I was having an ideological debate with my boyfriend the other day and in response to me illustrating what I regard as a flaw in his argument he told me that I'd really hurt his feelings. I bring it up because I get that a lot from boys, both friends and boyfriends. Yet not one of my female friends has ever said that to me. The irony is that I'm much more forthright with my female friends. Many of my female friends have strongly disagreed with me over the course of our friendships, many have been cross with me for adopting a view which in their opinion is problematic. But none of them has ever felt that their egos were in any way involved in an ideological discussion. (Personally, I suspect that any girl whose ego was liable to get hurt so easily would get it knocked out of them pretty quickly.) Certainly, none have thought that I either should, or was likely to, change my ideological position based on their feeling personally slighted.