Knowing what you want

Recently I was talking to a female friend of mine about her relationships, and what it is that she looks for in a man. What she mentioned really wasn’t much beyond of what any normal girl looks for, but it was more of what she said that reminded me of something that I have told myself and others for years. Romantic relationships can not be formed based on pure physical attraction, not if we want them to last anyway. The same goes for romantic relationships based on pure emotional attraction, meaning attraction to their personality. We have to have a mix of both physical and emotional attraction. I know that this sounds like the type of thing where you would go, “Well DUH sleepless man, what do you think we are, idiots?”, and I have to let you all know, the exact opposite is going through my mind. Even in my own relationships, for years I always wanted to be with the person I found the most physically attractive instead of the ones that were the most appealing to me. As I’ve said before, a relationship is doomed to end when one or more parties involved are unhappy with the results that they are receiving. Meaning, if one person in the relationship doesn’t feel that their intellectual needs are being met, there is a good chance that the relationship will begin deteriorating. Which is why it is important for each person to know exactly what it is that they would want in a “perfect” significant other. This doesn’t mean that you will find the perfect person, but you will have a good idea as to if you’ve found someone that will possibly meet the needs that you feel you need met. I’ll have more coming on this in the next couple of weeks, but for now, the sleepless man is out.

Temptation

Temptation, the biggest threat in any relationship. Just the thought that our partner is being tempted to betray us throws us into the biggest state of self consciousness and anger that many of us will ever experience with our relationships. No relationship is safe from it, and no one can completely resist it. We may not act upon our temptations, but we will think about our temptations, and that can still lead to problems. Early on in the relationship we aren’t as easily tempted because we are still in that “OH MY GOD I’M REALLY WITH THIS PERSON” stage in the relationship. But rest assured, or not so assured, that this stage won’t last forever. It will end eventually, and although it can come back, it will defiantly be during those periods that it’s not there that temptation kicks in the most. As the relationship lasts longer and we grow in age we tend to resist temptation more and more, yet we never fully escape it. One could say that we as humans are fascinated with temptation and how different people are affected by it, after all we do have TV shows after TV show dedicated to testing the waters and putting people into situations where we would be tempted to betray our partners. The most popular of which is “Temptation Island”. A show where 4 couples are split apart from each other to be left with 12 very sexy single people of the opposite gender for 2 weeks, with no physical contact to their significant other for that entire time. Another show, that I think shows off temptation at its finest in a semi-real life situation is called “The X-effect”. On this show, 2 couples are taken to a resort and unknown to them the ex of one of the people in each couple is in the other couple at the same resort. Long story short, the exes are put together in one room while the other 2 are in another room and are unable to make contact with their significant other. Often times what I witnessed on this show is that people tended to be unfaithful to their current relationship by going back to their ex, while the neglected significant others tent to “hook up” in their own room. It’s sad that it worked out this way, but that’s just one of the reasons why temptation is so dangerous when it comes to relationships, and probably why so many people are fascinated by it.

How Much Is Too Much?

It’s common knowledge that women like to be complimented on the way they look among other things, and that they like to be with their significant other. But the question arises, how much is too much? When have we crossed the line of being extremely romantic and cross over into being clingy and over completmentative?

As with any friendship, and a relationship should be just that only more intense, spending too much time with someone will cause irritation problems between the parties involved. It usually takes longer the older we get to rub one of our friends the wrong way enough to piss them off past their threshold, and even longer when we are romantically inovlved with them. But none the less it is possible, and very easy to do. This threshold differs from person to person. Some people can withstand just a few small hours with each other before getting tired of one another, while others can days without becoming irritated.

One problem with this is that we all have different expectations. One person may want to hang out every other day, while the other person in the relationship may only want to hang out once or twice a week and ease into things. With most people it isn’t always easy to tell if they are becoming irritated or are growing tired of you, and so it is very important to be open with each other about how you are feeling.

Now you may not want to just flat out ask your partner about how they feel about you and the time you spend together, but instead you may want to start off small and talk about pas relationships and what you each liked and disliked about different relationships that you each have been in. Work off of those likes and dislikes to form a begining system for your relationship. If one of you is comfortable meeting with each other everyday leaving only one or two days for personal time while the other is comfrtable meeting only two or three times a week to start out, go with the two or three days. Don’t push your partner into something that they don’t really want to do.

However, it isn’t only the two parties in a relationship that make it work. Be sure to talk to your friends about their feelings on the situation. If your friends want to hang out three times a week, and you and your significant other want to be together three times a week, that only leaves you with one day of recouporation time. Be sensible and try to work out a solution with your significant other and your friends. Make suggestions such as on Monday and Wednesday nights you hang out with your friends only, while on Tuesday and Friday nights it’s you and your significant other. This leaves you with THursday, Saturday, and Sunday to choose from for any other times to meet. You could spend one of these nights with everyone. Significant others and friends all going out and doing something together. This way your friends are happy because they get to spend time with just you, and your significant other is also happy because they have time alone with you as well. Proposing solutions such as this will keep both your friends, your significant other, and yourself happy for a much longer time.

Don’t think that once you set a schedule that it can’t be changed. On the same note, don’t go randomly changing it either. It should be understood between both your friends and your significant other that sometimes schedules have to change, or sometimes something comes up almost last minute, yet it is still up to you to make up for any last minute changes. If you suddenly have to give up an evening with your friends for your significant other because they can’t do anything on a night that was predetermined as your night together, and instead have to meet on a night that you are supposed to be with friends, it is your responsibility to make up that time with your friends. Don’t just go and completely blow them off, as that will bring you down a lonely road without any friends. Then you’re just stuck back where you started only one significant other up.

So the question still remains, “How Much Is Too Much?” Well that depends on you and your friends as well as your significant other. Don’t anger your friends and don’t anger your significant other either. Both parties should be understanding especially if you explain things to them. Work out a deal between both groups and make sure that they all understand how things are going to work. If they can’t work with the proposed solution, work together to make a new one so that everyone ends up happy. That is where true friendship lies, in understanding and cooperation.

Communication

By not being in a relationship myself right now, it has given me ample opportunities to evaluate exactly what it is that men mean when we say different things. Every man, no matter what he says, wants to be in a relationship. Many men will say that they are happy being alone and single and that they aren’t really looking for a relationship, but the truth is, with every woman that they meet they are actively considering what their chances would be with them. Now there are some exceptions to this, for example, I would never consider dating a few of my friends, for reasons that if I did date them, would go against my morals. Such as dating a friend who was previously dating a very good friend of yours. Even if that friend of yours is no longer a very good friend.

With that said, many women have complained to me, or more just mentioned that they don’t understand men. I think I have the solution to the reasoning as to why they don’t understand men. When a man isn’t really listening real close, but is more of gazing into the beauty of the woman he is talking to, he tends to say things that are off topic, or ask questions that don’t relate to what is going on. When he doesn’t really want to try to explain something at a given time, the answer he usually gives are “I don’t know” or something that clearly isn’t the correct answer. I myself have caught myself saying “I don’t know” when I didn’t want to explain something to someone, usually when that someone is of the opposite sex.

To solve many of the problems men and women have with each other when it comes to understanding, I think we need to simply improve our communication. Communication is the binding force that keeps us all happy and together. At the same time, communication can ruin relationships, but without good communication skills, we would have no relationships to ruin.

In order to fine tune our communication skills we have to experience problems. No one starts our perfect when it comes to communicating. The best way to build your communication skills is to experience problems. This means that your first relationship won’t be the one to “seal the deal”, so to speak. You’re going to have to accept that you are going to have to date multiple people during your dating career. That is step one to building a healthy relationship. Learning to go from person to person when something doesn’t work out. That perfect person is out there somewhere just waiting for you to find them, but if you don’t have excellent communication skills, it might not work out between you two.

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.