Are relationships always this complicated?

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah, there are definitely other mature age students around me. It's just that the last time I went to a technical college, we were a mostly younger crowd. I was a 20 year old surrounded by 18 year olds. We'd hang out during breaks and chat. Not nowadays. If anyone has a spare moment they look down at their smart phones. When I was 20 we had things like DS Lites and playing one would be a conversation starter, not a conversation stopper e.g. "Hey, is that the new Mario game?"

I'm as guilty as everyone else. I spend a lot of my time in public looking at smartphones, I write some of my posts here on smartphones, I obsess over smartphones and buy several per year. I really like smartphones but I find them to be extremely dehumanizing.

Though they're sometimes useful for when you're in a crowd and you actually want to be isolated. You can be cocooned within your own world. Alone amidst the crowd.Hmmm well gf has a degree and she doesn't seem to mind that I don't. I dated a nursing student in the past who wasn't concerned that I've never been to a real college.Yeah about 60% right? That's not a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind if 100% of women went to college, it's just that, last I checked, women don't make up 60% of the population. For college students to be 60% girls, there must be guys who aren't going to college for some reason. I'm not quite sure what but something is keeping guys out of college. We need to address the education gap.You don't need college to have a college level education. I've had conversations with college girls who were surprised I've never been.

No problem.

Just remember, women don't want to be alone either. It's inevitable that you'll find someone. It's human nature.

Here is the US we seem to get a lot of Canadian TV shows dealing with real estate (Love It Or List It, Property Brothers) and we can't help wondering how anybody can afford the ridiculous prices especially in Toronto. Although I'm certain it's a bubble. You couldn't get me to buy Canadian real estate with a gun to my head. Fortunately guns are illegal in Canada LOL.

Its because of stuff like this.

Relationships are so complicated because we don't all think and act alike. Read Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus - its quite enlightening.

As a parent to a boy who everyone has always considered extremely smart, yet who started struggling with school, I actually spent some time learning about the education trends and all the ways school is currently failing boys. There is an excellent book out on the subject, called "The Trouble with Boys," written by a journalist, Peg Tyre, if I've got all the names and titles correct (I'm writing by memory). A bunch of things have come into play, including a school system that changed its focus from being exclusively driven by how boys learn, to now being too driven by how girls learn; the fact that male brains grow and mature at a different pace than women's, and so on.

The end point relevant to this conversation, however, is that while boys are decreasingly going to college, and increasingly feeling less intelligent than their female counterparts, it is situation created by us as a society failing our boys, and not because boys have less ability than girls. We have a system of educational expectations and measures that now more closely align to how female brains develop, but just because the pace and pattern is different, does not mean male brains don't end up in the same place. Yet, by then, the cause is lost, because the boys have already learned to see themselves as intellectually inferior.

If I am recalling the information correctly, female brains are fully developed by age 16. Male brains are fully developed by age 25. So, duh, from 16 to 25 (or whatever the correct developmental age range is) a guy is going to struggle more than a girl with exactly the same innate intelligence.

The reason I'm writing this is because I don't want to see any young man give up on his future based on his experiences to date. You have a chance to change it. Accept that maybe you had to take a slower and longer road, but then realize that you can still get to the place you want to be. Get the education you want and realize that now that you are older you are in a much better position to succeed with it.

RetroGamer, you are 100% right that we need to address the education gap. In so many ways it hurts everyone, not just the guys who most directly fall into it. Change is being talked about. But for those of you living it right now, who won't be able to benefit from changes that may be made at some future date: seize the reigns and change things for yourself. It is never too late to start you education. Your brain is ready. You can discover your real potential, not the inaccurate perception you developed in the past.

lol, sorry for the sales pitch. But this is definitely a topic I care about. I have both a son and a daughter and I don't want either of them to grow up with cards stack against them. I want them both to thrive being who they are meant to be. And without a doubt I can watch them and see what that book meant about developmental differences and how so many current indicators in their lives are not as meaningful to their future potential as they take them to be. And we talk about it all, and what it means for them. For my son's sake, I'm going to advocate on the education issue. For my daughter's sake, I'm going to fight against any of you negatively stereotyping against women. Different obstacles, different causes, but we should all be striving for a more fair world on all fronts.

DW I rarely disagree with you, but I have to here. I think you are in the US, that is where I am, and I do not feel our education system is slanted toward how girls learn or that boys are being slighted. I feel our education system fails children, a great many children, I feel that learning disabilities and ASD tend to more commonly wind up identified in boys because of how they present and that our education system fails this group of children, fails children needing a less hierarchical approach and girls tolerate and cooperate with direction on average a bit more, so maybe in that sense as an accident girls are better off, and we fail to challenge our brightest children and help them develop and love school, we are failing children generally by putting theories and opinions before practical effectiveness. One of the worst things to me is the effort to take away individual adult attention from children who struggle, for whatever reason. Almost the only one to one time becomes disciplinary. Many schools even look to computer software to replace the human being in teaching learning disabled children to read and do math and develop their social skills!! ! And while I've encountered providers with limits in their skills and attitudes.....I feel this to be a devastating loss for the individual child. I hope I'm not derailing things, and I may be missing your point....I just needed to say.....I feel our education system should be doing s lot better by many, many children and that the issue is not about failing boys.

While there are many facets to education that could be improved, the book I referenced is extremely well researched and documented, and the point I wanted to make is considered fact here in the US, even though I may not have conveyed it well in the limited space of a forum post. I encourage anyone who questions the concept to read the book.

Some things to ponder if wondering if the system is slanted, and granted the slants can harm certain girls, too, but statistically they overwhelming are falling on boys:
1. The need for increased organizational skills at younger ages.
2. Grading higher volumes of work, including classwork and homework, that increase the emphasis on process and compliance, and organization instead of end result.
3. Grading neatness, presentation, and drawing in assignments for a host of range of subjects that are not art class.
4. Increased emphasis on group work and social skills.

It's just a partial, off-the-top of my head list.

This is a whole other topic and we could spend hours on it (which I don't have), but in this thread the relevant idea is that it is inappropriate for young man in his mid twenties to be concluding that he is less intelligent than the women around him and, thus, not only give up on the women, but also give up on himself.

If I hadn't felt I was seeing that, I wouldn't have brought it up. I know it is controversial, to say the least, but I've been to a talk with the author, and she knows her stuff. She never set out to reach the conclusion her research led her into; she fought it as much as anyone of us will; but not only was the research conclusive, but she also was seeing how the trend was going to harm women and society in the long run.

Granted I have not read the book you are referring to, but there are many experts who would argue what I may not be saying well which is that our education system is failing anyone outside a very narrow box and a serious problem with our system is that it rewards normality and puts at risk every child who is below average, but also every above average child is outside this narrow box being taught to and, as an extension, some of our most intelligent children who could grow into being able to contribute a great deal are being turned off, marginalized, and sometimes dropping out of school, of society, and sometimes giving up because they can't conform enough to be successful within our system which is overly hierarchical and rewards conformity rather than thoughtfulness, creativity, or innovation. If more boys than girls are overtly negatively impacted, that does not mean the girls do not suffer. To me it's like the fact that dyslexia used to be considered to be more common in boys.....now experts believe girls are helped along, they may act out less so be less commonly identified, but now they are saying that the idea dyslexia was more common in boys appears not to be accurate. I believe this to be the same, and as the mother of two girls who don't fit in and as an adult woman who did not fit in growing up, perhaps you're right and we suffer less than the boys....after all I got through the system and my kids seem to be. But the notion that somehow the system is friendlier to girls because we get through it, that's one I have to reject. That does not minimize the OPs suffering, but I feel it's a mistake to try to say one group suffers more than another, I know sometimes it's necessary, but I feel nothing good can come from this. Though knowing you from you're posts, I suspect I am misunderstanding what you're saying.....you aren't someone who ever minimizes another person's difficult experiences, not ever. So I apologize for whatever I may be misunderstanding. I suppose, too, that reading the OPs posts makes me sad for him, how so much that we all encounter many get through ok, but then there comes a point where sometimes, one does not.....and there may not be a safety net to catch us. The OP could certainly use that safety net....

I'm not trying to minimize anyone's suffering or difficulties, and as a matter of policy I am against ever saying that broad generalization should define any one person or a wide swatch of situations.

Of course, the concept in the book has exceptions. It is a about a pattern, not a norm. It is not one-size fits all.

I just thought it was an appropriate pattern to share given what I saw the guys discussing; I thought that maybe knowing what the research told the author would help them reach different conclusions about themselves and their own prospects. How I presented it was formed to the intended audience; obviously a lot is left out and that makes it difficult or impossible for anyone not in that intended audience to use it to draw any conclusions relevant to their own lives. And I certainly don't want them to start feeling victimized or under-served; what I want for them to see is that past academic history does not define what a 23 or 27 year old man is capable of, pretty much beginning and end of what the information means here. I've known so many men who have gotten a "late start" in life, academically and / or career-wise; far more often than I've seen similar things with women. Overall, sometimes a person just needs time for their brain to finish maturing; that can apply to men or women; but, scientifically, men's brains finish growing at a much later age than women's, and that disparity creates perceptions that won't be true at 30.

Interesting stuff but has this been going on for only the last couple of years or was it happening back when me and Sly were in school? Bear in mind I didn't go to school in America so it may not have been quite that same for me. Is this phenomenon more prevalent in primary school or secondary school?That would explain a lot that I've observed.Yeah, I guess I shouldn't get so hung up on the past. I doubt I would have been able to pass the course I'm in as a teenager anyway. Organisational skills were a problem until I was sixteen or so but even by college age, I don't think I would've had the logic skills. This may not seem stereotypically male but in high school I was much more comfortable with writing history essays than doing algebra.I can't help but wonder what caused this education gap. Could it be that teachers worked out girls are easier to teach so they wanted to teach boys like girls? In an earlier paragraph you said we've gone from boy oriented teaching to girl oriented teaching. How are these different? How does present day girl oriented teaching differ twentieth century girl oriented teaching? Was it better for boys? I've heard people complain about using the "Prussian Model" for teaching. Was the Prussian method more suitable for boys?You may be right Waterfalls but this isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with what DW_a_mom is saying.Are you saying girls suffer in school as much as boys do but girls have a higher tolerance for suffering?Girls get more help? Maybe. From their teachers or classmates? I've observed scenarios in which a girl is helped by several fawning boys.Ah, you mean girls suffer in other ways through school. They have other problems, not necessarily academic ones.You mean because I was lamenting not having started in college at 18? Lament I did but really it was Sly who was complaining about being less educated than girls.

Retrogamer I was responding with my experience as a person and a mom to DW. And I guess I read into what she wrote a reminder she didn't intend of not fitting into the boxes people expect. I wasn't saying her example was wrong, just that to me the bigger picture of the way we demand conformity or something is wrong with a person is faulty, and it is hard to see past that. I just really don't like anything that reminds me of being depersonalized and marginalized for failing to conform, and the argument the education system fails girls or fails boys or fails this or that group to me sets up competition for scarce resources rather than allowing focus on addressing the more fundamental lack of humanity that can exist in our education system.

To me, you are a person not a statistic and not a stereotype. And I think many of us here get caught up in details about things and that holds us back rather than helping us find happiness. It's certainly hard not fitting in, and I understand being older adds to that experience.

I hope you are starting to see through the confusion of things being complicated and at least start to find a path to go toward something where things are simpler. Are you finding any value in these pages?

That (what I underlined) really is a valid point, which explains of course why people are so resistant to me mentioning this concept. A complete flip is not what I ever try to accomplish when I mention that book and the research behind it; the goal is to keep from reaching negative conclusions about people based on how they did in the educational system K-12. Well, and maybe I like to use it to get teachers to take silly things out of their grading rubrics, like 10% for how well a child illustrated the book report.

RetroGamer, you ask a lot of valid questions but it would take a book to answer them, even if I knew all the answers. Just focus on the parts you can see and relate to, and that give you the path forward: the developmental timing difference and how that means you don't give up on your future based on your past academics.

We've gone a bit off-topic, sorry, but ... anyway, good luck to both you and Sly.

That is exactly the story of my life. My Therapist has labelled me a late bloomer. I didn't get the things late most people get earlier in life until I was 29 or so. It bothered me at the time, and still bothers me today if I think about it too much, but at least I did bloom. It is really tough to be behind your peers in this area. You see everyone else getting the important things in life (relationships, careers, etc) and figure there must be something dreadfully wrong with me. I lived with those feelings much of my life. I can only guess that the Asperger's, substance abuse issues, and a differing rate of maturity all affected me in those areas. I will probably never fully know why I accomplished those things later than most of my peers. That lack of knowledge/understanding is tough for someone like me who is a "figurer-outter", who wants to know why everything happens.

No matter where you are now, there is always the ability to change things for the better. I don't know exactly what happened around age 28 or so for me that really changed my luck in those areas. I saw similar things in the field of academics. I was always told I was smart and gifted, but my grades in elementary school weren't all that great, and were pretty horrible in junior high. I got Cs in many of my classes and a D in math (I ended up getting a minor in math in college). Everything just clicked when I got to high school and I ended up ranking 29th in my class out of 536 students, got a nearly full ride scholarship to college, got invited to join Mensa based on my ACT score, but still suffered socially. The human brain is still mostly a mystery to us, and why it matures at different rates for different people, and even why it matures at different rates for different abilities within the same person is largely unknown.

Newsweek ran a cover story a few years ago about "Why we are failing boys". The entire 7 or 8 page story could have been summed up in one sentence it contained-"We treat boys like they are defective girls." Our society, at least in the US, has moved to rewarding more feminine traits and demonizing more masculine traits. Boys probably do have higher rates of many of the developmental disorders, and many of the mental disorders, but are also probably diagnosed more because some what we label disorders today might just be due to having an overabundance of masculine traits.

One of my friends was telling me about a movie he saw a few years ago that was a truly awful movie, but which contained a great quote. One of the characters in the movie said at one point "It will be alright in the end, so if it is isn't alright, then it isn't the end." Point being, as long as we are still alive, we still have the possibility to change and to obtain the things we want in life. In my mid 20s I pretty much concluded that I would never get married and probably never have another relationship because my history in those areas was really poor. Women didn't seem interested in me (I now know they might have been but I couldn't pick up the signs due to Aspergers, but again, they might have actually not been), I had no luck getting a date, went for 6 years from age 22 to 28 without having much of anything resembling a date at all, and that is probably prime relationship and dating time for most adults. Last year I celebrated 15 years of marriage, and it has for the most part been a relationship better than anything I could have ever dreamed of or hoped for. I am now rather glad that my one suicide attempt wasn't successful and that I didn't give completely up on life.

Damnit. I meant to write " How does present day girl oriented teaching differ twentieth century boy oriented teaching?Fair enough it really would take a book to answer all my questions. I'll get the book on Kindle when I get the chance.

You're not talking about academic performance are you? But still, I can certainly empathize with getting hung up about a late start in relationships. Seeing teenagers walk through the mall hand in hand can drive me insane.I know. I still can't figure out why as an 18 or 2 year old I wasn't able to do things I can do today. DW_a_mom would say it's because I wasn't yet mature and she's probably right. It's hard for me to remember that I thought very differently in those days, even though though on a purely cognitive level I had about the same level of intelligent. I shouldn't fault myself in the past by applying present day standards to me in the past. Not only was I less mature then, I had different goals at that time. I didn't fail to achieve my goals at the time and I can't fault myself for failing at goals I hadn't yet though of (maybe I had thought of them, I was much more ambitious and happy as a 14 year old than I was from 15 to 18. From 19 to 24 I was happy but still without ambition. I was in a spell of blissful apathy. Something went very wrong when I was 15. I had a sort of breakdown and I regressed somehow.

And yeah I hate not knowing. I can think of a dozen turning points in my life that I could have handled differently. Could I have made things turn out better? I'll never know.