Sherzade Posted March 9, 2011 Report Posted March 9, 2011 I am spending a bit more time on the forum today and I realized that I have read members’ posts attaching a specific gender to them. For example mscat was for me a man as randomperson and 58corvette were. I seem to have discovered that they are women I am finding this very funny. Would my reading and replies have been different if I had known? Would yours have been different?
randomperson Posted March 10, 2011 Report Posted March 10, 2011 Well good or bad corv and I are guys I think the good thing to gain from this. We are all more alike then we realize sometimes. All the hype about huge differences in cultures, age, gender, and so on.. seems like society tries to split people apart and promote tension. I find it refreshing to know we are more connected, share more feelings and thoughts. Especially to know we all share the same type of struggles and to see some of us overcoming it.Something pretty private I think a few of us share.Before I came in here I was pretty hurt. I have been rejected so much in such painful and cruel ways so many times by women. Had some say "I am different" only to hurt me deeply and betray my trust. Never been in a successful 'real' relationship..ever. I was struggling connecting.. wondering if it was me.. if women were that different. I felt hurt and alone so deeply words can not describe it and was starting to overall get angry and falling into the hype of the tiny boxes we are all trying to be forced into.Then I came on here met everyone and got to know each of you. Became friends with each of you. Saw how close we are to each other in our emotions in everything. I as well confused gender a few times lol. It gave me a more balanced view. Renewed my hope on several levels.Again if I can connect with people from so far away.. why can I not connect with people where I live?I also noticed when I first started posting many of the ladies seemed very hurt by men as well. Like me I could feel the same type pain and slight bitterness. This helped as well. Helped me to see how close we all are.. how even in relationships we share the same issues same struggles. As time passed I and I think others realized it was individuals rather than groups or genders that hurt us. I noticed the pain changed to reflect more on the ones that hurt us as it should. I am proud of this growth and greatful for everyone here.This was a bit private but hey I shared everything to this point why not share this lol.
Sherzade Posted March 10, 2011 Author Report Posted March 10, 2011 ah ah ah so corvette is a guy? i knew that you were a guy... for me everyone that has a name that is not gender specific, like lindamomof7 is a guy. I wonder why Thank you for sharing your story randomperson. I think that's what we do here. We share private stories. It's a good practice for me.I am sorry that you have never been in a 'real' relationship before. 'Real' relationships are harder than 'virtual' ones in my opinion. Perhaps because they are real and there isn't a turn on/off button whenever we please A screen takes away so much of the pressure we have when face to face. We don't see each other so part of the non verbal language is out of the way. We can also chose carefully our language. Delete and rewrite, wait, think a bit more, avoid reacting, demanding, expecting, being responsible for this and that, chose topics of interest, ignore the ones that do not interest. And all the bodily insecurities have a break and we kind of share many difficulties. The difference between us is not so big as we are here for the same reasons. But you may be right. We may be far too focused on the difference issues and much less so on what we human beings share. My 'dream' is a 'real' relationship. I have been in some. It's so good and difficult! :confused: (i like all these smilies. it makes me feel like a little child). The best was when i felt so free with someone. He just accepted me and that was both disconcerting and exciting. So Linda, you decided to go straight into clarifying your situation. I didn't think about it, but i suppose i chose the name of a female (which i spelled wrongly: Sherazade, it should be) instinctively. and only yesterday i realized that a specific poster was a woman and my feelings and reactions changed accordingly. I would have certainly changed my mind set (i hope this is the correct word) when replying.
Lindamomof7 Posted March 10, 2011 Report Posted March 10, 2011 And at first I thought Random was a woman !!! Go figure... And I knew Corv was a guy... It is really hard here when reading someones post especially their first ones unless they specify they are male or female even sometimes the clues can be confusing even if they mention boyfriend or girlfriend, husband, wife in their post because even then someone could be gay. Who knows !!! :confused:It's funny how we all assume all differently from a computer screen It is hard as you said Random, some people share and some dont and I do think we are all the same coming here with our issues and then communicating with people who could poentially be triggers for us depending on our history. I think everyone is pretty aware of that and I think especially when we share our private thoughts or fears others can see there could be potential triggers for others as we get to know others.I think this is a great place for some with anxiety of talking to people face to face to be able to almost "practice" here?
randomperson Posted March 10, 2011 Report Posted March 10, 2011 I think this place is a great tool. Each of us has a slightly different path we must take to heal. This place has different strengths to us all. Some it is a great place to relate and not feel alone, others to vent and get out the pain.At times we can comfort at others we need comforting. It is a great place to relate. For me talking is easy here.. it doesn't feel the same as face to face with strangers. People feel more open and much much less judging. Personally I am learning how to communicate better slowly from this site. I am understanding people's feelings and how they react more simply because here people are open to sharing how they feel and what is hurting them. Outside this utopia people rarely share who they are or how they feel.
malign Posted March 10, 2011 Report Posted March 10, 2011 It's not so much that "the place" is a great tool for healing."People" are a great tool for healing.It may be difficult for many of us to approach "people", for a wide variety of reasons. Some people start out with social phobias. Others feel they have a secret which cannot be shared with "people". Still others are triggered to lash out at "people", so they cannot interact with them easily.Dr. Dombeck (user 'Mark'), who started this site, likes to say that we learn best in relationship to other people.What we do here is arrange for "people" who look like words on a screen. :-)
Sherzade Posted March 10, 2011 Author Report Posted March 10, 2011 What we do here is arrange for "people" who look like words on a screen. :-)Love it!!!!But still i want to lash out at people and i had to force myself to delete a post today. This is definitely a benefit in this forum. I am practising creating some distance between my limbic system and my mouth
randomperson Posted March 10, 2011 Report Posted March 10, 2011 One thing I dislike about FB and email. Once you hit send it is gone, no editing. I tend to type my feelings even more than I say them face to face. Not a good trait for the most part.
Lindamomof7 Posted March 10, 2011 Report Posted March 10, 2011 Sherzade I totally agree with you about disengaging. Hard lesson for me to change over a lifetime of doing but this forum has helped me even with some of the conflicts I have encountered here
mscat Posted March 14, 2011 Report Posted March 14, 2011 I am spending a bit more time on the forum today and I realized that I have read members’ posts attaching a specific gender to them. For example mscat was for me a man as randomperson and 58corvette were. I seem to have discovered that they are women I am finding this very funny. Would my reading and replies have been different if I had known? Would yours have been different?That is funny , Sherzade. I don't really think about gender when replying to posts. But, after a while being on here, it gets easier to decipher which is which. As for my "NAME" It is derrived from all my teaching experience of very young children. the little ones called me ms cathy. Si I just shortened it . Makes it a lot easier to remember screennames. I do not think my replies would be any different , male or female. On the internet it is so much easier to write feeling or thoughts out . What I do tend to stay away from is threads that upset me, or that I have no idea how to answer.
Sherzade Posted March 15, 2011 Author Report Posted March 15, 2011 Hello mscat. Yes, it is interesting. Whilst i read some of your posts i created a story in my mind with scenario and everything. I wondered about the mother of your child (usually i hear about dads that leave and not the other way around so much), i wondered how it was for you, a man, to be the sole carer of that child, how it was for you, a man, to feel so lonely.............. etc, etc, etc. I even imagined your house, the house of your brother and was not aware of none of this until i understood that you are a woman. That's when i became aware of the details of what i had constructed with the information i read from you and my own assumptions. But well. Nice to know that you are a woman and nice if you were a man
mscat Posted March 16, 2011 Report Posted March 16, 2011 Hello mscat. Yes, it is interesting. Whilst i read some of your posts i created a story in my mind with scenario and everything. I wondered about the mother of your child (usually i hear about dads that leave and not the other way around so much), i wondered how it was for you, a man, to be the sole carer of that child, how it was for you, a man, to feel so lonely.............. etc, etc, etc. I even imagined your house, the house of your brother and was not aware of none of this until i understood that you are a woman. That's when i became aware of the details of what i had constructed with the information i read from you and my own assumptions. But well. Nice to know that you are a woman and nice if you were a man Umm Well I guess I better make certain that you are a man? right ? I do have 4 brothers though, and then 2 foster brothers. Lots of males around in my life. I do tend to get along better as friends with guys then women. I think friendships with women are very complicated, and we can be back stabbing bitches . Not so nice thing to say, but men make better friends , I am not married though, the thought of that scares me. I do not date either. i am on 100% disability and raised my son , who is autistic , since he has been born on my own. He is now getting close to turning 18. :eek: Your really easy to communicate with , so it is nice that you have joined this community. i have been here for quite a while now. It has helped me a lot, especially if I am slipping up , and doing stupid stuff to myself.
IrmaJean Posted March 16, 2011 Report Posted March 16, 2011 What has happened to me is I have actually created/imagined faces in my mind. I've been WAY off sometimes too. :eek: One time I was actually very close, though. The mind can be a funny thing.
Sherzade Posted March 16, 2011 Author Report Posted March 16, 2011 I don't think i created faces. Bodies... maybe. Actually no. I have a face for you IrmaJean and i am not sure whether i saw a picture of you... You did have a picture of you in the past, didn't you? And you look like my landlady when i was 26 years old. Or you just look like my land lady? :confused:Umm Well I guess I better make certain that you are a man? right ?No, but i would like to be I did want to have a different body so i could protect myself. I used to say: "i have the body of a woman but the soul of a man" ah ah ah..... i am ok with being a woman now. I am still very aware of the fragilities of my female body in comparison to men's. I understand what you say about men being better friends. I do have both and have no preferences i think. Do you think you would like to find a partner? I haven't got a partner either, but would like to one day. I having a big big break. And they are as well :-)Thank you for your compliment mscat. That's very nice. I joined last year but didn't follow it up. I came back quite recently and it has also helped me. More than i ever imagined it would. Thank you to too
Athena Posted March 17, 2011 Report Posted March 17, 2011 Hi Ladies and guysSome of these posts have been hilarious and actually made me double-think what gender people were. So far, I seem to have got everybody right. The comment about gay men is appropo. I read what I thought was a guy's post referring to his BF, and it got very confusing after recalling in my head his most recent posts, which I was sure proved he was a guy. I went to his earlier posts and discovered he was gay. When it comes to friends, I'm not too picky. Whoever I enjoy myself with works for me. Either gender can make it complicated. Usually, hugging another woman cannot be misinterpreted. Not so with a lot of guys. On the other hand, women can be in such different roles nowadays. I do not tend to get along with "type A" women who just want to tell you how to live your life, for example childless women who tell you how to raise your kids, who tell you it's obvious you couldn't have a career AND kids and since you made a mistake and tried to do both, then it's your fault, you should have known better, so just go and support your ex forever even though he wasn't a stay at home Dad. They have boundless energy and so they figure you should be able to do both because they would if they were in your shoes. But then, they've just contradicted themselves. Yes - very complicated.Anyway, every single one of you who have posted to this thread are decent people and you have all helped me out, which I am grateful for and I am happy to call you all friends.Sorry this turned into a mini-rant.
Athena Posted March 18, 2011 Report Posted March 18, 2011 Your husband sounds very nice. Gentle, non aggressive - those are traits that I wish were more common in both genders. I think our generation has a lot of challenges. The guys are struggling, trying to figure out what their role is in the face of independent women and the women are struggling trying to figure out how to remain women in (still) a man's world. I have fallen between the cracks and found myself with very few peers. Somebody said earlier here they felt like a man in a woman's body. I feel like a man, woman, mother, father and child in a woman's body. It's exhausting. Anyway, for now, I'm determined to just be a woman and mother and to help the child finally get what she needs. That is what I fight for on a daily basis. That simple right. And it is so elusive. I am surrounded by people who tell me that it is just too much to ask. We shall see. The next couple of weeks will be pivotal.
mscat Posted March 18, 2011 Report Posted March 18, 2011 SherZade,oops, sorry about that.. It is hard to tell just by screennames. unless it is obvious , like Linda , or someone with their name in their avater. This is a pretty funny thread.
LaLa Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 Nice thread ! I like the most the post N 3 - by Randomperson (and then the reaction of Malign...).My remark is that the reason why we often cannot now the gender of people writing is one of the things that I dislike about English (sorry - I don't want to offend anybody! English has, of course, it's very positive sides, too. The main for me is that we don't have to know much and we sill can communicate - that's almost impossible in many other languages where there are so many complicated rules that if we don't know them, we cannot say almost anything understandable... *). In my mother tongue, for example, we have 3 genders (like in German, where those are "der, die, das") and the adjectifs and also verb forms depend on the gender of the noun, so when somebody writes, you know exactly if (s)he's male of female. (I know; in Japanese, for instance, it's even more complicated - there you also have different words for the same - depending for exapmle on the social status...)L. (female )* Well... I'm sorry it sounds that I don't like English . I do, really; mostly to listen to a "native speaker" (as usually I hear people from different countries whose English is mostly funny or not very pleasant to listen to - like mine ...). But I have to admit that I prefere other languages, as English is only my 3th foreign language and... you know it's logic that we love that most what we learn the first (for me, it was German and then French)...
Lindamomof7 Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 Athena why are these next few weeks pivotal?? And yes i agree the role of a man and a woman are so intertangled now. When I was a kid I remember girls couldnt play baseball. I loved to pitch and I was pretty good so I really wanted to play baseball not softball. Then in the 1970's when I was about 10 they had to let girls at least try out. I did, and heard all kinds of rude comments form the boys in the line and I saw the male coaches trying to make all the girls look bad at the try outs so they didnt have to take them. So I saw they were doing it to me and I took the ball I caught in left field and threw it about 50 ft past the coach at first base just to show them how far I could throw because I knew I wasnt going to make the team but you know now, I dont want my girls have to play with the boys, I want a girls baseball team!!! I know for me raising girls and boys in todays world, I teach my boys to do all the laundry, cooking etc that is traditional to girls and my husband teaches my girls how to change a tire, fix things and change their oil and brakes in the car. There is no gender only jobs here although my husband and I have the traditional old fashioned family of me staying home and raising the kids while he works... Lala that must be really hard trying to communicate in writing in a different langueage. Geezzz I learned spanish in school and I only did one semester of it!!!
randomperson Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 I agree knowing that many languages is impressive I think the gender role is mixing both men and women up. Women feel pressure to be more aggressive yet remain feminine, and it is a silly pressure.Guys have many roles now as well. Just in my experience it is difficult just to show mutual attraction as everyone has totally different views of what is or is not appropriate or a turn on. What one might be considering sexual harassment another might consider the only way they will accept someone as a potential suitor. I like the olden days of my great grandmother they had subtle languages done with fans and flowers. Certain movements of the fan showed level of interest, and mood.Flowers told exactly how you felt, white rose meant strong friendship for example. Red rose meant true love, likely why it is over kill now. We really need that again.. or something like it.
Athena Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 Athena why are these next few weeks pivotal?? I had a mediation meeting scheduled for Mar. 22, but then my ex cancelled on everybody at the last minute (typical of him - he's full of himself and very disrespectful of everybody else's time). A "kids interests" meeting this Wednesday, with a couple of groups representing my kids plus myself, and I also represent my kids. Versus their Dad. Who represents his own interests, and has absolutely no idea what his delaying, manipulation and denial is doing to the girls and I. Anyway, at least for once he's outnumbered. The 22nd is now rescheduled to the 31st, but then again, it doesn't appear that their Dad is fully committed to that date, so we'll see. The last mediation meeting he didn't even show up. He had his lawyer speak for him. He refuses to talk about money - during our marriage, now, and this will go on into the future. He would rather stick his head in the sand until all the bills are miraculously paid, kids expenses and university education is paid, then he'll come out and say, oh, so what do I owe you, and by the way I have no money now 'cause I've had a great life living off your savings and retirement money. There just seems to be NO WAY OUT. I have nightmares about him pulling me over cliffs, driving me into head on traffic, slicing off my body parts and other horrible mutilation dreams. No wonder cutting has been my form of SI! No relief in sleep either! Arrrggghhh. Going to get some badass tranquilizers today just to get me through.
randomperson Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 Just keep in the back of your mind he can only delay so long and imagine your life after he is gone from it.
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