A
male
age
30-35,
Alwayswondering
writes:Good evening, Dear Cupid community:In my experience, there comes a question that men often ask: What do women want? The reason I post this question, is because some of these questions I see here in the community stem from this. There seems to be a misconception I see in many posts. This misconception is that all men want is sex. Time after time I see this, and time after time I get angry. Yes, there is a lot of men who live for sex. However, there is a lot of women who want sex as well. This is rather discriminatory and it's seems to be a classically conditioned stigma. This is the not the topic for debate however. I dated a person about over a year ago. She didn't love me for who I am, but rather who she wanted me to be. I'm over it. It makes me wonder, what does a woman want? Either a guy is too nice for her to date, or over confident. This makes me wonder, do you want a boyfriend who treats you like dirt? However, I can see the over nice persona can come off as needy, insecure, not confident. I ask you, is there a middle? Can there be a middle? It seems that one contradicts the other. If you are too confident, then what you may say may hurt someone, where you may think it should not. If you are "too nice" then you have this appearance of lack of confidence. Is this the case? I'm sure people may ASSUME this. Is caring for another person automatically put you in the needy category? Do I need to give a lady the cold shoulder or rather not get involved in her life UNTIL I start to date her? This to me, comes off as superficial. This tells me that I will only care for someone, as long as I am dating them. This tells me that I will be too engrossed in my own life to give a rat's ass about other people. So can there be a middle? Do I help her in hopes of getting the chance to date her? I help her only every so often so I don't give the vibe of "needy"? I'm curious to what you guys have to say. In my dating experience, I would wear the pants in the relationship. Except the girl would tell me which pants to wear. In my dating experience, the girl always thought she could change me. Changing people does not work. This rather shows me that all women in the world are not happy with me, so therefore they have to try and change me. I have seen this with my friends as well. They would tell me time after time that they were tired of their girlfriend telling them how to act or what to do. Why do the guys have to put up with this? Does a girl say "I will give you sex, if you do this"? Are we suppose to, bend over and accept that if we don't comply, we will be single? Of course I'm generalizing, but there is a high percentage of woman at my age who do this. Is it the age? I want to hear your thoughts.
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male
reader, Odds  +, writes (9 September 2010):
 One problem with people is that they are confused about what they want. They are hardwired to want one thing, learn to want another by their experience, and a programmed to want another by society. It helps to basically ignore what anyone says they want, and instead carefully observe what they react well to in the long run.Guys are by no means immune; however, since this question is about women, I'll focus on them (and, if this debate is anything like the last one I was in, I'll lose a full point from my rating, but oh well). Actually, I think I'll start to work on an article addressing guys' issues in this regard. Check back in a week.Women are hardwired to want a guy with the best genes to pass on to kids, but also to want someone reliable enough to stick around. If they are very fortunate, those are found in the same person. If not, there will always be some level of discontent in their relationship.This hardwiring changes depending on where they are in their monthyl cycle. During ovulation, women are strongly attracted to bad-boy traits (risk-taking, dominance, etc.), which is also the time women are most horny, and are most likely to cheat. During the rest of their cycle, women prefer more stable men. Not "nice guys" (read: feminized pushovers), just stable ones.Women's experience teaches them that bad boys will hurt them, cheat on them, and leave them. It also teaches them that nice guys will pretend to be their friends, only to confess to undying love at awkward times in awkward ways. Humans are programmed to care more about he negative than the positive; so, in women, this leads to a laundry list of complaints about men in general without a corresponding list of good traits.This is why women can easily list undesirable traits, but have to think about it before they can list desirable ones beyond vague generalities like "tall but not too tall, smart but not too smart, confident but not cocky..."Obviously, experiences differ for every woman, so this is the part that wil vary most. The bad experiences with bad boys and "nice guys" seem to be pretty universal, though.Society is probably the most powerful force on most women. Assuming my mother's nostalgia has not colored her perception of things, back in the day society was quite clear in it's message: be modest and be feminine. The message was not perfect, and much has improved since then, but it had the advantage of consistency.Nowadays, women (at least those under 30; I don't spend time outswide of work with women over that age outside of family) receive extremely conflicted messages not only about how to behave, but about what type of guy is okay to sleep with, to date, or to friend-zone. The wider a girls' social circle is, and the more TV she watches, the worse it gets.In my experience, when asked what they are after, most women will give a socially-acceptable, useless answer, mostly based off what society says. It starts with the phrase "nice guy", but ends up as a description of a jerk who just happens to want to be monogamous with her.I'm still working on exactly what they DO really want, though I suspect the biological hardwiring has the most useful answer. There is one thing I am sure of, though: ignore what they say they want in a man. It will be useless parroting of society's contradictory expectations. For almost anything else, getting your girlfriend's opinion should be a matter of course, but not this.In any event, try to cover the biological bases, and *listen* when she talks about her life so you can figure out what her experiences are telling her.
A
female
reader, tennisstar88 +, writes (8 September 2010):
 You ever think that maybe women don't know what they want? Or they have a slight idea but go through life on that sliver looking, searching, gathering information and then deciphering what they want in a man. From experience, what I want in a man has often changed as I aged and matured. We learn that we can't change a man, you can only help someone if they want to help themselves, if the chemistry was never there in the first place you can't rub sticks together for a spark, that we like the dominant cocky bad boy type when really the nice sweet guy who will walk on coals for us will make the better husband and that we can't use sex as a means to get what we want. What a woman really wants is a well balanced equal relationship, which requires some work to get there then regular maintenance. We want the man who will be willing to match our efforts in the relationship.
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A
female
reader, Share Bear  +, writes (8 September 2010):
 Okay, presuming that you're also a believer in loyalty. If your partner continued to lie and cheat on you, you would leave them? So if you believe in equality and you've dated anyone that didn't treat you as an equal, why would you continue the relationship?
It's a simplistic view, and of course it depends on the degree of inequality within the relationship. But it also depends upon how firmly you believe in equality and much of a deal breaker it is for you that your partner respects your core beliefs.
If someone tries to change you in a way that you firmly believe is not right, why would you accept that? Why would you stay?
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A
male
reader, Alwayswondering +, writes (7 September 2010):
Alwayswondering is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI am a believer of equality. But I have yet to enter a relationship that reflect this. We will see what happens. Thanks for the discussion guys!
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A
female
reader, Share Bear +, writes (7 September 2010):
The thing that strikes me is that in asking 'what do women want?' you seem to firstly assume that all women want similar attributes and secondly seem to want to know your future woman before you've even met her.
No two women want exactly the same. But, even if they did- social interaction requires that you get to know a person before thinking to know what that person wants.
Personally I try not to compare any two boyfriends. Bob is Bob and Ted is Ted. Ted is not Bob cubed, Bob is not Ted divided by Dave x Jimbob.
And essentially I think that is really all we can expect from someone. If someone were to say to Bob, 'I want you to be more like Ted', I would rightly expect Bob to reply 'I am Bob, not Ted, and if you don't like me as I am, then don't date me. I will never be someone else.'
We may grow and develop as a couple, but at a basic level, I'd expect any partner to have enough about himself that he would remain true to himself and not change solely for someone else's preference. (Only for himself as he develops).
Find someone that you get on with and get to know each other- find someone that likes you for being yourself, rather than making yourself what other people want you to be.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (6 September 2010): Do you think that it is bad for men and women to be equal? Do think a man should dominate in a relationship? Do you think women should have rights? I agree when you say that the man is not always to blame though.
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A
male
reader, Alwayswondering +, writes (6 September 2010):
Alwayswondering is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI reviewed the link you gave. This article seems rather one sided. The only equality that I see is the statement: "Women aren’t blame-free, but sometimes it is the fellas’ fault". She then goes to talk about how we are "hard-wired". Yes, we are both hard-wired. But we also have evolved and now have the ability to reason. We have gray matter. We can therefore learn. The author of this article is generalizing and in a way is trying to "change" men's behaviour. Well, I got a easy solution. If you don't like him, then don't date him? If he is not listening, not caring, etc, then do not date the person? I don't really agree that the blame is on the male's part. Perhaps the woman is demanding too much, or is selfish with regards to what she wants, how she wants it done, and when she wants something done. It's stereotyping men. Is this right? Why do we no longer treat woman like crap. Why do they now have rights. Granted, what was done in the past is not acceptable. As a result, we have something called "Result-equality". Perhaps now young white males are being discriminated against because in order to make things "equal" to other groups, we (perhaps indirectly) get discriminated against. A good portion of cases, men often mess up. But I think it is slowly becoming equal.
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A
male
reader, Alwayswondering +, writes (6 September 2010):
Alwayswondering is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for your responses. I'm looking for a discussion. I just want to hear your opinions.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (6 September 2010): I just found this article on another website that I hope helps you:
http://www.lifescript.com/Life/Relationships/Hang-ups/8_Mistakes_Men_Make_with_Women.aspx?utm_campaign=2010-09-06-59649&utm_source=healthy-advantage&utm_medium=email&utm_content=healthy-well-wise_8%20Mistakes%20Men%20Make%20wi&FromNL=1&sc_date=20100906T000000
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (6 September 2010): Very nice article. You bring up many good points. It doesnt matter what age you are, there will always be women who will try to change their boyfriend. Not every woman does this, because every woman is different. For me, I would want a man that is everything at certain times. A man who is smart [not overly smart but not dumb], funny [not a clown but not a unhappy person], a strong man [not bodybuilder but not scrawny], I like everything to be in the middle. But I sure as hell would not a like a man that pushes me around, abuses me, or ignores me to get me to notice him. It all depends on who you are dating. I dont speak for every woman here.
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A
male
reader, Flavio  +, writes (6 September 2010):
 Hey man! this is realy a never ending matter and I'll tell you what....it'll never go away!;)
I'm 39 and I can tell you this...all women want a guy who makes them feel secure basically. But they don't want a "nice" guy like you're a good boy you know. In a way I think nobody likes such "nice" people (women or men). It kind of sucks overtime. You are really young and you'll figure it out as time passes by.
I had lots of girlfriends along the years and I also have a 13 year old son, whom I had with one of those girlfriends.
I just broke up 3 months ago with my last girlfriend (actually she broke up) because I don't really know if I wanna have more kids. She's 32 and she wants to have kids. We were together for 7 years from which 2 of them she was living with me in my apartment.
I was kind of sad, and still am a little, but maybe it's better to end things this way, than to end it in the future with kids, etc.
As I don't have to much trouble in dating girls, I'm able to gou out and date some. So I'm getting used to be totally single again after some years. No big deal...I'm in Rio de Janeiro...land of the pretty women!
So, be prepared to face the women who want to have kids, marry, etc etc etc. Women start to really want these things around 30. And try not to lie to them saying you want all these things if you don't. I did this and it's really bad. If you don't want, say it from the beggining of anything. If you want it, you shouldn't have any trouble then! Just the regular ones when you get married!;)
So, don't waste too much of your time wondering about this issue. You'll NEVER get to a conclusion. Live your life, get as many girls you can and if someday you find one that you really think you'll be able to saty together for a long time...try it. No one will guarantee anything to you. It's on your own risk!
Hope I could help you in some way with my little life experience!
P.S.: Strangely enough...men tend to like sex much more than women. It's not all women that really like sex. Go figure...
Rock on
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