Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I (40m) have just gotten out of a 13-year relationship with a woman and one of the reasons she left me was because she said she was tired of having to TELL me how she felt and what she needed. She also said that all straight cis men are like that, but gay men, trans men, and other women “just know” what women need and how they feel and it’s effortless.
Is that true? I would really love to be able to understand women the way other women do and be able to be a true friend to them, rather than just a drain on their emotional resources. Thanks.
Speaking A New Language
This is a weird one, SANL, because your ex is not entirely wrong… but she’s not entirely right either.
Right off the top, let’s separate your ex’s complaint about your relationship from “all cis men are like that and all queer men have instinctual knowledge about women.” These are ultimately two very different issues. The former is, presumably, the problem that she had with you in this relationship. The latter is… well, it’s her universalizing things in a way that isn’t helpful and seems to be equally about her frustration with her relationship with you and with cis straight men in general.
(There’s some loaded shit in there that we’ll get to in a second.)
Now, as I said: your ex isn’t entirely wrong in what she’s saying. Leaving aside the specifics of what happened in your relationship in particular, cis straight dudes on the whole have a hard time not just communicating with women, but also with emotional intelligence and fluency. In fact, it’s something that’s actively encouraged and enforced by other men, especially the grievance-peddling slap-dick “masculinity influencers” who lament about how “men aren’t manly anymore” – a complaint that is literally older than steam.
It’s a big part of the toxic masculinity package; straight men are socialized to be detached from their emotions and feelings because it’s seen as being weak, “girly” and/or “gay”. As a millennial, you may or may not remember all of the jokey-jokes and comments about “sensitive, new-age men”, where the punchline is that they’re all weepy messes who are overly sensitive and Alan Alda was catching strays for some reason. Those joking-but-no-seriously bits were part of the reinforcement – direct and indirect – that generations of men have grown up with, to the point that we don’t even recognize it for what it is.
This isn’t some Men are From Mars/Women are From Venus gender essentialism, it’s training. When you take generations of straight boys and teach them that “having feelings that aren’t anger, horny or greedy” makes them weak and femme, and, likewise, socialize them to think that talking about emotional needs or deep, significant topics are bad, you end up with generations of men who are deeply uncomfortable with emotions, don’t know how to communicate well with others and have decades of emotional constipation to deal with. When you combine it with the social expectation that this is ultimately not just women’s “work” but also their responsibility to manage… well, you get a lot of women who are understandably fed up and frustrated at having to be the both the Feelings Translator and having partners who seem to not understand or care about how their partner feels.
People who aren’t as bound up in restrictive and hegemonic ideas about masculinity, on the other hand, tend to be more emotionally fluent and are frequently better at communicating in general. This has nothing to do with gender or sexuality; it’s not anything that’s inherited by having two X chromosomes or absorbed through the right bits going in your mouth. This is about practice, pure and simple.
A guy who played on his high-school and college basketball teams is going to be a better player than Johnny Random who plays the occasional pick-up game with his buds, simply because he’s spent more time practicing and playing. Same goes for communication and emotional fluency. Social skills are skills, after all; it’s right there in the name. Every skill is improved through use and deliberate practice, and communication skills are no different.
The dynamics in the relationships that aren’t centered around straight cis men tend to encourage more in-depth communication, sharing and empathy. The saying about how male friendships are side-by-side and female friendships are face-to-face is very much in play here. The time that straight male friends spend together is often centered on doing something together – playing games, watching TV, etc., where bonding and sharing feelings or emotional intimacy may or may not be an incidental byproduct. By contrast, for women and non-cis, non-straight men, talking, bonding and sharing is often the point of getting together.
Thus, it’s not that women, queer men and trans men all are all just “instinctively” better at communicating and understanding. it’s that they’re statistically more likely to have spent more time doing it, and so they’re better at it.
This is why treating it like this is somehow intrinsically tied to biological sex or sexual orientation gets some serious side-eye from me. That tacitly buys into the same toxic beliefs about masculinity, and it implies a hell of a lot of bullshit beliefs about queer men in general.
I mention all of this because this is precisely how you start being more of a true friend to women and less of that emotional drain that you mentioned. I have no idea what complaints your ex may have had, and I don’t know whether they’re legitimate or not. You’re the better source for that, so you’ll have to tell me. If your ex was expecting you to be a near-literal mind reader, as opposed to just being frustrated over your being incurious or unobservant… well, that’s on her for not dating Professor X or finding someone possessing the Phoenix Force. But if not, if there’re specific things that your ex has complained about that lead to this break up, those are a good place to start. At the very least, it’ll give you some guidance on areas where you may be struggling.
But absent specific problems that need to be corrected, the vast majority of being a less burdensome communicator is going to come from simply working on your communication skills. There’re a few places where you might find structure that could help – a book club, for example, where discussion tends to be a little more directed – but most of the time, it’s going to come about from being willing to talk and more willing to listen.
While some of it will entail your becoming more aware of – and more comfortable with – your emotions, a lot is going to come down to things like being an active listener instead of waiting for your turn to talk. You also want to make a point of making sure you’re understanding them, especially if you’re not sure. A lot of problems could be avoided by someone saying “OK, just so we’re on the same page, you’re saying/asking that…, yes?” or asking for clarity when you’re unsure.
Just as importantly, you want to take proactive steps to know what somebody is thinking or wants, rather than making assumptions. There’re a number of potential pitfalls here that folks fall into, especially if you are relying on broad cultural narratives about gender and gender roles. Many of the reasons why men have a hard time communicating with women comes down to them working from the belief that All Women Are Like That (source: Dude, Trust Me). Similarly, everyone also has their own way of expressing themselves that can differ from what we’re used to. This is part of why we talk about things like “love languages”; they’re handy guides to the many ways we communicate our feelings for others. Part of being a good partner – and, in my opinion, part of the fun of a new relationship – is learning about your partner’s communication style and how to understand their “language”, just as they are learning to understand yours.
Incidentally, paying attention, asking questions and making the effort to be proactive in understanding others correctly is important. A lot of people, especially in the neurodivergent crowd, get caught up in the “well, I assume that if it’s important, they’d tell me” trap, where they presume that if it’s going unsaid, it can’t be that big of a deal. The problem is that this isn’t always true… in fact, many times, what’s going unsaid is even more important.
It may be going unsaid because the other person is also making assumptions – such as you already know whatever they’re not saying. Or it may be because they think that it’s obvious when it isn’t, or because they themselves have a difficult time expressing it. Neither of you are mind-readers, and neither of you should act like the other is; cleark and open communication is part of how you understand one another and how you make a relationship a success, instead of a draining, frustrating nightmare.
Good luck
Dear Doc,
My cousin and I have always been best friends since forever. We’ve always been more like sisters than cousins. Growing up, she’s always been stubborn and refused to conform to any traditions that she didn’t see the point of. She’s always done her own thing her own way, often to the frustration of my aunt and uncle, and her dating life isn’t any different. She’s been in a polyamorous relationship with her boyfriend and a second man for the last three years. From what they’ve told me, they’re all dating each other rather than my cousin dating two people at the same time. So, her boyfriend is also dating her other boyfriend as well. I don’t think I could do it, but it works for them and that’s fine with me. I think her boyfriends are both terrific and the four of us hang out together all the time.
The problem that I’m having is that not many people know about this arrangement outside of our circle of friends. They’re not exactly waving flags and parading their relationship through the streets, but they’re not actively hiding or lying about it either, with one exception: our family. None of our parents know, and my cousin wants to keep it that way, at least for now. As far as our parents are concerned, my cousin and her boyfriend let one of their friends move in to their spare room to help pay the rent.
I understand why she’s keeping this a secret from them. The older generations of our family are very conservative and I think there would be an absolute shitstorm to a point of possibly disowning my cousin if word got out. At the same time, it makes it hard because I want to be able to include everyone in her relationship in events and gatherings and that gets hard to explain sometimes without revealing the secret. It’s fine to invite them all to things like birthday parties, but family events like holidays, baptisms or weddings are a problem. They couldn’t include Boyfriend 2 without a lot of questions, since he isn’t “family” the way Boyfriend 1 is.
This has been on my mind recently, because my boyfriend and I are getting engaged soon and we’d like my cousin and her boyfriends to be part of our wedding. Excluding one of them from family events feels shitty and unfair, even when it’s for understandable reasons.
What should we do? I know it’s not my life and I don’t have to live with what happens if my aunt and uncle find out, so I feel weird about it bothering me. Do I bring this up to them as a concern? Do I not mention it to them and help keep their secret until they’re prepared?
Family Support Structure
This is a tricky one to answer FSS, because there aren’t really a lot of clean-cut, easy answers.
On the one hand, this is an example of how being secretive about your relationships and living situation doesn’t just affect you, it affects everyone close to you. You, FFS, are being dragooned into protecting your cousin’s secrets, which puts a not-insignificant burden on your shoulders. You (and your boyfriend) are being asked not just to not say something, but to keep track of who is In The Know and who Cannot Know, to coordinate cover stories with your cousin and her partners (so you don’t trip up and give things away by accident) and to talk around subjects that, likewise may give the game away. And since you can’t be 100% sure who is trustworthy with the secret or not, you’re stuck in a position to lying – directly or indirectly – to a whole lot of people.
On the other hand… your cousin isn’t necessarily wrong to be worried about the potential shitshow. If it were just a family issue, that would be one thing. Sometimes you just have to let the closed-minded members of the family have their tantrum until they wear themselves out. It sucks, especially if you’re otherwise close… but it’s noise and thunder more than meaningful impact. Especially if your cousin is financially independent of her parents.
But unfortunately, there is a reasonable worry that it could be worse than just upset parents throwing a fit. I know that it feels like everyone and their cat is in some polyquangle tangle these days, but being open about being in a non-traditional non-monogamous relationship does come with risks beyond family drama. There’re legitimate reasons to worry about other people reacting badly to finding out that they’re a poly triad – socially, financially and legally. The risks aren’t evenly distributed or applied, but they do exist. A lot of poly people have rolled the dice and came up snake-eyes.
Add this to the fact that a lot of states (and the Federal government) are actively trying to roll back protections for LGBTQ people, and there’s a pretty good reason to worry.
(Could your cousin sue and win over many of these? Possibly… but that’s a hell of an upfront investment of time, money and energy for a “possibly”, or even a “likely”.)
Now a lot of this is contingent on other details like where they live and how close they live to your aunt and uncle. But that’s all math that they’re going to have to do to gauge their risk tolerance.
All of which is to say: it kinda sucks for everyone to have to deal with it and it sucks to be forced to be part of the Secret Keepers. It’d be better if she could be open about it, but this is a case where you kinda have to let your cousin decide her levels of acceptable risk.
Fortunately, in the near term, it doesn’t sound like you need to exclude Boyfriend 2 from much. Depending on how large and involved your extended family is, it doesn’t seem like you’re in danger of having to deal with any logistical tangles about family gatherings where a “good friend” and “roommate” wouldn’t be an acceptable plus one. So, it semes like this is more of a theoretical problem than an imminent one, which means you can kick that metaphorical can down the road a bit.
Some of this isn’t even a problem, per se. If you want him to be part of the wedding party, then that’s your business. The nice thing about weddings is that you get to decide what and who’s important, and you get to justify it all by Bridal Fiat. If you want Boyfriend 2 to be in the wedding party or to seat him at the same table as your cousin and Boyfriend 1, that’s entirely your call. You can tell people that he’s “practically” family, that you’ve functionally adopted him or even just shut up, that’s why.
In the long term? Well… honestly, I’d say that you should ask your cousin how she wants and plans to handle things in the future and follow her lead as best you can. She (and her partners) will have the best idea of what their risk factors are and how they want to handle them. They’re the ones who’ll know whether it’s a matter of drama and discomfort, or if there’s legitimate reason to worry.
Good luck.
