I think, therefore..

Girlfriend Lessons 101

(Feat. Fred Omalza|MauiHomez Potog)

"When a guy makes a prolonged "umm" or makes any excuses when you're asking him to do you a favor, he's actually saying that he doesn't like you and he can't lay down the card for you.

When a girl says "no", a guy hears it as "try again tomorrow".

If a guy tells you about his problems, he just needs someone to listen to him. You don't need to give advice.

A usual act that proves that the guy likes you is when he teases you."

So the list goes on..

Girls get crazy over these - thinking these numbered "tips" that seem to be just concerned for Eve's descendants are always right about everything that concerns guys: a living thing that is associated with the words liar, and liar.

We, people, act on certain things based on symbols and our own assigned meanings we can find in any given situation. We interact with these symbols and eventually form relationships around them. As we interact with one another, we aim to create shared meaning. Symbolic interactionism is the way we learn to interpret and give meaning to the world though our interactions with others.


These core principles of symbolic interactionism aid one to form his self concept as well as his socialization with the community:


1. Meaning

• Meaning itself is not inherent in objects. It is created in the interactions we have with other people in sharing our interpretations of symbols. That is, it takes place in the context of relationships whether with family or community. It can be modified through an interpretive process whereby we ourselves create our own meanings and confirm it with other people. As we converse with others, our social structures are worked out.

• We act toward others based on the meaning that those other people have assigned for us. Best example is the one given on Griffin's Chapter 4, the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Nell. It was mentioned she responded to the different persons surrounding her based on how they treat her: crazy, a free spirit, a perfect object for research, an easy sexual prey, and someone of no difference from others.


When we say “human beings act toward things based on the meaning they have assigned for us”, we don’t mean to say these things have an inherent meaning. Rather, meanings differ depending on how we humans define as well as respond to them. The way we define or give meaning to the things we encounter will shape our action towards these things. An individual’s interpretation of the meaning will guide and determine action.

2. Language

• Humans learn the social meaning attached to certain words through their interaction with family, peers, and others as children. This is impossible without using and understanding a common language. That is, language is the source of meaning. The latter arises out of social interactions with one another, and language is the vehicle.

3. Thought or “Minding”

• Unlike animals, humans have the ability to think reflectively before doing a certain move. We don’t just act without deliberation.

• The way we think determines how we interpret symbols within any given situation. Through a reflective pause called “minding”, we are able to modify our own interpretation of these symbols.

The theory also talks about these ideas:

○ We become distinctively human through our continuous interaction with others. To understand people’s social acts, we need to use methods that enable us to discern the meanings they attribute to these acts.

The Self
- it emerges from the social interaction we have with others. By this, we get a glimpse of how we look to another person. We then internalize others’ perceptions through those interactions.

The “I” is our own concept of ourselves while the “Me” is the perceived view when we take the role of another which is based on the expectations and responses from others. Symbolic interactions is about things that we can actually see that is happening. Through interactions, individuals are able to create structures of symbols that make our everyday life meaningful. Names and definitions of things re not imposed, rather we as people are responsible in defining things and making them meaningful. This would make these things socially real. Through interaction we create structures of social experience: this is how “society” is created.