Based on the responses from my post “All the Single Ladies Put Your Hands Up!” I’ve decided to write one for the boys…
In his blog Donald Miller has some great things to say to men about what it means to live a great love story. He says that any great story contains the following elements:
- A person (or group of people)
- That wants something.
- And are willing to overcome conflict to get it.
A great love story is no different. In a love story, a guy wants a girl, and is willing to fight the dragon to get her. But… there’s a difference between men and women here.
Men were not designed to have love stories “happen to them” as much as they were designed to “make a love story happen to a woman.” Do you understand? You’re the writer of the story. You’re the guy who initiates and has the character to follow through.
Unfortunately we live in a culture of guys who couldn’t write a love story to save their lives. Also, most people think love stories only benefit women. But don’t be fooled. There’s a lot in this for you. A man can have sex with a thousand women and he’ll never feel as masculine or as powerful as he will be leading a woman through a good love story.
So here then are some tips from Donald’s blog that will help you to lead a woman through a great love story:
1) Want something
Every story involves a person who wants something, and you’re love story can’t be any different. Women are attracted to men on a mission – men who want to make the world a better place and are focused and dedicated to making this happen. This means going to college, starting a company, coaching a team or teaching a class. If you want to make a woman’s dreams come true, pick up your X-box and throw it in the trash and start doing something with your life.
2) Choose the right women to date
The book of Proverbs was primarily written to men, and while there is a great deal of advice in the book about work ethic and finances, a significant chunk of the book is spent warning men to stay away from certain women. Is she seductive? Stay away. Is she nagging? Stay away. Is she sexually promiscuous? Stay away. I spent a good deal of my varsity career dating girls who were seductive, and have paid dearly. Now this does not mean you shouldn’t date a girl with a past. It just means stay away from a woman who leads with her seductive side. You want a woman who is looking for a man, not a woman looking for men.
3) Be honourable with the women you date
Unfortunately I messed this one up big time in the past. But here’s the thing. You can either wreck a girls heart, or build it up. You can either help her understand that she’s beautiful by protecting her heart and her body, or teach her she’s just a girl worth using for sex. To be sure, there are plenty of girls who actually just want to be used for sex, but remember Proverbs says stay away from these women.
4) Stop validating yourself with women
This was a pretty serious problem for me, and I think for a lot of men – especially men who grew up with womanizing fathers or no fathers at all. Men who do not believe they have what it takes to live life well and with strength will validate themselves with women. They just aren’t sure they’re manly, so they have to test themselves all the time by trying to knock down girl after girl. Even if it’s not sexual, it can be emotional. A guy can get hooked on that feeling of having a girl like him. If you are going to tell a great love story, you are going to have to figure out how to let go of this tendency. Stop validating yourself with women. Stay focused on the one girl you’ve chosen and make it happen with her and her alone.
5) Stop having sex and start making love
I’m amazed at how many women hook up with guys and talk about how terrible the sex was. But why? Why would a man who has slept with hundreds of women not be very good in bed? Well, the main reason is a woman wants to connect in ways beyond just a physical connection. Most “players” have no idea how to make love to a woman, precisely because they don’t even care about the woman they are sleeping with on a given night. They are so busy trying to get laid, they take no time to actually find out who she is. Essentially, sex to them is just mutual masturbation. I mean sure she wanted to have sex, but she may have wanted something else, too. A woman often wants a deep, soul connection. Even though she hooked up with a stranger, she was just going through the motions of something else she really wants. She wants words of affirmation and eye contact and playful fun that only happens in intimacy. Why was the sex no good in the hook up? Because the relationship was no good.
Husbands, make love to your wife’s heart, not just her body. As ferociously as possible, find that woman’s heart and connect with it. Learn everything about her and connect with her in as many ways as possible. Understand her story and care about her past. Then her body will respond in ways she never thought humanly possible, and, for that matter, so will yours.
good stuff brother:) your are insightful yet to the point xx
Thanks for reading!
very nice, someone understand women……I am wanting a man that’s so sure of himself….
though I think some women do not know what good sex is…(making love) instead of just no feelings sex…
Thanks for the comment. I totally agree… And there is a huge difference between making love and simply just having sex…
I have one thing to say and that is You are BRILLIANT….
Thanks for understanding. You speak from women’s perspective. He: “What do you want?”, She: “I want you to make love to me”. Why many men don’t get this?
wow! you really do get women
Hi there.
I’m a woman from Spain, and reading your blog was very refreshing. I had been looking, out of curiosity, on the PUA blogs and forums, and I wondered if most American men are the way they describe themselves there, and even more important, I wondered if American women are the way they describe there.
Maybe all the man-haters and the woman-haters are a minority. I shouldn’t believe all I read in the internet, because the most radical elements are usually there. But sometimes the descriptions and the attitudes get scary. It shouldn’t happen to me, after fourteen years of relationship with the same man this shouldn’t affect me much. But point is, the apparent hatred that some Americans feel for the other sex is quite scary. Mainly because TV shows sometimes export certain attitudes. The women in my generation avoided bastards and “bad-boys”. One girl I knew dated a “bad guy” for a time, and I remember she left him, and friends going to visit her, congratulating her on her decision. If I had known then what I know now about how female attraction feels, I would have given her better advice. As we didn’t know what was happening, the advice was “even if you feel something for him, he IS a bastard, so cut”. When I myself felt attraction towards a jerk, not only was I highly disappointed with myself (I had promised myself, at age ten, that I would only date good men), but I chose to wait until the infatuation was over. If I had read about how attraction in women worked, I would have made that choice more easily. In any case, it was common to avoid assholes, supposing you had half a brain.
I also wonder about that stuff about “validation”. Apparently, some women have such low self-esteem that they have sex with men just to feel attractive. The only instance of something remotely similar I know of, was the friend who went to a high class scort agency to ask if she would be admitted there. She didn’t work as an escort, but was very happy to know she would have been paid 300 euros an hour. I thought she was being quite superficial and a bit stupid: she should have self-esteem aside of her attractiveness, mainly because looks don’t last. If you live 70 years, you’ll only be pretty for about 35-40 (unless you’re Sofia Loren, but you’re not). However, even that childish attitude was far smarter than having sex just because a PUA lowered your self-esteem enough.
On the other hand, you might be British, Irish, Australian or from somewhere else and now I must look stupid (ooops). I just wanted to tell you I like your point of view because you don’t seem a radical of either side. And sometimes it feels that the USA is made of extremes. Man-haters or woman-haters, atheists like Dawkins or Creationists… I guess politics will always contain extremes because the extremists benefit from them. But I always thought average, normal people, would be more in the middle.
I just wish you are what’s common in the USA, that’s all.
Pleased to read you.
A post all men (and boys!) should read. Makes so much sense. And yes, I’d like to date someone who lives his life by what you’ve just written.
Tom…thanks for this. I (we guys) need to remember this. May I share my love story? I travel a lot and it doesn’t take but one note, one song to set me thinking of her….
http://voyagetoretirement.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/ships-log-w20-a-quiet-breeze/
Very profound and practical advice given here. Thank you so much for sharing! I also read the one about single ladies and found the advice very solid. Fantastic posts!
great, insightful post. jimmy evans and pastors of the like give great advice like this, too. i am thankful for a husband like mine. take care.
As a teenager (I’m 18), I think a lot of boys my age are the same. Infact, I’d go so far as saying that about 90% of the ones I know, see etc are like that. No wonder girls and women always complain about men and moan, moan, moan.
Such a great article, I just forwarded the link to this…definitely information that needs sharing!
Thanks!
I love this post! So often I’ve read articles/posts on how women need to change to find a good man, but never the other way around. In general, I think both this post and the one “all the single ladies put your hands up” are great, and it is important for both sexes to re-evaluate how they approach relationships and dating.
Bravo! Dude! Here is mine! Jimi Bruce, a former radio personality posted a new project on Rock The Post in order to get the funding he needs for, in his own words, a “Better, Successful Second Half Of My Life.”
“Cheetah” is the playful nickname from his Ukrainian fiancée, the very real Inna. Jimi Bruce is fifty-nine years old with a lot of creative energy. Unfortunately his situation is very complicated and his family still in New York City, where he was born, is not able to help.
Jimi met Inna, the woman who he wants to spend the rest of his life with in the Spring of 2010, but she couldn’t stay in the USA due to Visa restrictions. Ever since then, Jimi has worked his brain tirelessly to find a way over there to meet her family and bring her back to the States.
As Jimi explains, “Inna used all of her savings”, to help Jimi getting his first US Passport. However, that was not enough as Jimi still lacked funds to purchase the ticket that would get him over to Ukraine.
Once he is able to fly over to pick her up and upon return to the US, Jimi states that he will be helping Inna with her English so that she can pass any Nursing examinations in the USA. Inna is educated as a Nurse.
Jimi already has the plans prepared for the two of them he has a two-bedroom house waiting to build their life together and to grow older next to each other.
On his project on Rock The Post, Jimi admits he is “scared, sad and also nervous at the same time for me these days.” However, he is very optimistic about the idea of possibly making his dream a reality. So far he has been able to raise USD$ 2,200 from users who have pledged on his project, but still has USD$ 4,800 more to go. In the event he is able to collect all of the funds, Jimi plans to use the USD$ 7,000 for the following:
Pay-off $1.900 ( @ 27% interest) loan;
Collect his soul/teammate Inna from Kiev;
“Close” on a house for him and Inna;
Position themselves to possibly relocate in the future with new job offers so they can build their life together near the ocean they both love in SF or near NYC;
Build/install Jimi’s i-net radio/language education/voice-over business.
It is interesting to note that some young film students in Nashville even were inspired to do a short documentary film about their story. Jimi’s story has become a viral success within the social media world already.
Help at http://www.rockthepost.com/posts/view/176/Help-Me-Build-A-Second-Chance
Hi this is anuj singh i am only 21 years old from india . After reading a this . Well i give a extra prestige to girls.in my country we facing a problem of girls in 1000 boys we have a only 830 girls . But now every one getting this thing and every one trying to save a girl