"What Was I Thinking? I Was Comparing Men To Animals...

And let's face it, sometimes they are, but sometimes they are not!"
Okay one of my most favorite chick flicks of all time is Someone Like You. The main character of the movie has this huge revelation at the end of the movie that not all men are scumbags, that some men can be the real deal. I may even hazzard a guess that most men are actual decent human beings, who have faults (just like we do ladies) who have fears, concerns, who love, and feel hurt. One thing I'm not sure that most of us realize however, is that men are not hardwired the same as us!!! Sometimes it is almost shocking how different the sexes actaully are.
In the last little while I have been reading a book by Shaunti Feldhahn called For Women Only. It's an awesome book, Shaunti is an analyst who interviewed and polled a ton of men to find out the mysterious motivations behind their baffling and sometimes angering behaviour.
In her book she passes on the information given to her by these men explaining why they do things such as: not asking for directions, working late all the time, pulling away from their family and their relationships, and how they show love compared to how we show love. In one of her studies she polled men on if they had to choose, would they rather feel alone and unloved, or disrespected and inadequate? 74% of the men she polled said they would rather be unloved and alone. Most men actually correlate respect and love as being the same thing, so if a man feels disrespected in his relationship, he is going to feel unloved in the relationship! Shaunti outlines 5 area where men need to feel respected:
#1. His judgement - if we are constantly questioning his judgement, he will believe we think he is stupid and can't handle making simple decisions
#2. His abilities - this is where not asking for directions comes into play, by us asking him to pull over and ask for directions is equal to us saying he can't do it, he can't cut it, this is heartbreaking for men, to know that the women they love don't think they can cut it
#3. In communication - he can hear disrespect in the tones we use and in what we say, sometimes we think they don't pick up on our "subtle" hints that we are angry, they know, they just don't say anything
#4. In public - this one is huge, if you disrespect him in front of people, especially people from his work, he takes it VERY hard
#5. And finally in our assumptions - this is one I admittedly have trouble with, I automatically assume the worse when the guy I'm seeing does something "jerkish" when the real reason he forgot about whatever he forgot about was because of a plethra of other reasons that he's not telling me now because I'm mad at him and won't talk to him:P
Another thing that us women find odd sometimes is the man's compulsion to work. 76% of the men Shaunti polled said they would still feel a need to provide for their family even if their significant other could provide enough single handedly to support the family's lifestyle. And 50% of the men she polled in another poll confessed that they are conscious of their responsibility to provide for their family most of the time. 21% said it was often in the back of their minds. For men work = love, they work because have this need to provide for their family, it's at the core of their identity, it's a burden they want and wouldn't part with for anything in the world. Doesn't that seem strange? It does to me.
Last Saturday night this very topic came up as my friend Des and I sat at the Double D until almost 1 am. She was having problems with her boyfriend of almost 5 years, once I dug a little deeper I found out that they had talked about moving back in together (he was working in a different town) but lately he had been weird and stand offish and it almost seemed like he didn't care about their relationship. After a little more probing I learned that he had lost his job a couple of weeks ago. She also confessed that she has been nagging at him to get a new job, and continuously reminding him of his poor financial situation. I gently suggested to my dear friend (who is a successful store manager and has been working for the same company for the last 4 years) that she might be the cause of his withdrawn attitude, her nagging is a constant reminder that he has lost his job to begin with, and the fact that he can't provide for her like he used to. The fact that she has also retained her job where he hasn't may also make him feel like less of a man, like she would have no use for him, and that he may actually be quite sensitive about the whole situation. She kinda brushed it off at the time, she didn't really believe me I think. However tonight when I got home from work she had left a message on my answering machine asking me what my new book was called again and telling me that I was right! And I love Des very much, but she only ever admits I'm right if it is absolutely necessary! So I found that quite amusing.
So I think I've typed enough to almost make up for not posting a in awhile... I think you should expect to hear more about this particular topic in the future, I'm only on chapter 5!!!
Anyways... love you all, be happy and healthy
You will hear from me soon!