I recently participated in a forum flame war about what men and women really want.
It brought up some interesting questions. I will attempt to answer those questions in this post.
The original poster asked the question: What are the differences between what men want and what women want?
I responded that I didn’t think men and women want anything really that different. I stated that both men and women want the same things.
They want trust, loyalty, security, understanding, validation, affection, attention, and intimacy.
It would be impossible to come up with a list of things men want that women DON’T want and vice versa.
Every single thing you could say men want, women also want. Every single thing you could say women want, men also want.
We're all human and we all have the same human needs and feelings. We wouldn’t get into relationships with each other if we didn’t want the same things.
We may not all be the same or think the same way, but we can empathize with each other and realize that we're all on the same page here.
We may not have the same perspectives, tendencies, and capabilities, but underneath it all, we are human.
The original poster felt that I was devaluing the conversation, his question, and him by not addressing his premise that men and women really are different.
He launched into a lengthy explanation about the problems of men who feel they are being exploited as nothing but wallets by women who only value them for their money.
This is mirrored on the other side by women who feel they are being exploited as nothing but pieces of meat by men who only value them for their bodies.
The original poster stated that the entire dating scene is arranged to use men as pay pigs.
Men are expected to have nice cars, pay for dinners, and to have their own houses and apartments to host their female counterparts.
Men pay to get into bars and clubs. They buy drinks for women they are interested in. Dating sites charge men and not women.
This is a complicated subject, so let’s focus just on this argument because it’s so prevalent in today’s dating environment.
There’s a wider flame war raging between men and women where neither side feels that the other is providing what each one truly needs.
First of all, let’s get one thing clear right from the outset. There are literally millions or even billions of men in the world who actually want women to value them for their financial resources and material success.
These men themselves are the ones who see their financial resources and material success as the benchmark of their value in the dating market and the wider world.
These are the same men who are complaining the loudest about women valuing them for their financial resources and material success.
The men who complain the loudest about women treating them as wallets are the same men who are treating themselves as wallets.
As with men, so with women. Women cater the most strongly to today’s standards of beauty and attractiveness. Women are the ones who hold themselves and each other to this standard.
These women pay thousands of dollars on their hair, makeup, clothing, plastic surgery, and dozens of other cosmetic enhancements.
These are the same women who feel the most wronged when men objectify them, use them, and throw them away.
Countless men have publicly stated that they don’t even like these standards. Men prefer natural women with natural health and beauty.
The women persist in these practices for themselves and each other, not because it makes them more appealing to men.
When a woman treats a man as a wallet or a walking ATM machine, she doesn’t respect him any more than a man respects a woman he can use and dump the next morning.
Women want strength, maturity, boundaries, mental stability, and fortitude of spirit in men. Women will happily give their hearts to men who are penniless and hideously ugly if the men are strong in character, authoritative, and determined.
Women who do seek wealth from men or form relationships based on financial resources do not give their hearts. They don't love these men and they don't respect them. The women come to hate these men, look down on them, and cheat on them.
Women might say they want money and go after rich men, but if they get lucky enough to get these men, the women don't respect them or treat them well—so that isn't what they want at all.
The same goes for men who say they want beauty and go after women based solely on their looks. Many prostitutes and adult dancers state that their customers are more interested in talking to someone about their problems than in the actual sex or seductive dancing.
Men who choose based on looks aren’t choosing a woman for stability, compassion, or her nurturing personality. They’re looking for a sex object and they treat the woman as one.
So we need to make a distinction between the superficial noises both sides are making with their mouths versus what they are actually looking for in the opposite sex. These are usually vastly different.
The truest desires of both men and women are to feel connected, to feel loved, and to have long-lasting relationships that feed our souls. Men are just as interested in security and long-term family connection-building as women.
Seeking something superficial and temporary is as likely to leave a man feeling hollow and used as it is to make the woman feel that way.
The truth is that both men and women get treated the way they will tolerate. No one is making men put up with women who treat them as wallets the same way no one is making women put up with men who treat them as bodies.
If someone is getting treated that way, it's because they lack the perspective, boundaries, and self-respect to demand that they be treated any better.
These people are desperate for something they will never get, so they put up with bad behavior from the opposite sex.
Men are participating in this status game and then complaining that the game exists. Women go to great lengths to make themselves sexually appealing and then complain when they get treated as sex objects.
This only proves that neither men nor women want this arrangement at all.
It would be so easy for men to ignore gold-digging women and for women to ignore men who are obviously only interested in sex.
Those who don't ignore the warning signs are the ones who suffer. Hopefully, they will learn something and correct their dating standards to reflect what they really want.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world doesn't have this problem. They value marriage, family, raising the next generation, and building a society that works instead of fixating on instant gratification.
Putting up with this behavior is exactly the reason why this behavior exists. If people exercised some standards, the problem wouldn't exist at all.
It would quickly die away when the people exercising this behavior no longer had any options. The people they are pursuing wouldn't be interested anymore.
Let's say a billionaire man surrounds himself with women who are only after his money and only care about what kind of car he drives.
He could just as easily completely ignore these women and no longer surround himself with them.
He could instead look more carefully for a woman who is less interested in that and more interested in building a lasting, meaningful relationship with him.
The gold-diggers in his life would disappear. They would seek another billionaire elsewhere.
If all the billionaires did the same thing, these women would quickly realize that the billionaires weren't looking for them. The gold diggers would have no choice but to change their ways.
These behaviors only exist because so many people are entertaining them and rewarding the behavior with results.
The problem only exists for people who are living in the bubble where this behavior is the reality. There is a whole world of other people outside the bubble who don't buy into this and aren't interested in it at all.
We all need to take a certain degree of personal accountability in our lives. Wanting different things doesn’t make someone a bad person.
Blaming someone else for your problems is the height of cowardice and immaturity. Set standards for what you will tolerate from other people’s behavior.
If someone violates these standards, you have no one to blame but yourself for letting the person get away with it.
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