Many men, when asked, by women at least, what they want in a girlfriend/wife/relationship respond by saying they want a woman who is smart, independent, funny, gorgeous, nice and some other attribute that he particularly finds attractive and most men don't. If this were a game show, the host would take this moment to push the "WRONG ANSWER" button. What I find is this: most men want a woman who is smart, but not as smart as them, independent, but not completely, beautiful, but unaware of it, and nice. Really, now, what kind of girl do you think this produces? A girl may be smart, but she has to dumb herself down for the guy she's in a relationship with because he's not comfortable being in a relationship with a girl who presents a mental challenge to him. The girl who used to be the boss in elementary school, class president, school leader, finds her independence unwelcome to most men. They feel unappreciated when they're in a relationship like that. She wants a 50/50 relationship, he wants a 70/30 relationship. For all their spouting about girls needing to be independent, "you can't depend on me, you're too needy" crap, men sure do get upset when their girlfriend actually doesn't need them.
This reminds me of a song. (If you've never heard it, take the time to listen to P!nk's song "Stupid Girls") One line in particular stands out to me in this song, "Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back." P!nk meant, of course, the fact that girls wear what they perceive guys want them to, act the way they want, talk the way they want. And of course, the girls who don't do that have some trouble finding a guy they like, except for the "unusual" or "weird" guys who are into the smart, independent girls. The vast majority of men, however, are not.
The point of this isn't really to make men sound like jerks. However, I think there is an important piece of information that a lot of men are missing: girls are at their most vulnerable when they're going through puberty. It is during this time that a girl is starting to see boys in a different light and looks for some sort of reassurance that her physical changes are good. However, that is not the message most girls get when they're seeing those changes. I'll give you an example. When I was in entering middle school, some of the boys in my class where beginning to show obvious signs of maturing. They grew quite a bit, their voices changed, they started growing excess hair. Those boys were admired. "You're becoming a man!" the world said to him, "Aren't you happy? This is a wonderful thing." How amazing! He's more mature than the other boys, more of a man. By contrast, a girl in my 5th grade class who had the misfortune to develop obscenely early (there is such a thing, children are incapable of dealing with the physical and mental changes caused by sexual maturity) was harassed. The boys in the class had what I can only refer to as an obscene nickname for her, Titanic, in reference to her very obviously developing mammary glands. She was ridiculed and sexually harassed. What kind of picture does that paint for girls? She begins to show physical manifestations of her sexual maturity, and rather than being supported and admired for her maturity, she is told that her body is shameful, sinful, wrong. Her body, once the instrument of play and learning, has become nothing more than he object of men's sexual desire. Her substance, what makes her who she is, is no longer appreciated the way it was before. So, if a girl is told that she has the freedom to be independent, but is treated as a sexual object, what result is to be expected but that she will view herself as nothing more than an object? Although parents and, at least in part, educators spend time trying to convince girls that they should be who they are and that their physical changes are perfectly natural, normal, and should be celebrated. The reaction from peers is quite different. I think this is what many men do not realize. Your treatment of a girl when she is vulnerable will determine how she reacts with you from then on. Your subconscious signals tell a very different story from what comes out of your mouth. You speak correctly and frequently do not follow through. To reference a favorite movie, "It is not what we say or feel that makes us who we are, it is what we do." If you truly feel that women should be independent and smart, your subconscious actions must reflect this.
And I don't mean just people in middle school and high school. Frequently, college men exhibit signs of confusion about what they want, wandering around, giving contradictory signals to women and then wondering why we get angry. Many men seem to suffer from the delusion that it's OK to pretend to be available, inviting the woman in and getting her to open up to him, not something most women do easily, when they are clearly unable to "seal the deal", as it were. They don't know what they want out of a relationship or from life in general. Even at the age of 26 or 28 or sometimes more, men clearly have no idea what they want. They formulate this idea of themselves as being sure of what they want when their actions indicate the opposite.
As a general rule, if you find yourself at the age of 26 or, God forbid, 28, and you have no idea what you want out of life or are just genuinely confused, you need to rethink your life. At 26, you are, quite simply, too old to still be so confused. It's time to rethink your life and grow up. Seriously, you've had enough experience in life, even if it wasn't in a relationship, to have some idea about what you want, even if you don't know exactly. Your unwillingness to grow-up may actually be the reason you keep getting hurt in relationships. Women aren't particularly turned on by indecisiveness and confusion as it's a sign of emotional immaturity and a non-committal mindset. In other words, your inability to make up your mind makes you look like nothing more than a confused little boy to women. Perhaps this clears it up a bit. I hope you think about it seriously, if you happen to be in this situation.
On a completely different note, this may be one of the best things ever invented and I want one, or several for my house.
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