Actually I don't think men and women are all that different
I see there are some differences in subtle averages of behaviour, but one thing this QOTW proves is that people vastly overestimate these differences. Men and women seem to get on best (as friends and happy relationships) when they take more notice of the similarities than the differences. If you don't understand men/women, have you tried starting from the assumption that they work the same way as you then correct the subtleties from that angle? The people who whinge they don't understand the opposite sex tend to be the people who start from the assumption that men and women work in totally different ways and try to build up the entire model of opposite-sex pyshcology from scratch, failing to realise that applying the model of *human* psychology to both instantly gets you 99% of the way there. Women might sometimes object to being treated like men but we take far more offence to not being treated as human. The differnces seem huge, but that's only because things that are different/annoying/unexpected stand out massively more than things that smoothly go unnoticed.

If men/women make no sense to you, it's probably because they're failing to fit the totally incorrect model you're assuming they fit into, and not showing as many differences from women/men as they're "supposed" to. Also, once you have worked out what the real differences are, bear in mind that variation between individuals is far greater than the average differences between men and women - some men are more feminine than most women and vice versa. So even if you think you have worked out what things make the opposite sex different to yours, don't assume too rigidly that the member of the opposite sex you're currently talking to fits that model perfectly.
(GothicTechie, Tue 29 Dec 2009, 14:07, 4 replies)

nice read
I think this is what causes hostility between humans in general though, e.g. within sexes. I mean, if a man has his own idea of what a man should be then he is bound to make no sense of a man who doesn't fit the idea.
E.g, I play a lot of live music - when we do weekends and you get more of the beer-drinking/fighting crowd we instantly split the audience down the middle. On one side you've got people who understand what you're doing and either like it or dislike it, and on the other you've got people who have no idea what's going on and either hate it or aren't sure what to think. I'm guessing this comes from the fact that their idea of masculinity isn't wearing a suit playing a saxophone. And the women have the same reaction.

It's ridiculous but if you talk to "them" afterwards they're often hostile to start with, but as soon as they realise you swear, drink and smoke, they start to warm to you (although still with their backs to the wall).

It probably sounds like I'm generalising but this is a VERY regular occurrence!
( valoukh newsgash.wordpress.com, Tue 29 Dec 2009, 14:27, closed)

Be in a band that plays glam-rock
The best live acts in pubs tend to be those that play a set list that includes music that the audience grew up with.

My mate was in a band in the 90s that played glam-rock stuff, complete with makeup and wigs. Ten years on, he's in a different band that plays early 80s synth stuff. In both cases, they always got an encore.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 29 Dec 2009, 15:13, closed)

blues and soul
classier audience required :)

edit: we've never not had an encore. that's not the point. the point is there's always somebody in the audience who doesn't understand what's going on. We've had people pointing at saxophones asking what they are, but they still danced and screamed when we played.
( valoukh newsgash.wordpress.com, Tue 29 Dec 2009, 15:16, closed)

Really?
There are people out there that don't recognise a soosaphone when they see one?? How bizarre!
(RVD420 has his world coming down on, Tue 5 Jan 2010, 17:27, closed)