Day 40: Lies We Believe

 

 

Sayings like this really irritate me. There are so many stereotypes about women, and men have a tendency to buy into them. This one goes a little  farther:

 

There is nothing like having a conversation with a guy and having him suddenly ask why you're being quiet, and asking if you're mad. If you say "Nothing is wrong", they assume that there is something wrong. If you say everything is fine, that apparently means you're furious and simply trying to make a point.   

It is very hard to talk to people who makes assumptions about the things you say based on crap "facts" like this. I've known people who believe this list of words so deeply that after a while, I don't even care to talk to them anymore. I have to try to remember what list of words has secret hidden meaning to their twisted brains. I try to say what I mean, so if I say I'm fine, I usually am. If I say I'm fine and I'm not, it means the person I am talking to can't do anything about it, so for all intents and purposes, I'm still fine. If I tell someone to go ahead and do something, I couldn't care less if they do it or not. And then of course, there's the fun time when I say that nothing is wrong, and the person keeps pushing it, insisting that there's something wrong, because a woman never means nothing when she says nothing.
Being introverted, I am often quiet, especially in social situations. It seldom means that I am mad. It means that I am listening and observing what is happening. I get mad when someone informs me that, because I am quiet, I am mad. Let's all listen to Stephen King in this situation. Quiet people (and that includes women) are usually thinking. They're not thinking about how to kill you (unless you've just asked them 20 times why they're quiet, and if it's because they're mad at you).

 

Women lying in social situations has become such a stereotype that even other women think that these things are true. I usually see women posting the 'deadly terms' image. It makes it so that we have to look even closer at the things we say. We're not censoring so that we don't offend, or to be sure we're saying what we mean to say. We have to see if we're going to be looked at as liars when we're being absolutely honest. Seriously, it gets to the point where I wonder why I even talk to people. It takes way too much time to figure out what the other person is going to think I'm saying.