Girls who broke your heart thread

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. With dumb girls, they think you"re calling them dumb. With smart girls, they think you"re not respecting their intelligence (ie. calling them dumb). Women absolutely do not want someone else solving their problems for them. If they ASK for advice, maybe provide it tentatively, but you"re still better off if you can lead them to the right conclusion in a way that they arrive at it themselves.

I have a hard time with this even though I logically understand what a terrible idea it is to try and be helpful. It"s just the kind of guy I am. I like doing things for people, whether friends or girlfriends. Knowing where to draw the line is tough.

My retort to the above, having been married now for 9 years...I concur

I do this shit constantly, I don"t try to analyze her problems, I don"t try and solve her problems. I just sit quietly, responding with short acknowledgments to show I am paying attention and wait until she is done. The only time I will offer advice or solutions is when asked DIRECTLY for them.

Another trick though, which I have learned works quite well. Instead of saying "You should do this", I say, "well they better be glad it wasnt me, because I would have done this". Somehow this does not translate to her as me offering a solution since I am saying, this is what I would have done, instead of saying, this is what you should have done. To me, there is no difference between the two, but to her there is, and apparently that is acceptable to her for me to say without pissing her off.

Women, strange creatures...

Heylel Teomim said:

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. With dumb girls, they think you"re calling them dumb. With smart girls, they think you"re not respecting their intelligence (ie. calling them dumb). Women absolutely do not want someone else solving their problems for them. If they ASK for advice, maybe provide it tentatively, but you"re still better off if you can lead them to the right conclusion in a way that they arrive at it themselves.

I have a hard time with this even though I logically understand what a terrible idea it is to try and be helpful. It"s just the kind of guy I am. I like doing things for people, whether friends or girlfriends. Knowing where to draw the line is tough.

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I meant more that an intelligent woman would have a lesser amount of problems she doesn"t want you fixing, to complain to you about. I can deal with normal amounts of rambling about problems.

I just seem to end up with woman who had more problems then some. Mostly my fault since I used to be a white knight of sorts who tried to "save" woman.

So now I try and steer away from that (yes I realize I have been talking about going after a 19 year old lately, shut up). Intelligence and perception are very high on my list of traits I look for. The ability to fix their own problems or have less of them to begin with. And also the ability to know when I don"t give a fuck and move on to something else. Not that I always don"t give a fuck, sometimes I do.

Heylel Teomim said:

I wish I understood the psychology beneath all that. When a guy fusses about a problem and someone offers a solution, there"s generally a thank you on the way. With women, I honestly think it"s mixed up in gender identity and the need to appear independent. I"ve been called paternal and heard "stop being my dad!" so many fucking times just for offering sound advice (especially financial) that it makes me puke.

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It"s not just women who do this, but they do it more often. Husband has a nasty habit of waffling over shit that takes me precisely 2 seconds to decide. I always attribute it to the person knowing that option A really would be the best (most rational) but they want to do option B for whatever reason. They then try to come up with a reason or rationale that would make B the best option, instead of growing a spine and admitting that they want what they want, rationality of it be damned. They are essentially lying to themselves, and your attempts at "helping" (pointing out the best option) only interfere with the self-delusion. Ergo anger.

Grumpus said:

I meant more that an intelligent woman would have a lesser amount of problems she doesn"t want you fixing, to complain to you about.

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Nope. The volume of problems never goes away, nor even the perceived importance. It"s just that the scope sometimes changes.

Take intern girl, who was insanely jealous that I went to her friend"s family"s restaurant without her yesterday despite being two hours away. Wasn"t mad, just jealous she missed an awesome meal (fucking *amazing* Trinidadian food). Turns out she"s dieting, and so all she had for lunch was a smoothie.

Now, what I should have done is just not ask why and say "damn, that sucks. Next time I"ll wait til you"re in town". Instead, my response was "why in christ are you dieting?". That"s one of her problems, and I don"t have a snowball"s chance in hell of telling her she doesn"t need to lose weight. This, despite the fact that she weighs about as much as my dog.

Which reminds me. That"s my one tiny pet peeve about her thus far. She just cannot take a compliment. She gets all bashful and acts like I"m blowing smoke up her ass. I"m not talking about fawning, just little stuff like "thanks for the hard work" etc.

Kirun said:

No, you shouldn"t have said, "Next time I"ll wait!." Now, the whole "Why in Christ are you dieting!?" wasn"t a good move either, but letting her dictate when/where/etc. is either going to land you in the friend zone or at her beck and call. Neither of which, I"d hope, you"d want.

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Wait is a poor choice of words. "We"ll both go next time you"re able" or something to that effect.

Heylel Teomim said:

I wish I understood the psychology beneath all that. When a guy fusses about a problem and someone offers a solution, there"s generally a thank you on the way. With women, I honestly think it"s mixed up in gender identity and the need to appear independent. I"ve been called paternal and heard "stop being my dad!" so many fucking times just for offering sound advice (especially financial) that it makes me puke.

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Heylel, if you solve the women don"t want solutions to their bitching problem... You will have solved WHY there are stupid people in the world and every one of the human race"s problems.

Heylel Teomim said:

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. With dumb girls, they think you"re calling them dumb. With smart girls, they think you"re not respecting their intelligence (ie. calling them dumb). Women absolutely do not want someone else solving their problems for them. If they ASK for advice, maybe provide it tentatively, but you"re still better off if you can lead them to the right conclusion in a way that they arrive at it themselves.

I have a hard time with this even though I logically understand what a terrible idea it is to try and be helpful. It"s just the kind of guy I am. I like doing things for people, whether friends or girlfriends. Knowing where to draw the line is tough.

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Yeah I struggle with this why my GF as well. She is a fairly smart girl but oversells herself, and especially her family, in the smarts department. You can basically tell she studied her way through HS. She doesn"t exactly enjoy that I have a job that pays me for my brain cycles and her job is basically a "are you a living person?" job at the moment. I also don"t let my intelligence or false laurels like if I was in "Honors" math in HS give me an inflated sense of intelligence like she does. Honestly it annoys me and I"m pretty sure she thinks she"s the smart one in our relationship. She even busted out the "GPA" card for her HS/college GPA and I just smirked and said nothing (both of mine here higher~)

Basically I find "smart" girls much more a pain in the ass to give advice to than dumb girls because they take it as a direct insult to their intelligence.

TheCutlery said:

It ain"t your call, man. It"s the dude"s call. You can"t make him man up or do something he doesn"t want to do. Clearly it doesn"t bother him that much, or he"d give her the boot. Or he"s an Aamina-level failure and talking won"t change anything anyway.

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This.

If the dude isn"t man enough to recognize the problem and solve it himself what happens is that he finds another woman to walk all over him and the cycle repeats itself. He"s gotta break it - not you.

Even the social outcast ones do this shit because their fucked up mothers pounded this crap into them. Its also just a part of their basic wiring to just want to not be satisfied with anything and therefor bitch about it, for the pure joy of doing so. The sooner a guy learns this painful lesson, the better off his sanity will be. Intelligence has nothing to do with it, though I never could tolerate an idiot for a girlfriend because the best pussy in the world is not putting up with that shit from a retarded person. Besides, you can get away with so much shit by playing dumb as a husband that its just ridiculous, especially when it comes to interacting with the inlaws.

Heylel Teomim said:

This is the hardest lesson to learn, and the one that has by far the most benefits.

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*shrug* my husband and I have this worked out pretty well.

Sometimes I just want to vent. Other times I want advice. If I ask for advice, it means I want advice. I may or may not agree with it, but its a different take on a situation and that"s valuable to me because 99% of the time its a situation involving other people - and another person"s perspective is more valuable than mine. Because I already know what mine is and it might not be right - and having empathy (as in the ability to put yourself in someone else"s shoes) is so important for not just the situation you"re in but potentially avoiding the situation next time.

Its take it or leave it, just like any other person"s advice that I"d ask - only more often than not I take it because he knows me so well.

If you don"t want advice, don"t ask for it.

I do the same thing for him. Sometimes he just wants to vent. I just listen.

I don"t understand people that go through this whole minefield of "If I give advice it has to be what the person wants to hear, not what is the best advice" with their significant others. How fucking annoying. If you cant be honest with someone whats the goddamn point of marriage?

Etoille said:

This.

If the dude isn"t man enough to recognize the problem and solve it himself what happens is that he finds another woman to walk all over him and the cycle repeats itself. He"s gotta break it - not you.

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At least it might be a less annoying cunt who doesn"t alienate him from his friends, though. I"ve had friends who have been severely pussy whipped, but the girl in question didn"t wreck his life by ragging on his friends or by being nothing but a couch occupying Opra watching sperm receptical. Not ideal, but baby steps and all that....

Heylel Teomim said:

Which reminds me. That"s my one tiny pet peeve about her thus far. She just cannot take a compliment. She gets all bashful and acts like I"m blowing smoke up her ass. I"m not talking about fawning, just little stuff like "thanks for the hard work" etc.

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Taking compliments is hard for some people.

I"m one of those people.

Its an unstoppable thing. Work, social, love life, doesn"t matter. I immediately change the subject or deflect, or say what I found to be a shortcoming (this happens most often in cooking like "oh that was an amazing cake" "meh I thought it was too dry, I should do this next time...") or give the credit to someone else. It aggrivates the shit out of people, I don"t know why I do it, but I can"t stop it the overwhelming majority of the time. Its something I *REALLY* work on hard at work because that"s one of the reasons women contribute to their own lack of success in the workplace.

Etoille said:

I don"t understand people that go through this whole minefield of "If I give advice it has to be what the person wants to hear, not what is the best advice" with their significant others. How fucking annoying. If you cant be honest with someone whats the goddamn point of marriage?

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Lets assume that this is not a trap for a moment...

Are you seriously going to say you never once bullshitted on something just to keep the peace or stroke your husband"s ego a bit? I find that extremely difficult to believe, especially if you have ever had to interact with his inlaws. White lies are the glue that keeps love together. And frankly, anyone with a vagina is a master in saying one thing when the mean another thing entirely. Men lie too, just its actually intentional more often when we do it.

And if you think your husband has never lied to you just to shut you up, you are deluding yourself. I could fill volumes of books on the white lies I have uttered just to get through that time of the month, alone. Telling someone what they want to hear is a lot of times the best way to defuse what would otherwise the kind of grudge most women would carry for years and bring up years after the fact out of the blue. They carry that rage shit forever, so if a little ass kissing white lie relieves the build up of that pent up bullshit, then you swallow your pride and do it. Its taking one for the team, just like going to a chick flick or watching the Food Network for an afternoon.

Edit: Inability to take a complement is 99% of the time self esteem issues. Considering you supposedly posted your rack on this board, I think you can probably let that shit go at this point.

Darus Grey said:

It"s not really about him being put out, cause I doubt he cared that much either.

It"s just as guys, we shouldn"t tolerate that shit period. The women aren"t retarded, they know what they"re doing, know what"s expected, and she initiated it by even wanting to get into bed.

Whether he cares or not, she "won" that encounter, and Eomer shoulda stepped up for all of us XD

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She didn"t win anything though. She was fishing to see if I was down for a relationship again (forgot to mention she asked if I would be her date for a wedding on the weekend as well, but I"m golfing with hockey buds again), and I didn"t bite.

No one won or lost really. And come to think of it, in some ways it"s good that I didn"t have to do the awkward pillow talk after about why I"m okay with screwing around but not in a relationship with her, etc etc etc.

Brad2770 said:

@Eomer

I have been in this situation a couple of times. Start rubbing their back, then their ass. Then youre massaging them. After that, youre guaranteed a fuck. Your whole night was great. You didnt spend shit. Giving her a 15 minute massage for a night of sex.... You both would have won.

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I will file that one away for next time, good call. I"m terrible at massages, however, so it may just blow up in my face.

Phazael said:

Lets assume that this is not a trap for a moment...

Are you seriously going to say you never once bullshitted on something just to keep the peace or stroke your husband"s ego a bit? I find that extremely difficult to believe, especially if you have ever had to interact with his inlaws. White lies are the glue that keeps love together. And frankly, anyone with a vagina is a master in saying one thing when the mean another thing entirely. Men lie too, just its actually intentional more often when we do it.

And if you think your husband has never lied to you just to shut you up, you are deluding yourself. I could fill volumes of books on the white lies I have uttered just to get through that time of the month, alone. Telling someone what they want to hear is a lot of times the best way to defuse what would otherwise the kind of grudge most women would carry for years and bring up years after the fact out of the blue. They carry that rage shit forever, so if a little ass kissing white lie relieves the build up of that pent up bullshit, then you swallow your pride and do it. Its taking one for the team, just like going to a chick flick or watching the Food Network for an afternoon.

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Oh I"m sure he"s told me a white lie to shut me up. Or I"ve reassured him in areas that were a little shakey so that he had the confidence in himself to pull something off at work. Absolutely.

But that"s not the situation we"re talking about here. We"re talking about people who feel like they have to avoid any and all discussions of self help or advice and that is simply not how things are in my marriage.

I don"t need someone kissing my ass all the time. I don"t get better that way. I need someone to push me to be better and who appreciates reciprocity in that light. See further also what I just said about compliments.

I can always do something better. Be someone better. And I won"t get there by having someone telling me how awesome I am 24/7 or who is afraid to call me out on my bullshit.