Why is it so hard to talk about human nature?

The basic problem is the lack of a universally accepted vocabulary for talking about human nature and personality traits. The theory I work with, which was developed by Paul Rosenfels, avoids made-up words like "Type-A Personalities" in favor of the ordinary words that people have used for eons to describe themselves. Honesty, courage, faith, hope, insight, skill, knowledge, ability, wisdom, strength, love, power, truth, right and countless other terms have been borrowed by Paul to describe his system of ideas. Naturally, the more precise Paul became in his use of these words, the more some of them strayed from their common ordinary definitions. Not much, usually, but often just enough for people to think there were contradictions in his system when there weren't.

In other words, I'm using these concepts in a precise way that conforms to a system of psychology that I've worked with every day for thirty years and which facilitates an understanding of the growth process we all need to undertake. You, as must be expected considering your age and circumstances, are using concepts you have inherited from the ordinary everyday world around you and which do not conform to or illustrate any particular theory of human nature. These concepts are perfectly useful for giving imprecise information about the here and now surfaces of people, but that's all they are intended to do. They are about as precise as the chemistry of the ancient Greeks, which recognized only four elements — air, water, earth and fire — and had no theory to describe how they interacted! (These days we call these elements "states" of matter: gaseous, liquid, solid, and plasma.) Imagine a psychology that stated that people are either funny, sad, energetic, or lazy — period. It doesn't help people to think smart when they have to rely on a dumbed-down vocabulary designed to articulate the lowest common denominator of human discernment.

Since you're a communication major, I know that you have some familiarity with the history of communication and the history of ideas. Ideas, after all, are what communication is supposed to transmit. And ideas about different areas of knowledge vary tremendously in their precision. Ideas about "God", for example, are notoriously imprecise and confusing, especially across different cultures. Ideas about chemistry, on the other hand, have become very precise and well-defined in the last two hundred years, so when chemists the world over speak to one another they know exactly what they're talking about. You might think that when psychologists speak to one another they're similarly sophisticated, but unfortunately this is largely a pretense on their part. There are scores of schools of psychology, each talking a different language. Psychologists try to sound erudite and grandiose, but often end up communicating gobbledegook and nothing more. The fact that they can even decipher their intentionally dressed-up professional jargon gives them a false sense that they're actually hearing something important.

So in order for me to give you a deeper and more accurate picture about why I think you have an extroverted or "masculine" personality, I'd have to lay out an abstract language of personality traits that would help you over the surface characteristics that are distracting you — that "funny" stuff, for example. Actually, you seem to hint your preference for dominance when you say, "I really want someone to be able to keep up with me and think similarly, but always someone who will back down and let me have my way." You may not realize it fully yet, but there actually are people who prefer to let the other person have their way. It gives them peace of mind and a sense that they are giving love in a real sense. We call these people introverts or "feminines". You are so unlike these people that I honestly think that you have yet to come to realize that they even exist — at least not the ones I'm thinking about.

Secondly, assuming that you've been heterosexual this far, one reason why shy people might have "bugged you" is because introverted men of your age group are under terrible pressures to conform to what "men are supposed to be". Their sensitivity and longing to submit to a powerful person like yourself is often hidden under a false facade of "machismo" which emerges to disguise and protect their real identities. Shy people of this ilk haven't yet developed any real femininity worth interacting with. This kind of shy person would bug me too.

Thirdly, according to Paul's theory (and I've seen it pan out in all my observations), father and sons polarize, as do mothers and daughters. Think about what this implies, Lauren. If a masculine man marries a feminine woman, all the world around them will think "they're doing it right" — this man's a "real man" and this woman's a "real woman." But their offspring will consist of masculine girls and feminine boys — which in some sense is "all wrong." And in fact this generation usually hasn't much use for ideas like "femininity" and "masculinity" precisely because they just don't seem very applicable to their own personalities. You, Lauren, like your brother Matt, are from an "all wrong" generation, so you've probably just never found much use for concepts like this.

Fourthly, we must face the obvious fact that you don't yet have a lifetime's worth of observations about your needs and the needs of the people you'll tend to pick as lovers. As these observations pile up over the years you may find yourself swinging back and forth across more than one dimension of character typology before you find a comfortable definition of who Lauren is.

It may not be time yet for you to think about whether ideas like femininity and masculinity are going to help you lead a more meaningful life. But always remember what Plato said, Lauren, that an unexamined life isn't worth living. So keep an open mind, be careful to examine all the ideas coming in and all the ideas going out, and keep the good ones on a tight leash.