1. Women process (and act on) information completely differently than men. Never forget this. Stop thinking of women as screwed-up men and start realizing that their minds were built from an entirely different blueprint.
Just as a hawk can discern details at distances that a man needs a ten-power scope to see, a woman is many times more capable than a man at reading the emotions of other women. (Women may be equally capable at reading men's emotions, but have never seen a need to.) Walk into a large party with a woman. You, the man, will see a bunch of people in a room, talking in groups of two to five. You'll see where the food and bar is, and notice any exceptionally attractive women in the room. That's it. Your companion, however, will be able to tell you which woman is angry, which one is lonely, which is happy, which is upset, which ones feel self-conscious, which ones are jealous, and (probably) which ones are having affairs and with which men. Your female companion will be able to accurately tell you these things within ten seconds of entering the room.
This ability comes at a price: Women are many times more sensitive than men to emotional pain. Imagine a man whose skin was so sensitive that ordinary contact was painful. Whenever someone shook his hand in greeting or clapped him on the shoulder in congratulations, it would feel to him as if boiling water were being thrown on his flesh. Now turn that disparity in physical sensitivity into emotional sensitivity and you'll get a good picture of a fundamental difference between men and women.
Men seldom if ever need to know what a group of other women is thinking, so they usually experience a woman's heightened sensitivity from the negative perspective. They hurt their wives' feelings without realizing it (just like the handshake in the above hypothetical) and then are baffled when their women are upset with them, often for days or weeks at a time, for seemingly no reason. (I'll discuss what to do about this later. Keep reading.)
2. Men and women have very different definitions of integrity. Men have integrity to their word, but because of the heightened sensitivity as explained above, women have integrity to their feelings.
Women base their actions on how they feel at the time. This means that if something no longer "feels" right, they won't do it, period. It infuriates most men when a woman "flakes" on them. ("Flaking" is the term that men who study this sort of thing use to describe when a woman who has eagerly made plans with them doesn't show up, or calls at the last minute to cancel because her girlfriend needs consoling etc. Roughly speaking, a woman's tendency to flake is proportional to her options and inversely proportional to her age, although I did meet one 38-year-old single mother of two with this habit.) Understand that the need to be true to one's feelings is an extremely powerful force with women. Look at the dominant theme in all romance novels: The woman is "swept away" by emotions too powerful to be denied, and has an affair when everyone knows she shouldn't. Another example is the adage "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Even the former First Lady (according to the Secret Service) regularly threw things (lamps, etc.) at her husband when angry. Can you imagine a man doing this, instead of saying "Next"? The idea is ludicrous.
If you're a man, you probably do what you've agreed to do (help someone move, etc.) because you said you would. However, you wouldn't go through with your plans to help your acquaintance move if it had suddenly become a felony with a mandatory 10-year prison sentence to do so, would you? Of course not. Ten years in prison trumps a promise to move furniture. Well, that is the kind of aversion that women have to doing things that no longer "feel" right. Later I'll explain how to make this "integrity to feelings" work to your benefit.
3. Most women are much more rational than most men at the initial meeting. For all of men's complaints about "screwed-up 'chick logic'," it is men who unconsciously fall into a very irrational pattern of behavior when they first meet a new woman that interests them.
Upon meeting an attractive and perhaps interesting woman for the first time, most men behave as if they are thinking about...wait for it...marriage! Hollywood has bombarded us with "love at first sight" stories, but what kind of message does it really send to a woman you've just met that you've already decided she's the one? It screams pathetic loser who couldn't get laid in a women's prison with a fistful of pardons. "One-itis" is the absolute death knell to any person's chance with someone new. Women know this. Men, as a rule, don't.
There's an old saying that "To meet her handsome prince, a girl has to kiss a lot of frogs." Given that few American women age well or are financially self-sufficient, this adage is much more appropriate for men aspiring to marriage than it is for women.
4. What women say they want and what they actually do want are two different things. Men need to be keenly aware of this and act accordingly. The crap that women claim they want in the personals ads is exactly the kind of thing that would have the same women running for the nearest exit out of boredom if the men actually provided it.
Women want to feel attraction for someone, and attraction doesn't come from finding a man who is sensitive, or caring, or likes long walks on the beach, cats, and candlelight dinners, has a college education or a good job. Attraction isn't a choice. Attraction comes from that little shiver of anticipation of not knowing what's coming next, of not being able to pigeonhole the man she's with into any one category, of being just a little bit off-balance and not in total control.
Just as a hawk can discern details at distances that a man needs a ten-power scope to see, a woman is many times more capable than a man at reading the emotions of other women. (Women may be equally capable at reading men's emotions, but have never seen a need to.) Walk into a large party with a woman. You, the man, will see a bunch of people in a room, talking in groups of two to five. You'll see where the food and bar is, and notice any exceptionally attractive women in the room. That's it. Your companion, however, will be able to tell you which woman is angry, which one is lonely, which is happy, which is upset, which ones feel self-conscious, which ones are jealous, and (probably) which ones are having affairs and with which men. Your female companion will be able to accurately tell you these things within ten seconds of entering the room.
This ability comes at a price: Women are many times more sensitive than men to emotional pain. Imagine a man whose skin was so sensitive that ordinary contact was painful. Whenever someone shook his hand in greeting or clapped him on the shoulder in congratulations, it would feel to him as if boiling water were being thrown on his flesh. Now turn that disparity in physical sensitivity into emotional sensitivity and you'll get a good picture of a fundamental difference between men and women.
Men seldom if ever need to know what a group of other women is thinking, so they usually experience a woman's heightened sensitivity from the negative perspective. They hurt their wives' feelings without realizing it (just like the handshake in the above hypothetical) and then are baffled when their women are upset with them, often for days or weeks at a time, for seemingly no reason. (I'll discuss what to do about this later. Keep reading.)
2. Men and women have very different definitions of integrity. Men have integrity to their word, but because of the heightened sensitivity as explained above, women have integrity to their feelings.
Women base their actions on how they feel at the time. This means that if something no longer "feels" right, they won't do it, period. It infuriates most men when a woman "flakes" on them. ("Flaking" is the term that men who study this sort of thing use to describe when a woman who has eagerly made plans with them doesn't show up, or calls at the last minute to cancel because her girlfriend needs consoling etc. Roughly speaking, a woman's tendency to flake is proportional to her options and inversely proportional to her age, although I did meet one 38-year-old single mother of two with this habit.) Understand that the need to be true to one's feelings is an extremely powerful force with women. Look at the dominant theme in all romance novels: The woman is "swept away" by emotions too powerful to be denied, and has an affair when everyone knows she shouldn't. Another example is the adage "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Even the former First Lady (according to the Secret Service) regularly threw things (lamps, etc.) at her husband when angry. Can you imagine a man doing this, instead of saying "Next"? The idea is ludicrous.
If you're a man, you probably do what you've agreed to do (help someone move, etc.) because you said you would. However, you wouldn't go through with your plans to help your acquaintance move if it had suddenly become a felony with a mandatory 10-year prison sentence to do so, would you? Of course not. Ten years in prison trumps a promise to move furniture. Well, that is the kind of aversion that women have to doing things that no longer "feel" right. Later I'll explain how to make this "integrity to feelings" work to your benefit.
3. Most women are much more rational than most men at the initial meeting. For all of men's complaints about "screwed-up 'chick logic'," it is men who unconsciously fall into a very irrational pattern of behavior when they first meet a new woman that interests them.
Upon meeting an attractive and perhaps interesting woman for the first time, most men behave as if they are thinking about...wait for it...marriage! Hollywood has bombarded us with "love at first sight" stories, but what kind of message does it really send to a woman you've just met that you've already decided she's the one? It screams pathetic loser who couldn't get laid in a women's prison with a fistful of pardons. "One-itis" is the absolute death knell to any person's chance with someone new. Women know this. Men, as a rule, don't.
There's an old saying that "To meet her handsome prince, a girl has to kiss a lot of frogs." Given that few American women age well or are financially self-sufficient, this adage is much more appropriate for men aspiring to marriage than it is for women.
4. What women say they want and what they actually do want are two different things. Men need to be keenly aware of this and act accordingly. The crap that women claim they want in the personals ads is exactly the kind of thing that would have the same women running for the nearest exit out of boredom if the men actually provided it.
Women want to feel attraction for someone, and attraction doesn't come from finding a man who is sensitive, or caring, or likes long walks on the beach, cats, and candlelight dinners, has a college education or a good job. Attraction isn't a choice. Attraction comes from that little shiver of anticipation of not knowing what's coming next, of not being able to pigeonhole the man she's with into any one category, of being just a little bit off-balance and not in total control.