WinterSnowfall: b) Girls. Most women are strange even in their best years (la donna e mobile!), let alone when growing up. Still, I could always relate more to my friends who happened to be girls, but when it got to more than that I always found myself on very uneven ground. Guess it's a pretty common story for us male introverts.
If i could tell my younger self anything, it would be that almost all women lie to themselves about what they want. They're not just ignorant of their own desires, they actively hide their own desires from themselves. It's really apparent when you talk to lesbians or bisexual women about other women, and the inability for them to predict the desires of others or to understand the actions of others without first checking inward is really, really telling. It's not a matter of introversion a male needs, but instead the ability to pick out the separation between words and actions.
c) Unlike most other people, I never had much doubt about what I wanted to do in the future - it most certainly would be something to do with computers and computer programming. The support I got from my family to pursue this in general however was practically non-existent (a situation I've found myself throughout my life). If anything they did their best to get in the way at times. I guess this should be regarded as the no. 1 "stressor". It's less of a concern now when I'm self-sufficient, but having no one you can rely on when growing up pretty much sucks big time.
That's the shit that pisses me off. Often times there ends up being a reason why you're being held back.
teceem: Are you talking about the past or do you still think "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus"? (I don't relate, I don't agree)
WinterSnowfall: Talking about the past, mostly. People are unique and there's really no point in generalizing, but, that being said, men do tend to be simpler creatures :P.
There are also local social aspects that have to be considered, besides culture. A region's poverty level will also influence the type of people you come in contact with, and "less than ideal" characters can at times be common occurrence with both sexes, to a point where it becomes less a story about a few "bad apples", but rather a few "good apples".
Besides that deeper nuance, yes, there are some places/cultures on Earth where "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus", especially in, but not limited to, the Arab world.
It's more separation for the arabs, and abuse. If you need to see the separation between actions and words, then the limitation of exposure is only going to make the situation worse.
WinterSnowfall: Besides that deeper nuance, yes, there are some places/cultures on Earth where "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus", especially in, but not limited to, the Arab world.
teceem: I disagree. People are people; they're not a "different kind of human" because they live in a culture/country with strongly defined social gender roles. Or did you mean your own "disconnect" from very different kinds of cultures?
In general, there's a lot less difference between a man and a woman, than there is between any two random individuals - whatever their sex/gender.
There is a strong impact, to a degree. This can be seen by the strong correlation in behavioral issues with indivudals (both male and female) whom do not know their biological father, vs those who had a strong biological father figure. I do believe we severely downplay the differences between the sexes. While, i agree from a morality perspective, the manifest behavior of both males and females are quite different. Just look at the number of female programmers, or the number of male nurses. I could mention plenty of other occupations, but those two are good enough. And this manifest difference is even more obvious when you get into sexual selection.
