Understanding Men

I searched for a “cute couple” in images, and this is what came up.  🙂  Kinda funny.

Kinda not.  Because, isn’t this what the world is pushing as “cute” these days?  I call this (forgive me) the “bitchy” attitude, and it seems to be deemed as the in-style way for a woman to have a relationship but maintain her independent spirit at the same time.  …right…  It’s like the generation of girls who sported “spoiled brat” tee-shirts and “my way or the highway” locker decor when they were 14 just never grew out of their already clueless attitude toward life and men.  Now they’re 24, 34, and they still haven’t grasped how futile their efforts are with regards to securing happiness.

Listen, ladies.  You want to understand men?  You need to understand something about life, first.  YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE.  If you plan on entering a relationship with a me-take-me-take attitude, you’ll get exactly what you can grasp, steal, or drag out of that situation.  It will be exhausting and dissatisfying, and you’ll wind up in the very predictable state of unhappiness that too many relationships end in.

However, if you’re willing to give to the world and its people your whole heart and soul, your talents, your time, and your resources, then you can be prepared to receive in return more joy and satisfaction than most of the world’s inhabitants could even dream of.

Great.  Now you understand life.  Understanding men will be easy.

Men are people.  YOU are people.  How do you like to be treated?  Translate that into the chrome-tinted life of man and now you know how to treat your man.  The biggest problem with girls and women and the way they behave toward men is that they handle them like a foreign species.  That makes for an amusing movie scene, but in real life, men’s needs and women’s needs are remarkably similar.  Your BEST bet if you’re totally in the dark about how to approach a man is to treat him like the funnest, coolest, most valued friend you have.

There are a couple of things I’ve noticed about men that truly do differ greatly from women. …aside from the obvious… 😉

1- A woman’s life is glorified by feeling loved, loved, LOVED.  This includes affection, romance, and words of adoration.  Her preferred way of receiving these declarations may vary, but most women have a real need to be reminded frequently that they are LOVED.

Men need to feel loved too, but even greater than their need for constant reminders of adoration is a need to feel ADMIRED.  This involves praise, compliments, and genuine respect for his manly efforts in the world.  Most men would be embarrassed by his woman giving gushing, exaggerated accounts of his good deeds at the office Christmas party.  Heck, anyone would!  But to mildly mention to his coworkers how much you appreciate what a great job he did on patching up your roof this summer is almost always a sure-fire way to a man’s heart.  And be sure to let HIM hear good reports on the subject of HIM daily.

2- When a woman begins a conversation about the drama she’s experiencing with Friend X, or Mom, or whatever, she is motivated by the need to talk things out.  And up.  And down.  And all-around.

Man is motivated to solve the problem, wherever it lies, with as little to-do as possible.

If you’re embarking on a long-winded dialogue about the evils of Friend X and you do NOT want your man to tune out once he’s rapidly analyzed the quickest exit sign of your situation, TELL HIM in perfectly clear, polite language that this is a talk-it-out.  A man does appreciate knowing what to expect from an emotionally-loaded conversation, and he’ll be more likely to listen with sympathetic ears.

What kind of qualities do YOU think are important to understand about a man for relationship bliss?

Fascinating You- Your Human Side Vs. Your Angelic Side

As we look again at the Feminine Ideal, taken from “Fascinating Womanhood”, we see that a woman can be split into two categories.  The first is her angelic side, the second her human.  Since it’s easiest to start with the human characteristics, we began with those.  Notice that femininity, radiating happiness, having a fresh appearance and manner, and childlikeness can all be described as behaviors.  This is the person you ACT like.  These are the qualities that you use to charm friends and admirers with.  You will be a breath of fresh air if you develope these traits.  You will capture people’s fascination, as the title of this book implies.

Remember that in order for the human qualities to really work for your good, they have to actually be a part of who you are.  If you’re starting to feel a little like Gisselle from “Enchanted”, maybe that type of femininity and childlikeness aren’t right for you.  Try being feminine in a different way that is true to your nature.  Consider the difference in personality between Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe.  Complete opposites, and yet they were both feminine and childlike in their own way. 

You attract friends and suitors by being charming.  You keep their interest by being a good friend and proving yourself to be socially capable, which we’ll talk about later.  There’s a lot to keep track of when we’re trying to be our best, isn’t there?  Good thing that the behaviors and outward expressions of our human sides are relatively easy to change given time and practice.

If you want to keep a friend or lover forever, you’ll need more than social graces.  Human qualities might only require quick fixes here and there, but the angelic qualities take a lifetime to develop.  They are more than behaviors.  These characteristics represent the color of our souls, and are of the utmost importance.   This is the person you ARE, on the inside.  So we can expect that they’ll require more thought and energy than just, say, working on being more childlike.  Do people like and respect who you are?  Do you?

Remember that this whole “Feminine Ideal” thing isn’t just for the man in your life.  Certainly not.  He’ll likely fall more in love with you than ever, but the greatest good that can come of this is for you to fall in love with yourself.  You know when you’re someone other people are delighted to be around, but are you good company to yourself?

How do you feel about you when you’re all alone?

Are you uncomfortable in hours of self-reflection, because your beliefs disagree with your behaviors?  Do you grimace at the grouch in the mirror?  Self-love and self-respect are so essential to our happiness, working on our angelic side will always give us a lift.

Behavior and Social Graces

The quest to becoming a lady starts with outward appearances and moves inward.  Once you have the basics of beauty down, you can explore that world endlessly and never fail to find new, interesting ways to improve your appearance.  Find your personal style and embrace it, and love being a woman.

The next step is to begin developing yourself as the person you choose to be.  This is a lifelong process, and one that cannot be taken lightly.  If you don’t decide eventually who you want to be, life will choose for you.  We are all molded by our experiences and trials, and that process can either smooth and refine us, or bend us sadly out of whack.  It depends wholly on how we handle the pressure.

I’m a huge fan of visualizing.  We did this earlier when we were picturing ourselves as we wanted to be.  Recall that we realized our ideal self was well-groomed, clean and neatly dressed (unless you see yourself cheerfully wading through swamp water which, hey, could be your happy place), and appeared to be at peace with ourselves and the world.

Now close your eyes and bring up that image again.  There you are in some social gathering, or quietly at home with a small group of friends if that’s what you prefer.  You see yourself as though you were a character in a movie.  Take inventory of your appearance.  Does your current appearance (generally) agree with your ideal?  Maybe there are things you’d like to work on.  Let’s store those thoughts away for the moment.

Now move yourself through the room.  Watch yourself interacting.  Does watching yourself feel awkward?  If so, why?  What are you doing as your ideal that you can’t picture yourself doing in real life?  Those discrepancies between ideal you and real you are the areas where you need to begin changing your behaviors to match the person you want to be.

When I picture my ideal self I see a tranquil person, a woman who is emotionally calm and poised.  This creates some upset in my brain because I am not a tepid person.  I feel things passionately and express my emotions very plainly in my face.  Sometimes too plainly.  I like my passion, but I just don’t want it expressing itself against my will.  I’d like to be a little more in charge of my emotions during a conversation.  Now that I’m over the humbling twinge of discomfort at facing this weakness, I can rip the bandaid off and start working on improvement.

What behaviors can you find to improve on to become your ideal self?