Oct27

Dating Advice That Might Make You Mad

07:46 pm on Oct 27th 2009 Evan Marc Katz

Finding the One Online is a comprehensive, life-changing program that covers everything I teach my clients about online dating. If you want to get your love life on track and aren't sure where to start, Finding the One Online is the best investment you can make.

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107 Responses to “Dating Advice That Might Make You Mad”

1. Karl R Oct 28th 2009 at 06:30 am 1

   “a reader” wrote: (original post)
   “If a woman values herself she doesn’t need a man–hence she doesn’t need a matchmaker or dating advice.”

   If I’m healthy and exercise, I don’t need to go to the gym and I don’t need a personal trainer.

   However, a personal trainer might show me how to exercise more efficiently, so I gain more benefit for the time invested.  A personal trainer might be able to show me how to avoid sports injuries or other drawbacks that can accompany regular exercise.

   I may not need a personal trainer, but I can see how one might be able to provide some benefit.

   “her relationship decisions spring organically from who she is at her best. And then all of her relationships–with her lover or husband, her friends, her kids, her coworkers, whomever–will just fall into place.”

   My girlfriend values herself and doesn’t need a man.  That’s part of what attracted me to her.  I value myself and don’t need a woman.  That’s part of what makes me attractive to my girlfriend.

   But you can ask my girlfriend which one of us has dated more in the last year.  I’ve dated five women (including her).  She’s dated one man (including me).  And the two of us were socializing in the same environment during that year.

   I haven’t spent any money on coaching, but I have read as much free advice (from articles that Evan and others have written) as I could find.

   I suppose you could argue that my girlfriend (eventually) ended up in a great relationship “organically”.  But you could also argue that we ended up in a great relationship because I  was dating in a less organic fashion.

2. isabelle_archer Oct 28th 2009 at 07:23 am 2

   Evan, I think you do give solid advice sometimes based on your observations about the dating game  – but I think your problem is that you don’t recognize that, to paraphrase Walt Whitman, “to love is different than what anyone supposed, and luckier.”
   The rules you try to deduce from what you perceive to be  “objective” facts are really much more contingent than they seem- and they all have their flip sides.    For example, for every woman anxious about a man committing, there’s a woman put off by a pushy man.  Sometimes the same exact woman!
   At another remove, I think what I find frustrating about your advice is that it relies so heavily on gender norms.  When I feel anxious because I’m not sure if my date likes me, this has nothing to do with my gender – I’m probably really picking up signals he’s not that into me.  When I feel suffocated by my next date who starts talking about marriage after two weeks, this also has nothing to do with gender — I’m just not that into him.  When these gender norms are overly relied upon, they seem sexist.  E.g., your example about overly critical women makes it seem like it’s ok for alpha males to be critical jerks to their partners because they are men, when in reality we should all strive for leaving our critical workplace personas behind in our personal relationships.
   I guess what I’m trying to say is that, to me, good advice is based on helping people to live more authentically with the realities of their own lives, not hide things from themselves, and make connections with the world.  Hard-and-fast “rules” of behavior which ignore the actual facts and rely on rigid frameworks (men do it like this, women do it like that) don’t really meet this goal.  I think that Caroline Hax does an amazing job at dealing with the subtleties and strangeness of human reality in this way.
   I don’t want to be overly critical here, because obviously I like this blog and I keep coming back!  What I think you’re really good at is being a coach — helping people recognize their own personal patterns of self-defeating behavior.  I think you’re also good at your speciality — advising on the specific culture of internet dating.  But I think the most important quality you have is that you genuinely care about your clients and want to help them, and this shines through.
    
    

3. Evan Marc Katz Oct 28th 2009 at 08:13 am 3

   @Isabelle:I appreciate your kind words, Isabelle. And all constructive criticism is valid. However, a sentence like this means I still haven’t been clear:

   E.g., your example about overly critical women makes it seem like it’s ok for alpha males to be critical jerks to their partners because they are men, when in reality we should all strive for leaving our critical workplace personas behind in our personal relationships.

   Never have I said that women should deal with critical jerks. Never have I said that women shouldn’t be put off by pushy men. This is the constant conflation that goes on around here. It’s like automatically assuming that someone is anti-Semitic if he criticizes Israeli foreign policy. No. If I point out to a woman that she can’t change men, that doesn’t mean that I don’t think men should change. Really. I’m on YOUR side. I’m only pointing out that men DON’T change, which is why the ONLY think you can do is make the necessary adjustments. If it means being more patient with men, great. If it means LEAVING your boyfriend, great. But I seem to get a lot of grief because I point out that the responsibility is on you to take new action – not to expect the world to cater to your fantasies of how it should be.

   Please don’t think that I’m sexist. Believe me, if men asked similar questions about changing women, they’d get the exact same reality check.

4. Honey Oct 28th 2009 at 09:11 am 4

   The responsibility is on you for every aspect of your entire life, every moment of that life.  One of the things that bothers me the most is entitlement -

   No one “deserves” love.  No one “deserves” children.  No one “deserves” a great career.  This isn’t to say that we’re not all pretty much wired to want those things – we are.  But most people operate under a zero-sum mentality (if there’s more for you, there must be less for me).  So this means that there is not a single other person on earth that you should expect to care whether you have those things except you, so if you want them – do things to make it happen.

   Now, if you can make it happen in your life without falling into that zero-sum mentality yourself, without wishing (or taking action) to deny those things to others – now THAT’S something.

5. Sayanta Oct 28th 2009 at 09:23 am 5

   Honey-

   I like that- actually sounds kinda New-Age.

6. Donna Oct 28th 2009 at 10:27 am 6

   Evan, most of the time you seem to write just what I need to hear during exactly the week I need to hear it.  Uncanny!  : )

7. Curly Girl Oct 28th 2009 at 11:30 am 7

   It’s funny how much we believe we control the world around us–and others in it. And how much energy we spend trying to “make things happen.” Not even noticing that things happen whether we “try” or not.

8. Steve Oct 28th 2009 at 11:30 am 8

   So, if you, as a reader, feel personally indicted by anything I write, do me a favor:
   Ask yourself exactly why you’re getting angry.
   Chances are it’s not because I’ve lied or said something that’s factually untrue. It’s probably because I’ve pointed out some way in which the world works that you don’t like.
    
   Amen.  Long overdue.
    

9. Paul Oct 28th 2009 at 11:37 am 9

   It never ceases to amaze me how women don’t get men and therefore have all kinds of problems when they try to make men something other than what they are. I still think that letter Evan posted a while ago from that woman who was raped and listened to Evans advice and changed her ways has it right…she totally gets it now and I think, if he hasn’t already, should make all new female clients read it. It bears repeating…Evan should re-post that letter…she totally did a 360 with her thinking. The women stopped trying to get guys to be what she thought they should be, and decided to just let men be men and she is having a wonderful time dating…she learned for example that men want to please you, men want to be your hero…so let them please you! Don’t fall into the trap of  having to be right all the time, don’t dominate the conversation whatever you do, especially about yourself, and for sure don’t be critical. Let him lead, let him be masculine, let him do what he is supposed to do and you will be surprised at how much he values you…it’s really simple…do some listening for once, put your focus on him and you will be surprised at what he’ll do for you and how much he wants you around! As Evan once said, men are primarily interested in how you make them feel.

10. Sayanta Oct 28th 2009 at 11:51 am 10

    #8-

    Actually, I could swear Evan said those same words in another post a while ago. I completely understand that, since the same issue always keeps popping up.

11. Erika Oct 28th 2009 at 12:01 pm 11

    Evan, you give sound advice. But the comment you are responding to–the idea that everything falls into place once you know who you are as a person–is based on a belief. The belief that the universe rewards you for being an awesome person.

    We could debate the belief itself. But let’s understand here that there is belief and there is action. As a dating coach your role focuses on actions and behaviors, not on beliefs. My issue with this belief is that it takes away any agency that one might have as a person to control the outcome. Why “do” anything, when the universe will magically provide you with what you seek?

12. Curly Girl Oct 28th 2009 at 12:24 pm 12

    I also think it’s funny that as soon as a woman says she doesn’t need a man that she gets labelled as “angry.” There’s that sexist interpretation again! Ha!

    There was no anger in my comments on the other thread–why should I be angry? I have everything I want and am very happy.

    But I did it my own way, which is by ignoring all of the pressures to capitulate to what Isabelle talks about as the “gender norms,” which when overly relied upon seem sexist (lovely post, Isabelle!), and which do now seem to have found new expression in the online dating literature (if we may call it that). 

    I, too, call it as I see it, and any guy who hasn’t noticed that the world has changed when it comes to women and their place in it should stay living with his parents and sleeping in a room with girlie posters in his closet. I think it’s guys who have trouble understanding women these days; not the other way around.  

    Note to guys: The world as you thought you knew it has ended.

13. Jennifer Oct 28th 2009 at 12:41 pm 13

    If you go into a church on Sunday, the sermon is preached with the assumption that you believe in (or have more than a passing interest in)  Jesus- the preacher doesn’t spend time validating Christianity, though i’m sure he’s aware that not everyone in the world is a Christian.  And since it’s a church, that feels like a fair assumption to me. I would think it strange if someone questioned the preacher on why he didn’t talk more about the great things about the Jewish faith.

    I think Evan’s advice presupposes an audience that is interested in having  some sort of long term relationships with men (or, for his male readers,  better understanding of  male/female relationships). I think its a reasonable presupposition to make since it’s a dating and relationship advice web site and Evan bills himself as a ‘personal trainer for love’.

    I think it’s perfectly valid that not all women want to be married to or in relationships with men. Aside from the obvious group (lesbians) i’m certain there is a strong straight woman contingent that feels that way, both those who have never been married or those who never want to be married again.  I think it’s fine to be vocal about it, especially since some people feel these women are underrepresented.  But i don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the validity and merits of a ‘woman don’t need men’ line of thinking to be addressed with any level of regularity by a dating coach.

    So the debate indeed rages on, but honestly, in this type of forum, i’m not sure why.

14. Evan Marc Katz Oct 28th 2009 at 12:44 pm 14

    Well said, Erika. You can start by asking the Law of Attraction/Secret folks. And as for Curly… you are 99% correct. Men have a huge time understanding women. The thing is: they don’t really care about understanding you, as much as you care about understanding them. Which is why I rarely coach any men. So we can certainly agree that most men are woeful at communicating with women.

    Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the world as they know it has ended. In fact, men will go on doing the same things over and over. You may choose not to date them – but unless every woman on earth boycotts men, thereby teaching them a collective lesson, things are pretty much the same. It’s far easier to learn to understand men and make slight adjustments than it is to change the behavior of an entire gender. I suppose that’s my point.

15. Jennifer Oct 28th 2009 at 01:09 pm 15

    @Evan- a bit off topic, but that’s not really what the Law of Attraction is about. There is not only room for taking action  but  strong encouragement to,  as clearly nothing happens without taking some kind of action (you won’t find a date by sitting in your house). The difference is the mindset and inspiration for the action.

    Misconceptions about the Law of Attraction are widespread and common- every now and again I like to shine a tiny sliver of light

16. Curly Girl Oct 28th 2009 at 01:09 pm 16

    Well, I’m not dating because I’m with someone. And he’s gorgeous and fantastic and I adore him.

    Women aren’t boycotting men–they’re having good relationships with the ones who get it and who have adjusted to the social changes of last three decades, the social changes that have deposed men from their perch as head of household and head of office. A lot of people long for the past and have trouble adjusting to a new world order, where people you thought shouldn’t have any power or authority suddenly do. I would imagine that men have trouble making this adjustment especially. It seems so to me.

    But I think a dating blog is the perfect place for these kinds of discussions. Or is this the LTR blog? I’m never sure. To me, dating and LTRs are different. No matter. Both are affected by these social changes.

    And just for the record re: my motivations in posting: If I hear/read anything that smacks of an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle I just gotta jump in to say to the genie-stuffer: “You are outa your tree!” Though in truth I have less and less interest in this as time goes on. I don’t really care if people date or get married or not. Each decision has its own realities, for good or bad.  Mine are good, so do what you want.

    That’s all.  

17. Jane Oct 28th 2009 at 01:18 pm 17

    I don’t “need” a man but I want one.  The male-female relationship is different than other because of the inclusion of physical intimacy.  I want that.  I want a companion and partner in life.  I have a slew of friends and have a lot of fun doing the things I do.  It’s just more fun with someone I can kiss.

18. Sayanta Oct 28th 2009 at 01:26 pm 18

    Jennifer, #15- Thank you!

    Evan- Unless every woman on earth boycotts men, thereby teaching them a collective lesson…

    This sounds like a great plan! How do we do it?

    Just for the record, I’ve been noticing more men in the relationship self-help aisles than usual at B&N. Does this mean there’s hope?

19. Honey Oct 28th 2009 at 01:41 pm 19

    I didn’t think of the reader comment this way when I originally read it, but the point <i>could</i> be made that someone who is truly happy with themselves inevitably acts in all the ways that you coach people to act, and that is why coaching is unnecessary for those people.

    But a point like that depends on people’s ability to self-assess whether they are truly happy (or know what it will take to make themselves truly happy) and most people, frankly, do not have the metacognitive skills necessary to make that assessment.

20. Dope Oct 28th 2009 at 01:45 pm 20

    Excellent post, Evan. I wonder if it’s sometimes a false dichotomy, though. It’s certainly possible to understand how the world is, want it to be different, and to fight passionately for that change.

    I mean, think through the consequences of always accepting everything and trying to change nothing except perhaps our own ability to accommodate the present reality. What would the world look like?

    “Sure, black people being enslaved sucks, but what can you do? *shrug*”
    “I guess it would be better if Hitler weren’t in charge of Germany, but oh well. It is what it is!”

    Just sayin’!

21. Evan Marc Katz Oct 28th 2009 at 02:08 pm 21

    I get it, Dope. But you’re making a slippery slope argument that just doesn’t wash. We’re not talking about people being enslaved or raped. We’re talking about the fact that men can be selfish. Well, duh. When you figure out how to remove the Selfish Gene, let me know.

22. Sayanta Oct 28th 2009 at 02:31 pm 22

    First of all- great post- I completely understand both sides of the argument. One thing though- and I’m going to take the risk that y’all might roll your eyes reading this.

    Throughout this site (and others)- hell, throughout the Internet, I only hear a few things about men- they’re selfish, don’t care to understand women, etc. etc. Point taken. This is what I find odd: don’t dating sites, blogs, etc., exist to help create harmony between the sexes? All I really get from reading comments, posts, etc., is that men are really just good for sex. Well, I can pay a gigolo for that. Say, for example, you have a woman who’s not very experienced reading things like this. What incentive does she have to be in a relationship, or to date guys, after reading this stuff? That is, what can a man offer her in terms of emotional fulfillment? The male sex doesn’t have much going for it, after all, right? Women are the compassionate, understanding ones. So, why bother?

    Kinda like what I’ve said in past posts, talked about with Ruby, Helen, A-L, etc. The consensus seems to be (I’m leaving my personal opinion out of this) that men really just…suck. And other men agree with this. So, um. What do we women do? Settle? Is a settled life worth living? I don’t know. Sorry if I’m rambling, I’m kinda thinking out loud here.

23. Lee Oct 28th 2009 at 02:54 pm 23

    Evan my friend, I really like your articles.  You are concise and insightful, they are interesting and often thought provoking.  That being said…………..
    You need to stop and think about what motivated you to write this article.  I have seen you bristle over this topic before, and  the reason you feel you need to defend your position is the same reason you are indicting the person who took offense to your “observations about reality”.

    You need to take a step back and realize that sometimes people will be offended by something you said, not because your assertion was inheritantly offensive, but because when your assertion went through his/her personal “filter” they added in a lot of extra baggage to the statement that wasn’t even implied.  This is where you need to take your own advice, and just acknowledge that “this is how people work” and you aren’t going to be able to change that.  You can waste a lot of time spinning your wheels trying to justify your remarks, but why bother?  It isn’t going to do any good, the people who do this are either too plagued by their own inner demons to see reality, or are trying to win an argument by causing you to divert from the original topic to a tangent topic, thereby wasting your energy and diluting your message.

24. Evan Marc Katz Oct 28th 2009 at 03:12 pm 24

    You’re right. You’re right. You’re right.

25. downtowngal Oct 28th 2009 at 03:35 pm 25

    Evan, to your observation that “Men don’t respond to women who are critical….”

    I don’t think that implies that these are women who hold strong opinions.  I believe you’re referring to women who are often critical of men and expect to change them, or confront them at the wrong time.

    I interpret ‘women w strong opinions’ as women who know something about the world and like to discuss.  For example, I studied political science/history in college and worked as an intern in DC for a while, so, yeah, I have opinions about politics.  And the guys I’ve dated have enjoyed our conversations, even if we have different views.  The key is that I don’t ram my views down their throats and demonstrate respect for their own points, just as I would show the same respect for a colleague/friend.

26. Honey Oct 28th 2009 at 03:40 pm 26

    @ Lee, #23 –

    You officially win Wednesday, October 28, 2009’s “Smartest Person Ever” award

27. Mikko Kemppe - Relationship Coach Oct 28th 2009 at 04:44 pm 27

    I agree with Honey on #26 and Lee on post #23 .
    But for Evan’s defense it could be that he is just being really strategic about this because it surely is creating a lot of good debate and conversation, which can’t be bad for business .
     
     
     
     
     

28. Erika Oct 28th 2009 at 05:06 pm 28

    I used to believe that men and women were essentially the same, and that the reason why men behave the way they do is because of enculturation. But the older I get, the more I realize that men are just wired differently. There are a bevy of books on this subject to prove it, but I’ll just cite one: “If Men Could Talk, Here’s What They’d Say” by Alon Grotch. The key point Grotch makes is that men are different from women, and yet we women keep trying to make men become more like us. Maybe there’s something unique and special about men that we’re missing out on while we’re trying so hard to make them more like us.

    @Sayanta. I’m not really sure what you’re saying. I can’t tell if you agree that men suck or if you’re just paraphrasing what you think the general consensus is.

    I don’t think that men suck. I think there are men who suck. And I think there are women who suck too. I see a lot of women who blame men for their relationship problems without ever really looking at themselves to see what part they’ve played. I think we women have expectations that the men in our lives should be all that and a bag of chips, and we become disillusioned and disappointed when we discover that they are not. The idea that a man should provide us with emotional fulfillment seems like a huge burden to me. If a man expected that of me I’d get out of that relationship as fast as I could!

29. Sayanta Oct 28th 2009 at 06:05 pm 29

    hell, it’s been a long day- I don’t know what I’m saying either. I really shouldn’t post on days like this…lol

30. Curly Girl Oct 28th 2009 at 06:06 pm 30

    Thanks, Honey @ 19. You understand what I was saying. I was kind of surprised the EMK took such umbrage at what I said, but I just figured that it was about him, since he didn’t really get what I was saying.

    I wasn’t saying anything about the Law of Attraction–I don’t even know what that is.

    But it is the case that if there is a headline about men behaving badly that plenty of people respond. But the point is well taken–what does all this say about men and why would any man as so described here be appealing for an intimate relationship?

    So I say sure. Get guys who think like this out of your life. If that means being alone, be alone, and be happy that you don’t have to put up with that crap.

    But here is the rather nice little secret: You will not be alone. You will attract a higher quality guy. He will be the kind of guy who likes being with women, who respects them, and who probably doesn’t hang around with the guys who are so amply represented in the online community.

    Just a thought.

31. Leah Oct 28th 2009 at 06:15 pm 31

    Amen!
    I hate it when people complain about others, yet will do nothing to change themselves.

32. Sayanta Oct 28th 2009 at 06:16 pm 32

    oh, sorry for the double post- to clarify, when I mentioned Ruby, Helen, A-L, I wasn’t saying “men suck” was their opinion. I just threw their names in because we’d been having a discussion about successful women and the four of us were weighing in a lot. Sorry guys!

33. amy Oct 28th 2009 at 08:56 pm 33

    OK, hang on. Lee writes:
    “You can waste a lot of time spinning your wheels trying to justify your remarks, but why bother?  It isn’t going to do any good, the people who do this are either too plagued by their own inner demons to see reality”

    So…someone who sees things differently than Evan does is plagued by inner demons?

    Look, I understand that Evan has a lot invested here, and I’m sure he believes everything he’s saying, and that most people here feel it too.  And from a strictly rational point of view that comes with no experience of being a woman, with or without children, what he’s saying makes perfect sense. The man’s not going to change, so if you want a man, go find out what men want — not what you think they should want, but what they really want — and then market yourself accordingly, and adjust your expectations for what’s in the Treasure Hunt box.

    That game works crackerjack, and I played it all over the place in college. Boy, does it work. It’ll get you in anywhere. But there are a couple of problems with it. 

    The first problem is that it isn’t what you naturally do, or how your desires naturally run, and after a while you’re going to feel the strain. Yes, healthy, fit, middle-aged people go to trainers to learn a thing or two. Ask those people five years later if they ever do the exercises the trainers taught them. Answer: Probably not. They might have retained one or two, but on the whole either they’ve gone back to whatever they’ve done since college, or they’re chronic fitness-fad hoppers, picking up whatever novelty comes along.  

    The second problem has more to do with my posts here. I came upon this blog in a second-guessing moment when I wondered if the lack of dates actually meant I was a really miserable, unpleasant person. After about five minutes of reading Evan’s advice, and thinking, “Bwahahahahaha,” I felt much better.  Because you have no idea how much you’d have to pay me to follow advice like this.  It’s good advice.  Like I said, it works.  But man oh man, that’s an expensive way to get a fella.

    Evan doesn’t know that, because he’s a guy.  A relatively young guy who’s always known privilege, at that.  And he has never lived with the consequences, for a woman, of following his advice, either on the mundane daily level, or on the level of seeing those costs stack up over decades.  I would not be surprised to hear Evan protest angrily that he’s a feminist guy, that he’s all for strong confident women, etc. Nevertheless, the “show them you’re what they want” routine leads, ineluctably, to all the usual women’s burdens: carrying the relationship, doing the bulk of the “people work” in the marriage, seeing one’s time creep away into these chores, seeing the shift in role and others’ presumptions about your role, and finding as part of the reward diminished status, diminished pay, diminished respect, and some ugly long-term vulnerability in divorce.

    I’m perfectly happy to admit, by the way, that many women won’t notice this stuff, or, if they do, won’t care. As far as they’re concerned, so long as there’s love and harmony they don’t care about the rest. Plenty are also happy to trade autonomy and a portion of self for a nice house and wife-related status, at least until they start feeling a wee bit trapped or it turns out the guy is mean. But as someone who also came from privilege and ranked as an honorary man well into her 30s — until she married and had a child —  you bet I feel the cost.  And there’s no way I’d play that game again.  It’s not a good bet for a woman.  Yes, you get a man, but — with all respect — some prize! It’s just not enough in life.
     
    So. Am I tweaking myself to attract?  Not on your life. This is it, man. Here’s the package. If it’s not to your liking, better to find out now. Because seriously, I look like hell most of the time. Tact, it’s not really my gift.  Hair, nails — if it grows naturally and doesn’t have the word “tumor” attached, I’m probably not in a hurry to do anything about it. I do have makeup somewhere, but the best commentary on my application skills was probably supplied by a college boyfriend who got a washcloth and did me the favor of removing it.  Resting and watching movies with you…eh, I’m not very good at it, and it’s from the bottom of my heart that I say I don’t want to meet your family. I’m well over my meet-the-parents-day quota as it is. In fact it’s best if you’re an orphan.  And I hope you like to read at the table, because I’m sorry if it offends, but I’m going to.  (I used to have a wonderful boyfriend – we’d bring whatever we were reading to restaurants.  Talk for a while, and then — “Wanna read?” “Yeah.”)  And yep, while I’ll make time for you, my kid, my work, and my own physical maintenance will generally come first, second, and third.  That’s why it’s really best if you have your own life and interests, and like to run.  Oh. And I hope you’re not jealous, because I’m still tight with a handful of ex-boyfriends going back 20 years, and at some point or other they’ll be coming to visit, with or without their families.

    Fifteen years ago I’d probably have seen a stance like that as needlessly confrontational and speaking to some sort of insecurity or bitterness. Now…well, now, when I say these things and when I hear other middle-aged women say these things, I know where it comes from. It comes from having met and known a tangible and powerful sexism that is still very much alive in the world, and deeply  consequential on a daily, personal level.  And I appreciate that there’s really no way of getting this across to those who haven’t been there.  I was that 20-year-old chick, too, who was certain sexism was dead, and finding older women like this kind of scary and off-putting.

    The nice thing, though…there are men who respect it and see it for what it is. Always older men — 40s, 50s, 60s.  Which is part of why I never lack for men to flirt with, and why men who don’t meet one of my requirements (Jewish, usually) show up in my inbox with literate, friendly notes, saying that my profile gave them a laugh, and that it was nice to see someone so real out there, that they wish me luck, and that I should keep on keeping my head screwed on straight.  

    There’s another group of older men — often men who took the hit, once upon a time, for putting work second to a chronically ill or dying wife or child.  For doing women’s work, essentially.  They don’t flirt so much with me, though in another situation they might — they see I’m busy with serious work, raising a child, making a living. But they take the time to signal respect, and that means a lot to me.

    So, Evan, as usual, the long way around — it might not be necessary to be upset. Is it possible that your advice is gangbusters short-term, but gets mixed reviews long-term? I’m not suggesting you rush off and find stuff to put on your website — for one thing, you’ll look for whatever you can find to support your business. But keep it tucked away. Listen to divorce stories and the stories of 50, 60, 70, 80-year old-women who did the necessary to maintain harmony over decades.  Look at their roles, ask what they gave up.

    Last year I visited my 86-year-old grandmother, who told me a new story; she’d won a national design competition in Mademoiselle when she was 18. She’d wanted to be a designer, but got married and got pregnant, and that was it.  I’d known she’d painted, and that she’d stopped because the time away from family was upsetting my grandfather — I like her early paintings, some of which went to museums, but not the later ones, because you can see the lack of commitment. 

    She showed me a letter from a teacher that mentioned the Mademoiselle contest, and made me read it. Later I realized that she did that because it was documentary proof, and she was afraid that I might not have believed her.  That she had been able to do such a thing.  It never occurred to me to doubt her. Yes, she was a housewife, she was married over 50 years in an Orthodox community, she did everything a good wife should do, and her husband was a wonderful husband. But she was also unable to hide who she was, and I have never seen anyone else so determinedly squash herself into a box that was obviously much too small.  It cost her a hell of a lot, shalom bayis.  

34. Evan Marc Katz Oct 28th 2009 at 09:20 pm 34

    Amy,

    You are suggesting that any form of compromise somehow leads to being a miserable, 86-year-old woman. Great. Don’t compromise. Stop grooming. Read at the table. Live without tact. Good for you for living your life with integrity. You can be perfectly happy alone.

    However, there are many people who see fit to make compromises – I am one of them – who are extremely happy that they did. We compromisers are collectively known as “happily married” people. I can promise you that my happily married wife didn’t sacrifice her self-respect to be with me – although she did have to compromise. Your inference that women who actually live peacefully with men have sacrificed themselves is narrow and offensive. If you can’t be with a man because it’s more important for you to be right than to get along, that doesn’t mean that everyone feels the same as you do.

    This is just a roundabout way of saying that if my dating advice makes you go “Bwahahahahaha,” well, then, you certainly don’t need to be reading it.

    Go get your laughs elsewhere and leave this space to people who actually want to learn how to have a healthy relationship with a man.

    I don’t mind dissent; I don’t tolerate hecklers.

35. Leah Oct 28th 2009 at 09:34 pm 35

    “If you can’t be with a man because it’s more important for you to be right than to get along, that doesn’t mean that everyone feels the same as you do.”
    This statement has an entire book written on it, “You can be Right or You can be Married,” by Brett Williams. http://www.abetterrelationship.net/Products.html

36. Heathecliffe Oct 28th 2009 at 10:42 pm 36

    I’ve never tried to change a man in my life.  Just tell me I don’t have to ’settle’ and that there is someone out there for me and I’ll never get angry.   ;)

37. DPU Oct 28th 2009 at 11:36 pm 37

    In regards to online dating:
    For girls, the pic is 90% of what they judge a guy on, and the other 10% is what he says/writes. Now this 10% is important and its where a lot of guys fail, but the pic is by far the most important.
    For guys, the pic is 100%. Of course its nice if she writes something interesting but from what i see, a hot girl could send an message and only say “hey” but if shes cute the guy will reply back, not so the other way around.
    I go on and on about this on my blog, its quite a fun topic. Men and women think really different, in ways i am starting to really appreciate.

38. Steve Oct 29th 2009 at 05:04 am 38

    People born rich and the most brilliant scientists aside,  some compromise is an essential ingredient in getting along in all areas of life, not just dating.
    That is reality.
    People who think otherwise should begin paying attention to the results they are getting in their lives.
     

39. Steve Oct 29th 2009 at 05:07 am 39

    Evan, post # 34 is brilliant is that it is something many adults have never grown up enough to see nor accept, to their detriment.   However, I had to chuckle on the first part of it.   Of all the interpersonal complaints I read “reading at the table”  is usually not one of them

40. Steve Oct 29th 2009 at 05:13 am 40

    @Jennifer, post #13.
     
    It is a lot more effort to get up early on a Sunday, put on your best clothing and drive to a church you don’t agree with than it is just to pop into a blog that is tangentially related to something you want to vent about.
     
    That is why Evan gets commentators who aren’t interested in LTRs, but Churches don’t get people interrupting sermons with excerpts from Richard Dawkins.

41. isabelle_archer Oct 29th 2009 at 06:56 am 41

    Oof, this is getting heated.  Evan, I think you’re missing a bit of legitimate substance in Amy’s comment (though I respect that you’re trying to cultivate some manners in your commenters).   Specifically, I think you’re missing the difference between two-sided compromise and one-sided “selling” yourself.  Your response to Amy suggests that two-sided compromise is the path to happiness in a relationship — fair enough.  But the tone of some of your advice, and the specific examples in your post,  sometimes come off as an admonition that women need to “sell”  themselves to get a man, and men aren’t going to change.  That’s a really, really different thing from mature, peaceful, mutual compromise you discuss in your answer to Amy.
     
    I’m not quite as experienced as Amy, but I know enough to have figured out that if I present myself as something I’m not — say, a girly girl — with the idea that “all men like that” and “I have to do that to get a man” — I’m going to be terribly unhappy.  Because I’m not a girly girl, and it’s going to make me feel criticized and alienated and bad about myself to be with a man who expects me to be that way — EVEN IF I can manage to pull it off long enough to hook him.  And the fact is, plenty of guys don’t actually like girly girls — they prefer me in jeans and a t-shirt.  So by changing my behavior to fit some notion of “what men like,” I’ve actually set myself up for relationship fail.   This is a completely different concept from the mutual compromise that leads to a happy marriage.
     
     
     
     

42. Evan Marc Katz Oct 29th 2009 at 07:18 am 42

    Isabelle,

    I talk about what many men want. If you, like Amy, choose to ignore it because “you don’t do that”, it’s perfectly respectable. It just means there will be a smaller pool of potential dates. Remember, we’re not talking right vs. wrong. We’re talking effective vs. ineffective. The man who has a beer gut, puts football over romance, and puts “honesty” over kindness will not do well with women. He is not wrong for prioritizing these things; he is just ineffective in understanding what women want.

    Read Amy’s letter again. Ask yourself, “If I were a guy, would I want to date her? What am I getting out of this relationship?”

    I think you’ll see my point.

43. Sayanta Oct 29th 2009 at 07:19 am 43

    Amy-

    Actually, kind of in sync with Evan’s response- I’m curious as well. I’ve asked before- why DO you read this blog if you’ve already made the decision that men are too much bother and you want to live alone?

44. amy Oct 29th 2009 at 07:32 am 44

    Evan, you’re missing the point.  There’s no heckling going on here. Thicken up the skin and listen again, because I’m telling you about something real that happens to women who live by the advice you’re giving.
     
    I’m sure your wife has self-respect in spades. Self-respect, though, is not what this story’s about. It’s about the respect granted by the rest of the world, and the status, money, and power that travel with it. You guys, as I recall, don’t have kids yet. When you do, the odds are tremendous that she will be the one to do the bulk of the childcare. And with that will go many other things, and a significant shift in the sexual politics in your household. Because when one takes care of the kids, it’s not just about the kids. It’s about family. So here’s how it’ll probably go, if your family is like most dual-income families after kids:
     
    She’ll be the one taking care of family and home, and that’ll have real costs in terms of time, freedom, and how she’s regarded by others. Yes, I’m sure you’ll do some. But it’ll be her bag, which you’ll defend by saying it’s what she wants, and she’ll be the one scrambling to make arrangements when you both have somewhere else to be.  
     
    You won’t notice what there is to do at home, because you won’t regard that kind of noticing as necessary, although if it were necessary for paid work, you’d do it. So she’ll take on the manager job, too; she’ll do the work of spelling it out and asking you to do some of it, and following up and making the saves without appearing to manage or criticize.  If she follows your advice, she’ll refrain from criticism, nagging, all the rest.  She’ll just suck it up.  And then you’ll talk about how you share the parenting work equally, which will be far from true.
     
    Her new extra work will take time — a surprising amount of it — and for a while she’ll twist and turn and try to make it all fit. You, trying to help her, will say, “Babe, relax, you don’t have to make that much, I got it covered.”  And she will essentially mommy-track herself at work, if she doesn’t give it up completely.  Respect from others and money, including her retirement and security should something happen to your marriage, will take a hit.  You won’t see this; you’ll claim that people respect her as a mother. Unfortunately, in the scheme of things, mothers don’t get a lot of respect. And yes, it’s a subject that’s studied. Mothers are viewed as being about as capable as the mentally retarded, overall.  Her status will rely on yours, and if you divorce, it’ll drop precipitously.
     
    Anyway.  As soon as she lets go of the bucks, doing things “just for herself” becomes expensive.  How can she justify childcare or cleaning services when she’s not bringing in the money?  Isn’t that selfish?  You’re working, and she’s getting a massage or learning Swedish?  So maybe she won’t follow this interest or that.  Your leisure, on the other hand, will become important, because you have to be rested so you can bring home the bacon.  Yes, she’ll be overworked, but she won’t complain to you, if she’s following your advice. 
     
    This is why, in general, men are more happily married than women are. Marriage costs women more, particularly if they’re well-educated and have talents and interests beyond family. Now, if taking care of a family is your calling and you’ve got nothing else on the line, tremendous. But it’ll run you big otherwise.
     
    Nor is this about “being right”. It’s about being oneself and maintaining the freedom and power to do one’s own work, live one’s own life, and retire without relying on someone else’s income.  I do not think  you recognize that the little shifts and tweaks you recommend lead somewhere for women, and not just to dates and marriage.  That’s why I suggest that, instead of reacting defensively to what I’m saying, you open yourself to the experiences of long-married women, particularly women who are “smart and successful”, and women who divorce after long marriages.  You’ll have to listen carefully. They’ve got great training in being the soft shoulder, in not criticizing, in being positive, in all the rest. But if you listen and are patient, and don’t go in with the intent of proving yourself right, eventually they may tell you what they paid for a happy marriage.  Some will be sincerely happy they made the trade.  But others, if they had it to over, would not.  For more or less the reasons I’ve laid out here.
     
    The take-home: You endorse taking men as they are and meeting them there, which I applaud. Unfortunately, doing that also means recognizing that if you marry them, they won’t do much of the family and home work. You, the woman, will. And over decades, it’ll run ya big — big enough that it’s worth listening to the experiences of older women and looking at the numbers before you jump in.  That’s the part I’d say you’re neglecting to think about.
     
    I will also thank you not to call my grandma “miserable”.  But marriage and the kind of behavior you endorse cost her a great deal of herself.  It was really just little things, little changes, daily.  It added up to something considerable, though, over 50 years.

45. Lee Oct 29th 2009 at 08:46 am 45

    I am so glad I didn’t bother wasting my time giving a real life example.  Please refer to Amy #33 who was kind enough to do so for me.

    “So someone who sees things differently than Evan is plagued by inner demons?”

    Uh, no.  Re-read my post.  The whole thing, not just the one line.  #23 

    PERFECT example of someone running something through her own warped filter and coming out with something totally different than was obviously intended.

    Amy, let me share with you MY difference of opinion with you. 
    If you are happy, great, because I don’t really care what you do.  But where I come from, and based on my values, being tactless, self absorbed, and unkempt are not things you brag about, or apparently in your case, espouse as a lifestyle that women should strive for. 

46. isabelle_archer Oct 29th 2009 at 08:55 am 46

    “Read Amy’s letter again. Ask yourself, “If I were a guy, would I want to date her? What am I getting out of this relationship?””
     
    HA!! the answer is yes!  Amy kind of sounds like my perfect guy.  What do you say, Amy?
     
     

47. isabelle_archer Oct 29th 2009 at 09:02 am 47

    Also, Evan, I wonder why you think your advice has to be grounded in a single, universal concept of men to be effective.  Why can’t it also be about being sensitive to what individuals like, and how they’re individually reacting?   I agree that you can’t control others behaviors, but it seems to me that it’s an equally big problem if you pre-judge people based on rigid notions of what they’re like rather than looking for actual evidence about how they’re acting.
     
    My big example of this is being a girly-girl.  I have it on excellent authority that many men (in fact all of the men I’ve loved) affirmatively don’t like girly girls.  And I attract those men, because I act like myself instead of something I’m not.  It works out best for all involved.  If I operated from the rigid belief that all men want me to wear heels … I would be attracting the men who like heels, instead of the ones who don’t.  Then I would be left with a bad relationship…and bunions.

48. Donna Oct 29th 2009 at 09:58 am 48

    Paul or Evan,

    What is the date of the letter/posting that Paul in #9 referred to?  I’d like to read that.  Couldn’t find it doing a search.  Thanks!

49. Ruby Oct 29th 2009 at 10:17 am 49

    Compromise should work both ways. In general, I think women bend over backwards to accommodate men. We’re taught to do that. Look at all the women who write in about men they are dating who refuse to compromise, who won’t spend more time with them, who string them along, who are commitment-phobic, who behave disrespectfully towards them.

    It seems to me that so many men feel a sense of entitlement. It’s another mixed message for women. We’re told that if he doesn’t treat you right, move on, but we’re also told that we’re going to have to do more to accommodate him, be more feminine, less pushy and demanding. Yes, most women DO want to be in relationships. Look at the success of books like The Rules and He’s Just Not That Into You, if you doubt that. But women are constantly told to walk a fine line between “playing it cool” and being assertive. Maybe for someone like Amy, she’d rather not have to navigate that particular minefield anymore.

    I know, men have challenges too. Men do get mixed messages also, but I think there is still a sense that the woman will be the one to acquiesce, while the man keeps control. How many relationship books are out there for men? The dating advice for men is often radically different. For example, I just read an email from a popular dating adviser for men. In it, he tells men not to take a woman out for dinner or to a movie in the beginning. A man should take her out for a cup of tea, and split the check! He shouldn’t try to hard to impress her because that makes him look too needy. Again, it’s about the man staying in control. (Evan’s advice to a man in the early stages of dating would be quite the opposite, I think).

    Certainly, I think that if you’re not girly-girl you can find a man who loves a tomboy. Being successful at dating involves finding someone who loves you for who you are. It may not be the norm, but we don’t all want that. (Evan has often talked about how he married a woman who wasn’t everything he thought he wanted).

    I think some of us women are a little tired of being told that we have to compromise, and twist ourselves into pretzels to get the guy, not in small ways, but in ways that compromise our identity and integrity.

50. Honey Oct 29th 2009 at 10:41 am 50

    I am picking up what you are putting down, Amy

    It is why I kept searching until I found a guy who (among other things) is an atheist who doesn’t want kids and isn’t close with his family.  I don’t have time for god, babies, or someone else’s relatives – I barely talk to mine.

    We’ve been blissfully happy for 3.5 years now, largely because we didn’t have to give up the things that were most important to us.  There was definitely an element of luck, because we’re both so unusual in our values that the odds of us finding each other are fractional, percentage-wise.  But I think both of us would have kept looking had we not found each other when we did, rather than give up on the beliefs outlined above.  And despite our many similarities, we have each sacrificed/compromised on huge, HUGE issues in order to remain together.

    Interestingly, the social (and potentially financial) consequences for NOT having kids are also significant for a woman, and arguably just as great:

    You’re not compassionate or trustworthy enough to hire. 

    You’ll never be on the “mommy” track so you’re just as expensive as hiring a man, but you won’t do the work as well as a man would so why not just skip it all and hire the guy? 

    No matter how many times you say you don’t want kids, no one believes you, so you get passed over for some of the better jobs because everyone assumes you’re just saying you don’t want kids to get in the door, and as soon as you’re hired you’ll have a baby and ruin everything. 

    Even if you do get hired at an excellent job with a great salary, no one wants to be friends with you because you don’t share their values – you can’t even talk about how you don’t want kids because there’s no way to  do it without insulting what is, for many people, the most important and rewarding decision that they’ve made in their lives.

    This is all a bit of an aside to romantic relationships, though it does demonstrate that the issue of how much you should “be yourself” and how much you should “sell yourself” is hardly confined to romantic relationships.  Since we all have to sacrifice/compromise so much to live in the world anyway, though, the argument is there to be made that your romantic relationship should be the one place where you are sacrificing/compromising the least.

51. amy Oct 29th 2009 at 10:48 am 51

    Isabelle, coffee’s on me. Henry James doesn’t get enough love these days anyway.
     
    Evan, I don’t claim that all women want what I want. Never did. But that cost I’m talking about is real and well-discussed by many, many women, so it seems to me that something in the strategy doesn’t work so well long-term.
     
    As for who might want to date me, you’d be surprised, I think. I mean apart from the jerks just looking for a screw. (I’ve been surprised. I hadn’t thought a middle-aged single mom in a small town in the middle of nowhere would be of much interest.)  On the whole, it’s very bright professional men — scholars, doctors, a lawyer, a rabbi (!).  People who are well-established in their careers, starting to think about retirement, and looking most of all for a woman they can talk to and who’ll understand — emotionally, intellectually. Someone who maybe can say something they haven’t heard before, and who doesn’t want something from them, because if you’ve survived that long in the rat race, it’s nonstop; there are no conversations that aren’t about a quid pro quo. And that’s wearying & doesn’t leave you with the best taste in your mouth about humanity.  At this late date, they appreciate the value of all this, esp if it comes with a sense of humor. 
     
    It takes a little while for them to understand that I don’t want a husband, and that really does throw them. Some figure I’m holding out for more of something, and try to up the ante. Others take it personally at first, but eventually see where I’m coming from, and say they don’t blame me. But really, that’s where it ends — they’re smart enough to know they want wives who’ll take care of them, and they know they’re too old to waste time, so off they go.  Pleasure knowing them, though, on the whole.
     
    Are these guys gorgeous?  Oh, Christ, no.  I’ll tell you, it’s all been downhill from my first college boyfriend, who looked like a model.  You should see the teeth on the one I’ve been going to lunch with lately.  You know, you head for 50, and gravity is winning. I don’t care how much you work out and what kind of dumb non-food you eat.  (I do this P90X thing — these are, by the way, the best video workouts I’ve ever seen, and I say that as a former aerobics instructor & track girl — and that almost-50 Tony Horton guy is in hella fine shape, but my God, how much makeup is he wearing?  And this is a guy who spends his whole life working out.)  But so what?  They look their age, I see nothing wrong with that.  I look mine, stringy neck and all.  A guy who’s big and fat, well, that by itself doesn’t bother me, but I’ve learned that unfortunately there are usually other problems, psychological problems, that go along with it, so I avoid.  But a gut by itself — no, this doesn’t bother me.
     
    Incidentally, I notice a lot of married, blunt, football-watching guys with beer guts.  And kids.  About 10,000 of them descend on my town several weekends each fall. Somebody likes ‘em.  
     
    Sayanta, I’ve been reading/posting because I showed up here in a morose moment, read what there was, had something to say in return, and love a good debate on a subject I feel. 

52. Curly Girl Oct 29th 2009 at 12:19 pm 52

    Isabelle and Amy: Thank you so much. So very well said. And Honey, too.

    Yes, EMK, you might be surprised by how many men are interested in a woman who doesn’t follow the girly-girl rules of entrapment. And how fulfilling is the love between this kind of woman and the kind of man you never seem to describe.

53. Sayanta Oct 29th 2009 at 02:36 pm 53

    Evan and Amy-

    You two shoulda been lawyers. I would pay to see you go at each other in a courtroom.

54. Erika Oct 29th 2009 at 04:04 pm 54

    Amy, I think you are confusing behavior with personality. I do not think Evan is suggesting we change who we are. He is suggesting we change our behavior. He is not saying that we have to pretend to be someone else. He is saying that we have to change our behavior to get different results. I don’t think there’s anything so radical about that.
    There is a really intersting book on this subject called, “What Shamu Taught Me About Love, Life, and Marriage” by Amy Sutherland. You can read about it here:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html
    Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who constantly criticizes you? Or complains about all the things you’re not doing? And never praises you for the things you do do? Well, I have, and believe me, there’s no better demotivator than  constant criticism. I had a boss who was never happy. Nothing was ever good enough. It was completely demoralizing. I quit that job after 6 months.
     

55. Jennifer Oct 29th 2009 at 04:30 pm 55

    @Sayanta #18, gotta represent for LoA sometimes

    @Steve #14, excellent point; I totally get why it happens, still doesn’t strike me as the most reasonable/fruitful course of action though

56. JerseyGirl Oct 29th 2009 at 05:08 pm 56

    Ruby,
    I absolutely loved your #49 post and can’t express enough how much I agree with EVERYTHING you said so articulatly becaue it just said everything I feel.
    Currently, I feel all twisted up on what is expected of me as a woman just to have some masculine companionship. I’m certainly not asking for perfection. But I would like a man who wants to put as much effort into a relationship that benefits us both hopefully.
    What am I suppose to get out of trying to make deeper connections with men when the advice given to me is, “suck it up. Men are selfish.  Deal with it if you even wish to have any form of compaionship because men aren’t going to change and all the responsiblity is on you to be the more giving partner if you want any kind of male affection “. Men want this and they want that and you better be young and have a hot body while you do it. Otherwise, your less worthy of their time and affection. My head is in over-load on the expectations placed on me to fulfill his every whim and make consessions on my own natural needs as a woman.
    We are suppose to work so hard just to get some masculine companionship and in return we are told that men are selfish and that’s okay because that’s who men really are? I don’t even know what man would want men in general to be described that way. Last time I checked, being selfish wasn’t a a gender issue.
    I enjoy reading this blog but often the advice that is given, or at least how the advice comes off to me as a woman, is that I am suppose to make all these allowances about what a man *needs* or what makes up a man and I am not allowed that same. My needs are secondary. He can be selfish and I need to be giving, warm , bubbly and hot all at the same time.
    And this isn’t meant as a slight against Evan. But all too often the advice given here on this subject is that men are allowed to do anything they want because they aren’t going to change and women need to be quite and accept it and do a little pandering to men and STILL feel warm, loving and motivated to be with them. His needs are more important.
    I think it does a huge disservice to wrap men up in negative traits but then expect women to feel motivated to want to cater to those traits. For one thing, you are telling men that they aren’t that good to begin with and are the sum of their more selfish and negative desires. And two, women should cater to these negative desires because men can’t be any better…the message is all very confusing and not complementary to men or women.

57. Sayanta Oct 29th 2009 at 05:26 pm 57

    Jersey Girl-

    You said it way better than I did- your last paragraph is pretty close to what I was trying to get at in my former rambling post.

58. JerseyGirl Oct 29th 2009 at 06:00 pm 58

    Sayanta, I totally got that from your post and picked it up a little myself. I was going to comment in agreement to your post too but I just focused on Ruby’s so I wouldn’t get too wordy. And I was really happy to see that you felt that way as a guy.

59. Honey Oct 29th 2009 at 06:34 pm 59

    The bottom line, I think, is this:
    Most people aren’t right for you.  Some will even act in ways that hurt you, either deliberately or accidentally.  All that means is that they aren’t the person for you.  It does not mean that you have to a) stay with them, b) lash out at them, or c) give up hope that the fact that some guys are jerks means that they all are.  All you can do is judge people by their actions, and how those actions make you feel, and then decide whether you want that specific person in your life. If you don’t, you can always move on gracefully.
    Indulging in your own worst qualities is hardly likely to bring out the best in someone else, after all.

60. Adel Oct 29th 2009 at 06:40 pm 60

    Spot on, Evan!

61. Adel Oct 29th 2009 at 08:44 pm 61

    In regards to what Amy posted about women bearing most of the work later down the track, yeah she has got a point. I do get mothers/women older/more experienced than me who have said the same thing. BUT most have also said that they have had no regrets whatsoever. Yes, they would probably sacrifice more (than the man) with kids etc but at the end of the day they are deeply respected, appreciated and loved by their husbands and kids for the sacrifices they have made.

    And that makes all these worthwhile in the end.

    And as Evan pointed out, in a happy partnership both the man and woman reaches a happy medium in compromise.

62. Jayne Oct 29th 2009 at 09:26 pm 62

    Evan — you didn’t respond to Dope’s point.  At all.  Yes, men are selfish.   Yes, it shouldn’t be that way.   So what can be done to change it?  Yes, change IT, not change ME so that I accept it just so I can be “successful” at finding a man.  At what point do we say “accept it” and at what point do we say “it must change?”  There is the slippery slope, and you failed to address it.
    Segregation by law only changed in the last 50-60  years after being in place for the first umpty ump years of this country’s existence.   It began the process of change only because enough people dug in their heels and said “No, I won’t accomodate this. This is wrong.”
    You say that men’s selfishness isn’t on the same scale as slavery or rape.  But the consequences of segregation were (and are) both big and small.  Refusal to admit black students to schools AND refusing to serve black customers at lunch counters. Every indignity robs a person of self respect.  Sometimes the “small” indignities are the worst because of attitudes like yours — “you should get over it and adjust because it won’t ever change.”  I call BS.
    Count me among the women staging an unofficial boycott — I’m absolutely willing  to grow old and die alone if the alternative is twisting myself like a pretzel in order to accomodate the way men are.  You know why? Because THAT won’t make me happy either.
    Just sayin’.

63. Adel Oct 29th 2009 at 09:34 pm 63

    amy @ #51..so why don’t you and isabelle make a couple? ‘Cos only you two’d appreciate each other! LOL
    On a personal note, I completely agree with Evan. I completely understand Amy’s take that women end up sacrificing more than men, but (to me anyway) the love, respect and appreciation we get back in return makes it all worthwhile to make those sacrifices.

    That is, of course to say if the male spouse in question is an appreciative one. I am lucky to say that I have found one such man, and all the sacrifices I’ve made for him all this while  have all been worthwhile. Because his deep love and respect for me has been worth giving up things that I would have wanted to do but couldn’t due to family. 

     Therefore I agree with Evan’s take on women being open to changing certain behavioural things, not THEMSELVES. Because if I’d been stubborn and gone and did all the things I wanted to do and had that “accept my whole package or leave” concept, and mutually if my husband hadn’t compromised his part, we wouldn’t have that happy marriage we have today.

    My two cents.
     

64. JerseyGirl Oct 30th 2009 at 03:22 am 64

    I don’t understand what you think is so respectful or full of appreciation about having to sacrifice more while men are allowed to maintain a certain mentality about what they deserve from love. To me, that’s not respect. And that’s what a few other women are saying here Adel. They infact don’t feel respected or  appreciated in their relationships when they are the ones expected to make more of the sacrifices.
    And no one is saying they don’t need to make any comprimises. Infact, I think what is being said is that what earns respect and appreciation on BOTH sides, to both genders, is when you make an effort to fulfill your partern’s needs. Not telling us that “hey men are selfish, oh well, if you want any kind of love or companionship you must sacrifice sacrifice, sacrifice. And he is allowed to be selfish”. That’s not love or respect if you ask me. And it’s certainly not an insentive for women to want to work hard to be in a relationship with a man or respect him.
    As for men not being able to change. That’s just plain UNTRUE. Men have changed so much with women gaining more independence. Mne now cook, clean and take care of the kids much more then their grandfathers. They are okay with women working and being sucessful..(some at least). Men have changed alot. And they can change and evovle just like women.

65. amy Oct 30th 2009 at 06:28 am 65

    Yep. JerseyGirl (love your name, btw, have been in a Bruce mood lately), what I see is that the men really change when they’re the ones who have to take care of their elderly parents. That’s when they get it, because “change” is no longer theoretical or optional. There’s no one to push the caregiving and housekeeping work off on. And it’s an unexpected consequence of the divorce wave that started in the 80s, I think. Used to be that the wife would raise the kids and then do most, if not all, of the work of taking care of both sets of parents, or share that burden with sisters and sisters-in-law (along with all the fighting over who did what and who’d get what). 
     
    Now…well, there are a lot of divorced older guys who find it’s all on them, really. They live closer to mom & pop, the sister can’t keep flying in, etc. That’s when they learn what it’s all about.  They take the hit at work, too, and live with the stress of it, knowing that if they lose the job at their age, it’s going to be tough to get back in. Those guys — like the ones who step back to take care of sick wives and children — they really, really get it.  
     
    I have to say, though, that in general I haven’t seen enough change in younger men to really reduce the cost of marriage, esp. if kids are involved. I see a lot of cosmetic change.  The guys push the strollers, pick the kids up from daycare, etc. But when push comes to shove over whose non-family work is more important, time and again I see the guys totally tackle and take down the women. And these are guys who talk a great feminist line and may even believe they mean it. But damned if they’re going to get owned at work, make less money, give up strategic advances, and so on.  I think it’s not even conscious.  But the way that story goes, to the woman, it’s like a switch flips: “Well, I’m just going to do this.”  And the woman’s left to figure out a way of coping. The men can do it because, in the end, someone else really will take the kid to the doctor.  That’s the kind of thing that goes away in the eldercare picture. There isn’t anyone else who can talk to the home health aide and help Mom to the bathroom.
     
    So yeah, change is possible. I don’t blame men for not wanting to go through it. It’s a painful thing, and it comes with the loss of a lot of freedom, status, and privilege.

66. Helen Oct 30th 2009 at 07:01 am 66

    Hee hee! Sorry to join this so late (I was too busy these last 2 days being “smart, strong, and successful” – kidding – on a business trip). 

    Evan, what Amy says above gets at the heart of truth but doesn’t quite state it directly, so let me do it here: If a couple doesn’t intend to have children, or for other reasons never does, then gender inequalities are usually not as much of a big deal.  The moment the first kid arrives on the scene: Bam!  The gender inequalities start, and start furiously.

    For me and for my other mother-friends, motherhood was the biggest feminist awakening of our lives. It is precisely because fathers have a tendency (not all, but most) to ignore all the multiple endless and heartbreaking tasks that must be done to maintain a coherent family that women become resentful.  It is not because fathers are incapable; it is because they themselves have been raised in families in which dad just didn’t take care of most of the family nitty-gritty.  But it’s not just the fathers’ fault; most women also unquestioningly take on the extra duties instead of asking their partners to share it.  And no, it is NOT fair to ask one half of the population to be more sacrificial than the other half, merely because they are women.  That is ridiculous. 

    Amy and Isabelle Archer, if you ever want a threesome, I’ll join you.   Not too much hanky-panky though… I’m married to a man who “gets it,” so don’t want to sacrifice that.  (Isabelle, wasn’t your titular character the one who got married to Osmond in a foolish self-sacrificial move?)

    Sayanta, no no no, men do not suck.  But you do have to get used to asking for what you want, and if you ever have children with a man, again you have to get used to constantly ensuring that division of labor is equitable.  I really urge you to do that rather than to ever let resentment build between you and a man.  They are not out to hurt women; they can, however, be clueless.  So it’s best to state desires directly.  Then come join us for a foursome!

67. HP (aka Hadley Paige) Oct 30th 2009 at 08:38 am 67

    Amy @ 44 says :  “Marriage costs women more, particularly if they’re well-educated and have talents and interests beyond family.”
    ————————–
    I  agree that this statement is true.  The more educated, skilled & experienced you are, the more likely you are to feel that your paths of growth have been constrained by the choice of motherhood & homemaker.   Thus,  I infer that you are more likely to eventually become unhappy with the arrangement and more likely to divorce.  

    As a man contemplating this state of affairs in the context of searching for a women who will be a suitable wife and mother (and hoping to have a more likely rather  than less likely chance of having this relationship withstand the test of time) it seems that I should be choosing a woman with less education, less skills and less experience, if I wish to minimize the chance of divorce due to her unhappiness with her “constraints”.

    Additionally, since most women want a man who is more educated & incomed than themselves, it seems that perhaps (and only in the context of achieving a successful marriage) the woman increases the size of her pool of acceptable men who would contemplate proposing marriage to her;  and of the marriage lasting longer, by not being so potent.

    Note: Just calling it like I see it, not as I (or anyone else) wish it would be, or should be.

     

68. Joe Oct 30th 2009 at 09:04 am 68

    So…what y’all see to be saying is that when the kids come, even if the woman makes less money than the man, he should be the one taking care of the kids?

69. Ruby Oct 30th 2009 at 09:14 am 69

    Thanks, JerseyGirl #56
     
    These issues have been particularly on my mind of late because I just broke up with someone I really liked. Why? Because he expected me to make all the compromises in our relationship. He’d get everything he wanted, while I should just have been happy to go along because he’s such a great guy! I called b.s. on that!
     
    But what bothered me most was not so much that we wanted different things (yes, that happens), but the fact that he he didn’t feel that there was anything wrong with what he was asking. It didn’t occur to him that he was being selfish or unrealistic, and that a truly great guy should consider his partner’s/friend’s needs as well as his own. Maybe he was an extreme case, but it’s not the first time I’ve encountered this type of thing. It’s this sense of entitlement that bothers me, this mindset in so many men that I see. Is it just the way men are encouraged to be in our culture? Frustrating!

70. Honey Oct 30th 2009 at 09:16 am 70

    @ Joe, #68 – I never thought of this issue before!  (But then, I’m not having kids.)

    If I was interested in having kids and the man made more than me, then what I’d say is that he’d have to do all of the financial sacrificing until our incomes were equal (so that if we did end up divorcing we’d be on equal financial footing).  If additional sacrifices needed to be made, then we could cross that bridge when we got to it.

71. Ruby Oct 30th 2009 at 09:20 am 71

    Joe #28
     
    I think the issue is about SHARING responsibility, not that either person should take all of it on, unless, of course, that is the arrangement.

72. Helen Oct 30th 2009 at 09:34 am 72

    Ruby #69, it doesn’t sound like your former “great guy” was really such a great guy at all. Of course it should never be just one person in the couple making all the sacrifices.  He IS selfish.  That doesn’t mean that all men are selfish.

    I don’t believe that men are more inherently selfish than women. But if some women see this, it may be because they want to be in a LTR more than men do, and hence feel the need to give up more than the men in order to have that LTR.  Amy’s point, and now mine as well, is that your self-respect and self-worth are even more important than being in an LTR.  They are NOT mutually exclusive, fortunately.

    From my vantage point: the person who ends up giving up the most personal power (and taking on relatively more of the work) is the person who cares about being in the relationship more. So if women feel that they’re giving up much more than men, might the solution be to empower women in such a way that they don’t feel that being in an LTR is an absolute necessity?

    And that gets to Jayne #62, who made the same point: what great comments you made. I don’t think every man you meet will require you to sacrifice more than you feel appropriate, but your letter does sound like a call to arms of women: a modern-day Lysistrata, so to speak.   (How’s that for another literary reference.)  The only men we’ll allow up on our hill for nookie are the ones who get it, like my hubby. (Joking!)

73. JerseyGirl Oct 30th 2009 at 09:41 am 73

    Ruby, I don’t think it’s an extreme case. And I am sorry it didn’t work out. I can completely understand how draining your situation was. 

    I have also had alot of experience with what you are describing. That same sense of entitlement that men seem to have often. Do I think it makes men horrible people? No I don’t. Neither do I think it’s “all” men. But I do disagree when Evan tells us we must accept that men are selfish and that we should *still* be motivated to want relationships with them. As if being a man alone is effort enough. I don’t think it makes men horrible but I don’t think it makes them good partners either. And I think men today do want relationships as much as women do.

    I sometimes get the impression that men think that it should make women happy, that he as a man is happy. Or maybe that’s what they wish was true.  I don’t know. But I totally agree with your comments on that sense of entitlement and I find it equally frustrating and quite honestly, just plain discouraging.

    Do I want a good man in my life? Of course. But I am not going to sacrifice my complete self to just having a man in my life. I think men might be struggling with the fact that women need, and do infact demand, more from them then our mothers or grandmothers did. I also think women evovle and adapt more easily.  And I think this sense of entitlement that I also see in the men I date does come of a media stand point and also because men still want to fight to maintain control when they don’t want to behave with control themselves.

74. Karl R Oct 30th 2009 at 09:45 am 74

    For those with a knee-jerk reaction to CHANGING yourself….
    
    How many women are turned off by a guy who has dirt under his nails?  If a guy is employed as a car mechanic, that’s going to occur every time he’s at work.  But if he makes the effort to regularly clean the black stuff out from under his nails, he’ll increase his dating opportunities tenfold.

    Would you say the auto mechanic is changing himself in order to attract a woman, or would you say he’s employing just some basic dating awareness?

    Somehow I’ve managed to exercise regularly, get my hair cut more often, wear non-scuffed shoes on first dates and pick up the tab (and make dozens of other changes) without feeling like I’ve “compromised” anything important in my life.

    Some women like the smell of male body odor.  If a man refuses to bathe, he can still find someone who likes him just the way he is.  However, his dating pool will be much smaller than if he practiced regular hygiene.

    Most women either have or want children.  By choosing that I don’t want any, I’ve limited my dating pool (especially since the number of men who don’t want kids outnumbers the number of women who feel the same).  However, I’m willing to limit my dating pool in order to avoid fatherhood.

    A few of you seem interested in turning this thread into some great moral crusade.  If you truly feel like going on a crusade to change society, you might want to choose a forum that reaches a much broader audience.

    Remember, most of the people visit this forum for dating advice.  And Evan’s advice is generally of value to many of his readers, even when it’s something that I don’t personally choose to implement in my life.

75. JerseyGirl Oct 30th 2009 at 10:09 am 75

    I clean my finger nails, I wash, I work out, I get my hair done every four weeks, I whiten my teeth, I wear perfume and pick cute colorful outfits out on most days. I do these things partly because I want to look nice and partly because i want men to respond to me in a certain way.  And yes, my dating pool does narrow down when I have certain expectations for the men I would like to date. But I also stand by what I previously have said in my other posts on top of that.

76. Ruby Oct 30th 2009 at 10:22 am 76

    #JerseyGirl #73
     
    “…men still want to fight to maintain control when they don’t want to behave with control themselves.”
     
    Very well said.
     
    #74 Karl
     
    The majority of Evan’s clients, and probably readers, are female, so I do think that what seems to be a common female experience is important to discuss.

77. Helen Oct 30th 2009 at 10:38 am 77

    Karl #74: oh, you have to realize that we’re having fun, even as we sound so serious and crusading!

    That said, we are trying to make points that are relevant to Evan’s original posts, which is why we’re commenting (not for the crusading mission). Evan commented on several reasons why people may be “mad” about his advice. We are adding to that by explaining why women may feel marginalized in relationships. We are not saying that every man makes us feel that way (I wouldn’t say ANY man I’ve dated has made me feel that way).

    The points that you bring up about how you’re compromising in order to be more successful in dating (exercise and cosmetic changes) are not really the same types of compromises we women have brought up (sacrifices in careers, free time, work, etc), so they are not really comparable.  Although I will say that I do appreciate the efforts men make in those regards.

    But for the record: I (and most of my galpals) wouldn’t turn down a guy just because he had dirt under his fingernails, especially if he had them as the result of an honest job.

78. Evan Marc Katz Oct 30th 2009 at 10:41 am 78

    I’m off to celebrate my anniversary this weekend, but I will simply point out that my clients are the women who AGREE with what I have to say – not the ones who think that I’m missing the point. I certainly can’t help anyone who isn’t open to change.

    Have a wonderful weekend and thank you – even you dissenters – for your passionate contributions.

    Evan

79. amy Oct 30th 2009 at 10:51 am 79

    Hi, Karl. In  answer to your questions:
     
    I don’t notice fingernails unless they’re ragged and near me, or bitten to the quick. Long hair, fine. Scuffed shoes, fine so long as we’re not someplace where you’re expected to dress, but certainly no dealbreaker. BO…I think most men shower, no?  Unless you really stink, I don’t care about deodorant, cologne, aftershave etc. (actually would rather you didn’t use scented products, they’re rough on asthma).  
     
    I don’t think anyone here’s been on a moral crusade. We’re pointing out the long-term costs of this method of getting into relationships, and  saying they’re heavily underplayed here. 
     
    And Joe #68: Yes. Or, rather: Even if he makes more, and even if there’s going to be a bigger hit to his income and career by his mommy-tracking himself, he should be as willing as the woman to absorb the time & energy costs of the home & family work — and as cognizant that doing roughly half the home/family work really will mean taking that hit.  There is no faster track to a woman’s getting sidelined than to say, “Well, he makes more money, so his career is the important one.”  
     
    This is the point at which most men will bail, because it kills them so hard to see the woman’s life outside the family as being more important than their status as family breadwinner, provider, protector-through-income, etc. I say fine. If a woman wants kids, and also wants to preserve her work and status outside the home, I see no point in getting started with a man who’s going to rush her when it comes to the “whose work is more important” question. 
     
    HP, you write: “As a man contemplating this state of affairs in the context of searching for a women who will be a suitable wife and mother (and hoping to have a more likely rather  than less likely chance of having this relationship withstand the test of time) it seems that I should be choosing a woman with less education, less skills and less experience, if I wish to minimize the chance of divorce due to her unhappiness with her “constraints”.”

    Yes, that’s correct. What you give up, of course, is in the realm of companionship and conversation.  You should also be sure to choose a woman who’s not a diamond in the rough, because those bright young uneducated gals have a way of noticing, eventually, that they’re sharp and able to read, and determining to do something with it.  A well-educated and skilled woman without ambition would also be a good choice — a woman who went to college because it was the thing to do, and then to work because she had to and just to get out, but was never drawn particularly to any work and prefers to stay home —  and then what you pay for the calm may be a certain spark and energy.
     
     

80. amy Oct 30th 2009 at 10:56 am 80

    Oh.  That is, HP, unless you’re willing to share that burden of home and family work equally with your well-educated, ambitious, sparky wife, including the burden of noticing what needs to be done.  Then she’d probably be pretty darned pleased with you.

81. Curly Girl Oct 30th 2009 at 12:17 pm 81

    @77: Maybe we don’t need help and have no need to change. We’re just chatting on here.

82. Melissa Oct 30th 2009 at 01:30 pm 82

    @ Jersey Girl’s post #73
    man, oh man can I relate to what you’re saying.
    I do feel there is no changing MOST men who don’t want to change.. and so for me the struggle is to just keep trudging on to find a needle in a haystack to find a man who is actually kind, decent and exercises a small amount of self control that I’m remotely attracted to.
    Evan has said several times how we should be looking for kindness and a mutual respect. But as Jersey Girl points out… this process gets so frustrating when you’re the only one exercising kindness and self control.
    It seems as though men can fly off the handle when then don’t like your directions… when your a little bit late… when you don’t phrase things so extremely sugar coated that you step on their toes. We are supposed to accept the little boy temper tantrums, the irrational behavior… the fact that I’ll call you at 2:00 means I’ll call you in the next couple of days (giving them a 24 – 48 hr leeway because they can’t possibly be expected to follow through with such minute details as calling when they say they’re going to).
    Sometimes always being the bigger person gets exhausting. I do want to find a great man, but why oh why must we weed through so many spoiled rotten babies? Not giving up… but as Jersey Girl says, seems like such a daunting, frustrating task sometimes. sigh.

83. Jayne Oct 30th 2009 at 08:04 pm 83

    @Karl #74.   Please be serious.   Cleaning your nails, showering and combing your hair are simply a matter of basic hygiene.  If a man (or a woman) can’t be bothered to be clean and presentable, then he/she SHOULD have limited dating prospects.   DUH.
    This is not even in the same realm as demanding that women put up with men’s demands concerning their looks (when the men themselves don’t measure up), or refusing to lift a finger around the house or considering the task of minding his own children “babysitting.”
    As for your desire never to have children, you would not believe what a hard time WOMEN who don’t want children get from society, including men, and including men who supposedly don’t want children themselves!  I know this from FIRST hand experience.  And I stand by my statement.  I am willing to grow old and die alone rather than tie myself into knots just to be able to say I “have a man.”
    @ Helen #72 — thanks for the encouragement.  I actually have pretty much given up on dating.   I’ve been celibate for more years than I care to count.   And you know, THAT seems to peeve men also.   I actually had one man say to me recently (and this is an exact quote)  “But you’re PRETTY.  You HAVE to date!”   Does that mean if I were ugly it would be OK to be celibate?  I guess he meant it as a compliment, but seriously, WTF?

84. Sayanta Oct 30th 2009 at 08:07 pm 84

    #58-

    Jersey Girl- lol- why’d you think I’m a guy? I’m a super-fem grrl.

85. Sayanta Oct 30th 2009 at 08:11 pm 85

    @66- Helen- oooh, you make me feel so desired. ;-p

86. Rori Raye Oct 30th 2009 at 11:14 pm 86

    What a great discussion.  I so agree with you Evan, that we “work with what we have.”  We have to start from where we are, not from where we wish we were, and we have to meet men where they are, not where we wish they would be, or where we once thought they would be.  For me, the whole thing comes down to how we women feel about ourselves – not necessarily knowing or understanding ourselves, because that often is so mental and analytical and gets us all stuck in our brains, which does us no good where romance and love is concerned – but how we FEEL about ourselves.  And then we begin to pay attention to how we feel about ourselves when we are in the presence of a particular man.  And then our “judging” selves can take a break – because it doesn’t really matter “who he is” in a great many ways.  It makes no difference what you have in common or what you agree on – what matters is how you feel – not about HIM, but about YOURSELF – in his presence.  If you pay attention to this, you’ll see – anger and disappointment, and grief and frustration — all of it will make sense.  All of it is about us.  It creates so much more peace, contentment, and motivation to do the pro-active work of simply getting out into the world to interact with men – and then we start unraveling all our old patterns that weren’t ever working – and start attracting and being attracted to men who can “do the job” of relationship and of loving – and who WANT to love US.  Thanks for the post and this whole site, Rori Raye

87. Linda Oct 31st 2009 at 01:22 am 87

    Ya,,,slim pickens out there.  After a long marriage,(I married young and never REALLY dated),,I found myself divorced, dating and confused as heck.
    The sad truth is,,,there is a good reason why a lot of single guys are still single. 
    I could list off my experiences,,,,but what for.  The thing is, with every failed relationship I have learned something.  Every time.
    So,,it wasn’t a failure.  I just haven’t met the right one yet, and I’ve learned to weed out the wrong ones a lot earlier.
    I consider myself on a journey, I’m in no hurry. 
    The most important thing I learned was not to make the man in front of me fit the mold of what I want.  When I see that he is not for me,,,I move on.  Even if it hurts,,,,,,,
    Take my time,,,,,learn my lessons,,,,,,,,,,,NEXT.

88. JerseyGirl Oct 31st 2009 at 06:28 am 88

    Sorry Sayanta. When you said that comment about the gigalo in post #22, I misread it and thought you said you could play the gigalo. My bad. Darn! I thought you were a man that “got it”.

89. amy Oct 31st 2009 at 08:28 am 89

    Oh, and hey, happy anniversary, Evan and Mrs. Evan. May you have many more.

90. Ruby Oct 31st 2009 at 03:25 pm 90

    This study on single people came out about 3 years ago, and shows that only a small number of single people are looking for partners.
    http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1/not-looking-for-love

91. Sayanta Nov 1st 2009 at 09:31 am 91

    #88, Jerz Girl-

    lol- no worries. My best g-friend and I always tell each other how great it would be if the other were a guy- true love!

92. amy Nov 1st 2009 at 12:59 pm 92

    Huh. Interesting, and maybe not so strange. Puts me in mind of English 19th-c novels full of common-law marriages and people past childrearing years in their own cottages. You always get the impression in them that most of the poor widows with children have men because one turned up and wouldn’t go away and besides was handy, but besides that the widows themselves weren’t overly bothered about the lack of a man. Being busy & all. It’s only the upper classes that seem to be worried in those books about old-maid sisters. Which I suppose makes sense if the aim is for the sisters never to work for money.
     
    I wouldn’t be too surprised if the push for all young people to marry, in the US, came out of the devastation of WWII.  You send that many young men off to a horrible, decimating war, and by the time they get back, by God, all you want is love and babies, and gentleness, and happy times.  But that was a long time ago now. 

93. A-L Nov 1st 2009 at 07:45 pm 93

    When women post about guys who are never willing to compromise, or who expect someone with no backbone, or are generally just rude (needing a 24-48hr window for a specified time to call?!) I am incredulous that any woman with decent self-esteem would stay in such a relationship. I would say that only a woman desperate to have a man would remain with that kind of person. A woman who doesn’t feel she is in need of an LTR would just walk away rather than deal with that garbage.
     
     
    Fortunately, though, I don’t think that kind of garbage is the majority. I think most men are kind and desirous of pleasing their woman. Some of them are clueless about how to do it, but with some positive direction they do everything in their power to make the woman they love happy. And I don’t think that telling a man that you’d like to receive this item, or have him do this thing, or showing your honest joy at something he’s done well is a managerial/training job. It’s communication and acknowledging your partner’s contributions to your relationship. Something that most of the women here would like to receive from their partner.
     
     
     
    Admittedly, most women have had to bear the majority of the costs (time & loss of employment opportunities) related to raising the children. But some of the men have brought up interesting points in regards to income, childrearing, and partner selection. The majority of couples have the male earning more money than the female. It’s generally something that the women look for. So when it comes time when someone needs to work fewer hours in order to take care of the kids, the natural inclination is to have the lower income person do it as that way the family will lose less money.
     
     
    Although I’m quite surprised that I’m about to say this, Vino’s idea of only being in a relationship with a person with the same income as yourself actually might help alleviate some of these issues for women who want to work while sharing the parenting responsibilities with their husband. Since neither person earns more than the other that cannot be used as a justification for the women making the sacrifices. Also, I suspect that the power dynamic is more one among equals rather than one holding more of the cards. Not that this describes all relationships where there is an income differential, but at times like these (as in whose job is more important) I think that it comes into play.
     
    Just as there are women who don’t want to date a guy unless he has a college degree (or is over 5’9”) I think it’s totally okay if a man only wants to date women who are not professionally ambitious. Simply because a man isn’t interested in someone like us doesn’t mean that he’s wrong; he just wants what he wants. As many of the women here have testified, there are men who are interested in bright, educated, successful, non-girly women. We just need to find them.

94. Ruby Nov 2nd 2009 at 06:39 am 94

    A-L #93
     
    In my case, we were only involved for a few months, and the unwillingness to compromise on this particular issue didn’t come to the fore right away.  It was something of a surprise to me when it did. You said,”I am incredulous that any woman with decent self-esteem would stay in such a relationship”. Me too, but the guy I was seeing didn’t see it that way.

95. Helen Nov 2nd 2009 at 06:41 am 95

    A-L #93: you make some great points, but ultimately the issue of who – mother or father – gives up more for the kids is more complex than that. In the short term, because now there is SUCH a push (a ridiculous one) that we must breastfeed exclusively if we can, women are compelled to stay home for at least 12 weeks, even if she has the more prestigious job. Then there are also issues of tradition: that it always was the woman who stayed home in the past, so that is the default – again, regardless of the relative prestiges of the mother’s / father’s jobs. And finally, there is the question of: who wanted the kids more? Ultimately, that is what determined childcare burden in my marriage. I did more of the upfront work (being a woman), but because my husband was the one who wanted kids much more than I did, now he is doing relatively more of the dropoff, pickup, hustling them through breakfast, brushing teeth, etc.

    These are all items that a couple should discuss before having kids. We didn’t discuss these issues and managed fine, but it would have been much smoother if we had gotten these out of the way first. I think many childless couples have no idea just how much work is involved in raising kids, and I want to try to alleviate that ignorance as much as possible, and to point out that it does heavily affect male-female viewpoints and relationships. (I think Amy has a similar goal here.)

    How does this get to Evan’s original point about dating advice making people mad? It has to do with looking reality in the eye. We don’t like to hear the truth often about dating, just as we don’t like to hear it about parenting. But from personal experience (especially regarding the latter), I would much rather have heard the straight story ahead of time, rather than suffering through disillusionment and resentment at feeling that people were hiding the truth. It doesn’t mean that we must be jaded either about dating or about parenthood. It just means that we make decisions being more informed.

96. Lance Nov 2nd 2009 at 09:02 am 96

    EMK, thought provoking post, as usual. I haven’t waded through the comments yet, so forgive me if this has already been said. I’d love to see you embrace your role as more than an observer. You have a huge, thoughtful audience and you have the ability to influence and make change. I’d like to see you use that authority to spur changes and address the things that you don’t think are right. If you think women need to make their standards more realistic and give short, bald guys a chance, then fight that fight.

97. downtowngal Nov 3rd 2009 at 04:57 am 97

    Interesting advice here, Evan – you state that you can’t change men so women shouldn’t try.  I totally agree.   And some time ago you wrote that women seek advice more than men, but men need it even more.  This describes how men  & women are different.

    The problem is I’ve met a string of guys who are single, look ‘good on paper’ (age-wise, good profession) but are total dating duds – rude, don’t call, look around the room after asking me a question on a date, sending mixed messages, complaining incessantly about their exes, etc.  I’m sure I speak for many women here. 

    So the only sound advice we can take is to just move on.  To do otherwise condones unacceptable behaviour.  All of those dating books say the same thing, which is to demonstrate self respect and don’t put up w BS.

    Sure I’d like to meet someone but if the single guys out there really want to find someone they should try checking  their egos at the door and figure out how to be mensches.  Will it happen?  probably not.  but I’d rather be happy w my life than in a relationship treated like crap.

98. amy Nov 3rd 2009 at 07:32 am 98

    Sure. You know, the more I read here, the more persuaded I am that Evan has so many midlife clients because it’s at around this age that most women learn to recognize bs and understand, like to the bone, that they totally don’t have to put up with it.  And when you consider that the MO of most men has been up till then to use the bs to get wherever they need to go in just about any situation, well.  You see the conflict.  
     
    Frankly, I think that’d be a much, much harder shift for men to make than the whole “do half the housework” business is.  Because by and large, that’s how I see boys operating from the time they’re about 3 years old. It really doesn’t matter what kind of bull you need to put out to convince people that you’re the one who’d going to be at the top of the pile of cushions — just put it out there, and get on top!  Same thing happens in salary negotiations, love negotiations…turning that mode off, I think, requires a hell of a lot of reflection, security, and willingness to come in fifth.  Not because you can’t do better, but because you’re not willing to live that way, bullshitting the people around you all the time to stay on top.
     
    I think that’s really at the heart of the matter.  A guy who can do that — who could be alpha, more or less, if he played the game, but chooses not to because the game sucks, and refrains also from leeching off other people to make up for it– those guys are always madly attractive to women, regardless of height, looks, etc.

99. Curly Girl Nov 3rd 2009 at 10:09 am 99

    Amy @98: I love you!!!

    This: A guy who can do that — who could be alpha, more or less, if he played the game, but chooses not to because the game sucks, and refrains also from leeching off other people to make up for it– those guys are always madly attractive to women, regardless of height, looks, etc.
    
    Brilliant, and exactly what I am talking about.

    I have this guy. And he is so into me, in a way that no alpha male ever could or would be. It is heaven, and it has made all the years of not putting up with b.s. worthwhile. A very validating experience. He’s also really good-looking, with a high s*x drive, so this isn’t about “settling” for security instead of passion. I am not settling at all. I feel secure with him and we are intensely passionate about each other. We are not interested in marriage, and we aren’t planning on having kids, so none of the traditional gender problems have come into play.

    I wish we heard more relationship stories about women who  don’t roll over and play dumb to get a guy, women for whom the post-feminist world works, women who aren’t “punished” for refusing to cow-tow to traditional gender expectations.

    In my view, the default settings need to change:

     A woman who stands up for her truth if it differs from the outmoded and stereotypical is not necessarily doing so out of anger. Perhaps she’s just setting the record straight.  

    Women are attracted on a purely physical level to good-looking men.

    A woman who makes her own money isn’t going to care that much about a guy’s–unless she’s just into money.

    Raising kids and taking care of a home are work and should be viewed as such, not as some altruistic, genetically programmed, all-fulfilling accident of nature. Until recently, women have not had much of a choice about whether or not they will participate in this work.  

    You don’t have to be married or in  a couple to be normal, healthy, fulfilled. As a matter of fact, getting married or encoupled just to fulfill some gender/societal expectation is probably a most unhealthy choice, almost guaranteed to have a bad outcome.

    And finally: Sometimes–maybe most times–the desire to find a partner is not about finding another person at all. It’s about finding something in yourself that can withstand all of the harsh twists and turns of life and still be strong. It’s harder to find this strength in yourself than to find a partner. 
     

100. Helen Nov 3rd 2009 at 01:42 pm 100

     Curly Girl #99, I love YOU.   Especially for this paragraph, which is so on-target that I have nothing to add to it:
     “Raising kids and taking care of a home are work and should be viewed as such, not as some altruistic, genetically programmed, all-fulfilling accident of nature. Until recently, women have not had much of a choice about whether or not they will participate in this work.”

     I do wonder about your statement though: “I wish we heard more relationship stories about women who  don’t roll over and play dumb to get a guy.”

     As a woman who meets your above requirement, I’m glad to share my own stories – but Curly Girl, they are the norm, not the exception. Men LOVE smart women. Take it from me, a show-off who is constantly flaunting what small knowledge she has: men love that. Men relish that. Especially if they perceive that you are having a good time while you’re doing it. Men enjoy seeing women happy, and if a woman obviously loves intellectual discussion and showing off her brains, they fall head-over-heels for her.

     Don’t be afraid to try it. Men want smart women who will pass on their smart genes to offspring. Flaunt your brains! – not in an angry or resentful way, but in a positively joyful way.

101. downtowngal Nov 4th 2009 at 04:33 am 101

     CG#99, “A woman who makes her own money isn’t going to care that much about a guy’s–unless she’s just into money. ”

     So true!  Too often I hear guys  complain about women being golddiggers, but these are also the kind of guys who feel as if they NEED money to attract women, and overlook those who are not overly impressed with their nice car.  but some guys don’t get it, they’re stuck in their ways and keep making the same mistakes.

102. Lisa Nov 4th 2009 at 07:48 pm 102

     You say 50% of men don’t call if you have sex too soon.  The post about What Men and Women Want on Paper says that chastity is irrelevant????

103. downtowngal Nov 5th 2009 at 04:06 am 103

     Amy #102, I’ve also observed that some guys want a woman who’s going to stay home and not work, and get intimidated by women w careers.  Totally unrealistic because I also know a lot of single career women who would give up working to stay home if it came to that.  Plus, many of these women are intelligent and have their act together.  I guess it sez more about the guys than the girls.

104. Shelagh Nov 5th 2009 at 10:24 am 104

     Talk about beating a dead horse… while we’re on the subject… WHAT ARE OBSERVATIONS?! I can understand being opinionated. I can see why people become more and more opinionated with age. I see it in myself, but I try so VERY hard to keep it down to a roar. Advice: stop being so argumentative. It’s annoying. “It is the mark of an educated mind that is able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” -Socrates

105. Curly Girl Nov 5th 2009 at 11:54 am 105

     Shelagh: Is that Socrates’ observation or just a thought that we can entertain without accepting it?

106. Shelagh Nov 5th 2009 at 01:17 pm 106

     exactly 

107. Tanay Nov 10th 2009 at 09:24 am 107

     Just follow your heart to get the most unique dating options of your life.

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