Boys vs. Men

[C is for]

There's a girl in my Facebook news feed whose statuses have included the following (paraphrased):

"Dear Fate, please send me a man next time, not a boy."
"Dear Fate, did you send me the man I asked for? because he just did something amazing for me!"
"Dear Fate, please try again. That was a boy in man's clothing."

And for some reason they completely rub me wrong. It's not just that this girl is depending on a mystical power to "send" her things (or people, or "a man,"), it's that her designation between boy and man seems ... unrealistic, perhaps?

I'm not really friends with this girl (though whenever I see her we have a friendly chat) so I don't feel comfortable confronting her saying "You don't know what the difference between a boy and a man is!" or anything like that. Maybe because...I'm a little fuzzy on the difference between a boy and a man too. I just don't think it's clear-cut "Men are always gentlemen and respectful and do amazing things" and "Boys are stupid, disrespectful, and careless".

I do recognize that men will disappoint you sometimes. They're not perfect either (except for my Mr. Right, which is how I'll know it's him). I also think it's rude to call a guy who hasn't lived up to expectations a boy. Maybe he is trying his best.

Anyway. This is why I just call guys guys. And I am a girl.

Any other thoughts on differentiating between boys and men? Maybe I'm off the track here and I could actually learn something important in my own relationships and discover what I've been missing!

[NerdGirl]

Well, I just hope she isn't wanting fate to send her a man that she's already friends with on facebook, because I would imagine that if I were a guy thinking about asking her out and I saw that kind of stuff on her facebook page, I might rethink that idea.

[Unit of Energy]

I think that men are willing to learn from and acknowledge there short comings, boys are not. But that doesn't mean that a man can't goof off, have fun, be immature at times.

[Marduk]

I think it is a silly designation that many females give to males who don't meet up to their specific criteria, and is a way for immature females to be condescending to males who may be pursuing them. Here's the tip of the day, C is For: when we reduce the person we are dating/in a relationship with to stereotypes, and don't accept them as a full person, we begin to see them as we've described them, and that makes it difficult if not impossible to actually be in a relationship with them.

[Yarjka]

I think the boy vs. man distinction is just another way to term immature vs. mature. I don't find it offensive. If someone told me I'm acting like a boy, I'd assume it meant I was being immature.

[Katya]

I think the boy vs. man distinction is just another way to term immature vs. mature. I don't find it offensive. If someone told me I'm acting like a boy, I'd assume it meant I was being immature.

I pretty much agree with this. It's just an extension of the meaning (although I agree that this girl may have unrealistic expectations about what "fate" is supposed to provide her).

[C is for]

I think the boy vs. man distinction is just another way to term immature vs. mature. I don't find it offensive. If someone told me I'm acting like a boy, I'd assume it meant I was being immature.

Yes, I can definitely get that. But it seems to me that this girl doesn't just tell someone they're acting like a boy. They're either a man, or they're a boy. If they act immature at all, they're not a man. Period.

(Maybe I'm reading too much into it though.)

[Katya]

I think the boy vs. man distinction is just another way to term immature vs. mature. I don't find it offensive. If someone told me I'm acting like a boy, I'd assume it meant I was being immature.

Yes, I can definitely get that. But it seems to me that this girl doesn't just tell someone they're acting like a boy. They're either a man, or they're a boy. If they act immature at all, they're not a man. Period.

(Maybe I'm reading too much into it though.)

Are you mad that she using "boy" as an insult or are you mad that she's insulting someone? (Or both?)

[C is for]

I'm mad that there's no gray area. These guys are either men, or they're boys. They're not just "acting" like boys, the most they can do is "act" like men to try and fool her into thinking that they're something they're not.

Though I wouldn't say that I'm "mad." I have a cold and it makes me not care about anything very much.

[Marduk]

So would anyone be offended if a woman started crying and I said "stop being a little girl!"

[Architect]

She probably would be, seeing how you're reducing her entire state of being to one word without knowing what's really going on.

I personally wouldn't be offended; it's hard for me to take offense when people I've never met say things to other people I don't know.

[Marduk]

And how is that scenario different from calling a male who does something you don't like a "boy?"

[Architect]

It's not, I personally wouldn't do either.

[mic0]

I would be mildly offended if someone said that to me, Marduk. And I agree it is the same as calling an immature man a boy. It's just silly; say they're immature instead.

[Imogen]

i just say they're acting like a baby or immature (depending on the situation). that way i'm not being gender specific. i HATE when people use "stop acting like a girl" as an insult.

[Katya]

i HATE when people use "stop acting like a girl" as an insult.

I agree with this, but I also love the following exchange from Community:

Duncan: I'm a Professor. You can't talk to me that way!
Jeff Winger: A 6 year old girl could talk to you that way!
Duncan: Yes, because that would be adorable.
Jeff Winger: No, because you're a 5 year old girl and there's a pecking order!

So, I guess I'm a hypocrite.

[Marduk]

So Katya, you think that telling someone that they are being a boy is not a problem, but to tell someone that they are acting like a girl IS a problem?

[Katya]

So Katya, you think that telling someone that they are being a boy is not a problem, but to tell someone that they are acting like a girl IS a problem?

Let me see if I can parse out the mental distinctions I'm making. If I was frustrated with I guy I was taking and if I was venting to my best friend about him, I might say "He's being a boy and I need a man." I would never say "He's being such a [racial epithet]" or "He's being such a girl."

The reason I would never say the last two is that they're insulting to all members of a particular ethnicity and all women, respectively. I guess the first one is still insulting to non-adult men, but maybe I'm OK with that because it's not a permanent state? (E.g., along the same lines, I don't have a problem with saying "He's being such a baby.")

Even if I was talking about a woman, I don't know that I would use the phrase "being such a girl," because my linguistic sense is that the phrase (or related phrases) is often used to insult women, generally, not just non-adult women (which is not true of the phrase "being such a boy"). (Obviously this is just a hypothesis and I'd have to do actual corpus research to back it up.)

I think it's related to the following linguistic gap:

Code: Select all

                      male |  female
-----------------------------------
non-adult             boy  |  girl
adult                 man  |  woman
casual adult(-ish)    guy  |  ???

In this paradigm, the word "girl" often gets pulled into the gap as being equivalent to "guy," which makes "girl" not exactly equivalent to "boy" any more. Hence the distinction. (Or maybe I'm just being a hypocrite with regard to insulting boys and babies. )

Regardless, I don't think I'd use any of these terms to someone's face, because I don't find that insulting the other person in a conversation really helps matters. (Is it worse to insult someone behind their back than to their face? Discuss.)

[Genuine Article]

Code: Select all

                      male |  female
-----------------------------------
non-adult             boy  |  girl
adult                 man  |  woman
casual adult(-ish)    guy  |  ???

I'm in favor of bringing back the word "gal" as the female counterpart to "guy". My dad uses it and I think it has a nice ring to it.

[Katya]

I'm in favor of bringing back the word "gal" as the female counterpart to "guy". My dad uses it and I think it has a nice ring to it.

That's my mom's response, too. I think it sounds too dated to gain much traction, though.