Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

[scrimmage]

Clueless Guys Can't Read Women
Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Thu Mar 20, 10:32 AM ET

<!-- end storyhdr -->More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on, and a new study discovers
More precisely, they are somewhat oblivious to the emotional subtleties of non-verbal cues, according to a new study of college students.

"Young men just find it difficult to tell the difference between women who are being friendly and women who are interested in something more," said lead researcher Coreen Farris of Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

This "lost in translation" phenomenon plays out in the real world, with about 70 percent of college women reporting an experience in which a guy mistook her friendliness for a sexual come-on, Farris said.

Some might think the results come down to "boys being boys," and so even the slightest female interest sparks sexual fantasy. But the study, to be detailed in the April issue of the journal Psychological Science, also found that it goes both ways for guys - they mistake females' sexual signals as friendly ones. The researchers suggest guys have trouble noticing and interpreting the subtleties of non-verbal cues, in either direction.

The study's funding came from the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Flirting or not?

To unravel it all, Farris and her colleagues examined non-verbal communication in a group of 280 undergraduates, both men and women with an average age of 20 years old.

The students viewed images of women on a computer screen and had to categorize each as friendly, sexually interested, sad or rejecting. Each student reported on 280 photographs, which had been sorted previously into one of the categories based on surveys completed by different groups of students.

Overall, women categorized more images correctly than men did. When it came to friendly gestures, men were more likely than women to interpret these to mean sexual interest.

More surprising, the researchers found guys were also confused by sexual cues. When images of gals meant to show allure flashed onto the screen, male students mistook the allure as amicable signals.

So ladies trying to brush off a guy at work or the gym may need to be, uh, more direct. Men in the study also had more trouble than women distinguishing between sadness and rejection.

Programmed for sex

The results help to tease out the underlying causes of guys' flirt-or-not mistakes. One common explanation for reports of men taking a friendly gesture as "she wants me," is based on men's inherent interest in sex, which is thought to result from their biology as well as their upbringing.

Following this idea, men and women would be aware of the same behavioral cues, but men would have a lower threshold for what qualifies as sexual interest. In contrast, women would wait for compelling evidence before labeling a behavior as sexual interest.

However, Farris and her colleagues didn't find this to be the case. Rather than seeing the world through sex-colored glasses, men seemed just to have blurry vision of sorts, overall. For instance, the college guys sometimes mistook sexual advances as pal-like gestures.

"I would say that there are many factors that could relate to men demonstrating insensitivity to women's subtle non-verbal cues," said Pamela McAuslan, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, who was not involved in the current study. These factors would include socialization, gender roles and gender stereotypes, she said.

For instance, "women are supposed to be the communicators, concerned with relationships and others ... men are supposed to be less concerned with communication and to be constantly alert for sexual opportunities," McAuslan said. "This could mean that men in general may be less sensitive to subtle non-verbal behavior than women."

That doesn't mean such men can't learn to read cues or that all men are clueless decoders of women's gestures.
"These are average differences. Some men are very skilled at reading affective cues," Farris told LiveScience, "and some women find the task challenging."

Original Story: Clueless Guys Can't Read Women
link:
Clueless Guys Can't Read Women - Yahoo! News

 

[winkyduck]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

in a word

FUCK YES

i am TERRIBLE at reading signs

if she tears off her clothes and breathlessly throws herself on me saying she wants to fuck my brains out - even i know that is a good sign

if she has the football team beat me up and throw a restraining order on me - i think that is bad, right

other than that - i am CLUELESS

a few times i have been in situations where things were going well (or so i thought). all the signs women have that they are interested in you were there so i ask them out and get a "NO". how was i supposed to know these women are LESBIANS! has to be - right - no other reason they would turn me down, right?

 

[TomBrady#1]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

I am with Winky. TOUGH,. But lets get real. We are all in the same boat and then there is JJ GOLD CLUELESS. That is a special category designed for the bottom of the chick reading barrell leading to get laid once ever 15 years..

 

[Wilson]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

I think all women are like my mom. Everytime I hook up with a woman on the internet they never look like they said they would. One time I met a girl at a Dunkin Donuts and she said it was the best date she ever had. I emailed her the next day and she said she was pregnant and needed money for an abortion. I sent her everything I had and my mom grounded me for a week. Sometimes life is unfair.

 

[scrimmage]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

I am with Winky. TOUGH,. But lets get real. We are all in the same boat and then there is JJ GOLD CLUELESS. That is a special category designed for the bottom of the chick reading barrell leading to get laid once ever 15 years..

You toocan go from this, to

this, by trying this,​

30 May 2007
Confidence Trick

Nice guys usually suffer from a lack of confidence, as discussed in the post on pub/club dating. This results in many a frustrating night out on the town, where the nice guy usually hasn't the cojones to make a move, seal the deal, pull the trigger (you get the picture!).

Without doubt, the most important (and noticeable) attribute of any successful womanizer is self-confidence. Women can sense confidence (or lack of same) in a man like a dog can sense fear. The graph above shows how a man's success rate with the ladies is proportional to his self-confidence. You're as well off staying at home and using the Internet to meet chicks if you are lacking in this department. Unfortunately, confidence if something that you can't really fake - it seeps out from your every pore and forms an aura that women are very sensitive to. If you go out projecting the wrong vibes, you may as well hold up a sign saying "loser" or have it tattooed on your forehead. There is more chance of Brangelina's natural kid being ugly than you scoring in a pub/club!

So, if you want to avoid the dreaded "let's be friends" line, some urgent remedial action is needed. You could try the "I am the man" trick - repeat it to yourself 500-1000 times a day while looking in the mirror (cheap option). Alternatively, you could seek help from a hypnotist/therapist /guru (expensive option) or sign up for one of those dating/makeover shows on TV! In any event, it is vital that you start to believe in yourself before others will.

Posted by Aidan at:
Pseudo-Science of Love!: Confidence Trick<ABBR class=published title=2007-05-30T08:14:00+01:00>

 

[scrimmage]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

Maybe guys are clueless at reading women because the signals they send come through to them sounding something like this:

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[Flamingo kid]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

Guys are trained to think that ANY sign means she 'wants you'.

Guys are usually wrong.

 

[scrimmage]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

Some practical advice for guys,on sending the right message when you're on the prowl.
Want to emit positve vibes as you work the room at the nightclub trying to make some girls?The secret is red,dress like the guys below,you'll stand out in the crowd,and your chances of scoring will increase accordingly.




Red helps say "you've got the look I want to know better"

30 May 2007

Dress to attract attention



Another way for a man to tip the odds (slightly) in his favour when out in a night club is to wear an appropriately coloured shirt/top. Dark colours meld into the background in a dark club and suggest you want to skulk around and lack confidence. Brighter colours, on the other hand, suggest that you areconfident because you don't mind standing out from the crowd.

Being the brightest colour, white might seem to be the obvious choice for the best colour to wear. However, with the ultra violet lights prevalent in many clubs, you tend to fluoresce with a blue hue! In addition, white is associated with purity, which most people aren't necessarily after in a night club!! Other bright colours, such as canary yellow or lime green are bright and will get you attention, but not for the right reasons! This is shown in my second colour chart above. To prove that I am not biased against red (see post on hair colour), it has jumped to top of the class! Red is associated with action, courage,confidence, and vitality - just the sort of traits you want to project in the heat of battle.

I happened across this fact by accident with what became known as my "shifting* shirt". My trusty red polo shirt was commented on many times by the ladies and definitely increased my chances from practically non-existent to negligible! Another way you can dress to increase attention from women is to wear something unusual or a top with something unusual/humorous written on it. This will give many women an easy opportunity to strike up a conversation with you.

*Approximately equal to "scoring" in Irish slang.

Posted by Aidan at <A class=timestamp-link title="permanent link" href="http://psciencelove.blogspot.com/2007/05/dress-to-attract-attention.html" rel=bookmark QaJgi="0" zOoa3="1"><ABBR class=published title=2007-05-30T17:28:00+01:00>17:28</ABBR>
from:
Pseudo-Science of Love!: Dress to attract attention

 

[scrimmage]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

Clueless in reading ?

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11 May 2007

Guys who can figure women out


I know what you guys are thinking - where the hell did he get that 2.5% from? Who are these gurus and how can I emulate them? Just bear with me for a moment. They say 10% of the population is gay and in the case of gay men, we can assume that half (5% of men) of those are the feminine type and the other half are the butch type (what is the male equivalent of a butch lesbian anyway?!). Out of the feminine 5% of men, I postulate that half of those can figure out just what the hell is going on inside a woman's head! The ironic thing for the ladies is that the only men that have a hope of understanding them are the very ones who will never fancy them. Hence the maxim "the best ones are always gay ". It's ironic for men too, because to have a hope of understanding women, you have to err, share their interests! It's a cruel, cruel world!

For the 90% of heterosexual men, unfortunately the bewilderment, perplexity, puzzlement and confusion must go on. We have to try and figure out just what is going on inside that gal's head at that point in time. While men are pretty much constant in their outlook, women are time variant depending on hormonal activity! As Reilly's first law on women states:

"You can't apply logic to illogical beings"

or

"You can't apply rational to irrational beings"

Even Einstein himself was not immune to this phenomenon. He might have been at home developing complex equations that accurately model/explain things like Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and the universe, but he was still clueless when it came to the chicks! He made the mistake of marrying an intelligent woman for his first wife and his first cousin for his second. Q.E.D.!!

Posted by Aidan at <A class=timestamp-link title="permanent link" href="http://psciencelove.blogspot.com/2007/05/guys-who-can-figure-women-out.html" rel=bookmark zOoa3="1" QaJgi="0"><ABBR class=published title=2007-05-11T20:08:00+01:00>20:08</ABBR>
From:
Pseudo-Science of Love!: Guys who can figure women out

 

[scrimmage]

Re: Are Guys Clueless in Reading Women ?

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LOW, DOWN, DIRTY

SAD GALS WANT SEX

By RITA DELFINER,NY Post

March 22, 2008 -- Depressed women have more sex than those who don't have the blues, according to a new study.
A survey of Australian women found those who are mildly or moderately depressed get their groove on one-third more of the time than those who aren't - whether or not they are in a relationship, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Being sexually intimate may give depressed women a comforting feeling of security, said Dr. Sabura Allen, a clinical psychologist at Monash University in Australia.

"When people are depressed, they feel more insecure about their relationships and concerned that their partner may not care about them or find them valuable," she said. "Having sex helps them feel that closeness and security."
Allen and her team analyzed the sexual experiences of 107 depressed and non-depressed women in relationships, the newspaper said. The researchers found that the women suffering from depression tended to be more sexually liberated and if they were single, likelier to engage in casual sex.

"It was more sex and more of everything from kissing to petting, foreplay and intercourse," the newspaper quoted her as saying.

Does that mean sex could help relieve depression?

"We really don't know, but we presume it helps, as it gives these women opportunities to be close to their partner and loved," Allen said.

In New York, Dr. Xavier Amador, a clinical psychologist and professor at Columbia University, who is not involved in the study, said the findings make a "lot of sense."

"My guess is, had she studied men with mild to moderate depression, she would have found the same thing," he told The Post.

Amador emphasized that the study did not look at women who were severely depressed - since one common symptom of serious depression could be loss of libido.

"Women who are mildly depressed will turn to sex for comfort," Amador said. "In the short term, sex is one of the best antidepressants out there.
"Depression is what I would call an affiliation emotion. It causes us to seek out other people. It motivates us to connect."

He said it's important to distinguish between normal depression, "which is sad or blue moods that everyone gets from time to time" and the illness of depression, "which is the very severe depressed moods that last for two weeks or longer and is accompanied by other symptoms like a loss of libido and suicidal feelings, among others." With Post Wire Services
From:
LOW, DOWN, DIRTY - New York Post