Why are so many men jerks?

Answer 1

Bad GuysHere are opinions:

• Most men are not like this. Because some women have had some bad experiences with men doesn't mean every guy they come across is an ass. Some men are spoiled as children, but there is no corrolation to this and some males can be brought up in a strict home (and all mothers are not good mothers) yet they still turn out this way. The way to get around this is start seeing the red flags and only dating the nice guys.

• As a 35 yr. old female and the expereinces I have had, I could think all men are jerks easily. But what I have to remind myself is that if I carry that attitude, these losers I have been with will still have power over me. They ar not in my life but if I think like that, they are having extreme power over my thought, actions and happiness. When you meet a loser and have your heartbroken, that consumes you. Its hard to see outside that little box. In addition, if the man was an abuser, he has almost created or changed your worldviews as he does not want you to notice the good in the world. He does not want you to know a very big secret, that there are alot of nice men in the world, who will treat you right and that life is full of opportunities and growth. He wants you to stay stuck in a world where your self esteem is gone, where you barely make it through the day, where you isolate, where you give up on your dreams and rely on HIM! Dont allow this man to determine your future. Make it as good as you can. One day you will be with someone nice and he may ask you about this creep. And hard to believe, but you will be so indifferent you wont even feel like talking about it. I guarantee. But give it time and be patient. And most importantly, realise your thoughts are not clear yet. You need time to decompress if this man was abusive.

Since then, women have won the freedom to be treated as equals, but that hasn't changed the fundamental nature of men, or women, for that matter. What it has changed, is it's also freed men from having to be gentlemen. I'm not sure why, but I think it has to do with the fact that it, too, was born out of a man-dominated society. Somewhere around twenty years ago I remember it became improper for a man to hold a door, or chair, for a woman, old fashioned to ask her out on a date, and so on. These were the only manners we had learned, and now women saw them as sexist.

In fact, I remember learning from my WWII dad that the only way to treat a woman properly was to put her on a pedestal, so to speak. The only alternative would be to express my inborn caveman instincts, and this was unacceptable. When Freud talked about repressing the sexual instinct in the late nineteenth century, he was spot-on correct for the men of his time.

When all of this was thrown out back in the twentieth century, with the advent of women's lib and the sexual revolution, there was nothing that replaced it. Women were free to act as they felt, and so were men, with no real guidelines of what to do, no taboos, no peer pressure to be genteel or polite.

That's where we are today. I'd rather not see men become functional drones, only useful to women for "fathering" their children, but it seems to be the way things are going. Since men's sexual instincts and compulsion to dominance are repulsive to women, and since it's not required of them to suppress it anymore, society has become broken. We cant go back, and we aren't going forward very well.

To do so would require a new set of social interactions to develop. Unfortunately, as you and others have noted, women seem to be attracted to just those same male characteristics that are no longer required to be suppressed. On both sides, our society has become more sexual, and the primitive roots of sexuality are part of the package.

It would be interesting to hear what women and men younger than myself might have to say about this.

Answer 2

Husbands belong to the genus homo idioticus. Somehow when we marry them, we have the ability to turn a perfectly reasonable male into this genus. It never fails that the man we marry invariably becomes either a small child who decided that we are their mother, or they decide that we are their child. Either way, this all occurs within the brain of a perfectly logical, mature man when he marries.

The reasons for this abberation is unclear. Perhaps it is in the alteration of the brain chemistry when we feed him properly. It is well known that The Bachelor of the species is a notoriously bad eater, preferring to graze at fast food places. Perhaps it is the influence of proper sleeping habits and the curtailment of alcohol consumption. After all, staying up all night and drinking beer is not the proper habitat of homo sapiens. In any event, this phenomenon does occur and we must live with it. Efforts to resist this effect can include refusal to produce his meal or insisting on separate sleeping arrangements. The latter is most effective because a couple of nights on a sofa is not comfortable.

For extreme misbehavior the last resort is to use the tirade/silent treatment ploy. In our experience, one does not use the silent treatment without a tirade first. The tirade enables one to voice the perceived ill use most effectively. The following silent treatment will enable the culprit husband to reflect on his bad manners without interruption. Never let the tirade degenerate into an argument! This tactic is very powerful and must be used with discretion. One note...always get his attention before launching the tirade. It does no good to voice your displeasure when he is not listening.

My sympathies my dear. May this current difficulty be resolved shortly.

Counterpoint

Excuse me? These are generalities and I protest. Not all husbands are jerks and I venture a guess that most are not jerks at all.

And all the blame can't be placed on the man in this case. As said above "we have the ability to turn a perfectly reasonable male into this genus." The woman did marry him, she obviously didn't take the time to figure out who he was. And then tries to change him into what she wants instead of what she got.

Point-CounterpointIndeed and indeed. This is a very necessary adjustment, done all the time. As a very wise woman once told my husband, "Do not criticize your wife's judgement....Look who she married." The critical lady? His mother.

The trouble sometimes can be that we as women criticize our own judgements. I daresay that this questioner has resolved her issue.

Answer

If all of your husbands are jerks, then the simple solution is to stop marrying jerks! Also it might not hurt to take a look at yourself before you shoot right into blaming your husband(s) for everything. Unless, of course, you are unable to recognize that you might have faults too.

Answer 3

Well, I'm a dude myself, and I think we tend to be jerks because we are usually selfish and greedy. We may think we need to be "the boss" over chicks. We may also like to pick on girls sometimes and not think before we say something.

Answer 4

It really depends. I'm a girl myself, and sometimes, we just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Did you ever do anything to that girl? Is she just stuck up? If so, she's probably hurting inside, or getting over a bad relationship. Maybe, she's just not really into guys, just like my best friend. Some girls were just born mean, selfish, and greedy jerks, but who knows why?