A NOTE TO MEN ON THREE OF THE THINGS WOMEN WANT FROM US

SEGUN OGUNLADE

That women are uniquely wonderful and intrinsically complicated cannot be discussed in a single piece as this. As experience has shown, women are difficult to understand the same way they are uneasy to please. An old friend, out of admiration and confusion about the personality of women, once said that when a woman says no she could be saying yes and when she says no it could mean yes. For him, the first answer of a woman to a question should be taken at face value and be treated as such. But the person of a woman goes beyond that. Like every creature, they don’t all behave the same way. Some are more complicated and difficult to understand than the others. This is so in all human climes. At the same time, they have different level of emotional reaction to issues of similar magnitude. But when it comes to some of the things they need from us as men, majority of them react the same way. They appreciate it when those needs are met and frustrated when they are not. Many are the things they want from us but we find hard to give or simply just ignore. I have chosen to discuss three here and perhaps discuss others in the coming weeks.

Attention from us at all times is important to them. They don’t care very much how it comes so far they are sure you have their time. If you are walking in the public, they want you to take note of what they are taking note of. They also want to hold your hand to be sure you are with them even when you don’t want to hold the hand. If they are sitting across the room or table, they struggle to maintain eye contact with you because they don’t want your eyes to be on the beautiful lady that is close by. Sometimes they kick your leg under the table just so you would look at them and notice them smiling like a teenager in love. And if you are watching a movie with them, they want your attention to be on their emotion as the movie rolls by as much as you do on the movie. When they have something to say, whether serious or not, they want you to listen attentively to every word as it comes out of their mouths. It is lack of attention when they want to say something and you quickly discard it before listening to them. Yet, all these are irrespective of whether we are dating them or not. They want attention from some of us who are their boyfriends and some of us who are their friends.

But we cannot sufficiently give them all the attention they want. Sometimes it is because we don’t need it as they do and we believe they don’t need it too because some of us are so quick to give them money to make up for quality time that they want from us as boyfriends and friends. Besides, giving one woman too much attention in the presence of other women could block our chance with those other women. Majority of women don’t value money as much as the time we have for them to reassure them we are still for them. Thus, attention from us is highly appreciated by women and they crave it for it very often.

Also, they need us to assure them of our protection. This protection is not the macho-like type where we box every man that makes unhealthy advances at them. For those of us that are in romantic relationship with them, they need us to assure them of financial protection. They want us to assure them that we could cater for their needs if they tell us about it. Their faith in us will begin to wane when we begin to find excuses every time for not meeting some of their financial needs. They consider it an act of great love if we go out of our way to make things happen for them. They don’t like it when they ask us for money to fix their hair and we couldn’t provide and then failed to say something nice about the hair when they eventually fix it on their own. Sometimes they ask us to do something for them because they want to be sure that with us they are financially secured and you consider their happiness too. They are turned off by men who are clueless about how he would give them financial protection now and in the future. They don’t want us to buy the best of things for them at all times but appreciate those little things we do to reassure them that they could trust us with their future with no regrets.

We should not always condemn as too demanding every of their needs that they bring it to our notice. Sometimes they ask for a gift during the holiday or a visit to the cinema once in a month because they want to be assured they are still secured. Sometimes they overdo it by asking for too much at a time. But many are with the intention to see if we could take care of them even when it appears we are still trying to find our feet in life. Thus, we should be mindful so we don’t always pass of as over demanding when they seek to know if we could secure them financially.

Beyond attention and protection, they need us to show them love in words and in deeds. Many of us don’t care much if they don’t verbally profess their love for us more than once or twice a month. But they wouldn’t have it if we don’t profess it as many times as we can in a day. Yet, this must be accompanied with matching actions. Saying is not enough, we must do before they call us unromantic. For them, each time you say it and show same, it assures them they are still close to our hearts, even if it means saying it a thousand times each day and showing it a million times every week.

But I have noticed that a good number of us profess what we don’t mean. Sometimes we show it so we could fulfil all righteousness. At times too, many of us deliberately or accidentally bring down the person of the women close to us even after saying to them they mean so much to us. And as women and men have different genetic and physiological composition, they are often expressing their emotions while we are trained to suppress our emotions because only a weakling gets emotional about things. This is one of the reason they live longer than us. The society has thought to be strong even when we should appear weak so we could be helped. Sadly, many of us want the women close to us to be like us, bottling their emotions and going against their genetic and physiological composition. But unlike us, many of them consider loving to include emotional and self expression and to break down in tears when the tide is against them as if the world had collapsed on them and they are trying to get out of the wreck that had submerged them. They are trained to express their emotions and it’s why they often do better than us. But we have the responsibility to guide their emotions at every point of emotional breakdown so things don’t spiral out of control for them and for us that are close to them.

But above all, we need them as they need us. We are important to them as they are to us. Because they are the most complicated of all of God’s creature and they affect us in many ways more than we are ready to admit, we also need them to understand that we have emotional needs too and everything should not be mono-directional. It is good the society has trained to be stronger for our women, but sometimes too we are allowed to have emotional breakdown so we could live longer as they do. And as I have said at the beginning of this note, whatever is discussed in this note is by no means exhaustive. Shalom!