What gives me the sh*ts about a lot of guys...

LOL if we'd listened we'd eventually not be as dumb, and if we weren't dumb we would know when to shut up and listen. It's a vicious cycle :-)

Irony aside (valid though it may be), guys know that being worldly and broadly informed, speaking out with confidence and being supportive and helpful is highly valued by you girls. Guys who don't know that much, are still aware of this preference, and simply work with what they've got or think they got or may get away with. And it works often enough.

It's like a Honda Accord with big aftermarket spoilers and blue light underneath - it's no Lamborghini, but by and large such a Honda's passenger seat rarely goes vacant, so for all its obvious silliness, who is to say it does not work as an attraction, compared to the Lambs? :-)

A lot of men assume that women are less intelligent. They usually assume this because of the fact that at least in relationships, women don't always act in a logical manner (i.e., convincing themselves that when a guy tells her that he just wants to be FWB, that it is acutally code for "I really want to be your boyfriend").

I'm not saying that it's right, I'm just saying that a lot of guys believe that women actaully need male guidance. Personally, I've actually found the opposite to be true. While are few really dumb women out there, I'd say that the majority of women are actually smarter than men about most things. Aside from relationships, women tend to know more than men about a lot of things. But a lot of men grow up seeing women as weaker than men, and thus inferior and needing of male guidance in most areas. Not right, but that's the way it is.

HAve you ever considered that the guy is just speaking the first thing that comes to mind. You said you want to make guitars and youve never done it before. "he thinks, great well the best way to learn that is to watch someone" so he says it... They probably don't even consider you in a patronising way they just speak what's on their mind. God you must get annoyed a lot of the time

My return question would be, why are women so high strung and get angry at such meager things such as this?

Seriously though, there isn't anything really complex going on here. It's most like one of or a combo of a few things.

1. Some people, men and women, just aren't all that smart, however I'm making the assumption that this isn't really the case with the guy in the example. Seems like a relatively logical answer to give, especially by someone who probably doesn't know much about the subject. This leads me to the next point.

2. Many times when you talk about something that is more your area of expertise or interest. The other person is going to say very dry and obvious things to carry on the conversation with you because there lack of interest or knowledge on the subject translates to nothing meaningful to say.

3. It's in our blood as men to want to help women. When we see a women in need of help or advice, or is in distress, its like this alarm goes of in our heads that makes us spring into action. We turn into your big brother who wants to know who said what, what they did to you, and how we can help. This is why many women will spill there problems to the men in their life, thinking she is just venting, little does she know, she has just inadvertently called the man to action. These guys are probably just trying to be helpful but most likely due to #2 don't really have anything that really is all that meaningful and helpful. Can fault them for trying.

I will say this, like jager66 said, you would do yourself a favor to chill out. If this is how you communicate with men (or at least what is running through your head when you do) your going to find that you will be a very lonely and unhappy women. Women who get bent out of shape and always complain about the little things like this annoy the piss out of us men. If you would have actually gotten made and said "no sh*t shirlock" You can kiss that friendship goodbye. Us men have no time for girls who will bitch and nag at everything we do or say, even if its less than perfect. People make mistakes and say stupid sh*t, it happens. Nobody is perfect. Save the fighting and bitching for something serious, not the fact that he made a slightly obvious statement that was intended to help you. I mean did he really inconvenience you with his words?

Maybe they are just trying to be helpful.

Just out of curiosity, and in case a girl ever informs me she wants to be a luthier in the future, what would be the correct response in that situation? (Assume I don't know anything about guitar making, even though I did see it on "Popular Mechanics for Kids" and am therefore an expert).

The honest answer: "I'm sorry, that's not going to interest me at all"
The polite answer: "Oh, that's nice"
The sharing answer: "I want to be an astronaut"
The motivational answer: "You go girl!"
The mildly chauvinistic answer: "You know, making a guitar is a lot like making a sandwich - why don't you practice that first?"

We're guys. We give advice without thinking about it sometimes. I mean most of the time we won't bring up a challenge to talk about unless we're asking for info, so we assume the same about girls unless we make a real effort not to.

Sorry. Nature of the beast. :-)

If men are so bad and condescending towards you on a regular basis, then it is you that needs to either pick out a different quality of man, or not appear so clueless on what you're discussing. Men don't usually rush into tell someone something unless they appear to be doing it wrong or don't know what they're doing. Either that or you rub off as a know it all and these guys are trying to compete with you. Or, you could just be picking low quality men to associate with in the first place. Why don't you look inwards, as all of these "problems" are within your capability of fixing.

i don't do it but iv seen it in some relationships- usually long term ones that are rotting from within.

Sounds like a simple case of the
"I don't really like you and you just annoy me heaps when ever you say sh*t so ill throw my 2 cents in to just piss you off" ...

... syndrome. Do you know of this syndrome or have you even possibly experienced it your self-its very common in the human species.
I belive monkeys can also suffer this but they just mimic each other scratching their arm pits due to the unfortunate lack of advanced voice box evolution. (Speach)

All people do this. Men and women. Lots of people are jerks, know it alls, idiots etc. Get over it and surround yourself with a better quality person or eventually someone will point out the common denominator may be you.

lol but that's probably how men are made to be. Not that one intends to patronize you in any way but somehow most men at most times tend to butt in and give out their advice even before the question (especially lengthy ones) has ended.

I've tried my level best to control that urge over the years but I admit I wind up doing that from time to time. Though I don't do that on a professional level or with someone who's not really close to me.

Men generally talk in points (not all I must say) and address each - at least I do. When someone comes up with a singlular paragraph (like if you hadn't broken up your question here into paragraphs I will have trouble reading it completely), their mind probably tends to break it up into points by itself and answering it as and when the mind puts a full stop to a point.

Girls on the other hand are very descriptive about what they want to say. Hence, that winds up as a lengthy question for a man who is naturally short on patience.

There ofcourse are exceptions to both situations.

However, it is more concern that shows up as an attempt to patronize in a lot of cases just because the girl feels that she hasn't even completed what she wanted to say and this guy is judging me / my situation just cause I asked him. :) Yes there are situations and times when the guy is basically arrogant and high handed and means to patronize. There are also instances when the man (as like a dog - faithful but reckless where a woman is like a cat - polished and detailed) wondering 'how stupid' answers it half way though that 'how stupid' is not meant to look down upon or patronize the girl in any way, he merely sees the situation as stupid and I see it as so simple.

Thats the way guys work. We like to fix things. It's our biological nature.

I just stare at girls I'm conversing with like they're flippin retarded. Perhaps you'd prefer someone like me.

Alot of girls like it when a guy just sits and listens to them about their problems or them just talking in general. What I've never figured out is why they get irritated when the guy tries to put his input. We're just giving advice, if you don't want it then don't take it. People tell me what to do all the time. I only take their advice probably 2 percent of the time. hehe.

Could be a lot of things. But there's a decent chance it's just ego. They don't want to admit you know more about something than they do.

However, it really could be a lot of things and it goes on all the time in everyday conversations between people.

"I think that's a stupid idea."
"Who the hell would want to be a luthier?"
"Well, I don't know if you're capable of that."
"Are you sure. It could be er..difficult for you."

I'm guessing this is what you were hoping for?

You are making a horrible generalization about men, first off. By that I mean not all men will try to help you. Some men are jerks. Sucks right? Second, there are millions of girls who would love a guy to be interested and have something to say to them. Interestingly enough, you don't like that! It only took me second to realize why that is. While you claim that the men in your life state the obvious, which from what you said isn't necessarily true, I strongly disagree with your claim that they want to be an authority on whatever. What it actually makes me think is that you're convinced that you're better than them. Stop taking things the wrong way and grow up.

I don't think this is exclusive of men, but anyway, if the reason is what I think it is, then I can see how it would be more a male thing, while I believe that actually, FEW people have a feel for subtelty and most in the world think they need to make it all like a pre-school class (check the movies of our time compared to those of decades ago, no abstract ideas, no unresolved issues, they make wuestions and provide the exact answers and you can even predict them, those sell because the masses like them, they have that kind of mind and is MOST people, hence they earn millions) but I think there's another more important reason.

we all want people to listen to us, to REALLY listen, and enage on what we are saying, but often times people don't listen, so we get used to thinking they are ignoring us, even if they are not, an example, you talk about a thing that is a passion to you, like for example, you are a musician, and give a speedy long speech about chords and how the instruments fit together, how it has X or Y influences, and the guy listen to you, with REAL attention and feels your passion, but understand almost nothing :P

when you pause, because it is a chat and he is expected to say something (or he has that impression), there's very little he can say, honest answer would be "I don't know any of it", but then you'll be like "ohhh (with the face of someone who told a really bad joke and realized nobody got it)" so in order to save you that feeling the normal answer, the one most uf us would say is "sounds great".

problem is, that, like saying "ohh I see" or "ohh ok", or just nodding, or mimmicking (if you smile he smiles, if you laugh he laugh even if he doesn't get it) are felt, even if that was not the intention, as someone who is not listening and just pretending to do it, and vague answers like that would upset many people, but specially girls, since male usually don't take it too hard if people just pretends to listen, but most of us would be carefull of even by mistake make a woman we care about feel like we are just pretending, we know better than that.

so be easy on them, that may be their way of saying "I know less than you or nothing at all, but just so you see that I listen to you I'll answer with the little I know of the topic you brought, and is not just for talking, is for you to see I DO care"

You get offended when men are trying to be helpful? Why don't you just hang around men who will take a dump on your dreams? Seriously! You're complaining about men trying to be helpful. Be more understanding, they're just trying to do their best to help out someone they care about. Just agree and say thank you. It isn't worth getting your panties in a wad over. I don't get pissed when a girl tires to help and men are more wired to help girls in the first place.

U mad?

I'm a guy and personally must admit to doing this probably a little more than I really should. The main reasons I do it are as follows:

1) I have no idea about the subject and just want to show I'm listening and engaging in the conversation.

2) Just blurt out the first thing my brain spits out, which is usually something very obvious.

3) Say something obvious to show engagement due to the fact that coming up with a good answer is a timely process and conversations are usually fast moving things believe it or not

Interesting Fact: The brain can compute large sums of data and produce possible answers to things within milliseconds but due to only being able to do one thing at a time and the vast quantity of thoughts that may be obvious or irrelevant, coming up with a good one can take 10's of seconds, and this is a large time frame in a fast moving conversation.

he's probably just carrying on the conversation out of pity and doesn't know what else to say, why so sensitive?

"make sure you that you think that they're a higher authority on the topic"

I don't think that's usually the case. It's usually just their way of showing they are listening and engaged. Also, guys are about solutions. We like to offer them. Its just our nature.

By the way, I am a luthier (steel string acoustics). Not professionally, but I'm pretty serious about it as a hobby. More and more women are getting into it and I think that's great! There are some very successful professional female luthiers today - Linda Manzer, Kathy Wingert, Judy Threet, just to name a few.

Shoot me an IM if you want to chat. I'm no Kathy Wingert but I've accumulated quite a bit of knowledge.

Personally, I like to talk with guys because though we can be retarded at times the conversation usually moves forward. Girls seem to talk for hours and hours and turning round and round. If I want to talk about my feelings, a girl is a great listener and can be very helpful. If it's about anything else I prefer talking to a guy about it.
A lot of guys always want to move the conversation forward toward facts, whereas girls seem to like the conversation to be heavily dominated by sharing their feelings.
For example, you talked to your ex about wanting to become a luthier. He mentions working with a luthier is the best way to become one. You take that as him telling you condescendingly how to proceed. But I'd bet he said that to see if it's what you have in mind, he wanted to possibly discuss about your plan to become a luthier. As a guy I'd expect the other person to say "yeah I agree, I already contacted that known luthier and will meet him/her next week" etc...
Guys tend to take things at face value and discuss facts and what lays ahead. Girls tend to discuss how they feel and relate to things.
Let say you talk to a person you want to be a luthier:
If you talk to a guy he'll be like "oh OK interesting, let see together how you can get there and realize your dream"
For a girl it's more like "oh OK, when did you start feeling that way? Did you meet someone inspiring? It's so cool music is your life! My mom knows a luthier I think I'll ask her about it later."
From my experience girls and guys just don't approach things the same way.

Dayum anger management...

Methinks you are a wee bit crabby. Maybe a nap would be prudent for thee...

First of all, I think you really need to take a chill pill. Second of all, sure, lots of guys talk too much. But so do lots of girls.

And yes, it's true that lots of people think that guys are better at things than girls. So yeah, I would have to agree with 6paul11. Sorry lolz

Well, we guys are expected to know everything about everything and be good at lots of things. Just society's expectation. I think lots of guys are just trying to make conversation and you're just getting annoyed over something insignificant.

You're entitled to your own pet peeves, but if you are so annoyed by it, don't talk to guys about things that will lead to it. If you don't want stupid sounding advice, don't put yourself in a situation where you are likely to receive it.

Guys are problem solvers. When you tell a guy something and they're listening, they try to think of the bedt tip they can offer. It's part of their hormonal tendency. (Logical thinking, problem solving, decisive active, keep it simple)

It's an attempt to be helpful, not consider you below them. Take it as a compliment that they care to give imput and demonstrate that they're hearing what you said and attempting to give what they feel is valuable feedback. It's not necessarily them trying to 'be right' or impress you or prove anything, just a guy's way of saying "I listened. I care. I want to offer you whatever assistance I feel able to."

It's not about being stereotypical, it's scientifically speaking, lateral and logical thinking. It's very literally, in a chemical and hormonal triggered way, part of being driven by testosterone, which guys contain a higher ratio of.

xD I know what you mean. I point out their statement is ridiculously unnecessary. It's like they are presuming me a retard when they do this and I need to correct them.

I would say either both the first and the third options, or all three. Guys (and many girls too) like to feel like they're better than everyone else.

My friends have complained about this same issue and since they've complained I've started noticing it too. But it didn't bother me before they pointed it out and it doesn't bother me now. Curious as to the reasons why it happens tho. Woman can point out the obvious too, but my friends have specifically pointed out many men in our lives who do it constantly.