Adonis Diaries

“But I do not love him…”; (October 14, 2009)             

            A love on and off affair of one of my close relatives got me thinking.  Invariably we all think that we are acute psychologists in interpreting the behavior of others and that we need no formal schooling in that practice. Our reduced life experience enlarges our abstract notions into the realm of truths; but not many would venture into writing an article that smacks of psychology.  My earlier decision to shrink my posts to less than a thousand words will save me many mishaps by lengthy chatting on this peculiar topic.

This fundamental concept dawned on me: Women would instantly marry men they fall in love with, regardless whether love is reciprocated as long as the man is accommodating. Most women are viewed as pragmatic because they prefer to marry men able to provide a comfortable standard of living.  This perception is in the “common sense” category of evidences among men: in most cultures men are the ones expected to make the first moves and ask for the hand of their selected choices and parents have definite say after financial investigation of the targeted family. 

This perception is far from the truth. First, if a woman has the choice between a comfortable provider and the one she loves then she would select the man she loves with no hesitation in most cases.  Fortunately, these moments of choices are rare, simply because either the woman has not yet fallen in love, or the one she loves is not available (basically, unreachable to work diligently on him). Second, the ratio of achiever man combined with an imagination running wild into recounting enchanted stories and projects (that women tend to fall in love with) and the rest of the other kinds of men is pretty abysmal; and thus, women have a puny pool of men to fall in love with among the eligible. 

The perception of women having practical streak is the result of the rare occasions for women to show their fundamental sides. I am not distinguishing between the “independent” and “non-independent” women because the concept of “preferring the man she loves” is a truth for all normal women when the right occasion is available.  One advantage for an independent woman to marrying the man she loves is that she has a wider intellectual and practical range of means to work on her man as long as he is receptive. Mind that I didn’t define an “independent” woman by her economic status of financial self-sufficiency, although that would give the woman a powerful advantage in most cases.  What I mean by an independent woman is the one that was permitted freedom of choices in many sectors of life during her upbringing, or her folks were lenient enough to encourage her to take initiatives and allow her to impose the choices in most instances.  Thus, an independent woman has acquired a flexible and trained mind to investing energy and time at studying her choices and carrying them into satisfactory results.

Allow me to go one step further in matter of truths; a “pragmatic” married woman would never relinquish her God’s given right to seeking the love of her life.  That is why divorces and unhappy houses are so widespread everywhere and in among all cultures.

I would be interested reading studies or stories on attractive enough spinsters, and then discovering the main reasons for them failing to marry.  My hypothesis is that a spinster was in love with a “local” man and the “rich” practical men were not forthcoming or felt that the spinster was not a good actor for sending the right signals as expected of her. I reduced my sample of “attractive enough” spinsters because I feel the attribute “beautiful” is such a strong characteristic for men that no beautiful woman will go unmarried in most cases.  Mind that I will not insists on the characteristics of men simply because a man needs a lifetime to applying Socrates’ dictum “know your own self!”

Women in general do not give words coming from man much weight as evidence for truth; women believe that they have a set of battery of their own lie detectors to verify if a man is saying the truth; they need constant affirmation that the man is behaving correctly in order to control their hold on him.  The best criterion for women to discriminate strong from weak men is to demand from men to pour their heart out and provide total description of their status, life, and inclinations; women insist on their men to tell everything: implicitly, to convince men that they believe in their words; but this is the most important first test. 

If men fall into that trap and divulge everything then they have lost the war already; women want strong men and those men who tell them everything are categorized as weak in character and useless to protect them or to fall in love with them.  Those men who failed this critical test and succumbed to weakness should never expect the woman to fall in love with him even if she decided to marry him; in this case she loves to play mother.  The woman who marries such a “weak” man has fundamentally no real interest in men but prefer this front to save further exacerbations with constant wowing and pressures from men.

No, it is not an undertone power struggle for the search of a weak man to dominate because women naturally want to be the leaders in the family and they would ultimately grab that power with minimum determination.  All that women want from men is to constantly tell them what women like to hear and to hell with the truth which they can always discover with their own array of lie indicators and detectors. Men should master the techniques for perfect confident lie stories that women love to hear as long as they never forget to compliment them frequently and act very devoted to them.

            Consequently, a word of advice for grown up men, those who didn’t marry in their mid twenties: dig into whatever intuitive power you have to feel whether the girl of your choice may fall in love with you.  Rushing mindlessly and immediately into investing energy, time, and resources to just wowing her is a typical man’s weakness.  Now, if your intuition was high jacked by an evil spirit into believing that the love of your life is indeed in love with you, then the next step is to discourage your girl from meeting with comfortable providers by any means available. 

            All these suggestions are for just the practical situation of getting married.  Living happily is a totally another issue and I am no redundant prophet.  Simply remember what I said of woman’s single uncompromising faith of her God’s given right “to falling in love with a man once in her lifetime”. The harshest instances for me are being under constant investigation: Being forgotten in a gulag is a more tenable alternative for me.

Note: this post is a re-edited version of my prior “She let go of her suitor” written in November 17, 2007