When you try to prove you are right do you throw out some outrageous statistic that hasn’t been proven just to convince the other person how wrong s/he is? Then, in the next breath would you discount any counterargument made in reference to a difference in expectations/communication styles between men and women, which is actually a proven fact by experts?
Situation 1:
If a man decides he is finished with an argument, then he is finished. If a woman says she is finished with an argument, then she is done discussing it, but without a doubt it will take her some time to process and release the emotions and tension the argument brought up. However, both are done with the argument – just the response time differs. Is one better than the other? Or could we say that this is a reasonable difference between the genders? Would 9 out ten men say I am wrong? Would 9 out ten women say I am right?
Situation 2:
If a person calls another childish and compares communication styles with one as ‘acting like an adult’ because he has decided to move on and the other as ‘acting like a child’ because she hasn’t yet moved on and is being pushed to anyway, would 9 out of ten people say it is unreasonable to be offended at being called the child? Would 9 out of ten people perhaps be able to say this is merely a difference in communication styles and one does not have to be better than the other?
Situation 3:
If a person consistently lays down in the passenger seat of the car when you are driving and does not express his feelings of tiredness or bad attitude, is it reasonable that the driver would possibly take it personally? Or would 9 out of ten people say that the driver should just get over it and know that it’s not personal?
While every argument could be called merely a ‘heated discussion’, it is always interesting to see what kind of debating/communication styles take over. Everyone always thinks s/he is on the correct side of the argument, when the truth and correctness is generally somewhere in the middle. No one likes to be ‘wrong’ and yet it’s so easy to diminish another person’s feelings by saying “You just don’t like to be wrong, so yes you are right.”
Also, how is it that when you want someone to use words to express their feelings such as “I love you” or “I appreciate you”, it sounds cliche or pathetic because you should just know how s/he feels, but it is so easy for that person to express their disappointment in you…?
Words can be weapons. Actions can speak louder than words. Yet, a balanced mix of both can be priceless.
