Thoughts on 06/06/08

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately. A lot about relationships, a lot about women in general, and with some indirect prompting I have been thinking a lot about men in relationships as well recently. Overall it has come as quite a surprise to me as to how different men and women are. Not just relationship wise, but in just normal social settings as well. Whether these social settings are on-line, face to face, or on the phone. Being male I had never really thought of what actions I take that seem to be constant across the board with other men. For example, it seems to be that most men will hide their emotions. One such specific example that caught me by surprise would include that men don’t like to talk about problems with their significant other. If things aren’t going well in a relationship they will just ignore the problems instead of talking it through and in turn most likely making the relationship last longer. Why this is I’m not quite sure. I know that many men are shy when it comes to forming relationships and would much prefer the woman to make the first move, but with the way that society is set up right now that isn’t how it usually works. Men are expected to make the first move while women are expected to give an answer to that move. At the same time, I don’t think any man wants a woman to do something that she doesn’t want to do. For example, if the guy leans in to kiss the girl and she doesn’t want to kiss him, the guy would prefer for her to refuse the kiss instead of going ahead with the kiss. It’s a gutsy move on the girls part, and I’m sure that she really doesn’t want to make the guy feel awkward or to embarrass him in front of peers, but it would be better for both parties if she were to just refuse for one reason or another instead of going ahead with it and not sharing the same feelings for him that he has for her.

Women seem to be extremely unpredictable, which drives me crazy as I’m sure it drives most men crazy as well. One example I have observed recently is that women can seem to just look at each other for about 4 seconds directly in each others eyes, and know exactly what the other one is thinking. And then carry on a conversation based off of that. Maybe it’s just luck that this happens, but I’ve seen it happen on more than one occasion. Of course then they look at a guy and expect him to be able to get similar results as their girlfriend had, yet men being men, we have no clue what that look is for. This not only goes for situations like this, but also when it comes to forming relationships. Most women would want the man to make the first move, yet most men don’t want to make the first move unless they know that the woman is interested in them. This is a big problem as most men, including myself have a hard time telling what it is that the woman wants. We get blinded by our own thoughts and we fail to see the small subtle signals that they give us one way or another. I find this problem quite often in my own quests to find significant others. I like her, and I’m trying to find out if she likes me, however, with myself already liking her, it suddenly becomes very hard for me to figure out if she likes me because I want her to like me. If she were to be more direct with the things that she wants it would be much easier for me to tell if she felt the same way about me as I do about her, thus allowing me to feel more comfortable making the first move.

With women not being so direct, it has led me to believe that a quality that most all women seek for in a man is someone who is daring and willing to take big risks. I am a firm believer that relationships start as a friendship when they are meant to last. If you don’t have a solid friendship before you start dating then things become much harder as time goes on. Both parties involved in the relationship should know each others faults and be able to accept it before moving to the more intimate/involved stage in their relationship, if they so choose to take it to that level. (By intimate I don’t mean sexual in this case, I mean more of the beginning stages of dating.)

Overall at this point in my research about men and women in relationships I have yet to realize why we act the way we do. My hope is that over the next few months I will be able to better understand men and women and be able to predict exactly what it is that makes us act the way we do, and in turn, possibly be able to teach people how to change these acts to better satisfy their partner.

More posts to come soon about individual things I have noticed about both sexes.