Why Don't Men Get It? A Woman's Perspective

As someone who often gets asked “What do I do if….” And “What should I reply to…?” and “Does she like me if she…” and “What does he mean when he texts….”, I’m no stranger to giving advice on love, relationships, sex and companionship. Many people I know have called me a modern-day Australian-Indian Carrie Bradshaw, a hybrid compli-insult in reference to none other than Sex and the City’s most neurotically relatable protagonist. Part social commentator, part self-destructive over-thinker, Carrie and I have more in common than just our love of love itself and proactively spending our money till it hangs in our wardrobes. No, what really bonds us is not our mutual appreciation of Manolos, but rather our inability to stop questioning everything even if it and often does, drive us to the brink of being crazy. And this week, one question is doing exactly that to me:

Why don’t men get it?

Earlier this week I sat in a bar with a close friend who I can regard as a quintessential red-blooded male in all aspects of his being, aside from the fact that he is one of the most sensibly guarded men you will ever meet. A pragmatist at heart, fortunately he has the empathy of a therapist and sat opposite me as I reveled in story after story of terrible dates, almost-relationships and miscommunicated text messages resulting in frustrating and anxiety-fueled romantic situations both on my own part and that of my girlfriends'. He listened with patience and intent and over and over again, I found myself asking him the question of, “Why doesn’t he just get it?”

Think of this very typical scenario that occurs day in and day out for hundreds and thousands, if not millions of couples (for this purpose, couple is any two people romantically interacting). Girl meets boy. Boy talks to girl. Girl likes boy. Boy likes girl. Boy asks girl out. Boy and girl go out. Girl and boy talk again. Girl and boy go out again. Girl still likes boy. Boy starts talking to girl less. Girl is confused because she thought boy still likes her? Boy stops contacting girl. Girl is now very confused and tries to contact boy. Boy responds to girl very coolly. Girl is now upset and stops talking to boy hoping boy will talk to her. Boy doesn’t notice. Girl is devastated but still likes boy. Boy decides to come back. Girl is excited and thinks boy likes her again. And so the vicious cycle continues. Being a consultant, when I do my process analysis on this interaction above, most people would wonder why girl ever accepts boy back in once he’s stopped talking to her. But for me, the real issue occurs when boy stops talking to girl as much to begin with. What gives boy, I thought you liked girl?

See, unbeknownst to the boy, he doesn’t realise his critical error of backing away just when girls likes him the most is the reason he cannot ever get the outcome he wants. In a real life scenario, this is usually the point in an interaction between a boy and a girl where the boy now starts to assess if he is interested in pursuing his interaction with the object of his desire any further and more importantly, for what purpose. The girl may do the same and this is typically the point when she recognises she wants a relationship. Now the guy may still be very attracted to her and want to conquer his original goal of bedding her, however his lack of desire for a relationship scares him. He picks up that the girl may want a deeper connection than what he is willing to offer or knows he wants to offer at that stage and complacency kicks in as a defence mechanism. He begins to become distant, responding less, showing an overall lack of engagement and commitment to driving the interaction any further. But eventually because he likes her and still feels a connection (even if just for sex), he cannot help but come back to girl, even if it means he's guarded. In his bid to save his own hide here, what he doesn’t seem to realise is that he’s just shot his own chances of sleeping with her anyway without even meaning to. Thus what was once a win-win situation for both parties, now becomes a lose-lose for the boy and the girl.

AND THIS IS WHY MEN JUST DON’T GET IT. Welcome to 2016 boys. In today’s day and age, men seem to be very oblivious to the fact that when a woman meets a man, she is no stranger to the notion that his first thought will always be “How can I sleep with this woman I am attracted to?” Hell, forget 2016, men have been asking this question since the stone age. Let me be straight up, (most) women know a man hasn’t approached her in those first five minutes to make her the love of their lives, to tell her she is the other part of their soul or the missing half of their heart. She knows first and foremost, your physical attraction to her stumps all. She is not so naive or negligent to this fact and neither is she put off by it. She understands this is nature and instinct and chemistry. Why then, do men still think they need to play so many games just to get what they want?

I read once that men look for sex and find love and women look for love and see sex as part of the connective tissue of that relationship. I don’t necessarily agree with this notion (sexual liberation for women anyone?) but I don’t necessarily disagree either. The simple truth that this sentence doesn’t quite convey is that all women are really looking for is a bit of effort. We don’t care if it’s because you want to date us, you want to marry us, you want to simply hook up with us for a casual fling or even a one night stand. Every woman wants to be made to feel like the man on the other side of the connection actually cares enough about it to want to try in the first place. Put down your pitchforks. I know this is the modern world and women too, must exert effort and care and initiative and it’s not just about the guy being the pursuer anymore, yes, yes, I know! But this doesn’t take away from the fact that there is an element of truth in this and that is just fact.

If we look back at the scenario above, there is no reason why it needs to be lose-lose. Most women who are interested in a man and even if they see a long-term potential with them, understand that sex is part of the equation and this is what men fail to understand. We’re not, not sleeping with you because we’re prudish and don’t want to have sex, boys. No, we’re not sleeping with you because you stopped making an effort and became inconsistent, unreliable and made the woman feel like if she did, you wouldn’t respect her after it occurred. It’s really that simple. If you don’t put in, we don’t put out (someone had to say it). We don't need your dishonest promises and for you to paint pictures of balmy nights in Paris where we'll have our honeymoon. We just don't want you to think we're that stupid that we don't know what you want. We don’t expect you to fall in love with us and sweep us off our feet, all we want is a text that doesn’t sound like an automated iPhone response (sent once every 5 days for that matter) and to know that whilst you may be wanting less than a deep connection, you see us as beyond our bodies, not just because of them. It doesn’t matter to us that you may not want to be with us forever, because guess what, not all of us are looking for a fairy-tale either (I am, so sorry, you can’t have me boys, back in line), but all of us want some honesty.

Even with all the technology, digitisation and evolution of education in today’s society, it feels like sometimes our heterosexual nature continues to stagnate us from truly growing as human beings. Men and women still seem to communicate in the language of games and pursuit and mixed signals when it comes to relationships, when really, it doesn’t need to be that hard. So as a tip to my boys meeting girls, the next time you get to the point in the story where you feel like you may want to run away, try picking up the phone and asking her what she wants instead. I’m betting it’ll lead to boy gets girl.

Till next time!

R xx