Alright, so not every relationship disaster can be traced back to this. However, a lot of them can.

Our society seems to have this idea that instead of being individuals, people are grouped into two categories: male and female. There are offshoot categories, as well, but those are not the ones I am talking about today. They can fit into what I'm talking about, though.

Human beings, while we are male or female, we are still all individuals. What causes a lot of confusion seems to be men wanting to figure women out and women wanting to figure men out and neither knowing how or being successful. Men don't know what to do to "make a woman happy" in a relationship, and a lot of women don't know what to do to keep their men "happy" in a relationship.

I think that often times this can be figured out a lot more easily than one might think. Stop thinking of your SO in terms of having one brain with all of his or her gender. Women do not all share a collective brain, and neither do men. Men and women are individuals. What makes one woman happy, very well might irritate another woman.

For example, the idea that chivalry is dead. A lot of women are upset with this idea, because a lot of women like for the man to be chivalrous. However, there are just as many women who do not like it when a man is chivalrous at all. Others are content with some form of happy medium.

This is not because women share a collective mind, it isn't because women are hormonal, it isn't because women can't MAKE UP their minds. It is because women are individuals.

Men are the same way. They are individuals. They don't have a lack of hormones, they don't have a lack of feelings, they don't share a collective mind. They are individuals. Sometimes, the way they act can be attributed to society's idea of how a man should act (and women are susceptible to the same kind of societal conditioning), and sometimes simply by the area they live in. But, they are not all the same.

I see too many posts on Xanga, especially on Datingish and Lovelyish talking about men or women in a collective sense, rather than an individual sense. Which is really the sense that we need to be talking about them in, on either side.

If you want to find out what makes your woman happy, then get to know her as an individual. That is the fastest and the best and the most accurate way to figure out how to understand her, how to help her be happy and how  help her grow as a person.

And if you want to know how to make or keep your man happy, women just think of them on an individual level. Get to know them as an individual so that you can understand them better and then you will understand better what will make and keep them happy, and help him grow as a person as well.

It will definitely take work, but it is worth it and you will both have a stronger bond, as well.

To me, this is very simple. But, apparently, to some people it almost seems like rocket science. I can't imagine why. I guess, society likes to group us off and we just follow along. But, we need to stop this. Getting to know each other as individuals is really what is going to stop the major amount of relationship problems that I keep hearing about and seeing.

No, it is not a quick fix. And no, it will not help every problem and doing this will not help every relationship to be successful. But, it might help a lot of people experience longer-lasting, more comfortable and more enjoyable relationships.

Someone wrote a post to Datingish titled: "He's Just Not That Into You": I Highly, Highly Disagree about how there seems to be a mentality among women these days that says that if a guy is into you he will bend over backwards and even do a couple of back flips to let you know that he is into you. His opinion was that this is not even usually the case. That men are often shy, or even intimidated by women they are interested in for various reasons, two of the ones he talked about the most were humiliation and bodily injury.

I'm not even going to get into the stigma of men worrying about being beaten up by women or humiliated by women, because truthfully the fact that there is a stigma there at all irritates me. Women can be that mean and cruel.

I replied to his post and he and I had a discussion on the comment section about it to which he suggested that I make a post about my opinions on the subject. I told him that I really didn't know what I'd say in it without being prompted. Mostly, because I had already said all that I think there was to say. However, I did say that I would think about it.

I have thought about it and decided that I will make a post. It is a two part post, this one tackling the subject of the way women act toward men when faced with unwanted advances. And the second part will be the same, but about the responses men often have.

First, I want to take some time to talk about the worry men have to deal with involving a physical attack from a woman in the event of an unwanted advance.

And just so that everyone is clear right now, I am not talking about men who aggressively advance on a woman and are actually being threatening. I am talking about when a man goes up to hit on a girl harmlessly.

Men often do have to worry about having a drink splashed in their face. One thing men also worry about, apparently, is an unwarranted attack to their family jewels.

I want to say right now that this is ridiculous. No, its not ridiculous that the man is worrying about this, because it can very well happen. There are some really nasty women out there who look nice at first. It is ridiculous that this actually does occur.

There is zero reason for any of that to happen, and the woman who does it is not only overreacting, but she is committing a crime. That's right, a crime. Even something as seemingly harmless as throwing a drink in a man's face is considered assault under the law.

If you knee a guy in the groin, you have to realize that what you are doing is assault. If you are defending yourself, truthfully defending yourself, because this guy was being aggressive and you were truly afraid of immediate bodily danger, then that's one thing. But, if he just came up to hit on you and you didn't like being hit on or you didn't like the pick-up line he used, or the tone to his voice, that's not grounds for assaulting anyone.

A woman can seriously injure a man kneeing him in the groin. It isn't just something that is painful for a while and then goes away. You can seriously impair or completely obliterate his chances of ever having children in the future. That doesn't mean that that is going to happen if you do this to a man, but it is a very real possibility and it does happen. And if you render a man sterile, you are looking at more than just a simple assault charge.

As I mentioned before, throwing your drink in someone's face is also assault. You can seriously injure them this way, as well. If what you're drinking is anything other than water, you can cause serious injury to the eyes or even blindness.

Seriously, that is overreacting, unnecessary and a stale pick-up line or an arrogant tone is not worth rendering someone sterile or blind. Nor is it worth the money or jail time you'll have to spend or serve if he decides to bring you to court. I don't even want to get into all of the charges a person could bring against another person in the even that something that seemed harmless caused a slew of medical and even life altering problems.

Just don't do it. It doesn't matter how arrogant or ridiculous the guy or his pick-up lines are. Just be polite at first, if he doesn't take the hint, then tell him to buzz off. If he still doesn't take the hint, then either leave or have someone make him leave. In most clubs, and some bars, there are bouncers that are meant to deal with guys who won't take no for an answer.

Again, if this turns into a real and immediate worry that he is going to assault you, that's a different story. But, that isn't the kind of situation I'm talking about today.

Another thing that I want to address is the fear that a lot of men have about bringing a woman to court over an assault. Of any kind.

Women, just a word of advice, I would not count on this. Its still generally thought that women will prevail in a situation like this. That's old school thinking, because that's the way it used to be. Note: Used to be. This really isn't the case anymore, and the only reason  more people don't really realize it, as far as I can tell, is because most of the time men don't take women to court for assault. So, it has allowed the old school mentality to prevail, because you just don't see it happening often enough to realize that it isn't so anymore.

But, even as early as the mid-1980's women stopped being immediately considered as the automatic winners in court cases where they used to be. Such as, for example, custody cases. It used to be that in a custody case, unless the woman was extremely poor and the man was extremely well off (and even then it wasn't always in the man's favor), the courts would be reluctant to separate a child from its mother. However, as early as 1985, that was no longer the case.

I know this because I was born in 1985, and that is also the year my mother and father got divorced. They had four children together if you included me. Because of the way things went when my father left, the three older kids were with his parents, and I had just happened to be with my mother. My mother wanted to file for custody of the other three kids and me. She figured that, being their mother, and one of the other kids being not quite even 3 yet, she would be awarded custody.

However, her lawyer had the unfortunate task of cautioning her that while this was her prerogative if she wanted to go for it, the court system no longer worked that way for women. She could not only lose the custody battle for the other three children, but if my father wanted to fight for custody of me as well, she could lose me, too.

So, even that early in the modern game lawyers were having to caution their female clients that if they wanted to fight something, that was entirely up to them. But, they had to be aware that the court system no longer automatically favored the woman.

True, that was custody and I'm talking about assault. But, it is the same basic principle. In both cases, it was usually the woman that prevailed. In the case of custody, it was because the courts believed a child needed its mother more than its father, because the mother was the natural nurturer. In the case of assault, it was generally because the courts believed that a man was more likely to have the height, weight and strength to overpower a woman at any given point should he choose to.

That isn't the case, anymore. True, there are still instances of it. However, they are no longer the norm. So, I really wouldn't bet on winning if you are a woman and choose to unnecessarily assault a man for an unwanted advance, and then find yourself having to go to court.

Another thing I wanted to mention here was this stigma men have on them if they bring a woman to court over assault charges. They feel that they are seen as weak, cowardly and they look like jerks for doing that to a woman.

You know what? I actually don't know that many women who would think that about a guy in this situation, if the woman really did assault him for no reason. And I don't know many guys who would, either. In fact, it would be the other way around. The woman would be considered a bitch for what she'd done and would probably be considered to be getting what she deserves.

Not everyone has this mindset, of course. There really are people who think that a guy should just suck it up and move on, get over it. Why? If someone has assaulted you, then you need to show them that they can't get away with that nonsense. Its the right thing to do for yourself, and its the right thing to do for anyone in the future who might have to deal with that person's anger management problems.

Also, who cares what random strangers think of you? Its true that most people would rather not have random strangers looking down on them, especially if they don't understand the situation and circumstances. But, strangers should be the least of one's worries.

Now, if friends are the worry...then I would think that your friends should support you. Or at least they shouldn't look down on you and stop being friends with you for doing what you think is right after you've been assaulted, no matter if you're a guy and the person who assaulted you was a woman. Real friends will stick by you. And if they can't do that, then they probably weren't as good of friends to you as you thought they were. Which can be hard to realize and come to terms with, but perhaps its better that way. After all, it would probably happen in another situation somewhere down the road, anyway.

And, anyway...there comes a time in every human being's life, at some point, when they have to say to hell with everyone else and stand up for themselves. If you don't love yourself and respect yourself enough to stand up for yourself when someone does something like this to you, then how can you expect anyone else to do it for you or to respect you?

Sacrificing your own self-respect just out of worry about what strangers or your friends might do or think if you stand up for yourself is true weak and cowardly thing.

There you have it, that's my opinion on this whole mess as far as this side of the subject goes. This is how I see it. There really isn't anything new compared to what I wrote in the comment section of the original post by my friend, but here it is in its own post.