Congratulations for having reinvented the idea of managing expectations! If you managed to do it independently without ever having read about it, it is quite a feat! I was taught this in a Buddhist meditation group, they told me it is not having to endure something unpleasant is what makes us unhappy, but the expectation, the hope that the unpleasantness will go away, and then feeling let down when it doesn’t. And the solution is to work on your expectations.
That is of course easier said that done. A thought exercise like assuming the munching sounds will go on forever and you just have to live with it forever is certain helpful. Mindfullness meditation done right helps even more. In this type of meditation you just take every thought or sound as it is, without judging it, without hoping any change or lack of change, without expecting anything and letting impressions come and go.
Also, problems like this are solvable. The problem is that you don’t want to offend coworkers. While that would worth an article on its own, it seems offense happens in an uncanny valley between being super nice and super funny rude. Because it is obvious that being super nice offends no one, but also we males tend to have a second trick with each other: be really super rude and it too will not offend people because it goes beyond that and becomes a parody of an offense, a good joke. So I could tell a male coworker hey hippo if you did not chow crap down your hideous excuse of a gullet all the time while sounding like a whole flock of rabies infected swine feeding, you would not have your own gravity field dwarfing some lesser planets. Then he would call me a pimple full of puss on a donkey’s backside and suggest me to orally please a metric ton of tiny monkeys and we would both laugh and there would be no offense done and he would get the message of turn down the noise. But I know women don’t usually do this. I think women need to learn to borrow this. This is classic counter-signalling: being overly rude means you are good friends. If you are not sure signalling a problem nicely would not give offense, you could try signalling it so rude that it can only be a friendly joke.
Nobody said women don’t understand signalling, just don’t tend to use this particular kind of signalling.
I am not convinced about anhedonia (or minor depression, it overlaps). Sounds like an American cultural construct: you are expected to always feel “great” and run around with a smile. But for example in an ex-Soviet culture, what is called anhedonia is largely normal: you focus on trying to survive and cope, not on feeling good. I don’t know if there is a culture-neutral objective platform from which it can be evaluated accurately… but clearly, evolution does not “want” you to be always happy, but only when you “earned it”.
You’re asserting that despite women’s knowledge of signaling, they’re not using it as well as men within friendships (in this respect). We observe that men share less with friends, tell researchers they want more intimacy with male friends (though I can’t find a quick source for gender difference there), commit suicide more often, and die more often from “boneheaded” or ambiguous actions. (On the plus side, silence makes us less susceptible to psychosomatic contagion.)
How is sharing, intimacy, suicide etc. even relevant to this type of signalling?
Not “not using it as well” but “not using this type”. I.e. this does not mean being worse at signalling, it means having reasons for not using this type.
I don’t know the reasons, but I have a hypothesis. My hypothesis is that one reason may be the social expectation that women should not engage in brawling, fist-fighting, while it is more accepted for men. I think for groups of people where it is more accepted, offense and insult is often understood as a challenge to a fight. Therefore, putting offensive things in a non-challenging way makes them clear they are a joke. For groups of people where offense is not discarged with fists, because there is a social taboo against it, it means offense does not lead to hurting each other: it is, in itself, the hurt. So the offense, the emotional hurt lingers there forever, there is no possibility to discharge the emotional energy in the catharsis of a brawl. Therefore it is harder to get accross that it is not serious. This would be my guesstimate.
It’s relevant to your original claim that people who appear better at friendship than men “need to learn to borrow this.” It’s only relevant to your current claim—which contradicts the old one—because you haven’t shown that “women don’t usually do this.” I know I’ve heard young women doing something among themselves that could be what you recommended.
We observe that men share less with friends, tell researchers they want more intimacy with male friends
I think that’s mostly a skill problem. Most men don’t know how to share intimacy with their male friends in a way that works for them. I think saying “Most men don’t understand sharing intimacy” does have relevant meaning in this context.
Congratulations for having reinvented the idea of managing expectations! If you managed to do it independently without ever having read about it, it is quite a feat! I was taught this in a Buddhist meditation group, they told me it is not having to endure something unpleasant is what makes us unhappy, but the expectation, the hope that the unpleasantness will go away, and then feeling let down when it doesn’t. And the solution is to work on your expectations.
That is of course easier said that done. A thought exercise like assuming the munching sounds will go on forever and you just have to live with it forever is certain helpful. Mindfullness meditation done right helps even more. In this type of meditation you just take every thought or sound as it is, without judging it, without hoping any change or lack of change, without expecting anything and letting impressions come and go.
Also, problems like this are solvable. The problem is that you don’t want to offend coworkers. While that would worth an article on its own, it seems offense happens in an uncanny valley between being super nice and super funny rude. Because it is obvious that being super nice offends no one, but also we males tend to have a second trick with each other: be really super rude and it too will not offend people because it goes beyond that and becomes a parody of an offense, a good joke. So I could tell a male coworker hey hippo if you did not chow crap down your hideous excuse of a gullet all the time while sounding like a whole flock of rabies infected swine feeding, you would not have your own gravity field dwarfing some lesser planets. Then he would call me a pimple full of puss on a donkey’s backside and suggest me to orally please a metric ton of tiny monkeys and we would both laugh and there would be no offense done and he would get the message of turn down the noise. But I know women don’t usually do this. I think women need to learn to borrow this. This is classic counter-signalling: being overly rude means you are good friends. If you are not sure signalling a problem nicely would not give offense, you could try signalling it so rude that it can only be a friendly joke.
Um, the way they expressed it is false. People with anhedonia don’t necessarily know they’re miserable, and are still miserable by my definition.
I’ll also go out on a limb and say that if you think women don’t understand signaling, you should likely not be advising others.
Nobody said women don’t understand signalling, just don’t tend to use this particular kind of signalling.
I am not convinced about anhedonia (or minor depression, it overlaps). Sounds like an American cultural construct: you are expected to always feel “great” and run around with a smile. But for example in an ex-Soviet culture, what is called anhedonia is largely normal: you focus on trying to survive and cope, not on feeling good. I don’t know if there is a culture-neutral objective platform from which it can be evaluated accurately… but clearly, evolution does not “want” you to be always happy, but only when you “earned it”.
You’re asserting that despite women’s knowledge of signaling, they’re not using it as well as men within friendships (in this respect). We observe that men share less with friends, tell researchers they want more intimacy with male friends (though I can’t find a quick source for gender difference there), commit suicide more often, and die more often from “boneheaded” or ambiguous actions. (On the plus side, silence makes us less susceptible to psychosomatic contagion.)
How is sharing, intimacy, suicide etc. even relevant to this type of signalling?
Not “not using it as well” but “not using this type”. I.e. this does not mean being worse at signalling, it means having reasons for not using this type.
I don’t know the reasons, but I have a hypothesis. My hypothesis is that one reason may be the social expectation that women should not engage in brawling, fist-fighting, while it is more accepted for men. I think for groups of people where it is more accepted, offense and insult is often understood as a challenge to a fight. Therefore, putting offensive things in a non-challenging way makes them clear they are a joke. For groups of people where offense is not discarged with fists, because there is a social taboo against it, it means offense does not lead to hurting each other: it is, in itself, the hurt. So the offense, the emotional hurt lingers there forever, there is no possibility to discharge the emotional energy in the catharsis of a brawl. Therefore it is harder to get accross that it is not serious. This would be my guesstimate.
It’s relevant to your original claim that people who appear better at friendship than men “need to learn to borrow this.” It’s only relevant to your current claim—which contradicts the old one—because you haven’t shown that “women don’t usually do this.” I know I’ve heard young women doing something among themselves that could be what you recommended.
I think that’s mostly a skill problem. Most men don’t know how to share intimacy with their male friends in a way that works for them. I think saying “Most men don’t understand sharing intimacy” does have relevant meaning in this context.