In the realm of sex, love and romance, men and women are very different. Below are a few of the realizations I have come to or been lucky enough to learn recently about what women and men want from intimate members of the opposite sex:
Women want attention – complete attention. Their words need to impact the people they talk to – particularly their male partners. It is about sharing; in some cases it is about sharing in one direction – the female emptying / downloading – vs. the mutual sharing of stories. This can even mean that the man ends up feeling the same emotions that she is feeling – in fact, it’s probably going to mean that the man shut his mouth and listen. There is nothing wrong here, this is just the way it needs to be sometimes.
With reference to SLR, men screw this up badly because they tend not to listen very well – they treat their female partners like their male friends / coworkers / sports buddies which is to say they listen slightly, wait to talk and try to solve problems so they can get back to whatever else there is going on in the world that isn’t a women being unhappy.
Men want to make the women they love happy. In fact, they’ll stop trying to make happy a women who they can’t make happy. They’ll leave the relationship or friendship very quickly once they realize that she won’t laugh at their jokes, smile at their efforts or respond positively to anything about him.
With reference to SLR, women screw this up badly because they tend to need to be heard and empty before they can feel good and will often want their male partners to emote the same emotions as them when they are not feeling happy, which men don’t seem to do naturally.
Men want a women to be open to them and to help them feel needed and desired. In essence, men want women who will share time in a way that says “there is no one else in the world right now” and to do things that reveal this openness.
With reference to SLR, this doesn’t go too well sometimes because men
don’t do the things that women need in order to feel open and women
don’t do the things that help a man feel desirable. Men may not listen
enough and women may not be happy enough. Again, there is nothing wrong
here, it’s just seems to be how it is some of the time.
Now the prognosis here is very good. A lot of it comes down to accepting
these differences and approaching relationships in a way that allows
both parties to feel valued in their own needed way. It is fine for
someone to be unhappy because of work stress and it is fine for someone
to try and make their significant other happy. What makes it unworkable
is the expectation that both operate in the same way and to require that
the other change. There is a middle ground. For the men, they may need
to listen more and actually hear what is being said. Most of it won’t
matter as viscerally in a few hours let along a few days, but if it
isn’t heard, it will continue to exist. For women, they may need to pay
more attention to the efforts of the man and see them as helpful efforts
to make her happy and consider showing some change as a result of them.
It’s important to remember that nothing is wrong so nothing needs to be fixed. If there is a mutual willingness to accept each other and communicate openly, life shouldn’t be too bad.