I am an idiot. The world is large and I'm sure there are people out there who made my mistake. Oddly, using my Beats Wireless Solo 2 headphones, i used the provided cord to plug into my computer. Only the left side worked. I also found it strange that the answer button was placed so low. So i flipped the cord around and WA LA it works fine.
Long story short, make sure the end where it has the beats logo is plugged into the DEVICE, while the other straight end with no beats symbol is plugged into the headphones...
Hope this helps some people, lol!