he behaviors a woman has to change are different than those a man would have to change.
I know we've been all over the place on this BB regarding the sort of inherent HD vs. relative or relationship affected HD issues. Intellectually, I would actually kind of like to be in the relative/relationship camp but right now I'm having sex with a man who fondles me IN HIS SLEEP. It's pretty clear to me that none of my behaviors could have caused one man to hardly ever make body contact with me while sleeping and another man to repeatedly feel me up while unconscious. I gotta believe there's a little more of an essential thing going on here then just some improved vibe my personality is giving off to sleeping men.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
I do believe that some marriages SHOULD end. You changed your behavior. You got out. If you hadn't, apart from having an affair with NG, you would not be getting felt up in your sleep.
You did radically improve your vibe, sister. It started the day you and your 2bx split.
You did radically improve your vibe, sister. It started the day you and your 2bx split.
That's true. The behavior I've been manifesting since then is directly reflective of the increased value or priority I put on my "sexuality". It's taken a bit longer for me to become self-validating about my "sexiness", probably because it took more of a direct hit of invalidation in my marriage. It's already hysterically funny to me that a few months ago I sat across a table after dinner with an edgy guy who had told me he was Irish and when he pointed out one of the drinks on the menu and said "Would you like a 'Nutty Irishman' for dessert?", I just smiled like a clueless 10 year old and said "No, thank you." because I couldn't "believe" he was hitting on me. I was so far gone that even after I had sex with a man who clearly was very physically attracted to me, I just decided that there was something magically unsexy about me. This continued through such incidents as being chased through the water by Dominican guy. What finally broke the "spell" my 2bx cast on me was I just told myself that I had to communicate a little better. So when it seemed about 95% likely to me that an objective observer might think that NG was hitting on me, I actually said something like "Are you hitting on me? I'm sorry to have to ask but it's hard for me to tell because I was married for a long time." Then it became REALLY obvious that he was. Anyways, you guys should probably feel kind of sorry for the men I've been interacting with since my split.
So, the reason I am getting felt up in my sleep isn't "because NG is more essentially HD than 2bx" (although this is true.) The reason is "because I valued my sexuality enough to behave in a manner consistent with expressing it as I desired."
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
And because you value your sexuality enough to be drawn to guys HD enough to feel you up in their sleep.
True enough. One interesting thing is that I would say when I first started dating NG I was more psychologically HD than him simply because I'm pretty sure sex wasn't the issue in his marriage but I very quickly lost that feeling as soon as it became clear to me that he was physically HD. I'm pretty sure that if we saw each other more often he would be more physically HD than me but since we're both psychologically easy-going it wouldn't be a big issue. He said "Sorry about that." and started laughing like he really wasn't very sorry at all when I told him about his sleep habits.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Corri, I think I get what you're asking....are there universally appealing Male and Female qualities that make people go weak in the knees regardless of physical appearance--is that it? So maybe you like guys who are successful businessmen and I like guys who are funny but we BOTH are attracted to confidence like a bug to a zapper.
As far as it manifesting in an SSM, I don't think it's as simplistic as saying that people who don't 'get' how to display their Maleness or Femaleness are unattractive. I never had any problems with men finding me attractive or even in establishing R's. But there *was* a problem--I just couldn't articulate it. I didn't have that totally appealing quality that my best friend had, for example. Fast forward to my marriage and the problem was not that H didn't find me attractive or that I was a shrew, cause neither of these were the case. It was that HE didn't feel like a million bucks in my presence. That is the secret that these women possess, imo. I still struggle with this but making a conscious effort to compliment, support and give lots of physical affection (not necessarily sex but the other stuff) has had the most impact on my M than anything else.
For the fellas here, I'd guess that leading their women is the area in which they feel the most unsure. They may have to make a conscious effort to try it out..experiment a bit and see what happens. You might remember that for a long time I literally had to write myself a note (in shorthand so H couldn't read it) and tape it to my desk so I would remember how to act!! Here is our recipe for marital disaster: I grew up with no male role model and a strong-personality'd mother. H grew up with a cowardly-but-violent father and a P/A mother who silently ran the show. We meet and I'm drawn to his tendency to defer to me and he's drawn to someone who will make decisions for him. Within a few years, tho, it all unravels as he does not find me appealing and I do not find him masculine. He buries himself in religion and I bury myself in children. Ultimately, he is more successful in medicating himself and I flip out and insist that we start fixin things and making our way back to each other.
But, see....it took me forever to figure out that his religious zealotry wasn't the problem and it wasn't that he had low T, etc etc. It was a combination of other factors in addition to us abandoning our God-given natures--or never knowing them in the first place. It was almost like we were unconsciously saying to each other, "I'll act like a Man (Woman) when s/he acts like a Woman (Man).
Well, I don't know if this is what you mean after all. We currently do not have a tv (well we have one but only to play dvd's--we still have not hooked up an antenna or satellite and we moved 15 mos ago!) and I don't know the show you are talking about. At any rate, I enjoy your musings and the hilarity that ensues when the guys start trying to make sense of us superior-brained chicks. Oops there I go again acting all un-feminine.
Corri, It is confidence. Confidence is an aphrodesiac. Unfortunately, is is also something that can't really be faked well enough to come across as the real thing.
Trying to put forth certain behavior that is "attractive" to a woman puts the man in the trap of trying to gain approval. The Nice Guy book talks specifically about this and warns of that trap. The book also postulates that this comes about from the absence of father roles and the expectations of the feminist movement to "shape" men in the feminine ideal, and how that "ideal" ends up not being attractive to those women who tried to create it in the first place.
So if there is one particular behavior that men should follow to become attractive to women, I say it is not give a rat's ass about whether you (the man) are attractive to women. That will attract the most women. _________________________ Cobra
It is confidence. Confidence is an aphrodesiac. Unfortunately, is is also something that can't really be faked well enough to come across as the real thing.
Nonsense. Fake it til you make it.
But... it isn't that simple, either. Sh!t... I have to run. HP, yes, you are onto it... I'll comment more later.
I almost continued with something along the lines of needing to buld confidence by acting as-if. Eventually (in the absence of negative feedback at least) that confidence will become real. The attractiveness is only there in proportion to the genuine confidence though. The faked part is only helpful for bootstrapping the genuine thing. The tough part about it is that even a little bit of negative feedback can derail the process to genuine confidence, even to the point of evaporating any confidence that has been built. Tricky thing it is.
