How Do You Want Me To Feel?
This is one of those posts Mistress Matisse makes from time to time that makes me regret her long-ago decision — liberating though it must be — not to host blog comments. I might have contented myself with a “Hell yah!” if she had ’em, but since she doesn’t, I’ll just post a few choice drive-by excerpts over here, and keep right on moving:
The idea that a woman can change how her male partner feels about things annoys me.
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I strongly disagree with the idea that a woman should try to redesign the inside of a man’s head. If you want a romance with someone who thinks just like you, date other women. Men are different from us. Really. Their view of the world is neither better or worse than ours, it just — is.
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If you tell a man what you wish to have done, he’ll either do it, or else he won’t. But if it’s something both of you can see, then it’s easier to discuss. Telling a man you want him to feel differently is hard to measure, and doing so rarely yields a satisfactory result for anyone, in my experience.
You preach it, sister!
(I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I have definitely been in the position of confusedly asking a woman “What is it that you want from me?” and getting back the very specific answer “I want you to feel/not feel [description of a mental state]”. Let me tell you, there are no extra points for telling her that her impossible-to-fulfill emotional demands have now filled you with existential despair. “Woman, it’s how I feel, it’s not something I can change like I change my freakin’ pants.” Nope, no points for that answer either.)
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=6256
Oh, I love her, and I loved this post. I also really, really loved this comment:
“I myself think men are sort of like the Federal government. They do certain important jobs really well, but it’s best to keep their official duties simply defined.”
I cannot stand my friends who expect things to happen (flowers, back massages, whatever) but never actually TELL their men that they do. Gah.
Wow… I’m really sheltered from mainstream womanhood, I guess. I cannot begin to fathom where the reasoning behind a request like that would originate — it’s not as if WOMEN can decide to feel or not feel some particular way either!
Notwithstanding the gender dynamics, which are problematic in all sorts of ways, I find the idea that an individual might not have cause to examine their own feelings, and acquire the self-awareness to consider whether they are appropriate or merited, really clueless.
In particular, blaming women for the fact that they have to deal with men who are, apparently, emotionally clueless seems needlessly cruel, given all the other sh1t they have to put up with.
Of course, whether anyone ‘should’ change in any specific case, who can say? But the option ought to be out there, for responsible adults.
Very early in my sexual life, I discovered that I loved cunninglingus. Hence, women most always left my bed smiling.
Not that I mean to blow smoke up my own arse… But it’s always struck me that if two people want to be together than most anything you’re gonna do is gonna work out to be a fuckload of fun for all concerned.
Roughly paraphrasing something I once heard:
“Men who marry women, hope that they (the woman) will never change. Women marry a man hoping to gut him, and then remodel everything.”
I’ve never understood how a woman can say that she loves a man, and then spent so much of her time and effort trying to make him act like someone else…
This whole idea of “I’d love you so much better if only you weren’t so… YOU!…” is so weird. The logic escapes me.
All my life I’ve been hearing women say that men love a challenge. I ‘m beginning to think that’s what psychologists call projection ( http://en.wikip...logy) ). They are assuming that men think the way THEY themselves think. As a man, I don’t love a challenge. During periods of my life when I was single, as soon as a prospective lover showed signs of disinterest in me, I’d quickly move on to the next prospect. I guess women get this odd idea from romantic novels and movies, that end the way THEY want them to end. How many films have I seen where some guy who’s just not that into them, suddenly changes his mind before the credits roll, and rushes to the airport to stop her from boarding some airplane to greener pastures…