I want to be able to speak truth to power and yet still look in the mirror after writing this article. I say this because I have my own issues with how judgmental and shallow lists like this can be. And yet, here I write. And I do so because there can be goodness in visiting the mind of the opposite sex when it comes to what they look for as well as their showstoppers. So, as both a man and a relationship coach that has talked to countless other men, here are eight reasons some women aren’t dating material in the eyes of men:
Things He Sees But Doesn’t Like:
- He sees unchecked baggage: Everyone has a past. Some people can check it at the gate and others choose to fly with it, talk to their fellow passengers about it and fall asleep with it. Men don’t want to date someone that constantly laments about their past or allows their past to guide their present.
- He sees no physical attraction: Let’s just call a spade a spade here. We all know that in the relationship trifecta, men are physical, psychological and physical. As in, if there isn’t a physical attraction, men won’t go there.
- He sees that she holds on for dear life: Men like a woman that shows interest and makes him feel special. They do not, however, like women that are stuck to them like glue. It shows a lack of trust (in him), confidence (in herself) and it paints a potential picture of just how little air he may have to breathe going forward.
- He sees that she’s materialistic: One of the biggest showstoppers and turn-off’s for men is meeting someone that’s more interested in what people can buy or give her. Another way this comes out is if he sees or hears her judging others for petty and material things. This screams high-maintenance and judgmental to him and thus he has no desire to date her.
Things He Likes But Doesn’t See:
- He likes ‘chill’: In the general sense, men are very laid back. In this, they like a laid back vibe to any relationship they are in. If they meet a woman and they feel like a relationship with her would be tiring, and that they would be required to be on all the time, they will take a pass.
- He likes confidence: Men want someone that knows who they are and is confident enough to relax and be in the moment. Men can (and will) sense, when a woman is unsure of herself. They will imagine a relationship filled with doubt, fear, jealousy, clinginess, etc. and they will take a pass.
- He likes independence: While men do like being the answer to the question, they don’t want to feel used nor do they like the pressure of being solely responsible for someone else’s livelihood. In this, when they meet a woman and they feel like she doesn’t have her act together and can’t provide for herself in many ways, they will take a pass.
- He likes to feel like he’s the only person in her world: Men can get jealous or territorial, this is no secret. If he meets her and he feels as though she’s overly flirtatious with people in the general sense, he will take a pass. If he feels like she’s an attention getter, he will take a pass.
List time is over so let’s end this with a couple closing thoughts.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Hmmm, would men really have nothing to do with women that violated these lists?” To which I would respond, “Of course they’d have something to do with the women but that’s not the same as them dating the women.”
This men’s list of undesirable traits is eerily similar to that of women’s. People must be attracted to each other. No one wants to date someone needy or clingy. No one wants to date someone that can’t stand on their own two feet in the world. This list happens to be interesting and true. It, and other lists like it, can also be a downer for people that read too far into it. Don’t let it bring you down. Instead, investigate whether you have some of these traits and simply recognize they may play a factor in your dating world. If they are traits you’d like to address and fix, splendid. But don’t make this (or any other list) your primary motivation for doing so. You want to change for yourself and if there are other benefits for doing so, so be it.
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photo credit: Ciclista pop via photopin (license)
I’ve read your article as well as several others on the topic over the last couple of years, and I’ve really come to wonder why men and women bother to be in relationships with each other at all? What they want and desire is so different.
Men want some cute little thing they can take out and play with when they want to, and then they want to be left alone. Heaven forbid you ask something of them unless it’s the right timing and right activity. Especially, don’t ask anything emotional of them or anything involved in homemaking. Bonus if you can do everything for him that his mother did without treating him like you’re his mother. And when he decides you are not cute enough, you want too much from him, or you aren’t telling him how wonderful he is every time he deigns to spend time with you, he finds a new bit of fun on the side that he thinks is everything he once thought you were.
Women want a big, hairy woman with a penis. They want someone who will enjoy texting five or ten or fifteen times a day, someone who will hold their hand when it’s a bad day, someone who will actively participate in housekeeping and child raising, and mostly someone who will listen to them and treat them like they are important. (Most men can fake this during the dating phase but begin to feel put upon when day-to-day living happens.) Then when the man proves he isn’t capable or willing to do/be these things, the woman starts to simmer in resentment. Eventually, she too may have an affair with someone new who pretends to listen to her (dating phase again). Or she lives with crushing disappointment until she files for divorce or dies.
Really, why bother. I cant believe you have people coming to you asking how to get into relationships. What is in it for anyone, except exchange of sperm??
As for neediness. Men don’t like needy women. Well, I don’t need you for a paycheck anymore. I can operate power tools. I can hire someone to move my furniture and fix my car. So what do I need a guy for if its not emotional sharing, time, and attention? If you cant’ give that, I don’t need you. And if I don’t need you, I don’t want you. Loss of control how I spend my money, how I raise my kids, where I go for vacation, the tenor of my home life, and control of the DVR is too big a price to pay for occasional sex and the promise of potential, but not likely, partnership.
Karen–I think you’re generalizing men and women. Not all men are as you describe them and not all women are as you describe them.
The reason people come to any coach or counselor in the relationship sense is because they realize how hard dating is and they realize the ‘stand-off’ that can exist because of the difference in Needs and Wants between men and women. They want to understand what, if anything, they can do to have better luck at dating and finding the person for them.
What I’m supposed to do, if I’m worth anything my credentials would imply, is understand the climate (men, women, sex, communication, etc.), understand the person (needs and wants, concerns, etc.) and their history and coach them through it. This only works if we (client and I) both believe the end-state can be more than just ‘exchange of sperm’. Believe it or not, I feel your pain. Men can be just as you describe them and I make no excuses for them. What I do think, however, is three things:
1) We teach people how to treat us. If we (women in whole) accept men despite their intentions, lack of communication, minimal effort to help around the house, etc., than men don’t need to change. On the other hand, if women didn’t accept this in men and men found themselves lonely, they’d have to adjust.
2) There’s a popular and strong saying that goes: I don’t love you because I need you, I need you because I love you. I bring this up because you made the comment that if you don’t need someone, why would you want them. If we date or love out of necessity, we’re already coming at it from the wrong perspective.
3) If women generalize men in the way you did and men generalize women as emotional, high-maintenance, gold diggers that watch too much reality TV, there will never be change because we’ll over generalize, accept the generalization and become complacent.
Because you had a bad relationship doesn’t mean they all are. Married couples need to give each other space for hobbies, sports or whatever. Meaning give each other trust to take seperate vacations to see friends or families, play in a band if you want to. Let each other be themselves. Plus If you both don’t work to keep the flame going then that’s on you and him. You can be married and be happy if you choose to.
After being married to the same man for going on 34 years now, but who walked out of our marriage and me on September 2013, without a clue to me that he wasn’t happy, nor anything said, at age 57 years old now, I’m not sure I can think about ever being with a man again. To whole put your whole heart and soul into a marriage, fully supporting all his careers, goalls, dreams, raising our children, and never complaining, only giving, I cannot put that kind of trust in another person again,
I met my husband back in 1979, in Pearl Harbor, Hi while I was stationed in the U.S. Navy myself. Because I had come from a toxic homelife, I found a handsome and smart man, who I loved dearly, and thought he truly loved me. But after reading the book “Runaway Husbands” about how any person can just up and leave, running away like he was on fire, makes it impossible for me rethink human woman/man relationships. Personality types do matter, and when you marry at the young age of 22 and 23 years old, you don’t know who is the right type for you.
I thought, with my being a trype B, extrovert I could have a long term marriage to someone who is a type A introvert, but it didn’t work. Of course his choice of careers; both career mailitary and corporate life -either out to sea for months at a time on a nuclear submarine, or traveling for his IT career was probably what kept us together for such a long time, without dealing with many issues pertaining to our relationship.
I must say, that life does take twists and turns I never dreamed of, but am rebounding fabulously without him. The trauma “he” inflicted on me, will take years to recover from, but with the love of my family and friends, who needs a man, with all of thier issues at my age?
I signed up for 5 online dating sites, after my husband left me, and must say, the men on there are voyers, rude crude, disrepctful to me and women in general.I heard that online dating was the new way to meet the opposite sex. i am a petite woman, 5’3″ who carries herself well,can carry on conversation, and a good listener too, has a good personality, loves people too, but not sure what is up with the men around 50+ years, They look old, overweight, beat up, and unkept and scruffy, , much older than theri stated years. After ending each one of these daing sites, I know I will not be trying online dating again, but will just go about my new life as a single woman, confindent and if the right person comes along, then maybe we can have lunch or coffee together. Maybe:-)
Deborah–It sounds like you went through the common feelings and terms of someone that had a surprise split. I like how your response ended, both the confidence that someone’ll come along and the fact that you will not, in fact, settle. Unfortunately, there are a lot of men 50 that don’t take care of themselves. They become complacent and in fact, a lot of it starts in the 40’s. Their feeling is that women are people of need and thus they will find someone easily but it’s actually becoming the case that women are more selective and okay being alone until the right person comes along. Which makes this relationship coach smile frankly.
Deborah–It sounds like you went through the common feelings and terms of someone that had a surprise split. I like how your response ended, both the confidence that someone’ll come along and the fact that you will not, in fact, settle. Unfortunately, there are a lot of men 50 that don’t take care of themselves. They become complacent and in fact, a lot of it starts in the 40’s. Their feeling is that women are people of need and thus they will find someone easily but it’s actually becoming the case that women are more selective and okay being alone until the right person comes along. Which makes this relationship coach smile frankly.
Hey, go on any site and take a look at the women the same age. Tired looking, overweight, angry profiles and worse 95% SINGLE MOMS. It is a mess for everybody now.
I think online dating has ruined dating, everybody is much more superficial and much more shallow then ever before. Sad state.
I am not adopting a western femchild woman who is not strong and independant,who is flat broke,collects cats,is obese,wears a mans crew cut and is part of American women leading the world in abortion,obesity,single mothehrood and divorce who is absolutley flat broke….
Who refuses to play tradtional female roles,who requires me to provide for and protect….Who has destroyed her mind with daily contraceptive pills and an overdose of harmones through them,who is now obese because of anti-depressants which calmed her nervousness which led to her overeating and becoming obese,who was raised by disney princess movies and believes she has the perceived choice of millions of men to chose from through online dating and social media for a boyfriend or a husband.
I cant stand American women as an American male,I didnt stop dating,I quit.Leave the modern woman to uncle sam,state and federal welfare programs,to lesbians who have the highest rates of domestic violence and to muslums women of America defend in this nation,while these same women who talk of a supposed rape epidemic,welcome muslums who may have legalized rape and killing of gays,while the same women vote for gun control,which denies them the right to carry on their liberal city street to actually protect themselves from rape…Who as women who talk of a supposed rape epidemic ignore black and muslum rape stats….
While the same women in the supposed rape epidemic voted men with penis’s into their own ladies rooms,as the same women voted women into harms way to be drafted into war.
THE WESTERN WOMANS REFUSAL TO ACCEPT CRITICISM,TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HER ACTIONS, BEING THE WORSE VERSION OF HERSELF YET PARADES AS A QUEEN,WITH WESTERN WOMENS MENTAL ILLNESS AND MENTAL INSTABILITY ON PARADE IN WASHINGTON,WHILE 400 POUND WOMEN CELEBRATE FAT ACCEPTANCE WHILE LITTLE KIDS IN THE WORLD DIE OF STARVATION WORE PUSS#’S ON THEIR HEADS IN WASHINGTON…..
RUN MY FRIENDS,RUN HARD AND RUN LOOOONG AND DO NOT LOOK BACK AT THIS MODERN WOMAN,WHO IS COMPLETELY UNDATEABLE,OVERPRICED AND OVERVALUED….
WHO INITIAITES 75% OF THE 50% OF ALL MARRIAGES THAT END IN DIVORCE,WHO HAS ABORTED 60,000,000 BABIES WHILE MEN OF AMERICA ARE DENIED THE RIGHT TO OPT OUT OF FATHERHOOD…WHO CLAIMS TO BE EQUAL TO MEN,WHILE EVERYTHING SHE WILL TOUCH TODAY WAS DELIVERED,MANUFACTURED,INVENTED AND SET UP BY MEN….RUN,RUN HARD AND RUN LONG….THE MODERN WOMAN IS COMPLETELY OUT OF ORDER…
RUN FROM BLACK AND WHITE WOMEN WHO ASK WHERE THE GOOD BLACK MEN HAVE GONE,WHO BOTH TAKE BLACK MENS JOBS AND COLLEGE ADMISSION THROUGH AFFIRMATIVE ACTION,ALL WHILE CLAIMING AN IMAGINARY PAY DISPARITY AND IGNORING THE EQUAL PAY ACT OF 1963….
YEARS OF PRIVELEGING THROUGH CRIMINAL AND DIVORCE COURTS,AFFIRMATIVE ACTION,SOCIAL MEDIA,ONLINE DATING HAS CREATED MONSTERS…HAS CREATED AN ENTITLED,NARCISSISTIC,PRIVELEGED DESTROYED FEMININE SPIRIT.
ALMOST EVERY MALE FRIEND OF MINE IS DIVORCED OR IS PAYING CHILD SUPPORT.IN REFUSING TO DATE THIS WESTERN WOMAN AT THIS POINT AND NEVER BEING MARRIED OR PAYING CHILD SUPPORT,MY MALE FRIENDS ARE ENVIOUS OF MEN AND EITHER HATE ME,OR HAVE ELAVATED ME TO ROCK STAR STATUS,THATS HOW ROTTEN THE WESTERN WOMAN HAS BECOME.
LET THE LESBIANS HAVE THEM,UNCLE SAM STATE AND FEDERAL WELFARE PROGRAMS OR THE MUSLUM MEN….MEN OF AMERICA ARE QUIT! IN MANY CASES,DEVOUT MUSLUM MEN DO NOT WANT AMERICAN WOMEN EITHER.AMERICAN WOMEN ARE NEVER GOING TO BE HONEST WITH THEMSELVES,THAT MANY WESTERN WOMEN ARE SINGLE BECAUSE OF THE BATHROOM MIRROR.
THE INNER MORAL MIRROR AND OUTER PHYSICAL MIRROR….ITS DIFFICULT IN AMERICA TO MEET A WOMAN WHO ISNT OBESE,WHICH ELAVATES THE GRANDIOSE SELF WORTH OF EVEN THE AVERAGE WOMAN WHO HAS JUNK IN THE TRUNK…THE OBESE WOMEN 2 OUT OF 10,THE 5 OUT OF 10 JUNK IN THE TRUNK AND THE 10 OUT OF 10 SUPER MODEL,ALL HAVE HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMED IN AMERICAN SOCIETY AS A PROTECTED,PRIVELEGED SPECIE….TO HAVE A REPULSIVE ENTITLEMENT ATTITUDE BASED ON SEX ALONE,PLAYING NO TRADTIONAL ROLES….
WHILE THE MAIN REASON AS A MAN I REFUSE TO DATE,IS THAT 99% OF EVERY WOMAN YOU WILL MEET WILL HAVE AN ABSOLUTLEY DESTROYED FINANCIAL HOUSE AND BE ABSOLUTLEY FLAT BROKE….NOT INDEPENDANT AT ALL,WHILE STRONG WOMEN IN AMERICA ARE NOT FIT,ARE OBESE AND DESTROYING THEMSELVES WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES AND HEART DISEASE.AMERICA IS GONE,AND IS PROBABLY NEVER COMING BACK.
MEN RUNNING AWAY FROM THEIR OWN WOMEN WHOM HAVE DESTROYED THEMSELVES,IS THE FIRST SYMPTON OF A COUNTRIES COLLAPSE.AMERICA WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED.MGTOW AND COMPLETE CELIBACY AS A MAN, IS THE ONLY WAQY FORWARD.
AMERICAN WOMEN HAVE SO SELF DESTRUCTED,THEY HAVE KICKED IN MENS FIGHT OR FLIGHT MECHANISM’S….MANY MEN ARE STARTING TO CHOSE FLIGHT…LET UNCLE SAM,LESBIANS OR THE MUSLUM MEN HAVE THEM….I QUIT!!
Preach on brother! Its getting better as more men go MGTOW.
Absolute rubbish. Sorry men want an independent women? It costs a lot of women more to pay care of their children than they earn. I know a number women who had to give up work to get care for their children. I call BS on this article.
And I know at least one women who is in a long term relationship with kids and she earnt nothing.
sorry give up work to care for their children. Sorry for error on above piece I was just so pissed at your general ignorance of the realities of the economics of most people. I suspect you are the kind of person who thinks that a women should struggle to hold down a job (even go part time if she has to) and look after the kids and the household at the same time as well as committee to other relatives.
Believe me if women and men took some time off of work and both looked after the kids I would champion the women should be independent attitude but as the moment as it stands if a men expects the women to be independent he also expects the women to take on the extra burden on work, kids, household he expects her to take on the lot! Believe me I’ve read about the studies it happens a lot.
The economics of most people? Rachel, how does a woman who refuses to work live, economically, that is? Someone has to financially support her and her children. Is that the ex-husband’s responsibility? The government’s responsibility? I was a stay-at-home mom until my ex left. It was then I knew that I either had to work or live below the poverty level. Living that kind of life was not a choice I would ever make for myself and my children. I got a job! I managed to build a career because I was motivated by the need to earn money. I have been independent for over 20 years. I depend on no one for my support. If I, someone who had children and was completely financially dependent on my husband can do it, any woman can do it. A woman who believes that just because she has children means she shouldn’t be expected to be independent and financially take care of herself is a woman looking for an excuse not to work. That’s the bottom line!
In my humble opinion women should work even if it means making sacrifices and not earning a high wage to begin with. The days of little house on the prairie and Walton’s are long gone and if by luck (50%) you find yourself divorced your skills, work habits and educational options will be current which is a defensive move just in case divorce occurs (flip a coin) heads you get divorce tails you stay together. Don’t become complacent, entitled or addicted to vacations and materialism. By doing nothing your enabling your hole to be deeper.
I married an independent woman who overtime we grew apart don’t be blind sided by divorce be proactive and work outside the home.