Women Who Initiate Relationships with Men: Postfeminist Dating Mistake No. 1

I'm not talking about gender equality; I'm talking about role differentiation. Men and women have different roles. Men pursue. Women respond.

"What if he doesn't pursue me?" you're asking yourself.

This is an absolute truth: real men go after what they want. If he doesn't go after you, he doesn't want you bad enough. Ouch. I don't care what the situation or what the scenario, I never stray from this rule: If you are looking for a long-term relationship, never initiate any hint of feelings or romantic interest towards a man unless he verbalizes his interest.

One of my trusted male friends dated and almost married a woman who subtly initiated a relationship with him. They had seen each other a few times at some social gatherings and one day, out of the blue, she calls him up and invites herself to one of his study groups. He gives the directions and she manages to innocently keep him on the phone and get a good conversation going. After they hung up, he was like, 'Hmmm, I never noticed her before, but she seems nice and she's obviously interested....' The key to this passive reflection are the words, 'I never noticed her before.'

How many women out there want to be with a guy who needs help noticing them? In the proceeding months, they ended up dating. A couple of months later when I talked to him on the phone, he said something odd: 'It's so great being with her! I mean, I can go through my whole day and I barely think about her! It's great that she's not a distraction at work!' (This was a positive factoid in his book because the woman he had liked prior to her was a woman who knocked him senseless with desire and was a major distraction. He even got in an accident on the road once because he was just daydreaming of her).

Believe me ladies, if he doesn't think about you all day, that isn't a good sign. I don't know about other women, but I would much rather be the woman who he thinks about so much that it causes him to get into accidents rather than the woman who keeps him productive at work because he barely thinks about her. I don't know how it got this far, but somehow, they managed to get engaged.

Months into the engagement, even though everything seemed right from his mental checklist, ( she's a sweet girl, she's smart, we have the same goals, my family loves her) something was lacking. Eventually the engagement was called off. One day after a heated argument, he asked her,

"What do you want from me?"

"I want to stop chasing you."

Bingo. If you chase him, he'll never feel like chasing you. There's only room for one person to do the pursuing, and if it's you, you'll both resent each other because he actually likes going after you and you actually like being pursued. It makes him feel like he's accomplished something; it makes you feel desirable. Think about it from a primitive standpoint. Men like to conquer, hunt, and pursue. They value heroism and risk-taking. Women want to be desired and sought after.

I'm not saying that all relationships are doomed to failure if a woman pursues a man, because I have another friend who is still with a man she pursued. They've had a lot of problems because he was always unsure if the whole thing was right for him. Finally, she completely backed off. This space was exactly what he needed to think things through. She gave him a chance to do the pursuing for once. When she stopped chasing after him, it gave him a chance to miss her, to want her, to notice her. If it wasn't for that break, I think she'd always wonder if he really wanted to be with her. Every woman wants to believe that the man she's with is crazy for her. If the woman initiates a relationship, she will always have that question unanswered because in the back of her mind she's asking herself, Would you even have noticed me if I didn't make the effort? Are you just with me because I made it convenient for you?

I can tell you story after story of how woman have initiated relationships with men where the end result was heartbreak. It's just not the way things were mean to be. Think back on childhood fairy tales and dreams you may have had as a little girl. The heroines in those stories never had to make an effort to be noticed by Prince Charming. You dreamed that Prince Charming came after you. Can you imagine Cinderella throwing herself at the prince like the evil stepsisters? You never dreamed that you had to prance around trying to get his attention. You just stood out, and he came after you! It's not that women are lazy or want to play mind games. We take the passive role, or what I call the responsive role, because we want to give our men the opportunity to fight for us. Men like a good fight, a good battle, a weighty challenge. We want to see if we are worthy enough in his eyes for him to be willing to take the risk of rejection. When I was overseas, I had male friends who used the term 'Kamikaze' whenever one of the guys was about to approach a girl he was interested in. They would all chant, 'Kamikaze' over and over like soccer fans in a stadium cheering on a team. They called it 'Kamikaze' because if she rejected him, it would be an honorable death. What mattered was that he took the plunge that could lead to rejection. It validated his manhood. True men are willing to risk rejection if it means that there is a possibility that we will respond favorably.

Women make up excuses for these boys who masquerade as men. We say, Oh but...

He's too shy! Hey, even shy guys want to eventually get laid. Sorry to be blunt folks, but men have some very real sexual needs. If he hasn't developed those needs yet, um, well, he's still a boy. Move on to someone who has already gone through puberty, thank you very much. In all seriousness, if he really is lazy, er, I mean, shy in that department, you may want to consider what other areas in his life he may also be ( to put it nicely) passive in: his career? His health? (Remember sex is probably the number one driving factor for men to do anything. If a man were skimming through this article right now he might have skipped down to this line because he had stopped at that word.) Come on, you want a man who is a mover and a shaker, who has drive and ambition. Believe me, if he lacks drive and ambition in an area concerning sex, he lacks drive and ambition in other areas as well!

The competition is fierce! Earlier I mentioned that this rule applies only if you want a long-term relationship. Men are always up for having a little fun with you right now. Most women have their minds perpetually in future mode when they deal with men. Not so much with men. They don't mind just seeing where things go. If an opportunity presents itself, AKA, a woman throwing herself at him, 9 chances out of 10, he will test the waters. The question you have to ask yourself is this: do you want to be the one he's with for the present moment because you've made it easy for him, or the one he actively notices and wants? Even if you are a bombshell, if you took the initiative, he won't be thinking Wow, I can't believe she likes me! I'm the luckiest guy alive (at least not for very long). Those thoughts will eventually be turned into, Well, if I can get her without even trying, shoot, I'm hot stuff I bet I can get any girl I want! You haven't made yourself the prized commodity that you unmistakably are. Instead, you have inflated his very volatile ego into irrational proportions, and now he thinks he's God's gift to women. Step back. Give him a chance to notice you.

Just think about a car(another passionate subject for men that I will never understand). If a guy bought a car after working hard three summers in a row saving up money, and it was the car of his choosing, how much more do you think he would value, appreciate, and take care of this car as opposed to a random car that his parents gave him as a graduation gift? The truth is, It makes all the difference when he's actively noticed, carefully selected, purposefully chosen, and patiently worked for something.