
I’m really down and out about men.
It seems I only meet the ones that want to be physical….like guys who already have a girlfriend and want me on the side.
I’m sick and tired of it and I know you’re not suppose to give up but I’m to that point.
It really upsets me that they think I’m suppose to just “get physical with them” while other women get the benefits of eating out, going to the movies, or just spending time with the guy.
It’s really taking a toll on me. I’m hurt that I can’t even find a good guy friend that doesn’t won’t to be physical.
What can I do to meet men that want more than the physical?
Julia
Thanks Julia for your question. It can be frustrating if you continually meet men who are only after the physical.
It is a very “dangerous” place to be in, not only because it sucks to meet men who are not relationship ready, but also because the more of them you meet the more it will cause you to think that “good men” don’t exist.
Marvin Barrett, dating coach, explains more on why this happens, how to avoid or deal with men who are just out for the physical, and where to meet more men that genuinely want to get to know you.
Marvin helps single women identify and avoid dating non-committal men and find their Mr. Right. He coaches women to identify the best places to meet the right men for them, read the signals men display when uncommitted and how to attract the right guy to approach them. Learn how to meet and find the right man for you.
I certainly hear and understand your frustrations here, it’s a frustration I’m sure many women can relate to and identify with.
My hope here though is that you don’t give up but instead re-evaluate your situation at the moment.
You want to meet men who want more than just sex without the strings but not sure about how you should go about this.
Well there’s two things I think you should consider:
First, your expectations about men…
…and second, is your current approach to meeting and dating men.
Let’s look at one of your expectations for a second as I think it hampens many womens chances of finding a “good eligible man.”
There are subtleties in your question that say “I EXPECT men to NOT want more than the physical when they meet me.”
You want to meet a man who is more interested in you as a person and takes a genuine interest in the happenings of your life as opposed to just your body but feel that this man isn’t anywhere to be found at the moment.
Many men out there lack any real morals or standards when it comes to dating and women and I wish more men would be a lot more honest and mature in their dealings with women, but some aren’t and it’s just one of those things.
But it’s not worth thinking about over and over again because all you’ll be doing is frustrating the heck out of yourself and get into a cycle of “hating men” or as you put it becoming really down and out.
So is this an unrealistic expectation?
No, I don’t think so, however, there is a slight problem with it.
You EXPECT men to be or act differently from what they really are – which is sexual beings who are predominantly led by their visual senses and desires, especially when it comes to women and attraction.
When you EXPECT a male to act DIFFERENTLY from this fact, you’re really setting yourself up for a hard time and some serious frustration.
In an ideal world, women should be able to meet men who are and act sincerely and genuinely are interested in getting to know about her, her dreams, her fantasies, her fears etc as well as acknowledging her external beauty.
And to some mens credit, there are men out there who do demonstrate this quality quite well.
However, it’s not an ideal world and most men don’t demonstrate this quality very well and it’s not what typically happens when boy meets girl so to speak.
When a man first lays eyes on you, he is ATTRACTED to your physical beauty. If he approaches you, he is acting out from that initial interest, your physical beauty.
He doesn’t know you yet to know if he would want anything more than what he can physically see, it’s the physical attraction that has “triggered” him.
You might say, “yeah but it’s not right, he should be more interested in getting to know me for who I am, not my body or looks” – and I’d say you’d have a valid point.
But this isn’t about right and wrong here – it’s about how attraction typically works for men, and how you can gain a deeper understanding of the process at work here and then choose your response accordingly.
Just acknowledge and accept it for what it is.
The majority of the male species are wired this way. It’s their default setting so to speak. They’re not in control of it most of the time.
Men will always try to get in your knickers for as long as you live.
It’s better to come to terms with that fact than to expect to meet a man who won’t because if you don’t, you’ll be living in a state of denial that’s based on unrealistic expectations and unrealistic expectations could keep you single and frustrated longer than you need to be.
This doesn’t mean you should accept or settle for unacceptable or immature behaviour from a man or even lower your standards just to accomodate his impulses that he fails to control, no way.
What I am saying though is, save yourself the stress.
Don’t worry about men acting like all they want to do is get you in bed, it’s not something you can control or influence in anyway so you’re doing yourself no favours when you take it to heart when a man seeks to get physical with you before even trying to get know your first name. Just let that go, you’ve got bigger fish to fry.
I suggest that you carry no expectations of a man in the beginning when you first meet him.
Why?
Well, you’ll avoid unnecessary disappointment.
In fact, if you’re going to expect anything, expect that he wants to sleep with you, (which he probably does otherwise he wouldn’t have approached you in the first place – not always though) because if you do, you won’t be disappointed when you notice the signs, you’ll just know that he isn’t likely the right man for you.
Getting upset over men thinking you’re supposed to get “physical” with them while other women get the benefits of eating out, going to the movies or just spending time with the guy is putting unnecessary emotional stress on yourself.
He’s done you a favour. He’s shown the type of man he is and would be if he was to be in a relationship with you, which isn’t what you’d want so view it as a valuable lesson you’re getting early on instead of months or years down the line.
The last point I want to make here is if you feel you keep meeting and attracting men who already have girlfriends, you may want to evaluate the types of places you’re meeting these men, as well as any “signals” that you may be subliminally communicating to a man that says “I’m available.”
By this I mean, it could be the way you dress and present yourself, it could be the types of conversations you entertain when he is speaking to you, or a combination of both.
Presumably, if you meet a guy who you’re attracted to and exchange numbers with, one of the questions you would ask him is whether or not he is seeing someone or has a girlfriend.
Whether he tells you on the first meeting or later on, the moment he tells you or when he becomes suspicious that you might know that he has another woman but you still allow him to talk to you on that level, flirt with you and tease you and you don’t really deal with him appropriately, he’ll think he’s got a chance with you at some point.
It may not be right now, but at some point he will – at least that’s what he’ll think.
That’s the mentality most men who are prepared to cheat on their woman or sleep have.
If you ask most men, they’ll tell you that they have a secret belief inside them that says even if a woman says no today, she’ll say yes tomorrow.
They believe that what a woman says and what a woman does are usually two different things at least from their personal experience and the experience of other men they may know.
So if you’re saying one thing but doing another, you may cause a man to think that although you’re saying no right now, you’ll say yes at some point because you haven’t locked off the communication with him, so he’ll feel he still has a chance of persuading you, even if it’s small.
Also, start meeting men at places that are of interest to you.
Places where conversations are easy to start, places where from the get-go you both share a common interest (e.g at Jazz concert, you both like music, especially Jazz and more specifically a specific artist)
If you like to go shopping and buy clothes, shoes etc, whilst you might not meet a man in the shops you tend to shop in, you could scope out a few male shops or even attend a fashion showcase where men attend too.
You’ll both start off on common ground and will like have passions that stimulate mental attraction as well as physical attraction.
Identify the interests and hobbies you have. Figure out what you like to do or would like to do and make these a starting point for checking out places to meet men where the focus isn’t on checking out the “candy.”
This can also help you with building a social network of platonic male friends which you said is proving a problem for you at the moment.
Doing this will give you opportunities to meet new and different people and if you meet men who you’re not attracted to and they’re not attracted to you either in a physical/sexual way, you can focus on a platonic friendship where you already have things in common and so can do activities together.
I tend to think people who are wanting to find a more serious, committed, stable long-term relationship should stay away from places like bars, clubs, and big parties unless it’s literally just a social thing with friends. Most men go to these types of places literally to “pick up” women and fill up their “blackbooks.”
Avoid falling into that trap.
But in saying that, don’t give up on men.
There is a man out there for you who will want to get to know you, about your dreams, your fantasies, your desires as well as your fears and worries and treat you the way you want to be treated. You just need to adjust your expectations and develop the right approach. Good men out there are looking for good women like you so don’t give up, switch it up.
Marvin, thanks for an excellent post!
No problem, thank you for sharing it. I hope your readers can get something from it.
This is a very good input for reading and consideration.
I don’t live in US, and see there are more and more women actually feel trapped of the frustration in finding who they really are and covered by the shiny fantasy of their expectation, hope, fantasy, I may say sometimes, too much of it. And because of that, sometimes they don’t have courage to look at themselves and stand up to say “life is not always about men”.
But we want to have someone that we can care about or at least to be with, regardless whether it’s the right man for us or not, just as long as we have them in sight. And because of that frustration of being loved (or I may say, cared for), we are afraid to cross the ocean as we dare not loose sight of onshore so we stay in the relationship for whatever reasons, but true feeling of what we want and need. To me it is the lack of confidence and failure to know more of ourselves that caused us, women, to stay in the relationship for wrong reasons.
I had unsuccessful relationship, because I didn’t have the courage to cross the ocean, because I am afraid to loose sight of onshore. I didn’t think very thoroughly and even sit down to talk with my heart of asking it what I wanted, what I needed.. And for years I stayed in it, trying to test my heart and its capacity to think that there was always more to life to learn, and because of other reasons that made me think I shud stay and learn more and make people around happy. But at some points, I broke down, my mind kept thinking analyzing and said I didn’t feel happy, appreciated and needed to move on… And the hardest part is that…moving on, leaving the ground comfort zone to go into dark forrest. And I am still grabbing and finding and learning to stand strong.
All I think is, we, women, have to be confidence about who we are and what we want and need (because want and need are 2 different things at tumes), and when we give positive encouragement it will give positive signal sent outside without we realize it.. And right signal, I think, will match signal that suit to us.
Appreciate ourselves, no need to screw around with men who already have women walking beside them.
Talking is easy, I admit… Doing it is sooo much harder, I know 🙂
Thanks ChepZ for your comment. This is very good for women to hear. I like your analogy about crossing the ocean and not wanting to lose site of the shore. Very powerful!
You are right, I do believe that it is difficult when you are single or if you are afraid of being single, you just want someone to be with and care about you.
I think many women have found themselves in this situation.
That’s why I feel it’s so important to know what you want and not entertain relationships with men who are “unavailable” and not able to give you what you need.
An “unavailable” man can be already in a relationship or single. Unavailable simply means that they are unavailable to meet your needs and wants.
Belief will be important also because you have to believe that you there is a man out there that you will be compatible with and who will love and care about you.
It’s not a fairy tale. It has happened and is happening to many women and it can happen to you to.
Decide to be committed to meeting the right man, not just any man.
i honestly think there’s no such thing as love between a man and woman. i believe in other forms of love like parent-child love or friendship.i admit women are no angels either but some of them are realy good and can love and stay faithful forever contrary to men who i think are all the same when it comes to romance,they will never be 100percent faithful no matter how passionately in love they are with you which is pretty unfortunate and one very reason why i’ll never spoil my life by getting married to a man coz’ they simply aren’t worth it. People sometimes tell me that i’ll change my mind since i’m very young (20yrs) but i don’t think i ever will.
Thanks Benie.
I’m sorry to hear the hurt you’ve experienced. But I do believe that you are holding on to an inkling of hope, that some man will prove you wrong.
Otherwise it wouldn’t matter to you one way or another and you wouldn’t have joined this discussion. And if that’s the case, I could be wrong, that’s a good thing that you still have a small inkling of hope.
The danger here is placing men on a pedestal, not allowing the same mistakes as would happen between a parent & child or between two friends.
None of us are perfect. Men are just humans as are everyone else and remembering that allows you to love them in spite of their mistakes.
You will make mistakes as well and what makes a relationship beautiful like the ones you mentioned between parent and child and friends is that we allow each other to make these mistakes and still love them.
As for men being unfaithful, unfortunately you are setting yourself up to meet a lot of them if you don’t believe there are any that will be faithful.
Belief is so very important. Sometimes it’s tough to get there, but it is very possible. Believe that there are men out there who are faithful and you will meet a lot more of them.
Not all men cheat, that’s similar to a man saying that all women are interested in is money. Would you want to meet a man who thought that way about ALL women? How would he treat you? How would he act around you?
Most likely he would scare you away before he got to know the REAL you, and guess what…in his mind he would think that you left because of money, but in reality you just left because he treated you as if that’s all you wanted. This might be getting a little bit too into it, but the main thing is…beliefs create your reality – watch your thoughts:)
Robyn Lee
THIS HAS BEEN SO HELPFUL.. THANKS
Thanks for your comment Isabel:) I’m glad this post and discussion has been helpful.
Interesting comment Benie.
I think this is what’s reflective of our global society today, people losing faith in love and other people in general.
I do see where you’re coming from because there is a lot of evidence out there that reflects this.
But the unfortunate thing is though is it’s only negative experiences and events that people and society as a whole report and talk about, so it’s often believed that there is no good out there.
To say that no man can ever be faithful though is bit naive to believe. Sure, there are many men who cheat, but there are also women who cheat too, I’ve had the personal experience of having this happen to me but also know females who have cheated on their men, so the problems now aren’t why do men or women cheat, it’s how can we get back to loving and understanding one another so that cheating is only a topic and not a reality.
I believe love to be something that we possess. We can be taught and learn it, just like the example you give with a parent and child love. A parent who demonstrates abundant love to their child can be assured that their child will grow up with the capacity to love another human being. So love between men and women can exist, but just like parenting, only if we work at it daily.
I’m interested to know though, what makes you believe that men aren’t worth it and that you’ll likely never change your mind? Is the idea of getting married or settling down a vision you have?