xim

There have been tons of types of responses to this, mostly because everyone wants to put their two cents in (myself included). But as usual, the question was answered sufficiently pretty early on. I'm going to try to connect some dots along with my own input.

This all comes down to the difference between masculinity and femininity. Masculine energy is hard, dominant, strong, angular, and fiery. Feminine energy is soft, emotional, perceptive, curvy, and nurturing and caring. Males and females both have a mixture of masculine and feminine energy, but males generally have much more masculine energy and vice-versa.

Masculine is sexually attracted to feminine, feminine is sexually attracted to masculine. Also as an evolutionarily created gene protection strategy, femininity also happens to be attracted to masculinity which they perceive to be higher status or value than themselves (themselves being their only reference point). Women date and mate 'up'.

There is another dynamic though, which is the parental-child dynamic. In the science of transactional analysis, which is the study of the interaction between people in transactions of conversation etc, they talk about the parent, the child and the adult. These don't refer to actual age wise children or adults or parents being someone who has borne offspring, they are roles that people assume (and alternate between) in each interaction. The child is weak and needs guidance direction and protection. The parent is stronger and tells the child what to do. The adult is the unemotional middle between the two. Assuming the role of a child, will evoke the role of the parent in the other person, and unless someone with a strong frame resists it, assuming the role of a parent will evoke the child in the other person. Adults can speak equally. You might want to check out this short link before reading on: http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/ta.htm

In a sexual relationship, in a lot of ways, the male is taking on the role that the females father served earlier in life. He is hopefully a strong stable grounding force which helps to guide her. As I said, women date 'up'. In a sense they date towards the father, who is the original highest status male in their lives.

Your deleting a bit of information in this statement, which is: to whom are you supposed to be supportive and nurturing. Unless you have a more masculine personality, I'd be willing to bet that if you had children (or kittens or whatever) you would love to nurture them with most all of your energy. But a girl is not supposed to have to take care of her father in that way, because he is not supposed to be weak and vulnerable like a child or a kitten. Can you imagine if you were a little girl and your dad came home emotional and crying everyday, sniffling 'nobody likes me at work' or whatever and trying to seek your approval as a little girl? Thats not very fatherly. The same is true of her significant other.

This is spot on. When a man acts soft and weak and starts crying about something, what he is doing is taking on the role of the child, saying you are stronger than me and please guide me. This is extremely unattractive to a woman. She hooked up with him in the first place hoping he would be a strong influence she could look up to or at least count on for grounding. She will either freak out because she does not know how to react to it or it will evoke the maternal parent in her. This puts her in a position of higher status than him, bringing him down a peg in her mind.

Men and women can transact as an adult-adult equal pair, our psychologies are compatible this way. Also when a woman gets emotional, and takes on the role of the child who needs consoling and to be taken care of, it will evoke in the man (if hopefully he is able) the role of the parent to console her. Since women mate 'up', this is also compatible with our psychology. However, when a man gets over emotional and shows lots of vulnerability, taking on the role of the child, and the female is pushed into the role of the parent, she has no choice but to 'look down' at him in a sense. This is NOT compatible with the standard human mating dynamic.

This is not to say that a man can NEVER express vulnerability, but think of yourself as having a running score representing how much of a strong man you are in her eyes. The more you cry and act like a weak child, and the more you expect her to be your mommy and coddle you, the more your score drops.

This is also not to say that men are expected not to have feelings. Women do not want a robot who has no feelings. There is a difference between having and letting your feelings be known, and crying and being over-emotional. What is the difference? A robot without emotions has no idea if hes being mistreated or not. Women want someone who is passionate about getting the respect he deserves and being treated right, but who does it without pouting. Pouting about being mistreated is like begging to be treated right. Begging is how lower status people try to deal with higher status people. Heres an example. If she says something you don't like: say "I don't like it when you say that". Say it sincerely and with a strait face. That shows that you do have feelings and you respect yourself, and you are expressing those feelings to her. But don't get red in the face and tear up and say "*sniff* you hurt me feeeeellliinnngggss". That is a pouty beggar child way of acting.

Well thats the point of this whole thread, and the answer is the way women [have evolved to] react to it.

I suggest you don't try to raise androgynous children. You don't have to shove gender roles down their throats, but men and women ARE different. Don't tell him to be Rambo, but If you push your son to be too feely, hes going to grow up timid and effeminate. He will get bullied, and have trouble with girls. Let your kid figure things out for himself. Don't try to artificially modify his energy.

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If I could be anyone in the world I would be Britney Spears. Shes in so many commercials about pepsi... www.ximcity.com