saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (01/05/84)
I've been receiving a lot of mail since I posted that article complaining about men's lack of subtlety, and I can't really answer everybody personally, so I would like to clarify my position. Many people got the impression that I want all communication between men and women to be "subtle" and then was complaining about the fact that men were not good at playing my game. This is not at all what I wanted to say. There are only two times when I try to be subtle to communicate: With good friends who know what I mean and who won't be offended if they don't know or will ask me. This is just playfulness subtlety, my friend can play along if s/he feels like it or not; it doesn't really matter as it is only a game between friends. The other time is with men who try to ask me out, but who are not very sure of my interest and try to be subtle themselves, because they don't want to be made fools of if they are rejected, and try to judge from my response whether they should continue. THEY choose the language, not me (when I want to ask someone out, I end up not being subtle at all). These are the people I was complaining about: many of them willingly choose to be subtle and then do not understand me when I am answering them in the language THEY chose. When I do accept, I usually end up shifting the conversation to a more direct level, "yes, I like you" after showing him "subtly" that I like him and he hasn't caught on. When I do refuse, I try to do this subtly as he seems to have decided that he doesn't want the conversation to be on a "franker" level. I think that the least I can do for the poor guy is to say no without making him look like a fool as he seems to believe that that's what would happen in a more direct rejection. What I was pointing out was that those men who start talking to me "subtle" usually completely misinterpret my response in the same language. It could be because I am bad at it, but I don't think it is the case because my friends who are not involved in this but who are around, notice what I am doing and usually comment on it after the guy has left. direct type, as I believe
dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (01/06/84)
I think Sophie has a good explanation of why some men try to be subtle when they ask her out: they fear outright rejection. Perhaps they are not good at understanding subtle discouraging responses for just the same reason: they don't want to believe that they are being discouraged (rejected) unless there is no other possible interpretation. A question: Are men equally bad at picking up subtle encouraging responses as they are at understanding subtle discouraging ones? If they are not equally bad at both, then the problem is not that they are poor at picking up subtle messages, it is that they are poor at facing unpleasant possibilities. It probably isn't fair to compare men and women based on this. You are much more likely to find a man in the situation of asking out a woman even though he is uncomfortable doing so, than you are to find the positions reversed.
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (01/06/84)
Fair enough. I did notice that the few men to who I gave subtle encouragement were not pretty good at picking it up, but did pick it up eventually. From the stories that I've heard from some of my women-friends, they tended to run into the same situations, but this totals up to at most 10 cases, not enough to draw any solid conclusions. However, the cases of men not understanding subtle no's are much more numerous, and there definitely is a pattern there. So you are probably right, dave, understanding subtlety is probably not the problem; it is probably, as you suggested, either that they are not very good at being rejected (who is?) or that they have been confused in the past by other women sending "no" messages meaning "yes". Sigh.. Next generalisation to be shot down?