She must have something else to talk about, seriously

[Tommy Dude Harrison]

I'd say I abide quite often but for quite a while there's a girl who seriously does not have anything else to talk about except how amazing her boyfriend is and ive heard about him from someone who actuall works with him and says he's not as great as she makes him up to be, but i guess we all do that for other people, I mean she'll talk about work and other things when she has to but when she can she'll bring him just to glorify him, and to be honest I really dont give a shit about any bodys reltionships cause thats their own business and such, woah lost my train of thught, I guess what Im trying to say is, is that its hard to abide when Im constanly having to avoid hearing this girls words of her god like boyfirend.

[BikerDude]

Women are like the Big Lebowski movie. Multiple levels of meaning. Lotta strands.
I've found to a woman, words are less about meaning than about PURPOSE.
Suffice it to say that there is an old saying I go by...

A man can have a dog as a friend. A man can have whiskey as a friend. But a man who has a woman for a friend will end up drunk kissing his dog.

[meekon5]

Women are like the Big Lebowski movie. Multiple levels of meaning. Lotta strands.
I've found to a woman, words are less about meaning than about PURPOSE.
Suffice it to say that there is an old saying I go by...

A man can have a dog as a friend. A man can have whiskey as a friend. But a man who has a woman for a friend will end up drunk kissing his dog.

Actually I don't think it's viable to make statements like "Women are like". Personally I think it's the wrong way to think.

I think the statement says more about the nature of your personal relationships than anything else.

I'm not saying this is a misogynist point of view, I just see no value in the attempt to divide men and women into two different races. Men and women have very much the same fears and hopes, and different people express themselves differently.

Here the problem is the individual obviously has some sort of self worth issues that they are overcompensating for with transference to their relationship. I assure you I have met men that do this as well.

There is a huge pressure in society to be part of a co-dependent relationship and invest a huge amount of emotion into it.

I would feel sorry for her more than anything.

All in my humble Dudeist opinion of course.

[BrotherShamus]

Just to share thoughts on the "women are like" mode of thought, I'd say that for the most part, you're right meekon5, but I can't help but notice how men and women go about things in different ways. Same goals, different emphasis and methods.

Just an observation

[BikerDude]

Women are like the Big Lebowski movie. Multiple levels of meaning. Lotta strands.
I've found to a woman, words are less about meaning than about PURPOSE.
Suffice it to say that there is an old saying I go by...

A man can have a dog as a friend. A man can have whiskey as a friend. But a man who has a woman for a friend will end up drunk kissing his dog.

Actually I don't think it's viable to make statements like "Women are like". Personally I think it's the wrong way to think.

I think the statement says more about the nature of your personal relationships than anything else.

I'm not saying this is a misogynist point of view, I just see no value in the attempt to divide men and women into two different races. Men and women have very much the same fears and hopes, and different people express themselves differently.

Here the problem is the individual obviously has some sort of self worth issues that they are overcompensating for with transference to their relationship. I assure you I have met men that do this as well.

There is a huge pressure in society to be part of a co-dependent relationship and invest a huge amount of emotion into it.

I would feel sorry for her more than anything.

All in my humble Dudeist opinion of course.

If you were speaking about just about anything else I'd agree that these sort of gender generalizations are not possible, but we are talking about Language. Linguistics is an area that routinely differentiates along gender roles. Probably because every bit of evidence has demonstrated that our facilities for language do as a matter of fact express gender. All of the romance languages assign gender to all nouns for instance.
The differences in the use of language by men and women is a very very well documented fact. It is an area of study in linguistics. Rather than dig up the text books I'll just point at the wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_theory

The concept that applies here..

Information v. feelings

Tannen states that men's conversation is message-oriented, based upon communicating information. For women, conversation is much more important for building relationships and strengthening social links.

Meaning 'vs' purpose.
I stand by what I said.

[LotsaBadKarma]

Nobody's touched on this yet so I guess I'll go first. In view of the intensity of your opening post I would venture a guess that you have more than a passing interest in this girl and can't quite figure out how she settled on this particular guy when you've been there waiting for her to notice you.
Like I said I'm just guessin' and that's just, like, my opinion, man.
And if I'm wrong, brother, maybe the thing to do is just stay away from her. Then you won't have to hear about her god-like boyfriend.

[BikerDude]

Just to share thoughts on the "women are like" mode of thought, I'd say that for the most part, you're right meekon5, but I can't help but notice how men and women go about things in different ways. Same goals, different emphasis and methods.

Just an observation

The elephant in the room is that to suggest that men and women think alike is to go against the prevailing thinking in just about every dicipline there is. The idea that men and women think differently has been an established "fact" for many years backed by tons of empirical evidence. In fact the actual physical makeup of our brains differ. The brain is made up of grey and white matter. The percentages vary consistently by gender.
http://www.livescience.com/3808-men-women-differently.html

As to the main question.
As for myself, when confronted by this sort of cornball girlfriend boyfriend story bullshit I'd hit the cash machine and seek out the Bunny's of the world for a protracted bout of debauchery. I've found I'm much better able to nod and smile at this sort of blather about her boyfriend if you are doing a couple of strippers on a regular basis.
Self empowerment I think they call it.

[meekon5]

The elephant in the room is that to suggest that men and women think alike is to go against the prevailing thinking in just about every dicipline there is. The idea that men and women think differently has been an established "fact" for many years backed by tons of empirical evidence. In fact the actual physical makeup of our brains differ. The brain is made up of grey and white matter. The percentages vary consistently by gender.
http://www.livescience.com/3808-men-women-differently.html

an interesting article but I would like to refer you to

Prof Heidi Johansen-Berg, a UK expert in neuroscience at the University of Oxford, said the brain was too complex an organ to be able to make broad generalisations.

"We know that there is no such thing as 'hard wiring' when it comes to brain connections. Connections can change throughout life, in response to experience and learning.

"Often, sophisticated mathematical approaches are used to analyse and describe these brain networks. These methods can be useful to identify differences between groups, but it is often challenging to interpret those differences in biological terms."

and

Dr Michael Bloomfield, Clinical Research Fellow at the Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre in London, said: "It has been known for some time that there are differences between the sexes when it comes to how our bodies work and the brain is no exception.

However, he said care must be taken in drawing conclusions from the study, as the precise relationships between how our brains are wired and our performance on particular tasks needed further investigation.

"We cannot say yet that one is causing the other.

"Furthermore, the measure used in the study, called "connectivity", is only one aspect of how our brains our wired.

"We think that there can also be differences in certain chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters, for example, and so we need more research to fully understand how all these different aspects of brain structure and function work together to answer fundamental questions like "how do we think?".

from this BBC article on the same subject:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25198063

I think it's all very well saying that the two groups of brains differ but this doesn't empirically follow that just because someones brain is wired differently they act differently.

I for instance  am dyslexic.

Some theories suggest that I have too much spatial awareness.

I am possibly born a left handed child who has been taught to be right handed (my Dad was convinced my Mum was left handed because she mirrored what her Mum did, so insisted my Mum do the opposite when passing me things). I still use my left hand for a number of tasks.

or

url=http://www.dyslexic.org.uk/aboutdyslexia5.htm]http://www.dyslexic.org.uk/aboutdyslexia5.htm[/url]]
The basic cause or causes of developmental dyslexia are not fully understood, and are the major focus of our research. It is an inherited condition, which appears to affect more boys than girls. Clear differences in the way the brain is wired up during development have been found in dyslexics. These may result from abnormalities in a particular class of 'magnocellular' nerve cell; possibly due to inheriting genes that make them vulnerable to immune factors during development of the brain and to deficiency of the 'omega-3' fatty acids, EPA & DHA that are found in oily fish.

But either way this means that my brain is in fact wired up differently to others (even other dyslexics), does this make me a third gender?



Actually more poiniently:

A more subtle possibility is that bringing a child up in a particular gender could affect how our brains are wired.

I don't think it is anything to do with physical attributes, I fully believe that gender differences are taught by society.

For instance in the Georgian period it was common practice to dress little boys in pink, and little girls in blue. It was not until the victorian period that the colours became reversed and blue was then associated with boys.

[BikerDude]

Well I disagree that when it comes to the differences in the use of language by the sexes that we can't make generalizations. Those generalizations are well documented in the area of linguistics.
And I would go the with the body of evidence that says that men and women do act differently irregardless of differences in our brains. In regard to how differences in our brains result in how we act, I would be very seriously surprised if it didn't make us act differently.
Truth is that I don't want to go down this road.
It seems at it's core to be an exercise in some kind of being difficult.
The thread was an "advice about women" sort of a thing.
Starting a response with something along the lines of "Well, the thing about Women" is to be expected and I'm sorry I see the objection to it as some type of "being difficult" and a bit childish. Which generally results in a whole lot of half ass googled "research" and arm chair bullshit. I'm going with what to me is pretty obvious. Men and women are different and they communicate and act different especially in relationships.  If you disagree then we'll leave it at that.
I just don't have the time or energy to go there.

[meekon5]

Well I disagree that when it comes to the differences in the use of language by the sexes that we can't make generalizations. Those generalizations are well documented in the area of linguistics.
And I would go the with the body of evidence that says that men and women do act differently irregardless of differences in our brains. In regard to how differences in our brains result in how we act, I would be very seriously surprised if it didn't make us act differently.
Truth is that I don't want to go down this road.
It seems at it's core to be an exercise in some kind of being difficult.
The thread was an "advice about women" sort of a thing.
Starting a response with something along the lines of "Well, the thing about Women" is to be expected and I'm sorry I see the objection to it as some type of "being difficult" and a bit childish. Which generally results in a whole lot of half ass googled "research" and arm chair bullshit. I'm going with what to me is pretty obvious. Men and women are different and they communicate and act different especially in relationships.  If you disagree then we'll leave it at that.
I just don't have the time or energy to go there.

I'm sorry you feel that way, I was actually quiet enjoying this discussion and meant nothing ingenuous. Actually my degree is in linguistics where I developed an interest in people like Lacan, Kristeva, and Barte who are post modernists who have published extensively on sexual implications of the use of language.

And as for "being difficult" and a bit childish, have you actually read some of the threads in this forum?

Just because you don't agree with my point of view I think this is a bit unnecessary.

[BikerDude]

Just because you don't agree with my point of view I think this is a bit unnecessary.

I have.
I guess I feel like it's not really worth beating.
If we disagree that men and women are fundamentally different in how they act think and communicate then we aren't gonna get there.
And from my experience the objections to that idea generally smacks of political correctness.
There be dragons there. I'd rather just leave it alone.

[meekon5]

Just because you don't agree with my point of view I think this is a bit unnecessary.

I have.
I guess I feel like it's not really worth beating.
If we disagree that men and women are fundamentally different in how they act think and communicate then we aren't gonna get there.
And from my experience the objections to that idea generally smacks of political correctness.
There be dragons there. I'd rather just leave it alone.

That's no problem I'm quiet happy to agree to disagree, it may have just been the way I read your reply, it seemed a bit needlessly arsy to me, that's all.