I was reading this post by Witty Sex Kitten where Over-educated Nympho said:

Clueless Engineer sounds like the type of guy who pisses off most of womankind–then when we meet nice guys they wonder why the hell we’re so damn bitter and cynical.

From personal experience, I have a couple issues with that. Namely that the assmunch and the guy her bitterness if being projected on are often very different people. I’ve had the dating formulation of the following conversation more than a couple times:

Cat: Hey, pet me.

Lady: I don’t know… last time I pet a cat, it bit my arm and I had to go to the emergency room.

Cat: I’m sorry about your experience. Tell me more about it.

Lady: Well I was out in the woods and I ran across this wild cougar. I decided to pet it and it nearly bit my arm off!

Cat: Wait… a wild cougar?

Lady: Yes, and it bit me from here to here. It hurt so bad…

Cat: Lady, I’m not a cougar, I’m a calico.

Lady: Well you’re both cats.

Men and women both tend to repeat mistakes in relationships. Both also tend to project their relationships that failed in the past to future ones. Often – very often – when it’s least appropriate to do so.

There are absolutely instances where a man or woman’s selfish or mean streak only becomes apparent after some time. Usually, though, you can see these things pretty early on if you’re looking. Frequently, however, we ignore those signs and proceed. The succeeding burn scars into a shoulder-based chip that we tend to take out on everyone indiscriminately and then, indiscriminately, we let go and leave ourselves wide open to get hurt in much the same way again.

I know that for a while in my life, the mistake that I was not going to commit always seemed to be whatever one I had committed most recently. I’ve seen this over and over again in women. And men, of course.

On the other hand, “tend to my wounds” is a great posture for women to take. Guys are generally willing to for ladies that they dig and unwilling to for ones that they want to use for sex, companionship, and whatever. It doesn’t work quite as well for men, so I advocate taking all that hurt and rage to the gun range or use it to smash stuff. Or you can take vicarious pleasure in seeing stuff shredded. A guy can’t really go wrong watching an industrial shredder at work.