As a woman, there are few things I hate more than being told to calm down by a man because he thinks I'm not capable of discussing something without regressing into temper tantrum-like antics.
My ex-whatever messaged me last night. I had called him a few weeks ago because he is a mechanic, and if he had some free time I wanted him to look at it. He gave me the run around as usual, so I sought other venues to get the trouble resolved. I mentioned when he messaged me that the car was still making a noise, but no one else seemed to notice it. He went on to say that only a trained mechanic could diagnose something like that. I felt slightly irritated with that statement. I don't know why, probably the way he said it more than what he actually said. So I retorted "I drive the car every day, if something is out of the ordinary, I notice." The conversation declined from there.
Whenever he and I have a conversation and I don't act like a good little sheep and agree with everything he says, he accuses me of "flipping a bitch" and "yelling at him". I'd like to point out that as usual, we were texting, and I'm pretty sure its not possible to yell via text message. I didn't even use caps or exclamation points.
That got me to thinking though, from time to time in my vast dating history, almost every time I've disagreed with a man, I'm told to calm down. What I don't get is, I haven't raised my voice, I haven't cussed, I haven't insulted him, I'm talking or typing the exact same way I was before the disagreement. I do get pretty aggravated when I'm told to calm down, and I'm not upset. Half the time, I don't care enough to be upset. I was just calmly explaining my thoughts on the subject.
I don't know, perhaps men do it because they know that will irritate me. I'm ashamed to say that once, about five years ago, I used a customer at work as a guinea pig to test the theory. The woman wasn't particularly upset, she was just annoyed that someone had dropped the ball. I asked her to please calm down so I could try to help her. She became livid. I consider the experiment a success.
I don't think I'm the only woman out there who finds that irritating (maybe even infuriating depending on the situation) when men do that. For a while, I thought maybe it was me, but the more female friends I make, the more I realize its not just me.
So, Ladies, I'm curious, has that ever happened to you, and if so, how did it make you feel? Guys, have you ever done that to a girl? If so, why? Was it to get under her skin, or did you really think she was "flipping a bitch"?
Thanks for reading, my lovelies.