So on this issue of why, if we know what we want, don’t we just make that clear so we can get it? (note: maybe best to read Monday’s deal about the Five Love Languages, how getting them is what we want but telling people we want them is something we don’t get…)
First – this is more a female than male thing – in my opinion. Guys want us to be clear about how we want things to go – how we want them to behave toward us – what we need from them (note: that’s what “WHAT DO YOU WAAAANT FROM ME?!” means). Women, on the other hand, want to just be understood because we take that as a sign or testament to the strength of the connection.
Back to yesterday’s example of the hypothetical boyfriend and his hypothetical offer to fix my actually patchy Internet (thanks Anonymous – I’ll try that). Here’s what’s going on in my head when “Him” insists upon the Internet fix while I’d much prefer we sit on the couch and catch up:
- Me in my head: Ugh – he never just wants to spend time chatting. He’s just a fixer guy isn’t he… Spending time just being together is never going to be important to him. Why doesn’t he want to just sit for awhile and catch up about our weeks? Is he just not a talker? Is he just not a sharer? This is never going to work if all he ever wants to do is tasks-master things…
Yes, I realize how insane that sounds, but for the sake of full honesty – that’s just a slightly exaggerated example of how it goes inside many a female brain. We want men to just know because we connect their ability to just know to our ultimate compatibility. That’s what we mean when we say things like, “he just gets me” or “it’s like I don’t even have to tell him what I want.” When a woman feels this way it’s probably because the guy is speaking her love language (I promise this will stop after I prove the actually valid point of the silly purple book). When we don’t click with someone right off the bat – when they don’t know how we like to be communicated to and what we need to receive in terms of affection or attention we assume it’s just a bad match.
To spell it out even further – here’s more of what goes on inside the mind:
- If I have to spell out what I want that makes me needy and therefore less attractive
- If you can’t figure out how to give me the attention I’m looking for then that makes us a bad match
- If it isn’t already in you to do what I’m hoping you will then you’re probably not going to change just because I’m asking
All of the above is true, but where we’re wrong is in thinking that a. someone not getting our primary love language off the bat is a indisputable sign of incompatibility and b. that someone can’t grow to learn our love language (yes, a. and b. are the same thing said two different ways).
Brace for genius here, but everyone is different. And, to take it one earth-shattering step further – everyone is really different when it comes to how they express and expect love. We want mind-readers, people who speak our dialect right off the bat, because it means we “know” that the relationship is right/good/stands a chance at succeeding. Our having to work at it off the bat – to say, “it would mean a lot to me if you _____ instead of _____” means two things we, as a general rule, cannot stand – 1. early vulnerability in a relationship and 2. investing time and energy into working on something we don’t have immediate, sure-signs will work.
And so we do the equivalent of pouting in the corner and refusing to eat because Mom couldn’t figure out that we wanted ham and cheese instead of tuna fish for lunch (shotty metaphor, but you get the point).
I am the biggest culprit of the “well if he can’t figure it out then it must just not be right,” but I have to admit that if what he can’t figure out is that my love value system favors quality time over acts of service it’s probably not a indication of his entire ability to love a person correctly. This isn’t easy stuff.
There’s expecting a man to have and exhibit certain universal expressions of like slash love and then there’s expecting a man to read your mind about how you prioritize the way he expresses overall love to you. Those are two different things that take two different amounts of time to develop.
6 comments
Comments are closed.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Great post!
i’m guilty of this…and then the guy has NO idea what i want and i look like the idiot…ahh
I totally agree!!
I think that women want someone who can read minds bc we never know what we want! we only know what we dont want.
Dangerously, that’s similar to asking for a con-man! You do not deserve a psychological manipulator; you deserve an individual!
If you think there’s any man who wants to sit and “talk about his week”, then you really were day-dreaming.