I've had this blog entry rattling around in my head for a week now and it's time to put keys to internet :) Last Saturday at Thirty Something we had one of our regular features, changed lives. It's a meeting when a number of people from the group get to stand up and tell how God has changed their lives. Every time I am amazed at how little I know about the people talking and every time I am amazed at the goodness of God. Last Saturday was no exception.

I can be quite an emotional person at times and quite often at changed lives I feel a real empathy for the people who are talking. Often the things that are shared go quite deep and it strikes a chord emotionally with me. Last Saturday something was different. As I was sitting there listening I realised that I was detaching myself from what was being said, not quite consciously. It surprised me and I started to think why I would be doing that. What I discovered was that the reason I was doing it was that the person speaking was female.

I have commented here in the past about the differences in male and female group dynamics within the Christian subculture that I am a part of. One of the things I have noticed is that sometimes there is a tendency for women to assume that the only person who can understand or sympathise with what they are going through is another woman. This seems to be especially true for people who are single. This is an assumption which has sat uncomfortably with me for a while now. I'm not sure I have come to any conclusions one way or another because I can see aspects of the situation which would make this assumption wise. Certainly keeping an emotional distance from someone when emotional closeness could be misinterpreted as romantic interest is a good idea. Also there are differences between the way that men and women relate, some cultural and some natural, which mean that those same sex friendships will always have something extra. On the other hand there is also quite a bit of stereotyping of men regarding the fact that they do not and cannot operate emotionally.

The danger here is that if men are told often enough that they don't and can't operate on an emotional level then they will start to believe it. The flip side of this is that women are looking for a man who can relate emotionally as a husband. I think that here needs to be some balance here and that women need to be careful that they don't create a situation where they are fostering exactly the sorts of characteristics they don't want. Men too need to stand up and judge the moments where caring is appropriate and to resist the stereotypes.

Getting back to my story I found that I was assuming that comforting and support for the person speaking would come exclusively from other women and so I didn't need to worry about it. This was leading me to a dangerous sense of emotional detachment. I'm going to have to watch that.

I have no doubt that this post is going to generate some strong reactions from those who read it both for and against and I'm interested in hearing your opinions, let me know what you think via the comments section below.
posted by Peter at 5:15 PM

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