Men speak in C; Women speak in Java?

[The Luminaire]

This is a link, or rather, almost an article, that a friend of mine wrote on a forum we both frequent.

Just thought Id share the friendly knowledge that he's spelled out so easily.

http://www.malevolent-gaming.com/phpBB2/vi...topic.php?t=210

Discuss. Peacefully. :D

[gekko]

Sheesh, when will men learn. There are a very few simple steps to take to avoid virtually all problems.
1) get some female friends and talk to them until your simple processor can handle at least some Java (preferably get the female friends BEFORE you're in this kind of bind).
2) compliment her. The words "you look pretty" somehow beat the system -- they are interpreted literally by the JVM in ways we don't need to understand.

That's basically it (the important ones, anyways).

Hmmm wait. I just realized the real problem.

Get a mac. Forget C and Java: start thinking like a cocoa app :D.

gekko

[LavCat]

puerile

[--Pete]

Hi,

Not quite funny enough to be a joke, not quite serious enough to be an observation.

Aside from the fact that Java is not primarily a string handling language (there are much better examples), the observation he made is more a "holistic"/"reductionist" issue. It seems to follow "right brain"/"left brain" boundaries. It has little to do with gender, or even sex.

Maybe when your friend's primary influence is no longer his mother, he'll figure this out.

--Pete

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Pete,

Ow, glad that's not me you're speaking about ;)

Anywho, it's obviously a case of them not correctly declaring WHAT they want to recieve. It's all a matter of correctly working things. If, for example, he had asked:

(carry-plate-p meal)

His response would have been:

T

How easy could it be? Now, if you use a bugged function with undefined behaviour, who knows what may be returned.

[cheezz]

Maybe when your friend's primary influence is no longer his mother, he'll figure this out.

He will only exchange one primary influence for another. I hold to my contention that a fool will always be a fool. He has been eating his mother's cooking for years. If he doesn't know which dining method accompanies which dish by now, then he's not too observant. I am a very sarcastic person, and I too will not give a straight answer to a person who is too blind to see that the answer they seek is already in front of them.

[Occhidiangela]

. . . is a failyuh to cummunicate.

'Now, I can be a real nice guy, oah I can be a reayul ahnery sumbitch."'

(--Cool Hand Luke, Warden addressing new prisoners, to include Luke, played by Paul Newman--)

Failures to communicate indicate a failure of a two way process. The critical communication skill one must strengthen, in order to function effectively, to help infer meaning is the development of filters.

Sounds like the author is too bloody lazy to put resources into his filter development sector. :P

That is OK, walking around confused is a fine state of play: until one enters the real world and must subsist on one's own.

For example:

I learned after an iteration or two, when working with my Brit friends, that:

"Thank you for that" when uttered in a meeting by the chairman

Actually meant

"Thanks for wasting your breath and our time with that last comment."

Nuance, idiom, inflection . . . all that neat stuff is all decipherable if one

Bothers to Pay Attention

or

One asks for clarification when uncertain. Cutting out steps is fine, for efficiency, but when loss of value in content is at stake, is it too much to ask to exercise the feedback loop? He is not paying for, or being paid by, the word count in a conversation.

In the example conversation, the lad asked for clarification, and for some reason, seems put out by having to put forth the effort.

So, I ask myself how will he communicate with people who he did NOT grow up with?

I think I would entitle his post:

Confessions of a Clueless Wonder Who thinks Everyone is Supposed to Think The Way He Does. :)

My suggestion?

We should all remember . . . Men are From Earth, Women Are From Earth: Deal With It!

[FlynnD2X]

Communication - as stated previously - is a two way street. For effective communication, usually some understanding between the people is required, but not always.

Communication between the sexes can be boiled down to:

1) Women speak in feelings
2) Men speak in goals

What does this mean? It means that whatever is being said, you have to filter it through those 2 rules. When a woman asks, "Do I look fat?" she does not want an objective answer. Answering objectively implies a goal oriented style of thinking. Doing so will get you a nights sleep on the couch if you are so lucky. No, what she would rather hear is how you feel when you look at her. Compliments work well here. But those can be tricky as well if not conveyed with the proper mix of feeling - or sincerity behind the words. This is not always so easy to pull off. There are times (some would argue most times) that men simply do not care (IE think) about what they are feeling. In those cases, you need to develop a self preservation mechanism that can autonomously go off, but still be vague enough to imply sincerity. Some call this romance. It's the stage of when 2 people are attracted to each other that all they think about is how the other feels. That is romance. If you can get that trick down, then you will go far in attracting the opposite sex.

The ironic thing about this situation is men can easily understand it. 2 options, filtered through those rules. The difficulty is when men try to talk with feeling. Now there are times, usually brought about by some powerful situation, that men can talk in feelings, then the man and woman can speak empathically. It is during those times that men can acquire 'relationship coins'. Those are ways to increase your value to the other sex. They can be cashed in, sometimes with great effect. Other times trying to spend 'relationship coins' will backfire. An example could be all the coins acquired with the courtship phase of the relationship. Cashing those in during an argument is tricky business indeed. You have to spend slowly, building up relationship equity, mixing in romance at the right times, then plunking down the right amount that equals her percieved value in you. Almost undoable, for this involves feelings, and this is something men are just not equiped to do consistently.

The dichotomy of communication between the sexes is always there. Never let your guard down. The effect is even more amplified when a disagreement comes between the 2 sexes. Remember. Women speak in feelings (process) and men just want the resolution (goal). That is why men can never win an argument with women. They simply do not have the right wiring inside the ol' noodle. The best thing to do is try and get to the goal by buying relationship coins. This usually involves some kind of gift (flowers is the traditional one). It explains to the woman in very clear terms that whatever you may think, you are always thinking about her well being. She will eventually come around. And then you 2 can go back to trying to decide where to go and eat.

Have fun!

[--Pete]

Hi,

1) Women speak in feelings
2) Men speak in goals

Then you have only a very limited knowledge of men and women. Based mostly on TV sitcoms, I might add. Real people are a tad bit more complex than that.

--Pete

[Occhidiangela]

I have oftened wondered what was going on the head of whatever woman ever uttered that line to her husband:

"Does this dress make me look fat"
"Do I look fat in this?"

If one ever did.

Has any real person ever actually had to answer that question, or is this whole concept a fabrication of comedians?

"How do I look in this dress?" I have heard frequently. My wife has learned that from me she will either get:

"You look good/great in that dress!" when I think it flatters her
"It's not your color" when I don't think the colors flatter her
As the running joke in my family is that I am fashion impaired (I know what I like) I often find it humorous that my opinion is ever solicited, yet wife and daughter still do.

Does anyone really tell their wife "Honey, that dress makes you look fat!"

And if someone does, is it done with love in their heart, or as a a cheap shot payback for whatever the dress cost and the hope that it will be returned and the credit card credited for the purchase price?

Apparentlym, the entire conversation gets into 'fishing for compliments.' Or so I have been informed by SNAG's. (Sensitive, New Age Guys)

I have learned, the hard way, that my view of compliments, valid when earned and valueless when thrown about like confetti, is not universal. (I also object to trophies for every place in a little league sport: trophies are for winning.) I have also learned that when I pass a compliment, sometimes that which is being complimented does not resonate as well as on another subject.

Example: The missus makes a great and tasty dinner of a simple meal. I ooh and ah because it hits the spot, perfectly, that evening at that time an place.

A week later, a far more complex meal is prepared, and it too is tasty. Yet, I do not ooh and ah over it with the same gusto, apparently, even though compliments to the chef are both in order and expressed. I have goten, on occasion, the comment 'Why do I bother with the fancy meal when all you really appreciate is the simple meal?" The reply: Why does a compliment have to be measured in effort as opposed to result, and why is the compliment sincerely expressed insufficient?

Flip side: I cook a lot. I put in the effort required. If I am to earn a compliment on the dinner, I seek a response on the quality of the dish served. I don't see the effort expended as being well aimed if I spend two or more hours and serve up average or worse fare. As I see it, I need to present the diner with good food: that is why I put the effort in to the preparation in the first place. I want the meal to be enjoyed, and to please the tastebuds. When she compliments me on the effort, I typically used to reply:

"Yes, thanks, but was the food any good? Should I prepare it that way again, or should I try to improve upon it? Did I over season the salmon? Was it too spicey? Too much taragon?"

We have both come to understand one another's point of view on this, and we have both learned how each of us values the process and the product. The dialogue is continuous in effective communication. :)

Some of us learn how to phrase things so that the receiver hears it in a way that the meaning resonates with them. It's a people thing. :)

[Copadope]

Ha ha, as soon as I read that post title, I knew what the first line would be. :D

Cool Hand Luke is a great movie, and it has a lot of classic quotes in it. Unfortunately, I've not seen it enough times to memorize all of them.

[Nystul]

Real people are a tad bit more complex than that.

That retort can be made in response to virtually any generalization or stereotype about people, and rightly so. But I think that the perceived trend on which this thread is based is has grounding in reality, and not just TV sitcoms. Compare how men react vs. how women react at an emotionally charged event like a wedding or a funeral. Consider how certain movies came to be dubbed "chick flicks". An example that comes to my own mind is our family Christmas parties and such; from what I've seen the women usually actually talk about the family, whereas the men talk about less personal things like cars and politics.

It is comedic hyperbole to suggest that these differences create some communication barrier that requires a decoder ring to break through. But I don't think it is a big stretch to say that more often than not, men are likely to guard their feelings and women are likely to express them.