In answering this question, most men would probably say men are nicer, and most women would probably say women are nicer. However, I think the answer is somewhere in between. Often, when people are in a customer service position, say for example at a store, men seem friendlier and more willing to help than their female counterparts. They have more energy. On the other hand, when it comes a serious situation in life, women demonstrate more empathy and sympathy than men do. If you are having an emotional crisis, a woman is going to be nicer than a man, for the most part, because women connect better at an emotional level.
Women, it must be admitted, do say things to men that men would never say to a woman. It has become common for men to resign themselves to this reality. The next time you are in a public restaurant, listen to the conversations between men and women. Ideally, they will be alone. I bet you that before long, the woman will say something in a frustrated way to the man, insult him, etc. Not because she is trying to be mean, or unfriendly, or not nice, but just because women can get away with more when it comes to having a conversation with a man, than could ever happen the other way around. But don’t believe me: make a point of listening to the conversations of others, and see if I’m not right!
I think it’s because women are so much better at communicating than men are. Men, for all of their good intentions, good qualities, and general all-around niceness, are woefully bad at communicating beyond the necessities. Consider texting. If you are a woman, how many times has a man, in the middle of a conversation, simply stopped texting? If he is not interested in what you are saying, chances are he will simply stop talking. Women find this inordinately rude. I hear from a lot of women how much they hate this when men do it. So men, if you are reading this, do not leave in the middle of a conversation on text. You wouldn’t do it in person (hopefully) so don’t do it online or when you are texting.
There is one more point that I would like to make. I remember reading with a great deal of interest a while back in a book on psychology that in an experiment, boys and girls reacted differently to the same situation. I think they watched a video where something unpleasant happened and someone was hurt. Little girls watched the video, but little boys tried to turn it off, because they simply couldn’t handle the pain that the other person was going through. What I have learned from this is that men possess greater empathy than society has considered in the past. Maybe they just need to be coaxed more to express themselves so that they can share this empathy, the ability to connect with others and identify with them on an emotional level, on a higher plane.
I have tried to be as fair as possible in writing this. Perhaps men will feel that I have been too harsh on them, and women will feel that I have been too harsh on them. Let me know! The overall objective of my blog is to create a culture of tolerance between people of different cultures, including religions, but a secondary goal is to show that the moderate answer is usually the best one.
