This topic circles back to an older discussion about the roots of interpersonal conflict at work, because the past couple of days have once again been spent cleaning up a mess between women.
The whole thing started with an incident from about half a year ago at an event in Chongqing.
During the session, one participant, A, brought up a case from her own life and mentioned another person, B, whom everyone else in the room knew—but who was not actually present. That gave the conversation a new angle, and the room immediately heated up. Some people strongly resonated with certain traits in B, so this absent person effectively became a stand-in for everyone’s feelings. The facilitators kept emphasizing that if anyone really had an issue with B, they should talk to her directly after the event. Still, B’s remote presence undeniably pushed the whole atmosphere to a peak.
Later, B spoke with A about what had happened. A repeated the part of the discussion that involved B, and B completely blew up. But the point B fixated on was not A retelling it—it was why C, who had also been there, had not defended her.
C’s explanation was straightforward: that setting was meant to be a place for honesty, and saying something insincere just to help someone would have violated the entire purpose of the event.
After that, C asked for help. The suggestion was simple: if everyone really wanted the truth, put all the relevant people into one group chat and sort it out clearly. B refused. She said she did not care about the other people who had been there and that there was no need.
So what should have been resolved was never resolved. It sat inside B, fermented, and slowly turned rancid. Over the next six months, she repeatedly tested whether her relationship with C was still what it used to be. Every conversation carried a tone of grievance, of having been let down. The poison spread beyond the two of them and started affecting other people nearby as well.
Finally, the issue was dragged into a group chat and confronted directly. Once the misunderstandings were clarified, B admitted that the reason she cared so much about everyone’s opinions was simple: she wanted to be liked.
And that is exactly the absurd part. If what you want is to be liked, why would you reject the very thing that might clear things up? It is the same self-defeating pattern that shows up all the time: wanting everything, doing almost nothing, and mistaking internal drama for effort. What such people usually get, besides endless self-consumption, is that everyone ends up disliking them.
There is no love or hate without a cause.
What stood out to me in all this was something else.
When the matter was finally laid bare, one step in that process was to ask the people who had openly said they disliked B back then to explain themselves in the group. Did they truly dislike her? Were they reacting to the shame of seeing too much of their former selves in her? Did they owe her an apology for what they had said?
And that is where a familiar pattern appeared.
When one woman has to express like or dislike toward another woman, even if she truly cannot stand her, she will usually still soften the wording. She leaves room. She saves face. She keeps a few layers intact.
At this point it is worth clarifying what “female” and “male” mean here. This is not about biological sex. It is about feminine and masculine traits. Otherwise the whole discussion gets flattened into a pointless men-versus-women argument.
When it comes to disliking someone, the biggest difference between masculine and feminine traits is whether there is still a black box left over.
Masculine dislike tends to be complete. It can go all the way to indifference. Feminine dislike, even at its strongest, often still comes dressed in dignified language and polite phrasing.
Feminine traits tend to create black boxes: I still need to preserve the relationship. We cannot completely fall out. Maybe things can still improve. So instead of saying what is meant, a person leaves coded messages for the other side to decipher.
“We should get to know each other better” may really mean, “You’re insufferably stupid. Why would I want to know you?”
“We’ve had a lot of misunderstandings” may really mean, “Try having the self-awareness to realize all the misunderstandings came from you.”
By contrast, when masculine traits reach the point of direct confrontation, a blunt “I just can’t stand you” can actually become the opening for a real relationship. Sometimes people only stop circling each other once something honest has finally been said.
There was a perfect small example of this that same night. Because C had remained entangled with B for so long, C’s husband eventually said plainly that he did not want her continuing to associate with B. And when everyone was reconstructing perspectives in the group chat, he could not even be bothered to participate. He just stayed in his study with his mic on, playing games. That is what total dislike looks like in a masculine mode: no performance, no decoding, no emotional stagecraft—just withdrawal.
Why does the feminine mode like the black box so much?
Because uncertainty automatically puts the other person in a lower position. If they cannot tell what you really mean, they have to keep guessing. And if they guess wrong, they risk triggering your emotions. That dynamic gives power.
Women often hold a kind of natural evaluative authority over men: a mother over a son, a wife over a husband. A mother can bluntly say her son is not doing well academically; a wife can openly say her husband is bad in bed. That kind of built-in right to judge easily solidifies into the image of the one above.
But sons grow up. Husbands eventually learn the pattern and become numb to it. At that point, the black box becomes an especially useful tool for preserving that superior position. The more black boxes there are, the harder it is to be figured out. And the harder it is to be figured out, the easier it is to retain the right to complain, to resent, to accuse from above. That is how the figure of the resentful woman is made.
And this black-box logic is not used only on men.
In the case above, B spent half a year testing C, hinting, signaling, and waiting to be deciphered. Every move presented herself as a sealed message waiting to be opened. The less C could understand, the more B could convince herself that her sincerity had been met with coldness.
But now imagine someone enters the picture who can accurately read all of B’s little emotional maneuvers. In truth, they are not that hard to read. The base logic of the black box is a hunger for attention.
If someone can fully read B, then the superior position she built through ambiguity starts to collapse. The relationship moves toward balance.
But balance is not what she wants. Calm, ordinary affection is too flat. Only in the push and pull can she feel the fantasy and pain of loving and being loved.
So this person, after seeing through all her little signals, leaves behind another black box of his own: why am I able to understand you so well?
That is the moment B falls.
Why does he understand me so well? Does that mean he likes me? Why has he never said so directly?
Then she starts testing him too. And he still refuses to make it explicit. He keeps responding in exactly the right way—enough to touch the core, never enough to name it.
“Sorry, I was in meetings all day yesterday. How was your day?”
And just like that, a scumbag is born.
That is why the resentful woman and the player so often appear as a pair.