Are women blind, or super-vigilant, or both?

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99% of the time I am led to believe that I am invisible: women don't see me, don't care about me, etc. But then there is 1% of the time when one of those women who supposedly "didn't see me" finally told me why she ignored me. It turns out she reacted to a certain thing I said that she totally twisted and misinterpretted. So, as it turns out I am not invisible. On the contrary, I am super-visible, so much visible that she remembers some isolated phrase I said that I don't even remember!

So then I go and try to explain how she misinterpretted that one phrase that I said -- but she doesn't bother to listen to my explanation. So now I am invisible again. Oh by the way, if she were to use simple logic then she would have known that she misinterpreted what I said since her interpretation doesn't logically add up with the rest of the context. So maybe she "was" blind after all -- to logic -- yet super-vigilant to words, at the same time. So which way is it? Is she blind or is she super-vigilant? That makes no sense at all.

Maybe she is like one of those stupid androids with key word search built into them. Androids can detect key words from a mile away, yet they don't have capacity to think about their context.

To be honest it sounds like this woman didn't care for what you had to say.

Maybe you need to just forget her, move on and plan future interactions with different women.

It wasn't "this woman" in singular. It is a pattern. The reason I used singular is that, in each such situation, it is one person.

But the pattern is that 99% of women simply don't talk to me to begin with, and 1% of women are the way I just described. And this makes me wonder: what if the other 99% are also that way -- in which case it is ridiculous since I am led to believe they ignore me while in reality they nitpick on my every word, just do so in their heads instead of out loud.

As far as the woman doesn't care what I have to say, here is the question: if she truly doesn't care, why did she pay attention to single isolated words? So it seems like a contradiction. On the one hand she doesn't care (since she doesn't listen to my explanation) but on the other hand she does (since she picks apart those single words). So which way is it?

Anyway, here are four examples to illustrate my point:

Example 1 A woman lost interest in me because I told her I went back to school in order to "hide" from looking for job. She said she is looking for a leader and "leaders don't hide". But keep in mind: she went to multiple grad schools too, so she would have been fine with it if I didn't use the word "hide". So why pick on one single word if I could have easily phrased it differently?

Example 2 A woman was pushed away by my obsessing over her yet, at the same time, she also thought I lost interest in her. This right there is a contradiction that I don't understand for the life of me. My own honest self assessment is that yes I was obsessing over her, no I didn't lose interest in her. But how could "she" believe I lost interest in her if she knew I was obsessing over her (as evident by her saying this turned her off)? In any case, when she mentioned she thought I wasn't interested, I said "yes I was interested", then she picked the word "was" and said "so you were interested before and not interested now" I said "yes I like you now" she said "okay, I understand, you were interested before but not interested now". I was like "are you kidding me? I just told you I like you now!" And only few days later -- on my own (she didn't bother explain it to me) -- I figured out that maybe the problem was that I used the word "like" rather than "interested", which she might have taken as liking her as a friend. But you see, when I used the word "like" I meant it as a synonym of the word "interested", I just didn't think that deeply about minor word differences. As far as "was" vs "is", the reason I used "was" is that I was discussing my past behavior that she supposedly interpretted as the lack of interest; since the behavior under discussion was in the past, that made me use past tense. And I didn't re-read it before sending it thats why I didn't realize it might read differently. But, going back to her, what I see is rather interesting. So, on the one hand, that woman is super-vigilant, that she notice the difference between "was" versus "am" as well as "interested" versus "like". Yet on the other hand she doesn't want to think long enough to realize that I can't be both obsessed and disinterested at the same time.

Example 3 A woman was concerned about the fact that I have problems finding a job in the future (since I insist on restricting myself to only my dream job in theoretical physics). I then started to tell her all the backup plans that I have. But it took half an hour to wait for her reply. When she finally replied she said "I appreciate you trying to work through this". I said "I don't care what you appreciate". But you see, I didn't mean it linterally. I meant it sarcastically. What I meant to say was "I don't care about one-liners you send me out of politeness that I have to wait half an hour to get; I want to have an open and honest discussion instead". So of course I care what she appreciates -- if she in fact appreciates it -- I don't care aobut the times when she uses that word to get me off her back. But she totally misconstrued it and decided I, in fact, don't care what she appreciates -- which by extension mean I don't care how she feels. Even though logic says that yes I care how she feels or else I won't be constantly second guessing her lack of response to begin with. Besides, when I truly don't care about something I don't go around declaring how I don't care. For example, I didn't care too much about some of my classes (don't get me wrong: I love math and physics; it is just those particular math and physics classes weren't very relevant to what I do). So did I yell at those professors how I don't care about these topics? No of course not! I was sitting there quietly and dozing off. The times when I say "I don't care" are when I actually "do" care -- enough to get angry about it. And I thought it was just a common sense? Yet that woman didn't get it. Yet, despite not having enough energy to get this concept -- she *did* have enough energy to catch that "key word" and draw a conclusion from it that I don't care how she feels.

Example 4 As you all know, normally I am the one who is long winded. But -- within past 10 years -- I remember maybe 3 or 4 women that were even more long winded than me. In all those cases I was like "great, I finally found my soul mate". But no, it turned out the opposite. Now it was *them" who became upset that I didn't remember every single detail of everything they written. I remember one of them said to me that maybe she got rousy picture of me online and if she were to meet me in person she wouldn't have talked to me on the first place. And I was like wait a second. I thought she was "opposite" to other women in a sense that other women don't talk at all and she talks too much. But now it turns out she is the same as other women since she said she wouldn't have talked to me just like they wouldn't? So then what if its not her who is like them but them who is like her? Maybe -- just like her -- they aren't talking to me because of some minuscule detail that I missed? And I was sitting there thinking they are the ones who are ingoring me.

Did you ever consider that just the intonation of your voice may be wrong?
Language is more than just a sequence of words.

Yes and no:

a) My voice is loud and monotone, so thats why it puts people off face to face

b) The above four examples were all over the text messages. With women in Examples 1 and 4, I never spoken to them on the phone at all, only texted them. With woman in Example 3, I spoken to her on the phone multiple times, but during every single one of these conversations she was all over me and totally liked me -- and then I had the text conversation described above where I blew it (and my voice wasn't involved in that fateful conversation). As far as the woman in Example 2, I did talk to her over the phone and yes it was during the "beginning" of the fight. But that was few days *before* the time when we had that confusion over text. Admittedly, in that conversation during text when she said she thought I lost interest and I said "yes I was interested" she might *possibly* have been referring to the time I spoke to her over the phone. This still doesn't change the fact that this conversation itself happened over texting. Also, if my voice is what caused the misunderstanding, how come during that one and only day we talked on the phone she was super patient (it was me who had a bad day and was using her as a punching bag) yet few days later -- when my voice was *not* involved -- she totally misread my words? To sum it up, Example 2 is the gray area, Example 3 is where my voice most probably didn't matter (since at the time when it was heard things went well) and Examples 1 and 4 is when my voice didn't matter for sure, for the simple fact that they didn't ever get to hear my voice.

So why did you take all this time to type this reply (which I find very nice and well thought of), only to delete it? This leads me to yet another example of the phenomenon I was talking about (and no I am not saying in this way, I know you are married):

Example 5 I used to assume that the reason people in Wrong Planet don't respond to my posts is that they don't have time to. But now I see that somebody took quite a bit of time to write the response, yet they deletted it. So apparently I was wrong in thinking they just didn't have time to reply. Apparently it is a well thought of choice not to.

The reason this example belongs to this list is because of the following commonality: I am led to believe people don't do something because they are busy, but then I find out that no it has nothing to do with them being busy because they had time to (insert the blank). In case of Examples 1,2,3,4 the "insert the blank" is "picking apart the words I use". In case of Example 5, the "insert the blank" is "writing a well thought out response only to delete it". Sure, the "insert the blank" in the former case is bad but in the latter isn't (I liked your response -- and I still have it since I emailed it to myself -- which is how I was able to paste it). But the fact remains: it was clearly a conscious decision not to talk to me and/or not to reply to my messages. Yet I am led to believe that people are just busy. And then I feel ridiculous when I find out that no its not because they are busy.

IDK...lol I guess I was embarrassed thinking I was getting too philosophical or something. But I guess its not such a bad post...but I do have severe social anxiety so I can get unsure of things. Sometimes I wonder if I have avoidant PD along with my ptsd, depression, anxiety and social anxiety.

So whose fault do you consider this pattern of behavior to be?

FWIW, I also really liked your post, and managed to save part of it before it disappeared

You have some excellent insights and I am always looking for ways to promote peace with other people no matter how poorly they are behaving (the part of your post that I saved was the story about the rattlesnake).

Translation: She wants a male provider, a male with a job, and a typical male gender role (aka "leader"), and she picked on the word 'hide' as a sign of lack of masculinity.
It's probably all philosophical excuse, she simply doesn't want one with no job and still studying.




She is childish or isn't really interested.






"I don't care what you xxx" is easily interpreted as offensive, don't use it - I use this when I dislike the person. Weird use of language there, QFT. What's wrong with you? Of course she would offended.

From what you said, she is neither.
Rather, she sounds...

** firstly once you "believe that, it will confirm again and again
**secondly too much of a stare, or insistant eyecontact, may be a problem, eyecontact must be short or it's creepy


** too much insistance, aspie or autistic thing ?, afaik seen more with the male gender; never let off untill you get the last word, which you eventually get by wearing out the other person




the thin line toward abusive, somewhat, if the first to do thing is putting your pov above hers as conditionallity

But you see how you mentioned two items:

Item a: She wants a male provider, a male with a job

Item b: and she picked on the word 'hide' as a sign of lack of masculinity

As far as Item a, that makes sense. But Item b is what I have major problem with. Why would she be picking on single words as a sign of "anything"? I am not a robot, I can't fine tune every single word I use! Let alone the fact that sometimes words are used sarcastically (I am not saying that it was sarcastic in my case, I am just saying that there is no way for her to really know).

I just feel like she needs to have some super high focus in order to even notice that word, and if she is, indeed, so super-duper focused, why can't she pay attention to my explanations?



She acted interested at first, as evident by the fact that she gave me her phone number to text after just 5 minutes of us talking on a dating site. And then she kept messaging me all the time for the next two hours. Then, two hours later, when she started messaging me less and I threw a fit about it, she quickly offered me to talk on the phone. Which is another good sign: she tried to look for solutions instead of walking away. But then, few days later we had the conversation as I described.



The question is not about her being offended, but rather the question is about specific way in which she was offended. There are two ways to be offended:

a) She might decide I am angry person and have a problem with my anger

b) She might take it literally and decide I don't care how she feels

Now, I would have *expected* her to be offended in way "a" but *instead* she got offended in way "b". I would have never guessed it was "b" if she didn't tell me. But after she told me, it was a major surprise for me. Isn't anger, in and of itself, a proof that I *do* care?

As far as eye contact it is circular. The reason I make too much eye contact is that I am obsessing of why don't they start talking to me. And then this itself makes them not start talking to me. However I tried to break that circle by sometimes purposely "not" making any eye contact. But then its not much better either, they still don't start talking to me.

In any case, this whole thing is irrelevant to what happens on the dating sites since they are online. Most women ingnore me and don't reply to my messages. Now, *if* this has anything to do with a couple of misspellings or a couple of wrong words I used in my profile, that would be rather ironic. It would be like they have all this attention span to hyper-analyze my spelling and word usage, yet they don't have attention span to respond.

Now, nobody told me on the dating site about spelling. What gave me this idea is what my mom has to say with regards to my interaction with professors (majority of them are male by the way). So I am used to the fact that when I email a professor they might and might not reply, but my mom was shocked by this. Now, my mom takes hours to compose her own emails and she was sitting next to my computer for an hour trying to edit what I wrote to my professor. Then comes a big surprise: after this email was finally sent, he responded within half an hour! So I just learned something new: as it turns out the professors are over-analyzing every word of my email the way my mom does -- as evident by the fact that my mom's editting made such a big difference. But if they have time to over-analyze every word in my email, why didn't they have time to reply?!

Now, I never asked my mom to edit my profile on a dating site -- in fact I never told my mom I use dating sites to begin with. But what happened with the professor made me think what if with dating site its the same kind of concept? And, if so, thats equally ridiculous.



Here is the thing though. If we are talking about a third party -- such as our mutual friends, or politicians or what not -- then of course we can have different points of view which are equally valid. But here we are not talking about a third party. We are talking about what goes on in my head. But, in this case, wouldn't my point of view be inherently more valid since I am the only one who has first hand experience with my own brain? I mean I am not saying I am smarter or anything. In fact, if the topic of conversation was *her* brain, then *her* point of view would be more valid -- for the same exact reason. In fact, I want to have two-way discussion when I am telling her what goes on in my brain and she is telling me what goes on in hers, and that would clear up misunderstanding. But if she is refusing to tell me her part then what am I to do? I still want to tell my part -- so it becomes one sided. But I want to tell it simply because I feel really frustrated when I am being "told" what I feel when I know for a fact I feel something else.



What was your response to this quote? It seems like it was deleted or something.

Generally speaking, for the sake of answering your question: Yes, they are often extremely vigilant over words, I've encountered some dramas from exes over single words. ie. "G.M instead of Good morning, ie. like instead of love...etc".

Example 1:
Boo's explanation is spot on.
The reason why she didn't want to be in a relationship with you most probably wasn't the word 'hide'. It was that you didn't have a job and your overall circumstances weren't what she was looking for in a partner. You're overinterpreting her use of the word 'hide' when the relevant part of her sentence was that she wants a leader and doesn't consider you to be one.

Example 2:
Before this happened you treated her badly and took your anger for something that wasn't her fault out on her. Her insistence of you not being interested in her based on your exact word choice may have been childish or may have been her making excuses or looking for reasons to break up with you. However, your word choice was likely not the reason why she lost interest. That she had already lost interest was likely the reason why she was nitpicking your words.

Example 3:
'I don't care what you appreciate' is simply a very impolite thing to say. And you saying 'I don't care what you appreciate' may prove that you care enough to get angry, but it does not prove that you care about her the way she wants you to care about her.