Women deal with an entire different world than men do. We look at those around us differently than men ever will. By necessity we have to.
Men may be surprised to realize just how much of their behavior is constantly being assessed in every social interaction. One of the main ways in which we as a society decide to interact with each other is based on every person’s ability to read behavioral cues.
Guys may not think so, but women watch them constantly for signs of how they are going to interact with them. And quite frankly, most of these assessments are not particularly flattering. While men watch women all the time for signs of interest, we as a gender tend to watch men for the exact opposite. We constantly are on the lookout for suspicious behavior in men.
Now guys may be wondering why this is. Well, honestly, it’s because we have to be. 1 in every 6 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Now not every offense is committed by men, and not all are full out rapes. But you have to realize that these are also only the numbers when you look at reported assaults. So women do indeed have a legitimate reason for their suspicion of men; it’s not simple paranoia, as most men will dismiss it.
Unintentional behaviors and physical appearance tells much more about a person than you would think if you know how to read the signs. Cleanliness, personal space and body language all show signs of your personality and, by extension, how you are going to interact with me. But this doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.
So even if you are the most wholesome looking guy in the world, a woman probably still won’t trust you the first time they meet you because, while it says something about you and how much you care about the impression you make, it can still be deceptive.
If a guy wants to successfully pick up a girl they’ve never met, he needs to pay strict attention to how he appears to that girl and the environment that he is in. Every man in the eyes of a woman can (and possibly should) be seen as a potential assailant.
This doesn’t stop after the first social interaction either. Unless a woman knows a man extremely well — and even if she does — she may always be suspicious of him out of pure self preservation, especially since most assaults are committed by men the victim previously knew. Of course, not every man is a rapist, but from a woman’s point of view, she can always be at risk.
One of the main reasons that women constantly have to be on guard stems from the fact that our words and actions are not always taken at face value by others.
Women have to at a glance know from your behavior if you are going to be one of those men who pushes the subject. When we say no, when we ignore you, when we give off “get the hell away from me” vibes, no matter how nonchalant we may seem, we really do mean it.
This isn’t a trick, a ploy to seem ‘hard to get’. Very few women are that ambiguous with their intentions. Despite what men think, we really do know what we want and when we want it.
Any woman who tells a man that they aren’t interested really isn’t. It also doesn’t mean that when we are civil to or humor you that we want you to continue pushing the matter. It is very possible to be polite to someone of the opposite gender and have no interest in a further relationship with them than a passing courtesy. Even in everyday interactions a woman has many ways of stating interest or disinterest.
Men need to pay as close attention to a woman’s behavior as we pay to theirs. Even if we are interested, we do draw a line as to what is and isn’t acceptable behavior at each level of familiarity with men. And just as everyone differs in their appearance, we also have different levels of how comfortable we are with men.
Now, a man just trying to get to know a girl he thinks is pretty is not at fault. But various social cues have stopped being recognized as our culture slowly moves back towards a state where we are more and more self involved. Few pay any attention to the actions of those outside of themselves unless it affects them directly.
This coupled with the shift in current culture to show women who can’t decide what they want or who don’t say what they mean creates a culture that looks at women as being ambiguous in their desires and needs.
This kind of behavior is continually reinforced by society. It poses a serious threat to the welfare of women throughout the country and will continue to get worse unless everyone becomes more conscious of the people they interact with.
