Josh Justice

Here's something I've been studying on here for a bit. A lot of men, seem to have been conditioned to think that telling someone that you disagree is the same as asking them a question. Like the way they learn to engage is by *creating a conflict*.

I don't think this is a small thing. In fact, I think it is the source of a lot of the unintentional frustration that men cause on here. (I'm only talking about those who actually "mean well".)

I have had this exchange numerous times. It goes something like this. Them: I disagree. | I've had a different experience. Me: I don't care. | What's your point? Them: Geez, I was just trying to learn. Why are you attacking me?!

It has been helpful for me to see this as unintentional conditioning separate from intent. At least for some men (including myself). Ever since this occurred to me, I've noticed how even when men intend to ask "sincere" questions, it often comes in the form of a challenge.

This has a bunch of negative effects. It's easily misunderstood as a bad faith challenge rather than an attempt to engage. There are a lot of bad faith challenges out there and they sound exactly the same. In fact those bad actors always hide behind "good intent".

Engaging in the form of a challenge also puts all of the burden on the receiver to unpack what you mean to ask and what kind of response would be appropriate. You are implicitly asking for a tremendous amount of grace when you ask someone to navigate this unexpectedly.

I wanna be clear that even though we can give the benefit of the doubt in seeing this as a an unintentional learned behavior, that doesn't the people who do this are off the hook. We still need to do better. We can learn to do better.