Insight into guys, for the teen girl

[mollyringle]

My younger sister writes:

---

I have been the therapy go-to for a teenager who is going through her very
first real heartbreak. It involves the normal crying, asking questions,
speculating, wailing, wanting-to-change-her-hair, overanalyzing, and
general life sucks kind of things.

After I got off the phone with her, I asked Justin a question which I
would like you to all answer:

I know that men and women Think differently/ process events differently. I
know that during times of heartache men do not sit around with their
friends and cry, do drastic things to their hair, overanalyze, etc.. So...
what do they do? Do they brood? Do they go do Active things to distract
themselves? Do they dive into their work? Do they take a deep breath, and
then cope and move on? Do they punch holes in walls? what?

---

I answered:

Poor girl. She will never ever get over it. (Until of course next year. And then when she's 27 she'll email him and they'll have a good laugh and ask each other how their spouses are doing, and it'll all be fine.)

My instinct is that younger guys (teens) go into a sulk and get really irritable, and older guys throw themselves into work and projects, also with the irritable. Some drink. Some slag the girl off to their friends. More emotional types will sit around with their friends and dissect it and ask "why, why, why," actually. Really depends on the guy. But that's just my instinct. I'll ask my LiveJournal people and see what they think.

So. Go ahead, tell us what you think.

Comments

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

I think that you know men. :-)

I would just add that younger guys will also tend to put on a brave face and pretend that they REALLY don't care all that much about the breakup. They will invariably tell their friends that THEY are the ones who initiated it, regardless of the truth. Can't have the implication that the guy did anything to precipitate the problems, after all.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

That's true, there's a lot of "Wasn't worth it anyway" and "I let her down easy" tossed around. :)

[kenshi.livejournal.com]

You obviously know what you're talking about. That's exactly how most guys behave in that situation. The one alternative is the "stalker" route in which he decides that if he just did the right thing, he could win her back. Unfortunately, the right thing does not include being creepy and hanging around all the time.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I forgot the option involving a restraining order. :)

[leduck.livejournal.com]

If you're several of my male friends, you're traumatized and don't date for another few years.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

True, some will play the "women only hurt you" card...

[dirae.livejournal.com]

Ahhh. The teenage boy mindset. From my observations of high school boys they will-

a. Act moody--down to moving to the other side of the classroom to get away from her, leaving the room when she enters, refuse to acknowledge her, etc.
b. Jump into a rebound-a-go-go usually with an associate of the former girl so either he can spy of his former flame, try to make her jealous, or punish her in some way (or a combo of all three).
c. Act as if they haven't broken up -- still follow the same routine, etc until she gets totally frustrated or scared of him. This often happens even if he dumped her.
d. Try impassionedly to win her back usually with "mix tape" masterpieces
e. Some throw themselves into their friends and hobbies, but this also includes the self-analysis and the fraternal re-building of friendships that suffered because of the time the girl took away from his friends. This also includes the friends helping him with his self-esteem if he was the one dumped.
f. Many will bottle up their emotions and not discuss it at all. They erase the girl from their lives. It is as if it never existed.

These are just some of the repetitive actions I've seen my students exhibit. Often times the boys don't bring the drama into the classroom like the girls do--it makes my life easier.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Definitely seen some of those in my time. And it's good to see John Cusack's legacy live on in option D. :)

My high school boyfriend sort of tried option C on me. I tried to break up with him and he said he wouldn't "let" me. I was too young and confused to understand for a while that it really didn't work that way.

[threerings.livejournal.com]

I asked my husband.

He says "Talk to friends. Drink. Get angry. Break shit. Cry, when no one's looking."

Sounds about right to me.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

When simplified like that, it isn't *so* different from how women react. As I suspected!

Interesting Answers...

[thomas-a-kempis.livejournal.com]

Different generation here; cry...doesn't enter the mind. You would only cry if your Mom died, nothing else makes the grade unless *maybe* you accidentally ruin the engine in your motorcycle or something like that.

Feel rotten for a while until locating a six pack of good beer, consume immediately and restore system software to the point where you first met the girl in question. Proceed as if you never met her. If the condition recurs, repeat the treatment until well again. This always works, sometimes it just takes more beer than other times.

:)

Re: Interesting Answers...

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

*laughs*
Actually, for many guys, not much has changed over the generations.

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

I'd say it probably differs from person to person. I know guys who just go into their work room and come out a few days later having constructed a cedar chest/painted a landscape/built a motorcycle practically from scratch. At which point, I offer food and a beer and suggest that maybe a shower would be good sometime in the near future.

And I know guys who want to give me the long (really long) sad story of their heartbreak from beginning to end and then have a very ill-fated conversation with me that always starts with "Marie...you're a girl...explain why..." At which point I profess to be from Neptune in a desperate attempt to avoid having to explain girls to anyone because really, I don't understand them myself most of the time.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Your first paragraph reminds me of Owen Wilson in Meet the Parents--"Yeah, I carved it [the wedding gazebo thing] out of a single piece of wood."

And the second reminds me of Spike crying to everyone about how Drusilla left him for a Chaos Demon. Which, really, no one else can explain either, Dru being all kinds of insane from the get-go. :)

[elycia.livejournal.com]

Well, here's a few approaches of fellows I've known over the years:

Guy #1: Go on long walks, brood, whinge at your best female friends until they stop returning your calls, and date a series of utter skanks.

Guy #2: Threaten suicide. As in, call the ex on the phone while holding a gun to your head, and say you're going to pull the trigger. (Drama queen much?)

Guy #3: Do horrifyingly dangerous drugs, in even more horrifyingly dangerous combinations. And don't forget the booze.

Guy #4: Go out and drive like an absolute maniac in your souped-up car--or worse, on your motorcycle.

Guy #5: Send flowers with a "Have a nice life" note and go join a softball team.

(And yes, surprisingly enough, #s 1-4 survived into adulthood without suffering any truly debilitating injuries or contracting any fatal communicable diseases, though I attribute this entirely to dumb luck.)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Kind of scary, but I'm glad they survived! I'm thinking there are as many approaches as there are people, though I see some definite major trends emerging...

Thanks Everyone!

[peggycafecafe.livejournal.com]

Thanks! this has been very helpful. I am younger sister to Lemonlye.

I wonder if most guys I knew were just not as In Touch with their inner-selves. Most I knew acted as if it was just another day. There may have been some slight brooding, but that was just about it. The more emotional guys came in college, but not high school-- and that was even hanging out with the goths and the theatre people.

lemme rephrase that-- the guys in high school WERE freakishly emotional-- but that was only DURING the relationship, not afterwards. Altho.. thinking more on it.. one did get rather paranoid and think that I was sleeping with his brother (which I was not) and purposefully destroying his stuff (which I also was not doing)... so yeah, he was basically taking his crazy pills.... or, as I found out later, he WASN'T taking his anti-crazy pills. ah, meds....

Re: Thanks Everyone!

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Hrm, I can't actually remember who that last guy would have been. None of your boyfriends had brothers, that I can remember...

Re: Thanks Everyone!

[peggycafecafe.livejournal.com]

well, this one was a few years younger than me, had a ferternal twin brother, and they both liked me as equally as they were melodramatic twits. We only Dated officially for.. 4 days? but the drama, oh the drama went on for months.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Ahh, Twit and Twod. I thought of them, but didn't think there was any actual dating. I must have forgotten those 4 eventful days.

[bluesound.livejournal.com]

Call me Captain Tangent! My mind went for a wander while writing this, but it loosely all ties in.

I suppose it varies from person to person and depending on the strength of the emotional attachment and how it happened. For example I assume cheating might be easier to deal with because you have anger which you can be dealt with in different ways from a break up with no real reason behind it.

Give the later, cry, feel low, mope about lots, etc, etc. Everything will feel as if someone's bled the colour out of life. I found it hard to concentrate, and it's hard to deal with. It'll be talked about with friends and go round in circles until you realise that you are the only person who can change things. I think most things are like that. I ended up moving, got new friends (the same people I know now) and as they say time heals all, more or less.

When I used to see that person or someone that looked similar but was never quite sure because I couldn't see their face. I'd get a surge of adrenaline which is not pleasant, it happen the other morning as well and this is about 10 years later! I guess it happens because I never got closure on that one and as a result made some mistakes which are well known.

In contrast to me, someone I know, not particularly pleasant man I might add did something quite well... I'll tell you once I've thrown some background infomation in.

He is...
a) stalky (poor the ladies) - He claimed that our friend Tracey was desperately wanting him and would tell anyone. That's some delusion, considering the fact Tracey fell out with

b) has a napoleon complex (whether this is because he's 5'2" or has a 3" cock we don't know)

c) Unpleasant

d) cheated on his ex-girlfriend (who he treated quite badly) with a friend's sister, who then proceed to reveal the information in b)

e) attention seeker (see x3 text messages at 4am strongly hinting he's going to kill himself and umpteen posts on live journal being similar. Oddl y the posts are usually at 4am or 5am and deleted the next morning. I reached the stage a long time ago where if I ever get another text like that he will get a sarcastic comment like "You're not going to off yourself, we'll see you around next week, and oh I take the post you've just made on livejournal will have disappeared by the morning. Don't worry I've taken a screenshot to humiliate you with later."

f) doesn't treat his friends well either and is pretty much a parasite.

g) does not know when to go home. Tries to stay up all night or stay at friends places rather than go home himself, which is probably due to loneliness, but it becomes incredibly annoying. Instead of going home when a friend of mine had impressed a couple of students. He stood at the end of an alleyway and listened as the friend was tossed off by a student. THEN proceeded to moan at that friend that they were making too much noise because he had to hear it. This has to be one of the funniest things I have ever heard.

h) nothing is EVER his fault, despite him having anger problems, nothing is ever his fault. He was on tablets for depression and such, he stopped taking them because 'I felt like a zombie' and from what I gather never seemed to stick to them long enough for them to take effect.

With this is mind we get back on topic. His girlfriend broke up with him due to him being extremely jealous (she works as a barmaid in a strip club) and him just being generally vile. He tried smashing stuff up in a friends flat because when she phoned his ex as the ex won't speak to him, she said the wrong thing.

He has tried talking to her himself and well usually makes it worse. He claims he says the wrong thing, but what he's not revealing is that he has gotten into rage and started shouting at her. He then mopes about it the next day with poor attempts at cryptic messages on his LJ. The best one we found out resulting in him being banned from his favourite pub. His ex used to work there, and lives with the landlady of that pub. However... last time he screamed at her that she want a "CUNT!" and spat in her face. Classy!

So there you go... some of us mope, talk and cry, others get anrgy and violent. Even though I went off on a bit of a tangent I hope you enjoyed the story.

Yum!

[peggycafecafe.livejournal.com]

What a Prince Charming! Sign my up for a session with him!

sheesh!

Re: Yum!

[bluesound.livejournal.com]

Did I mention he's 35 and has never dealt with the fact he's adopted. It's sooo wasy to keep giving the boy chances, because he can be quite a laugh, but after his continual behavioural issues over several years I just try and avoid him when possible.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Yeees, that sounds like a very charming man indeed. Classy, as you say!

Re. Napoleon complex: some comedian recently asked, "How come no one ever says that tall people have a Bin Laden complex?" :)

...until you realise that you are the only person who can change things.

At least you did realize that. Some people go their whole lives complaining and waiting for others to "fix" it. (Like I'm sure you've never noticed.) :)