until his father slipped into a coma that my ex finally broke down and told his dad everything he meant to him and how much he loved him.





When my ex was grieving over the loss of his father he could not be reached. I wanted so badly to comfort him but he pulled away. The only emotion he showed was anger: punching walls and breaking things and pushing me away. He basically locked himself away from me and the rest of the world until the worst was over. Even then he didn't want to discuss it, just kept it bottled up inside. It was very hard to see him go through all that pain and not be able to do anything to help.Do women communicate, while men commiserate?
I love it when my husband talks to me. We spend hours talking and always lie in bed talking about stuff we have been doing, how he is feeling etc. Its essential for a good relationship. I have helped my husband through a lot of emotional stuff and my brother. I have seen all my male friends cry plenty of times.
we just can not win. we open up to a woman and then they accuse us of being whiners. so we keep our problems to ourselves and then they accuse us of not opening up enough to them.





and i always had a couple of close male friends that i could open up to without feeling like a wussy. and im glad about it.
I never wanted to have too much heart to heart talks with other guys. Not because of how it looked, I just didn't want to get *that* close to another guy.





OK to talk about life and what not, but I save all of that heart to heart business for the ladies.
It is personal not society driven. I do not wish to tell others what my concerns or desires are, it is none of their business. Nor do I care to hear theirs.
women communicate more than men but that's because women only want to talk but they never want to listen.
gay guys communicate...
I think the male gender stereotypes are ridiculous and completely unnatural, Why does Hollywood portray masculinity at the end of a gun, why do men/boys have to prove their masculinity.
The following article excerpt says it better than I can:





The Cult of Masculinity





Masculinity is the end result of genetics and upbringing, and neither trumps the other in regards to influence. Still, we should not underestimate the importance of the socialization process on males. Decades of research find that masculinity is a social construct that is inculcated upon males from their very birth. In particular, boys learn early on what is expected of them as ';men,'; and research finds that families and society at large introduce several pernicious and oftentraumatic interventions to foster such development.





First, parents discourage the expression of emotions of vulnerability in male children. Fear and sadness in particular are unacceptable for males. I have witnessed enough parents respond to their crying sons as they pull away from the camp parking lot on the first day of camp by sternly telling them to ';stop being a baby.';





Second, males are taught to undervalue emotions indicative of caring and affection; females learn how to express warmth and affection, while males are taught to look upon such displays with disdain. Males do not learn how to connect to other people intimately and are even shunned for such displays; empathy and perspective-taking skills are not taught and are seen as unimportant for young boys.





Third, there is limited subset of emotions condoned for males, most notably anger, aggression, and instrumentality, defined here as using other people to meet one's own needs. Males who do not learn expertise with these emotions become the recipients of the scorn of other males and, often, society as a whole.





Finally, and the most traumatic, is the expectation of an early and abrupt separation from a mother. Girls, in contrast, are allowed a much slower separation from their mothers. They can go off to explore the world around them and return to a mother's succor when frightened, unsure, or simply in need of comfort. Boys are expected to rupture this maternal connection and mark themselves off as separate individuals early on in life; those that remain strongly attached to their mothers are pejoratively labeled as ';sissies.';





The end results of male socialization are distressing. Sadly, when biology is imprinted with societal expectations concerning the one acceptable code of masculinity, we create males with blunted emotional ability, who are incapable of intimacy, disconnected from others, and who live lives of quiet despair.
I'm hoping that'll change for men. Suicide rates continue to be higher for males, and it's all too tragic when it could all be avoided by teaching young boys that seeking support and expressing emotions are acceptable things to do.





I don't believe that men are naturally ';less emotional'; It's a load of BS that keeps men and women in their place through social construction. We see that when young men are taught that expressing emotions other than anger, aren't a weakness, they excel and thrive in healthy relationships which spill over in other parts of their lives.





It makes no sense to me why parents continue to teach these things to young boys. None whatsoever.
I was just writing out a letter of sympathy to the guy who said he just can't win, supposed to be tough, and open and emotional, when I realized I've sort of done the same thing to my boyfriend...





This is where I seem all flip floppy to him:





When he's really emotionally upset about something I can tell because it's written all over him and he gets quiet and snappy: this is when I wish he wouldn't bottle it because he's clearly fuming on the inside, and mulling it over with another person can help you either look at it from a different perspective, just get it out, or maybe work on a solution together. Plus he doesn't want to be alone I can tell, and it's really hard to be around someone you care about, and pretend you can't tell they are upset about something, all the while being terrible crabby company on the outside, but refusing to fill me in on the issue. That's when I pry because it's tiresome and I deal with it whether he tells me what it is or huffs about it.





There are two instances in which I don't like to hear about it, and I've exasperatedly asked him to get over it: when it's just complaining about things entirely out of both of our control: like generalized stupidity of some people, how he can never find pants in his size (which I can't do anything about when he refuses to look with me), or how crappy some band is that so and so likes... I can't help with those things and he can't do anything about them either, so I feel it's a waste of time





The second instance, which is when I'm the coldest to his feelings, is when he gets physically sick. I know it's terrible, but I really don't like when he expects me to do everything short of rock him to sleep. It weirds me out a lot when he asks me to take on this mother type role. It might be my circumstances too, but by the time I was 16, my mother raised an eyebrow to me when I sounded pouty about how crappy I felt. She was frank, ';your a young woman, you aren't incapable of getting up and getting it yourself, you need to learn to deal with it. People get sick.'; I remember my head pounding so bad when I would stand up that I would have to go to the bathroom and vomit just to get to fridge for some water, but she was right, I could do it.





If he's got a little head cold, and is laying in bed sniffling and starts to talk in a different more helpless voice, asking me to grab things for him and what not, I find I get really annoyed and maybe jealous. It seems that mom's and girlfriends and women in general take care of their boys like that, and that it is just expected, even by my boyfriend who I've seen kiss his best guy friend just to weird out some homophobe that needed to be shut up. I've seen his mother, my mother, myself, my other girlfriends... they get really damn sick before it's acceptable for them to call it quits, and nary a time have I seen someone reciprocate that role to quite the extreme that I've seen it expected, nor for them to ask for anything but understanding, and maybe to close the blinds... it's weird. I think I'm either jealous or I don't like the whole homemaker/nurse feeling I get from that.





I'm down for emotions, opinions, long talks about different aspects of life, I just don't like the expected mothering, and the empty complaints that leave me speechless.





Does that sound mean, or is that rational?
Here is what happens, don't mind my generalization as you have used a LOT.





Boys grow up and learn that communication serves two purposes. First is to convey and receive information. Second is the betterment of abstract and actual knowledge.





Otherwise, they keep it shut. Too much information is too much clutter.





For women, its EVERYTHING. I have very rarely met a woman who enjoys silence. So, there you go.





I much prefer pondering and speaking to let go both guns blazing.