Recruiting the assistance of men in this culture often proves to be a disappointing experience, so it is logical that many women avoid doing so unless absolutely necessary. Whether a woman is agreeing to allow a man to show her a good time, letting a male partner know she wants an errand or household chore accomplished for her, or even doing business with a serviceman, the low standards for men in this culture usually result in them being less than generous materially and energetically.
The responses men offer to women who express what they want might contain elements of cooperativeness and respect, such as a one word acknowledgement that they still retain their hearing, or even a partial show of interest in the woman’s request while they exhibit preoccupation with something else, but it is often followed by joking excuses for their lack of follow-through on those requests, or mere procrastination for completing the task using unsolicited comments on the woman’s sex appeal, as if she cared to know what their sexual mood was.
This kind of teasing is a mixture of flirting with “the blow off”, which is a way men avoid working on behalf of a woman while trying to disguise their laziness and apathy with cursory flattery, and even that pertaining to their own selfish preoccupation with a woman’s sensual stimulation for them. It is a form of disrespect.
Rather than wasting their energy explaining how disappointing men’s apathy is, a woman often gracefully tolerates a man’s irrelevant sexual comments and leaves him in the dark as to how to gain her genuine interest in him.
This, of course, is justice for him, but not enough justice for her, for there are men who would eagerly compete with such a man for her interests, and that can be used to satisfy her wants and discipline the disrespectful man by rubbing his nose in it. Often, it is not until a man feels he is losing out on the opportunity to get a woman’s attention that he is motivated to treat her the way she wants.
A woman reveals her standards for tolerating male company by making specific requests of them and verbally, as well as sensually, expressing her happiness or disappointment with the responses men exhibit. She is guaranteed to get a man’s attention when she tells them how their behavior changes her perceptions of them, like letting them know that their joking in response to her concerns is their “failing to convince” her that she “can take (them) and (their) skills seriously”; or that their request for her time without the hospitality to offer service to her, like buying her dinner or entertaining her, is really them “not showing sincere interest in” her.
Likewise, she is guaranteed a man’s attention when she avoids a disappointing experience with him to get what she wants from someone other than him. His competitiveness for female attention causes him to take an avid interest in what is attracting hers. That’s why it is in a woman’s best interest to always admit what her interests are and to give her attention to them as well as to the men who contribute to her achievement of them.
So, when a man disregards a woman’s request for his service, or her concerns for a prompt response, or her interests in being shown respect and offered things she enjoys, he loses his opportunity to gain more attention from her. He defaults. At that point, getting what she wants is as simple as by-passing him to find another man who will respond to her request for service with the treatment she likes. When she disregards men who disregard her and lets them see her reward her attention to the man who respected her interests by showing his solid interest in them, she allows other men to regret their delay towards her and gives them motivation to change.
After a few repetitions of this experience, most men reach a state of willingness to exit their comfort zone to regain the woman’s interest in them, often displayed as a plea to let them do something for her at her convenience and a claim that they “don’t want to lose” her. Of course they don’t. Up to this point she’s offered them more than they’ve ever offered her, mostly because of her female character and at least because of her sensual appeal for them. They have a lot to gain from being in her presence.
It is at this point that they are ready to follow and that she can begin to take the lead and tighten her rules for rewards and denial with strict enforcement. She can choose to give them another chance at achieving her desires, or not, but the important thing is that she doesn’t suffer for their lack of readiness and that they learn to respect her for it.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Recognizing Your Allies
There are two kinds of heterosexual men: those who are turned on by themselves, and those who are turned on by women.
There are men who are turned on by self-aggrandizement, who use the compliance of women to their will as evidence to others that their self-importance is not a delusion. By default, they are habitually unmindful of their woman’s feelings and injure her pride often. This kind of man can be nice, and he can tell a woman what she wants to hear, but he does so only on the condition that he gets extra-credit from her for it. He then reverts to the minimum level of compliance necessary to keep her from looking for someone else.
Then, there are men who get turned on by women who seem more important than themselves, who outsmart them, win out over them, achieve professional success ahead of them -women whose will they want to comply with. Such men will always find opportunity to point out to a woman where she is more brilliant than themselves and others, where she outperforms themselves and others, and their passion for her, plutonic or romantic, is ignited by all the times she displays her self-contentment and social independence from them. In essence, they are infatuated with her for her leadership qualities, which inspire them and others to follow.
One noticeable distinction between them is that self-infatuated men rarely see themselves as being self-absorbed. Women-infatuated men, by contrast, are usually hyper-aware of their potential to be self-absorbed and fault themselves for missing or not noticing the preferences of the woman they are with. Men are either essentially one or the other, it seems. This is most likely due to their tendency to be hierarchal-minded, assuming leader-follower relationships, rather than community-minded, assuming egalitarian relationships, when not under the consistent influence of female thinking.
With men who love women, their attraction to a particular woman
has more to do with her success at getting what she wants rather than
any particular set of bodily features. That is because they don’t
perceive women as a form of entertainment, in contrast to the former
kind of man who seems to believe he is conducting casting calls for
a Broadway musical about his life. A man who loves women sees a woman as his inspiration, a role model, and seeks to be included in her perceived social popularity and success by entertaining her, and by responding frequently to her will in a needed vacation from his own.
A woman will know this kind of man by his conversational habits such as frequent attribution of credit to her, acknowledgement of her insight, and tunnel vision of her successes in competitive situations. This is the kind of man who women wish they were with when they are involved with the other kind. But for a woman to enjoy and maintain that kind of admiration and support, she has to understand what this kind of man is responding to in her and receive what he is offering.
False modesty and expressing self-doubt are of no use here, despite their usefulness in wielding the will of self-absorbed men by baiting their ego. The habits developed in the company of less desirable people must be broken, because they mask the very strengths and genius of a woman that these men value her for.
By agreeing with a man’s bragging over her accomplishments, talent, cleverness, social popularity, beauty, and most of all complete independence from him for success, a woman allows this kind of man to have a place in her life, one of a follower or loyal ally; but most importantly she confesses the previously censored truth about her to herself and others. It is the truth about her because a person’s true social identity comes from what potential they have to be important to others, not unimportant to others.
When a woman emerges from the shadows to own up to all the ways she impresses the men who actually see her, she is claiming her right to enjoy herself and receive overdue credit for her skills and achievements. She is also rewarding a man for his righteous attitude and attentiveness towards her with her approval and acknowledgement of his success at pleasing her. This reinforces his behavior and makes other men question theirs.
This way of interacting with men is worth making a habit out of, one likely to be self-reinforcing and socially contagious.
There are men who are turned on by self-aggrandizement, who use the compliance of women to their will as evidence to others that their self-importance is not a delusion. By default, they are habitually unmindful of their woman’s feelings and injure her pride often. This kind of man can be nice, and he can tell a woman what she wants to hear, but he does so only on the condition that he gets extra-credit from her for it. He then reverts to the minimum level of compliance necessary to keep her from looking for someone else.
Then, there are men who get turned on by women who seem more important than themselves, who outsmart them, win out over them, achieve professional success ahead of them -women whose will they want to comply with. Such men will always find opportunity to point out to a woman where she is more brilliant than themselves and others, where she outperforms themselves and others, and their passion for her, plutonic or romantic, is ignited by all the times she displays her self-contentment and social independence from them. In essence, they are infatuated with her for her leadership qualities, which inspire them and others to follow.
One noticeable distinction between them is that self-infatuated men rarely see themselves as being self-absorbed. Women-infatuated men, by contrast, are usually hyper-aware of their potential to be self-absorbed and fault themselves for missing or not noticing the preferences of the woman they are with. Men are either essentially one or the other, it seems. This is most likely due to their tendency to be hierarchal-minded, assuming leader-follower relationships, rather than community-minded, assuming egalitarian relationships, when not under the consistent influence of female thinking.
With men who love women, their attraction to a particular woman
has more to do with her success at getting what she wants rather than
any particular set of bodily features. That is because they don’t
perceive women as a form of entertainment, in contrast to the former
kind of man who seems to believe he is conducting casting calls for
a Broadway musical about his life. A man who loves women sees a woman as his inspiration, a role model, and seeks to be included in her perceived social popularity and success by entertaining her, and by responding frequently to her will in a needed vacation from his own.
A woman will know this kind of man by his conversational habits such as frequent attribution of credit to her, acknowledgement of her insight, and tunnel vision of her successes in competitive situations. This is the kind of man who women wish they were with when they are involved with the other kind. But for a woman to enjoy and maintain that kind of admiration and support, she has to understand what this kind of man is responding to in her and receive what he is offering.
False modesty and expressing self-doubt are of no use here, despite their usefulness in wielding the will of self-absorbed men by baiting their ego. The habits developed in the company of less desirable people must be broken, because they mask the very strengths and genius of a woman that these men value her for.
By agreeing with a man’s bragging over her accomplishments, talent, cleverness, social popularity, beauty, and most of all complete independence from him for success, a woman allows this kind of man to have a place in her life, one of a follower or loyal ally; but most importantly she confesses the previously censored truth about her to herself and others. It is the truth about her because a person’s true social identity comes from what potential they have to be important to others, not unimportant to others.
When a woman emerges from the shadows to own up to all the ways she impresses the men who actually see her, she is claiming her right to enjoy herself and receive overdue credit for her skills and achievements. She is also rewarding a man for his righteous attitude and attentiveness towards her with her approval and acknowledgement of his success at pleasing her. This reinforces his behavior and makes other men question theirs.
This way of interacting with men is worth making a habit out of, one likely to be self-reinforcing and socially contagious.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Leading By Example
A reoccurring issue that often seems to aggravate confident women in female-male relationships is the problem of a proposed female-loving man who tends to “top from the bottom”, so to speak, or feign devotion to pleasing a woman while only serving her in the ways that turn him on. Worse yet, some men claim to revere a woman's will, then try to push her to participate in sexual activities which they desire after she has made known to them that she does not.
This mixed message from the male can turn off a woman and even discourage her from sharing her dominant side with them at all. This situation confronts a woman with two choices- continue or leave. The question, however, is ‘can a woman stay with such a man and not be topped by him?’
I have found that men who try to dictate the terms of our encounters through their selective resistance are best dealt with by standing up for my principles and not backing down. My terms for our sexual activity or dating are the only ones that matter to me, and his resistance to them makes him less worthy of my time. Although, I do customize my expectations according to the varying capabilities of certain men if I think they have the potential to do much better for me in the future.
However, when I refuse to compromise the boundaries of my pleasure I risk being rejected by the man I am correcting for failing to heed them.
I have been walked away from by a number of men who initially showed respectful behavior towards me. Upon telling them something that clashed with their existing ideology on what they should be capable of, or what approach to relationship with women was best for them, those men disagreed with me and then withdrew. This has happened with two dating partners, once with an online admirer, and a few times with a past lover.
One dating partner originally responded to my corrections, but when it came time for him to admit his need to take direction from me rather than just giving me lip service and some flowers, he rejected my beliefs and my leadership.
Another dating partner took my comments that he should get a car, a proper place to live, and a broader range of dating skills to mean that my standards were too high for any guy to meet.
One online admirer had difficulty accepting some ideology he was unfamiliar with from me and stopped writing me.
And the past lover responded to my reprimanding of him several times by throwing an intellectual temper tantrum and threatening to leave.
Each of those times I refused to budge from my original perception of their difficulties, left them with a farewell correction, and let them follow their bright ideas elsewhere.
What eventually happened was that the first dating partner contacted me to flaunt that he had started to see someone else; then after two and a half weeks of silence he text messaged me, emailed me a few times, and sent me an overgenerous birthday present, all without my encouragement. The other dating partner started texting me a month later, right after he got a better apartment, and has been texting me since to offer new dating options, all of which I have ignored up to this point. The other admirer wrote me back after a while with a more open-minded response and has been chatting with me avidly since then. And the past lover wound up returning each time to ask for my forgiveness and admit I was right, with two-week delays each time, and eventually discovered for himself a passionate affinity with my way of seeing things to the neglect of his interest in other women for a year after I broke up with him.
What has this taught me? It has taught me that I don't have to be afraid of letting a man sulk. It has taught me that I don't have to be afraid of "winding up alone" for rejecting a man's unappealing treatment of me and not responding to him until he cooperates with my standards. Even when it requires me to be alone for a period of time, that demonstration of confidence from me eventually returns more male attention than it initially costs.
Because men follow women who lead. Men seek the attention of women who follow their own convictions. A man is motivated by a woman who rewards him with attention for joining her in following her convictions, and who denies him her attention for straying from them. And when a woman has convictions about how she deserves to be treated, and how a man is in need of treating her, her convictions become the goal post and every man a competitor. And men love to compete.
Men will doubt in their ability to reach her goals. Men will deny the validity of those goals and claim that no one can reach them. But when a woman is meeting her own goals with her own treatment of herself and her quality of life, it becomes obvious to men that her goals are attainable and it is their own performance that remains unconvincing.
This doesn’t mean that men don’t have certain needs and convictions of their own. Men are focused by nature and are at their best when their focus is singular. So, men have the need to keep their focus on one legal code, one authoritative standard, be it that of an institution, a gender group, or an individual. And each man has a need for a personal criterion for selecting that ultimate leader and deselecting the leadership of others.
A man who is open to female leadership uses his own criteria to select a female leader that inspires him in personal ways, outside of gender dynamics. However, it is the woman’s code of behavior and goals for quality of relationship that give him direction as to how to win her approval and inclusion of him in her plans.
What makes him attentive is not necessarily what pleases him. It is what challenges him mentally or socially, what indicates that there is a higher level of achievement for him to apply his efforts to, that gets and keeps his attention.
In the end, I follow myself- my own perceptions and beliefs that are
based on my feelings and experiential knowledge- because I am only happy when I am happy. And when I am happy, I am confident, which is the most alluring quality in a leader for those who like to follow.
This mixed message from the male can turn off a woman and even discourage her from sharing her dominant side with them at all. This situation confronts a woman with two choices- continue or leave. The question, however, is ‘can a woman stay with such a man and not be topped by him?’
I have found that men who try to dictate the terms of our encounters through their selective resistance are best dealt with by standing up for my principles and not backing down. My terms for our sexual activity or dating are the only ones that matter to me, and his resistance to them makes him less worthy of my time. Although, I do customize my expectations according to the varying capabilities of certain men if I think they have the potential to do much better for me in the future.
However, when I refuse to compromise the boundaries of my pleasure I risk being rejected by the man I am correcting for failing to heed them.
I have been walked away from by a number of men who initially showed respectful behavior towards me. Upon telling them something that clashed with their existing ideology on what they should be capable of, or what approach to relationship with women was best for them, those men disagreed with me and then withdrew. This has happened with two dating partners, once with an online admirer, and a few times with a past lover.
One dating partner originally responded to my corrections, but when it came time for him to admit his need to take direction from me rather than just giving me lip service and some flowers, he rejected my beliefs and my leadership.
Another dating partner took my comments that he should get a car, a proper place to live, and a broader range of dating skills to mean that my standards were too high for any guy to meet.
One online admirer had difficulty accepting some ideology he was unfamiliar with from me and stopped writing me.
And the past lover responded to my reprimanding of him several times by throwing an intellectual temper tantrum and threatening to leave.
Each of those times I refused to budge from my original perception of their difficulties, left them with a farewell correction, and let them follow their bright ideas elsewhere.
What eventually happened was that the first dating partner contacted me to flaunt that he had started to see someone else; then after two and a half weeks of silence he text messaged me, emailed me a few times, and sent me an overgenerous birthday present, all without my encouragement. The other dating partner started texting me a month later, right after he got a better apartment, and has been texting me since to offer new dating options, all of which I have ignored up to this point. The other admirer wrote me back after a while with a more open-minded response and has been chatting with me avidly since then. And the past lover wound up returning each time to ask for my forgiveness and admit I was right, with two-week delays each time, and eventually discovered for himself a passionate affinity with my way of seeing things to the neglect of his interest in other women for a year after I broke up with him.
What has this taught me? It has taught me that I don't have to be afraid of letting a man sulk. It has taught me that I don't have to be afraid of "winding up alone" for rejecting a man's unappealing treatment of me and not responding to him until he cooperates with my standards. Even when it requires me to be alone for a period of time, that demonstration of confidence from me eventually returns more male attention than it initially costs.
Because men follow women who lead. Men seek the attention of women who follow their own convictions. A man is motivated by a woman who rewards him with attention for joining her in following her convictions, and who denies him her attention for straying from them. And when a woman has convictions about how she deserves to be treated, and how a man is in need of treating her, her convictions become the goal post and every man a competitor. And men love to compete.
Men will doubt in their ability to reach her goals. Men will deny the validity of those goals and claim that no one can reach them. But when a woman is meeting her own goals with her own treatment of herself and her quality of life, it becomes obvious to men that her goals are attainable and it is their own performance that remains unconvincing.
This doesn’t mean that men don’t have certain needs and convictions of their own. Men are focused by nature and are at their best when their focus is singular. So, men have the need to keep their focus on one legal code, one authoritative standard, be it that of an institution, a gender group, or an individual. And each man has a need for a personal criterion for selecting that ultimate leader and deselecting the leadership of others.
A man who is open to female leadership uses his own criteria to select a female leader that inspires him in personal ways, outside of gender dynamics. However, it is the woman’s code of behavior and goals for quality of relationship that give him direction as to how to win her approval and inclusion of him in her plans.
What makes him attentive is not necessarily what pleases him. It is what challenges him mentally or socially, what indicates that there is a higher level of achievement for him to apply his efforts to, that gets and keeps his attention.
In the end, I follow myself- my own perceptions and beliefs that are
based on my feelings and experiential knowledge- because I am only happy when I am happy. And when I am happy, I am confident, which is the most alluring quality in a leader for those who like to follow.
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