Misogynistic default annoyance: Why so many men see their partners as annoying, boring, and trivial
It's not that you're boring. It's that he doesn't like women. Or you.
Men learn early not to value what women have to say, and to treat them with default annoyance. This tendency is especially noticeable in long-term relationships, once a man feels he no longer has to impress the woman to earn or keep her affection.
If you’ve ever apologized to a man for taking too long to tell a story, rushed through an important topic, or watched a dude zone out and roll his eyes while you talk, you might think the problem is you. Maybe you’re just annoying or talk too much. Maybe it’s your emotional and crazy woman hormones causing you to ask for too much.
But negative treatment from men is almost never actually personal. It’s political, because we live in a culture where men are taught to devalue women.
One of the most significant ways men do this with their partners is by approaching their partners from a default position of annoyance. Everything she says is annoying. Everything she asks is too much. Every request is a sign that she’s nagging.
Isn’t it weird how we stigmatize women for “nagging” men (read: asking their partners to do things they refuse to do), but never men for refusing to listen to their partners? Baked into the very notion of the nag is the idea that women who want anything at all are annoying and unreasonable.
In patriarchy, women aren’t allowed to want things, let alone need them. Treating women like they are annoying is a way to reinforce this hierarchy and continuously devalue us.
The problem is not you, and you do not have to accept this bullshit.
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