Transcription
I'm Dr. Orion Taban, and this is PsyX: Better Living Through Psychology. The topic of today's short talk is how to never fight with a woman. It has been many years since I last fought with a woman, gentlemen, and I very much intend to keep it that way.
My friends, there is absolutely no point in fighting with a woman for the simple reason that you cannot win. Because of the emotional nature of most women, when you lose, you lose, and when you win, you still lose. When it comes to fighting with a woman, the only winning move is not to play. Much like Sun Tzu counseled thousands of years ago, "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle." And this is a worthwhile goal because, let me tell you, gentlemen, my life has been so much more peaceful, so much more loving, and so much more enjoyable since I figured out how to do this. And I'm here to share my secrets with you today. If I can do it, you can do it too.
This may go without saying, but enjoying a conflict-free relationship with a woman starts with appropriate selection. At this stage of my life, I now believe that 90% of a successful relationship is choosing the right person. As I've discussed previously, you can't have any relationship with anyone. What does this mean? Well, in the context of this discussion, it means that you cannot have a peaceful and easygoing relationship with a woman who is disagreeable, or provocative, or addicted to drama, or unable to regulate her own emotions, etc. It's just not possible. And you may need to examine yourselves, just like I did, to determine why it is you may be actively working to keep such women in your lives.
Now, the bad news is that there are a lot of such women out there, especially when we're talking about younger women. However, the good news is that these women tell on themselves all the time. They're actually pretty easy to identify fairly early in the courtship process. And once you do, just stop pursuing her. Let that plate fall. As I've previously discussed, dating is an extended hiring process. Imagine you were interviewing a woman for a job who was difficult and argumentative in the very first meeting. A worthwhile company with plenty of interested applicants would have no problem wishing her all the best with her search. You need to get comfortable doing the same.
And the pathway to doing so is cultivating optionality. Until you get to this point, gentlemen, you're probably thinking with the wrong head, and you will continue to suffer until you bring that thought process a little higher. So, a big part of the solution here is to refrain from becoming emotionally entangled with a woman until you've determined that she is someone with whom you can have a peaceful, conflict-free relationship.
So, let's assume you've already done that, like the wise, high-value man that you are. Does this mean that it's all smooth sailing? Not necessarily. However, what I'd like you to consider is that whether you fight with a woman might have more to do with you than you might realize. Just like women can be disrespectful to men without realizing it, and as I've said, it's their responsibility to stay on the sunny side of the unbreakable rule, men can be antagonistic without realizing it, and it's your responsibility to clarify your tone when speaking with a woman.
I'm using the word "clarify" in the sense of "clean up." Just like I've advised women to remove every disrespectful word, tone, and gesture from their communication with men, I'm advising you men to remove every hint of annoyance, or aggravation, or judgment, or really any negative emotion from your communication with women.
Let me explain. One way to think about women is that they are incubators. Whatever you give them, they will magnify and reflect. Magnify and reflect. That's feminine nature. Give them one tiny little sperm, and nine months later, they will give you back a whole human being. To my knowledge, in every culture that has existed on this planet, the Moon is feminine, and the Sun is masculine. And why is the Moon bright? She shines through the reflected light of the Sun. The quality of the moonlight is almost entirely determined by the quality of the sunlight. Do you understand? If the sun gives off good light, then the sun is much more likely to enjoy that good light when it is reflected back at it. Of course, this isn't entirely up to the sun because the Moon is always shifting through its cycle, but this is the sun's best possible move.
The idea here is to remove every word, tone, or gesture that could be construed as judgmental, condescending, contemptuous, or angry from your communication with women. Why? Because if you give a woman even a hint of irritation, she's going to magnify that into aggravation and reflect it back at you. And if you give her aggravation in return, she's going to magnify that into exasperation and reflect that back to you. And before you know it, you're off to the races. In any case, my point is that the genesis of the conflict can often be traced back to some tiny little trace of negative emotion in your tone of voice.
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Now, at this point, you might be saying to yourself, "Orion, does having some tiny little trace of a negative emotion in my tone justify a woman flying off the handle? Why does she have to make such a big deal out of something so small?" Are you taking the woman's side here? To this, I would respond, "I hear you, my dude." For a long, long time, I thought as you did. And what I have since realized is that, as difficult as it is, it's actually easier to remove every trace of negative emotion from my voice than it is to convince a woman that her emotional response is disproportionate to the situation. That just doesn't work, and I'm nothing if not a pragmatist. I want what works, what is effective.
Believing that women shouldn't make a big deal out of something so small is at odds with the feminine principle of "magnify and reflect." And when I accept that this principle might be true, a lot of feminine behavior makes sense, which is a pretty good test of a theory. Also, I'm on the side of peace and higher understanding. A lot of women have a bunch of nonsense in their heads, which makes relationships with them difficult, if not impossible. But that doesn't mean that we men have perfect clarity either. Clarifying our tone helps us take care of our side of the street.
Now, removing all traces of negativity from your tone is actually pretty difficult. It will take some time to accomplish, basically because you have to learn to be perpetually mindful: mindful of your words, mindful of your emotions, mindful of your expressions. And this ultimately requires you to be mindful of your thoughts, as your thoughts are the upstream source of all the other behaviors. As you do this, you will likely appreciate that you may be expressing negativity, especially judgmentalism, more often than you imagine. You may even have been doing it unconsciously and unintentionally. In any case, you will likely feel better in your own subjectivity when you start to clarify your thinking as well. You're the one who's actually in direct contact with those negative emotions anyway. Wouldn't you prefer not to feel annoyed, or aggravated, or judgmental?
So, what does this mean? Does this mean that you can never disagree with a woman or correct her when she's wrong or check her when she's out of bounds? Absolutely not. But might you need to find ways to disagree, correct, or check without expressing irritation, contempt, or negative judgment? Absolutely.
Now, the flip side of this is that sometimes men can take this advice too far. Paradoxically, the other way that men can unwittingly provoke arguments with their women is by removing all the emotion from their communication. And this is because removing all the emotion from your voice can actually be pretty scary to a woman. It's like she can't feel you there with her in that moment, and that will likely spike her insecurity, which, as I discussed in "Why Women Pick Fights," is one of the primary reasons women can be provocative themselves.
Removing emotion from their voices is actually a failing of intersex understanding. Let me briefly explain. Emotion is generally provocative. I mean, one of its main uses is to motivate emotion, to create motion. So, when men have a problem with other men and we're not looking to escalate the situation any further, as a rule of thumb, we're going to take all the emotion out of our voices. We're going to talk nice and slow, and we're going to be very calm, and we're going to resolve this issue with rational discussion. You see what I did with my tone of voice there?
Men, what you have to understand is that women pay much more attention to tone than we do. If you take all the emotion out of your voice, what does she hear? Does that sound warm and loving? Does that sound like you're on the same team? Not really. And that's going to provoke her anxiety and insecurity because suddenly she feels as though the basis of the relationship is being threatened. And this, in turn, may lead to her escalating the situation in a counterproductive attempt to reassure herself that you are still emotionally invested in her.
So, you want to remove all hints of negative emotion from your tone, but you don't want to remove all emotion entirely. Just listen to how I'm talking now. The goal is to imbue your words with, like, an undifferentiated warmth. And let me tell you, if you have warmth in your voice and a little twinkle in your eye, you can say pretty much anything you want to a woman, and she will listen to you without being reactive. Ideally, she'll even join with you, and you can laugh together at whatever ridiculousness she was on about.
Now, so what do you think? Does this fit with your own experience? Let me know in the comments below. And if you've gotten this far, you might as well like this episode and subscribe to this channel. You may also consider becoming a channel member with perks like the priority review of comments or booking a paid consultation. As always, thank you for listening.