1995
Seeing this picture brings me back to a simpler time when I focused on love with some reckless abandon. I loved those days, traveling 600 miles each way to visit Orli for the weekend at school. When the weekend ended, I often turned my car around after traveling 50 miles or more, because I just didn’t want to leave her. It was love.
I’m a lifestyle entrepreneur. I run some of the leading energy, nutrition and fitness lifestyle sites on the Internet, with a big focus on helping people juice up their lives, quality and level of success, by nothing less than thinking and living better. I got into this career by teaching my own struggle.
Today I am single and writing this post with this title in particular, because of the costs of desperation, a story revealed in my recent book, The Curse of the Capable which a Harvard Psychologist asked me to write with him, along with a Superbowl MVP. There you can read my story, but right now I am focused on yours, as a woman.
I thought I would share some of my relationship experience so you ladies will take back your feminine essence, give up on being desperate and indirectly, inspire men, like me, to be even better men.
First of all, it doesn’t matter what gender or what area of life we are speaking of, coming from a place of desperation never ends the way you want it. I know this and so do you, don’t you? In the area of relationships, this couldn’t be truer. In my personal experience this is of extreme significance, especially if you are a woman seeking a relationship in 2010…
I am a formally married man, an “X” in part, because I fell-prey to a desperate woman who felt her “clock” was ticking and who defined herself much by whether or not she had a man. There were other circumstances, like her need for a green card, my need to rescue her to feel better and low grade desperation that I too embodied for other reasons; but nonetheless, desperation, in whatever form it exists is a short cut to a relationship gone badly.
My “X” wife was a wonderful and beautiful woman, a good person. But as I said, desperation can and will likely short circuit ANY relationship because it just won’t develop right.
When it comes to relationships most men are not desperate; there are supposedly way more women than men on this planet and I bet that’s true in NYC too. Match.com… have put thousands of attractive women at our finger tips (which is about the most unnatural and confusing thing EVER, but that’s another blog post), and the desire to get married has seriously waned in the past 10-15 years. It seems we’re all getting married later. The question is why?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most men (and women for that matter) are working harder than ever, yet unlike most women, we men define ourselves by our ability to “provide” and do that well. We are mission driven, and today, in the most competitive, often marginalizing, environment the world has ever known, it’s more challenging than ever to live our mission especially when a man is not yet clear on it. It's at the heart of being a man.
Chances are, there are fewer men who are capable of delivering “the good life” we perceive most women want, but dammit we want to provide it, and that’s a big reason why our attention is mostly on work. We simply want to provide in the best way we can with someone we get into relationship with at the right time in our lives. Yeah, maybe it’s after we’ve sown our oats, but I think it’s when we feel we can thrive in a committed relationship with the right woman.
Women, on the other hand, who are pressed by that biological clock and worried about losing their “girl”, are also in a difficult position. The maternal drive and the ever-present desire for romantic love (I realize this is a generalization about women) in a world where both genders are now in the masculine (work) mode most of the day, has got to be seriously tough on any woman looking for that balance between love, family, support, and a career. In truth this is mutual for both men and women, but the clock, and a story that defines you by whether you have a man in your life or not, can make a woman desperate.
The thing is, you can’t get desperate to get what you want; it rarely works!
At a basic level, men like to chase a woman, (it’s in our genes I think) so getting desperate sells you short on your single biggest point of attraction to men. We want to win you over, not the other way around. The minute you get desperate (not to imply you aren't going to be friendly or share your attraction) you give away your power and we don’t want it.
I'm talking about being too hot on the pursuit to the point where you're wondering his every move. When you give up your power to us, chances are really good it’s going to mean great sex, and then an ending.
As a woman, you are beautiful; revel in that and take care of yourself, your body, your heart and soul. And when and if you meet the right man in the right place in his life and he's attracted to you, you’ll know it. You won’t have to chase him down; he’ll chase you and let him.
I remember chasing Orli when I was 24, for 6 months, before she paid any attention to me other than acknowledging me while jogging on that destined day in 1995. Now she was several years younger than me, and amazingly, she had it right, right from the start. She was thinking like a lady and acting like one too.
But today, many women are thinking like a lady and acting like a man, a play on comedian Steve’s Harveys', sort of shallow but revealing book “Act Like a Lady, Think like a Man”, and it is not the way (in my opinion) to the relationship you want.
Men are the prime pursuers in my experience, and most of us like it that way. We just don’t commit until we’re ready and today’s world of constant change, has admittedly made commitment more difficult. It’s a very complex world as you know.
When a woman starts pursuing a man because she’s desperate, especially when he is not “ready”, it is not going to end well. He will play you, especially if you don’t have at least a 90 day rule around the “benefits package”. ;-). There are exceptions to this rule, but it’s a good rule of thumb to make sure you actually have a relationship before you start acting like you’re in a full-fledged one.
What do I mean by ready? I mean, financially solid, emotionally mature and stable with enough character to coalesce with the feminine in this crazy world we live in. These men aren’t exactly hanging out on every corner and it's your job to sort through until you find him and then, if he's attracted to you, let him work for you.
Now this is a short blog, and it’s likely I’ve opened up more doors than I’ve closed, but I am doing my best to open up a dialogue about the realities of developing relationships between men and women these days. Things have changed, and not always for the better, yet to get better, I think we need a return to certain things that just plain work.
I speak from reflective personal experience with women, and hearty conversations with many men who today are sharing their plight too. Yes, men have their own plight these days and it has a lot to do with women acting like men.
I have this strong feeling that many women are not feeling good; in a chivalrous sense... looked out for and protected and committed to the way they really want, while also not being treated like they are weak and feeble in need of being taken care of. Its clear women are very capable of taking care of themselves.
But is that what you really want, even if you know you can, and do? I don’t think so. I think most women want a great relationship with man who can support the relationship for the most part. (read that again if you are a feminist, before you jump on me). As a man, I know we want a great relationship too, but how we look at relationships and develop one needs some return to days of old, even if the world is hearing you women “roar” like never before.
Here are my tips:
- Free yourself from desperation.
- Stop thinking like a lady and acting like a man when it comes to relationships.
- Don’t give up your feminine essence so essential to being a woman and let a man come to you. And don’t compromise. You’re better off staying single and loving life than capturing an immature man, not ready for that commitment.
Orli and I are friends today, but I can’t help but recognize her for the shift she’s making away from desperation and into one of being open for the right relationship at the right time, with the right man, and nothing less.
You can learn more about Orli's Transparent Thoughts on relationships at http://orliross.blogspot.com/
