I have outgrown men

[Namechanged007]

Before all the namalt brigade come along I'm well aware.

Thing is it's true I have outgrown the ridiculouness and childishness of men.

I'm married but even so I feel like I'd be better off alone most of the time. Nothing wrong with dh as such but I'm more able and stronger alone.

I have just been to the pub and all the women were complimentary of each other. Going with the flow. And enjoying themselves. The men were either grumpy or showing brovado. There was an incident on our table that involved new men intimidating each other and I just went home.

The thing is this isn't a table of young men. It's professionals and grown ups. I just cant be bothered with it.

None of the women got involved but it spoilt the night.

I told dh I don't have time for such pathetic behaviour.

It never ends. It doesn't matter how old or wise we become men seem to revert back to this strange behaviour.

I deal with it day in day out at my work and I simply can't be bothered. If I never had to see another man, mansplaining, dominating conversation, throwing their weight around, bravado, dick measuring, causing a scene in my life it would be too soon.

Absolutely done with it.

It's just a circle jerk thread of misandry for very bitter people. Yet they're the first to call out misogyny.

I'm sure male behaviour on the whole has got much worse over the last few decades.

It feels to me that all sorts of things have got worse over the last few decades. The world is now a greyer, colder and more pointless place. But rationally I know it must be me that has changed, rather than the world.

I've no idea how women have been assigned the rep of being bitchy. By far the most vicious, subtle and insidious verbal nastiness I witnessed at school was among the boys, especially the more socially sophisticated among them. Making the gentle, trusting, perhaps slightly immature boys think that they had a friend and then using that to ridicule them in front of the other kids, for example. Competing to make new teachers cry (which they would do). Humiliating girls with sexual and non-sexual remarks, sustained over long periods of time. All verbal, and then with physical harassment of others - girls and the smaller boys - on top, taking advantage of their new physical strength.

On a nicer note, there's a book called 'Call Me When You Get Home' which does its bit to try and dispel the myth that bitchiness is female.

Because most peoples experiences don't mirror yours

I've only ever encountered bitchyness in women, at school, in work

The female dominated workplaces I've encountered have been far worse than the male dominated ones

There is even a thread from last week about nursing as a whole being quite bitchy a profession and hundreds of posters with lived experiences backing this up, and stating it's due to the sex mix of staff.

I find women harder to get along with as a whole. I have lovely female friends but as a group, women are harder to get along with than men in my experience.

Good to see Annie come back and explain why it is that she is thus far so unaware that many men are just too much hard work. Possibly she got a good one who will last the entirety of her life, which is nice. I think it probably does take a long relationship or two (or three), or just a long time around other people's male partners/friends to realise you don't want to hang out with them anymore.

I hadn't made the connection between approaching the end of your childbearing years and suddenly not really being bothered about men anymore. I am about to turn 40 and am definitely experiencing this! I have a decent dh, but if he died or left me I think I would relish being single.

Most of the undesirable behaviour probably comes down to instincts and how they would behave 'in the wild' - my dh seems to descend into a cave man when he's watching sport for example - I can't stay in the room with him as he shouts really aggressively at the TV! My two male dogs tussle for the position of top dog by humping each other - the willy waving and my Porsche is better than your Porsche sort of behaviour I often see in men is the civilised human version of this - I guess they would have physically fought in the mud as cave men! The ancient parts of our brains are still there.

Perhaps all the men had in common was that they had been dragged to a gathering of women by their other halves?

So … a mixed-sex group, then. Which it was.

Sadly I have seen and experienced this loud boorish behaviour you describe. It as if there is a class of men looking out for someone to impress. They usually choose the quiet people m or f will do, whoever is handy!
For me it seemed they got an extra kick from putting down a man, (me) thinking the glam women would be more impressed.
Feeling they had won was their main aim.

Men are every bit as bitchy and gossipy as women. But when they do it its called banter 🙄

As I've got older, I think I've become better at spotting men who are like this (obviously, not all men). You can tell when they are posturing and trying to impress each other (and probably deluding themselves that everyone in the vicinity who is exposed to their tedious, over-loud boasting, is also impressed). As you age, your bullshit detector becomes better tuned.

I have to say it also picks up women who are showing off and being tedious. It's really people in general being over-loud and doing those little glances around to see who is looking at them.

@Annieisalright

You could take a moment to consider if you are the one with a view that is not accurate or is overly rose-coloured?

Rather than it jus being about women’s view changing at menopause, have you considered that men also no longer make efforts to hide their true selves from older women?

I was quite recently like you — I worked long hours in a very male-dominated workplace and apart from a few old dinosaurs, I thought most of the men were great, good guys, some of them even my friends. How naive I was! I was young and not stunning but passably attractive. I had no idea how much men moderate their behaviour around women who are still at least nominally on the “fuckable” list. I had a baby in my late 30s, was very ill with serious complications, and came back from that overweight and tired and looking older and (clearly) no longer in the young and potentially fuckable bracket.

It was like women say about becoming invisible on entering menopause — overnight I might as well have turned into a cabbage. The men who had previously been all smiles and jokes now barely bothered to speak to me, I was ignored in meetings, and most of all, they no longer bothered to moderate their behaviour when I was present, so I got to hear all their sexism, entitlement, ego, boring and sometimes offensive opinions all without the filter I then realised they carefully cultivated for women they wanted to impress. I saw all the same “good guy” behaviour that formerly they had carefully cultivated for me, now directed at other young women — but now it was like I was on the other side of the curtain, standing in the wings, and could see it for the performance it was. Men I had thought were good friends, good guys, barely bothered to chat with me any more; and when they did they treated me like an idiot.

I don’t even know how conscious they are of it. Some certainly are; but for the most part I think it’s just also automatic — once you don’t register in the “women worthy of attention” bracket it’s like all of that gets turned off without them even thinking. And suddenly they aren’t such great guys anymore: because you’re now just part of the furniture you get to see the unvarnished truth about what they’re really like (almost to a man, selfish, self-centred, entitled, moany, humourless, huffy, petty, quick to anger, dismissive of people they think “lower” than them in status).

There’s nothing to make the scales fall from your eyes about men faster than suddenly getting fat and ill, especially if it coincides with your status changing from “young woman I want to impress” to “middle aged mum”. Wow! Just look at the change you’ll see.

It’s not cynicism; it’s sad reality, I’m afraid.

Sounds like the women dragged the men along when they really didn't want to be there. This is why a lot of us don't do Enforced Couples Fun.

I feel like a lot of men are dicks, the majority aren't, and most are somewhere on a spectrum of behaviour.

What I find odd is the idea that women are all so strong, so amazing, so inspiring, as if they don't also exist on a spectrum of behaviour and are just one massive homogenous group of wonderful. Not true at all.

It's pretty patronising to suggest that those who don't hate men are just too young to understand and will get it when they're older. Experience does not always equal wisdom, more often it equals entrenching of biases.

Several women I've worked for in education have been bullying, uncompromising and vindictive. The men I have worked for have been fair, open minded and given me much more free rein and trust.

@ideasmirrour

If you read properly I'm not saying women post menopause have their view changed

I'm saying older men are maybe worse for this

Just like older men tend to be worse for other traits (and older women too!)

As times and views change over the years

I've found older men to be the ones who think they know more than women, therefore are potentially more prone to mansplaining.

I've only ever witnessed this behaviour in older men

So I'm not saying older women have changed their view or are biased

I'm saying their pool of male peers might be the issue, over men as a whole

Yep men are twats

Speaking as a teacher with 25 years of experience, I can assure you that some girls are fucking vile and richly deserve to be called bitches.

I've had many relationships

All with great men who treated me well, many male friends, male family members, my husband, sons (although too young to see if they'll be dicks in the future)

All the men my friends are married to or are dating have been great, friendly, chatty, can mix as a group and not be an issue.

None are sporty people so not sure if that's a factor (as some on here have mentioned continual football talk)

I've worked in male dominated industries and many co worker friendships have been formed.

I've never experienced mansplaining, being spoken down to or being bored by a lout droning on about the latest match of the day.

But then again as I've stated I'm not sure if this is a generational issue, as when speaking to my mother she has definitely experienced men as described on here.

Whenever I have witnessed mansplaining it's been older men doing it, so older women are therefore more likely to experience and interact with similarly aged men, if many of these issues are more common in older men that might be where this view comes from.

Twenty years teaching- hear hear.

All the most vile, sneaky, underhand and revolting bullying has been in groups of girls. Lads have different methods, much less sophisticated.

You need to chose the men in your life better. I have both male and female friends including my male best friend. None of them behave like that, they'd get short shrift if they did, and in my experience some women are just as awful.

In my post above I was talking about men who are now in their late 20s. I don't think age is the most important factor. There are a lot of 'feminist' men today who are simply playing a part. For example, a friend of mine was raped by a guy who was elected president of their JCR after a campaign advertising themselves as super feminist and supportive of minorities. No one would have suspected.

Of course I know that some men can be lovely. I grew up among them, then had a real crisis of confidence in men when I suddenly started having repeated and unreleated experiences of poor male behaviour outside the family. It didn't occur to me that there was a common factor until quite late. I really don't think I'm bitter, but do think it would be rather stupid not to extract knowledge from my own experiences.

I noticed an undercurrent of aggression last time I visited England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿. As a socialist I'm sure there are economic factors at play. But I doubt the majority of English men are boorish dick heads.

Threads like this are a bit biased. People want to vent - and why not I guess.

You’re entirely missing my point though — my point is that men, young or old, behave differently to different women.

You’d be very surprised to see how those younger men that you know, behave around women they don’t rate very highly. Those great guys who seem so different to the old men are not so different underneath — you just get a filtered version of them.

I’ve seen this happen with men of all ages. Once you’re on the other side of the curtain, so to speak, you see men doing it from teenage boys upwards. If anything, at least you know where you are with the grumpy old men. It’s quite a shock to realise that the young good guys aren’t actually such good guys.

Women prefer to protect themselves from this knowledge because it’s psychologically not very nice or comfortable to know, and it makes you doubt your ability to know others, so we make excuses for it and pretend it isn’t the case until it’s no longer possible not to. It must be just that woman’s experience! She’s a cow herself! If she was nicer men would be nicer to her! Women are just as bad! A few might be bad apples but the men I know are lovely! It’ll never happen to me!

I actually agree with you that older men are worse.
My experience of young men is largely quite positive. My DSs and their friends, my DP (who is much younger than me) and his friends, my young male colleagues, in the main seem to show far less of the objectionable behaviour I see in men my age.
There almost seems to be a tipping point at mid 30s, and with few exceptions I can group the objectionable and non objectionable men i know either side of that.
I don't know whether their increased confidence as they move through life makes them more entitled and arrogant, or perhaps the opposite and they're over compensating for feeling inferior to younger fitter men; or whether it's simply down to growing up in different times, but its definitely something I've noticed.