From: weaver@jetsun.weitek.COM (Michael Gordon Weaver)
Newsgroups: alt.romance
Subject: Re: LJBF again
Date: 2 Sep 92 01:10:52 GMT
Organization: WEITEK Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Sep1.092522@cs.bham.ac.uk> jml@cs.bham.ac.uk (Jane Littlehales) writes:
>From New Woman magazine, Sept 1992, p15
>
>'Men are three times more likely than women to misinterpret friendliness as
>sexual interest and are then twice as likely to think they were deliberately
>misled.'
>
>One reason for men to feel LJBFed more than women?
>
>Jane


I think the article has it right. First, a man talking to a woman,
or a woman talking to a man can feel like Alice talking to Humpty-Dumpty,
who says a word means what I say it means. I suppose this is because
men mostly speak to men and women to women. 

Second, women generally have more practice in reading people thanks to
their stereotypical role, in which they get what they want by adapting
to the people around them. Men tend to play the authoritarian role,
where they get what they want by pretending to be oblivious to the
wants and needs of those around them.

Third, expression of sexual interest are going to be subtle (unless 
they are already known), and so more trouble than other areas. And 
again, women are expected to be more subtle about this.

Still, I don't think this has much to do with why men seem to get
LJBFed more than women. I think (and I sure someone will correct me on
this) that LJBFs typically happen at two points in a relationship:
when one partner wants to initiate a romance, or when one wants to end
a romance. In both case, I think the two partners disagree more on
where they want the relationship to go rather than what the
relationship is.

Here in alt.romance, almost all the LJBFs we hear about are from men
who want to start a romance. Now, you may think, why would someone 
want to start a romance with someone, unless they have already
shown an interest in them? I think the answer to that is that by
expressing an interest, you may hope to spark an interest within
the other person. Of course, as a practical matter, it probably 
best to only show a little more interest in the other person than
they have shown in you, but all lack common sense now and then.
I won't get into why men seem more likely to take on this role
as initiators, that is another discussion.

Of course, I may be simply extrapolating from my own one true LJBF
experience.  It happend long enough ago that I can laugh about it
now. I think the exact phrase was: 'I think you want to be more
than friends'. 

I became fond of a woman who seemed difficult but worthwhile, and
decided that I would take whatever time and effort to develop a
relationship between us. I knew that this effort would be likely to
fail, but I thought it was worth the effort.  I thought I was being
patient, tactful and restrained, but apparently not. She broke our
first date with a lame excuse, and instead of complaining like a
sensible person, I waited and asked her out again. My reward for this
was the famous LJBF speech.

I mention this because her theory about why this had happened was
similar to yours: I had somehow interpreted something she had done as
an invitation. She tried a few times to get me to tell her exactly what
it was that she had done that I had misinterpreted.  I supposed she
hoped to avoid having to go through the LJBF speech again with someone
new.  And in fact, she was a terrible flirt and flirted with me
constantly before and after the LJBF, and I enjoyed that, but I didn't
see it as an expression of intent on her part.  I always found it funny
because she seemed to be saying I wouldn't have fallen for her if she
hadn't pushed me, and that all it would take was one push.

I like to think I have avoid getting another LJBF speech by knowing
when to stop pushing. I don't try to guess whether the woman is
interested in me, I try to watch her actions to gauge how she is
handling her end of the relationship.  Because not only can you be
mistaken about someone's interest in you, even if their interest in you 
is stong it they may be unable or unwilling to commit to a relationship
with you.



Your friend,
Michael ;-)
Newsgroups: alt.romance