The simple: A man’s love is founded on unconditional respect of all females and built up with conditional respect for one woman. He expects respect more than anything else from his woman and demonstrated more through actions (male default) than words (female default).
The complex: Much female misery flows from women not knowing the answer to this one: Which comes first? Respectable male behavior or males treated respectfully?
M Women expect the former without providing the latter. This implies the behavior of males to be independent of females. Ha!
M Women expect masculine character traits to include respectable behavior. Everybody should just do what’s right. It civilizes society and makes this a better world. Ha!
M If men are not respectable, women think, it’s not the females’ fault. Men do it to themselves, patriarchy you know. Ha!
M In short, women expect men to act more like women. Ha!
A man’s love develops from respect for his woman and endures from respect shown by her. Respect shown for him is critical to his sense of self-respect. See article 515 posting in three days.
This is a really good one, Guy.
One of my best takeaways from your blog has been dropping the expectation that men “should” know how to act a certain way and not to just get mad at them write them off because of it. Many men that behave well up front are often masking some very bad character flaws, and some of the ones with the best characters just don’t have a lot of polish.
I agree that it is funny that we expect from them something that is not in their nature to know or do.
I get that even though men need to lead, the results that we as women get from men are inextricably tied to the behavior we have first displayed and modeled for them -since as you say, men don’t take direction from other men and only indirect information from women.
Thank you
Princess Reina,
I love it when pretty women add so much sense and clarity to my thoughts.
Thanks,
Guy
Ohhh…thank you Guy, you are so sweet.
I have one more book suggestion for you.
A famous comedian, Steve Harvey, just came out with the book, “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.” I think it is right up your alley.
I suggest it for any ladies out there as well. It is chock-full of great advice. He is also good at specific instructions for behavior, and h0w exactly to phrase things when looking for information. I just think the “Ninety Day Rule” needs instead to end when married. I’m sure you can see already where he is going with that one.
Are we witnessing a counter-culture movement?
Your Highness Reina,
I addressed the Harvey book elsewhere, and re-post it here so you won’t have to search:
If a man knows or even suspects she’s holding out for 90 days, he wants to make the time pass faster. This motivates him to spend less time with her, so she misses opportunities to demo her other attributes.
Time stops when with her, and he’s put on hold. It energizes his impatience, whereas being away from her means fewer thoughts of her and what he’s being denied by an arbitrary target. Staying away makes time move faster and confirms less time should be spent with her. Perhaps not consciously but subconsciously.
Don’t know the Harvey guy or his book. But by the title I can see why Oprah wanted to interview him. You can’t think like a man, and act like a lady. It’s called cognitive dissonance. Think like a man, and you act like a man. That’s what the feminists brought us.
My choice for working title might be: “Think like a pretty, highly feminine female and glory in it.” Subtitle: Make them chase you, not the other way around.”
Guy
Hey Everyone,
One thing that has not been taken into account on this blog is RACE. Although femininity and masculinity has core characteristics that cross accross the board, but there are certain cultural, linguistic and psycho-social differences that, without inside knowledge, can easily be misinterpreted. I understand perfectly what Harvey means when he says, “Think like a man.”
It’s just a matter of perspective. Many women (and men) mistakenly attribute the appearance of “hard to get” to be masculine. This is because it makes a women seem less emotional. And since women are known for their emotionality, women who do “The Rules”, can be defined by indivuduals as “thinking like a man.”
This of course is innacurate, but the advice of many books have the same message: Hard to get= Controlling your emotions. A woman that appears to be less emotional than her common neurotic sisters- but yet is very feminine- will be “Acting like a lady but thinking like a man. I also think that black women intuitivly understand what this means in its appropriate context. At least I do, and within an African American context, one must make allowances for cultural interpretation.
“Hard to get= Controlling your emotions”
Hard to get has ALWAYS meant controlling your emotions (and who gets access to you sexually). It is only the recent interpretations that have gotten it backwards. Books like “Date like a man” that tell women to date a number of men at the same time because that’s what men do…HELLO…that’s what women during my grandma’s era did and always did. It was called “having many suitors.”
It is only recently that anything pro-woman has to be viewed through a masculine-energy lens. That has not always been the case. Feminism introduced *that* worldview orientation. No way in h*ll would my grandma think that having many suitors was somehow “acting like a man.” Since when did having friggin common-sense–and behaving accordingly–become a “male thang?”
Also, “think like a man,” is not the same as “understanding how men think.” Thinking (and acting) like a man would actually apply to authentically masculine-energy women…not feminine-energy ones.
Though I get what Harvey is trying to say, it is important to see how we’re increasingly making smart decision-making a “male thing.” Like, women can’t POSSIBLY make good, intelligent, choices for themselves without the help of being like a man? Umm…how is that a positive reflection on women???
Don’t let those Jane Austen, Bronte, etc., novels lead you astray. ;> All of those novels featured the foolish, swooning female, but they also featured just as many, if not more, women making smart, pro-self, choices. The foolish, swooning female characters were reminders to WOMEN at the time about what NOT to do! We only generations later, with different socio-cultural eyes, somehow view that foolish behavior as somehow being “romantic.” Which, in a way, is no different than the themes in most chick-flicks…and just as detrimental.
If you’re going to swoon, have your head about you…be more like Anne of Green Gables! Lol!
Stacey and Dawn, you gals are awesome,I love both of you, you will find the man of you dreams because you have earned it by living up to your ideals and what you know is right, as my favorite gal has said “be a girl worth having “(gasp) and you have, God Bless both of you wonderful girls
Thanks Theresa.
Theresa.. Thank You girl! You know I just started a Rules Group and tomorrow is our second meet. One of the girls called me last night in SHOCK from what she read so far- But it was the good kind of shock. She said she loved it! Basically we are going to smooth out our edges and attract men whom we hope to fulfill our hopes and dreams.
Dawn, I don’t know if was you or someone else on here I told about the book Fascinating Girl and Fascinating Womanhood, one’s pre marriage one’s post, I STRONGLY urge you gals to use them as well.
Within the Christian community, the drum is always beat in favor of conditional respect for men. Yet at the same time, men are to love women unconditionally. This sets us up in a natural imbalance that says women are not accountable in their half of the relationship. Men will then have to deal with an inner battle between loving their wives and distancing themselves from them.
I absolutely have to make this point… Jane Eyre in Bronte’s novel of the same name was a lot of things, but a stupid, swooning female she was NOT. When Mr. Rochester proposed to her the indecency of becoming his mistress, she ran away and made a new life for herself, almost dying of starvation and exposure in the process, held up only by her powerul moral sense and her God. Throughout the book she stands up for what is right, protects the innocent, and is of exemplary nature to girls and women everywhere. There are also many instances in which she demonstrates that she knows exactly how to use her femininity to soothe and tame the very savage and almost dangerous Mr Rochester- when to cry, when to be vexatious, when to tease, when to be sweet. Would that I will develop such a powerful understanding of my man!
Sir Guy,
Something in what you said confused me: “A man’s love is founded on unconditional respect of all females and built up with conditional respect for one woman.” How is this possible when so many women today behave like tarts and/or dress like men?
Thank you for your wonderful advice, as always,
TfE
Your Highness TfE,
You spotlight why so many relationships lack stability. Women focus on things that attract masculine attention rather than earn manly respect. For frequent and convenient access to sex, men need only pay attention to what women advertise. Respect plays a small role, and so a man’s love doesn’t go very deep.
Guy
So does this mean, when we dress nicely, we are doing a favour to other women if it helps men respect the female gender more ? Also doing a favour to the men of course by being femininely and modestly dressed
Your Highness Angelina,
Of course it means exactly what you’ve expressed so well and succinctly. I love it when pretty women describe things so clearly.
Guy
Here’s a video pertinent to this post that others might find interesting.
Your Highness Anonymous,
Sorry, but I find the video as woman-talk by a self-serving man. He aims to convince women that if they just use certain words men will bond more easily. He’s right about respect and ego-salve being what men want, but they want to see it and not hear it. Hearing such things has little holding power and ages fast in intensity, originality, and thus believability. Sex and words bond women. Respect and a woman’s promises—as determined by him and not worded by her—bond men.
Guy
Alright, good to know