Why psychology is crap and why women get what they want

Recently, at a party, one of my friends said, "it's so easy to manipulate men". Following that, she continued "I know what you're thinking: oh, that doesn't happen to me". That immediately reminded me of the rules of psychology. Although psychology claims to study the way people think, to me it seems to be all about imposing your own way of thinking on others. The moment somebody disagrees, make use of it. The most classic example I can think of is this. Suppose I want to prove that everyone is a drug addict. I can do that with a simple questionnaire, with only one question:

Hmmm... I might be painting too black-and-white a picture here, but stuff like this is what makes me dislike psychology. And as far as figuring out what other people are thinking: People do that all the time, with limited success.

That brings me back to my friend's statement. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I have never found women to be very good at manipulating men. Also, it is hardly "easy". Well, it may be "easy" if you consider only the simple tricks people use, but most importantly, manipulating people takes a lot of time and careful effort. I don't call that "easy".

The tricks women use are indeed quite simple. Many of them are also about as subtle as a hammer. If there are indeed women who believe that all men actually fall for them every time, they are almost as bad as the few men who do... Those are the men who would do the human race a favour by removing themselves from the human gene pool anyway.

I'll give you just a short list of some of the tricks I mentioned before. This list is far from complete, but it contains the most common tricks I have personally observed:

• making use of the "weaker sex" stereotype
• inducing a feeling of guilt
• reverse psychology
• delaying the "what does she want?"-factor
• "asking for an opinion"
• telling people exactly what they want to hear
• telling people the exact opposite of what they want to hear (reverse psychology again)

... and the list goes on and on, but ...

• ALWAYS: the pearl-method

Oh puh-lease! Does anybody actually not recognise those? Some of them are more obvious than water being wet. Personally, I especially hate reverse psychology. Psychology is crap, and reverse psychology is just crap in reverse (would that be "parc"?). I rather like the method of asking for an opinion, which usually boils down to trying influence the opinion. I like it because it is so incredibly easy to detect, most often with a single word. When a women (or a man, in fact) starts a sentence with "Say, ..." then I immediately switch to sceptic mode and start using one of the other tricks listed above: telling people exactly what they want to hear (without meaning it, of course...). Or, if I'm not in the mood for games, I answer nature's convenient call. I don't think I've ever met anybody who didn't recognise this. It's always fun to see my mother trying this method on my father. He looks at me, so she can't see his face, and rolls his eyes.

So why do women get what they want? Am I the only person to see the blatantly obvious tricks they use? I very much doubt it. I've asked a couple of men and the answers are twofold:

1. Men love women
2. To keep the peace: result of the pearl-method.

Hey, the pearl-method pops up again. Let's explain that one, especially since it is the secret to women's success. (The first reason is hardly an issue, because, sad as it is, it means men sometimes don't mind being manipulated). So, what is the pearl-method? Think about it this way: if you want a pearl from an oyster, you can make the oyster grow one for you. You make sure there's a grain of sand in the oyster's shell. There, the pearl grows through constant irritation. That is precisely the method many women use. They relentlessly keep trying and trying until, sooner or later, the man gives in. Well, missy, you got what you wanted... Is it something to be proud of? If anything, it would be reason to feel ashamed. Hey, that's cool, I get to use the "inducing a feeling of guilt" method. (By the way, men, I would recommend that as the method of choice for manipulating women. It works like a charm!)

The door to my bedroom keeps banging when I also have the window open at the same time. A prime example of the pearl-method. It works, too, because after a while I get so annoyed by the sound that I close the door properly. It won't work forever, though. If I get annoyed enough, I will make sure that the door can't bang anymore. The most drastic way would be to replace it with another one. With women, that also works, although it's a lot more ugly. If you get rid of your girlfriend for annoying you this way, she'll be upset, cry, shout and try the guilt-feeling again. Basically, if I had a girlfriend and dumped here because of something like that, it would always be my fault. Guess what... I wouldn't care. It'd only reinforce my opinion that I did the right thing.

Bottom line for the ladies: the world would be a better place if you'd just be a bit more direct, instead of trying to manipulate your men. It'll take a lot less effort and is more likely to keep them happy as well as yourselves. (Don't think they don't notice).

Bottom line for the gents: women, can't live with'em, can't kill'em... A possible way out of this situation would be to allow the pearl method to win again: take the fun out of it for the women. Either always stand your ground (yeah, right...) or give in every single time immediately. Maybe they'll just give up after a while (yeah, right...). As that's obviously not going to happen, there's only one real way out: become a homosexual and ignore women for the rest of your life.