A couple of disclaimers. I happen to be oriented towards women, so there is a large portion of the human experience related to guys in relationships that I have little or no insight to give. There may be some carry over of thoughts on guys that may be of use to the gay community, but that is neither the community I am personally interested in, or the subject of this blog. I am also not a professional when it comes to studying people. I’m not going to quote studies, reports or anything along those lines to give evidence to my comments here. If you happen to study the topic as part of your profession and want to point out areas where I am so far wrng that it’s not funny, you have my blessing. It’s not like I’m going to loose any standing in the field of psychology or sociology. I recognize that I may state a lot of things that are wrong, and hope that people will politely correct me on those elements.
I am a guy. I’m not an expert on guys, but I tend to be somewhat thoughtful on a number of topics, and some people think that I explain topics that I find interesting very well. My primary interest is not in guys, but in talking to women (who are my primary interest) I’ve encountered a number of observations, statements and accusations that I think warent some commentary from me.
Guy’s generally want to do three things. First is survive. Second is get laid. Third is competition. Pretty much everything a guy does can be looked at as part of one of those three things. Work is doing something that you’re ‘good’ at in an effort to make it possible to survive. If you can have fun while doing that, great. And there are more than a few occupations that tend to get one laid, which works out well for guys doing that.
In general guys are not all that complex. In competition, we only rarely strive to be the best so that we get laid more often, it tends to be a secondary reward. Wining tends to increase our chances of survival. And we consider it play as well. In many competitions, the play aspect is more important than the ‘survival’ aspect.
Some people think that the getting laid aspect is part of the surviving, or even the play/competing aspect. I won’t say that it doesn’t have a place, just that I don’t personally think that it is the critical aspect in general for guys.
A common misconception through the years is that ‘all guys think about is sex.’ I have three days in mind that clearly put that subject on ice. Fishing opener, Hunting opener, and Superbowl Sunday. Some people may say that the first two are part of ‘survival’ but even they recognize that those guys who go out on those days to hunt and fish, are not doing so because the fish they bring in, or the deer meet (elk, moose, bear, etc.) is a critical and life sustaining part of their diet. Additionally both hunting and fishing have some interest in Trophies. That’s competition, not survival, and it’s about as far from getting laid as these things tend to get.
There are other events through the year that demonstrate that guys regularly put thoughts of sex further down their list of things to do than is often suggested. That said, it pretty much always is there, and under some circumstances can be brought up to the fore rather quickly.
Guys don’t tend to multi-task well. In the computer world there are two ways that programs can multi-task. The first is interrupt driven. Something interupts the processor in doing whatever it is doing, and takes over until something else interupts the processor. The second is scheduled, where each program is allocated a timeslot to do work within, and that’s ‘it.’ (As a note, implementation of the latter is often done using a clock that interupts the current process and tells the processor to go on to the next process or program.) The problem with Interupt driven multitasking is that you end up with tings left to get done that just don’t happen. The advantage of course is that responsiveness seems ‘better.’ Guy’s tend to be interupt driven when it comes to doing things, and capturing our attention. Some of us have gotten to the point where we can priorities those interupts, though even that is not always a very clean process.
Perhaps the most demeaning thing you can say in the presence of a guy is “All of the good guys are taken.” It’s just one of those statements that you can’t go right with amoung guys. No matter how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the guy sees himself as, if he’s single, you’ve just painted him with the ‘I will ignore you’ brush. He knows he’s already been judged and found lacking in your eyes. One joke I’ve read on the topic points out that single women think all the good ones are married, and married women ask ‘who got them” and the logical explanation is that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ guy.
The other serious flaw on the ‘All the good guys are taken.’ statement is that a guy hearing that statement wil all too often hear it as ‘I don’t expect to be treated well by a guy.’ And if you don’t expect to be treated well by a guy, then you must expect to be treated like dirt, so he will do just that. If you want to be treated well, you have to recognize that there are a lot of guys you haven’t met who very likely will treat you well, and you need to be more vocal about what you want and are looking for in a guy, especially when there are guys present.
Want to be treated like royalty? It’s basically a fairly simple 2 step process. When talking with a guy, ask him where he thinks the two of you will be in a year or two. Five or ten if you’ve been seeing each other for a while. This will set him up to be thinking of the two of you as a couple with some history. Then ask what sorts of things would work towards improving that relationship for the two of you. Be ready to think about what you see in him as someone you can see yourself loving a year or so down the line, and see what sorts things you can see up front in him that you know will get better with time. And part of that is going to be how much you love his generous nature to you. How you love how thoughtful he is towards you, etc. Along the way, letting him know what sorts of responses he can expect from that sort of treatment will make it significantly easier for him to figure out for himself.
While a guy may be looking at you only as a person to share the sack with tonight, he may also be looking at what you being a part of his life will mean for him and his future. Letting him know directly what you can do may be out of the question. However if you demonstrate to a guy an understanding of what he does and is, he is far more likely to see being with you as improving his survival state, and possibly increasing his opportunities to enjoy life.
Granted that does imply that you are looking for someone who offers what he is able to, and that you are looking for something more than a one night stand yourself. If you want a one night stand, make it clear up front that you’re after one thing only, and don’t confuse having a good time with him for thinking that perhaps you should change your mind. I’m not saying that he will think less of you or anything, just that you chose to be with him for a specific activity, and have let him know it. If you’re willing to entertain rethinking that later on, you have to let him know that something significant in your relationship with him has changed, and you like what you see so far.
There are a lot of guys out there who are not looking for a one night stand. Some because they are cynical, others because they see it as a matter of their faith. If you are spending nights clubbing, or the like, you probably won’t run into either. But on the off chance you do, recognize that spending time with him is going to be something other than sex, though it may be sexually charged. Personally I suspect that he will be releaving that charged state in private, but it’s probably not something he’s going to be willing to discuss.
Guy’s tend to ‘find’ women by appearance. So obviously appearance seems to be ‘importan’t in meeting guys right? Not really. In fact it can be one of the wost things you can do for your chances. It’s not a given, but most guys over the age of 20 have figured out that the ‘Hot Babe’ at the bar has more put-downs at her disposal than he has pickup lines. (And yes he does need to learn that the best ‘pickup line’ to use is ‘Hello, my name is [his name].’) If you go out of your way to show up as the perfect 10, most guys will look at you, and decide whether they want to go through the put downs or not. Since it’s neither ‘fun’ nor likely to improve his chances of ‘survival,’ you know that most of the guys that will approach you are looking to get laid. They may be doing ot to show up their buddies, but at this point he doesn’t knwo enough about you to know if that’s likely to enhance his survival, and there’s always the chance that you are at the bar with your 250 lb linebacker boyfriend who will see if the guy who aproaches you works well as a tent peg, really discouraging him.
Most guys don’t know what sorts of signals women are sending to encourage him to approach her. Many will recognize that a signal has been sent, but not necessarily what the meaning is. And the vast majority have no idea what the sequence of steps from first sight to a passionate kiss are. For most both of these things are essentially a strange language that they don’t understand. It doesn’t seem to prevent them from getting along well enough with many women, but obviously it’s not a given that you will find such an experience enjoyable. Sorry.
Obviously this is rather short, and hardly encyclopedic. As much as the above is filled with generalizations, it should be viewed as just a small part of what makes a guy someone you may want to get to know. Every guy is different. If you don’t believe me, ask a dozen married women if their husband was swapped with some stranger, would they know the difference. Yes they would. And every woman is different. There are guys who seem to either ignore that, or appear to believe that it is wrong, but ask them which of any two women at the shopping mall, or wherever they may be, is of greater interest to them, and it is clear that he does think of each woman differently.
Hopefully this is of some help to someone. As I say, I love women in general, and are rather fond of a few, while lusting after several, some of which may be in the fond of group as well. I’ve come to the broad concern that I’m not sure who I may be ‘right’ for these days. I’ve pretty much gotten past the ‘they are all nuts’ phase, though that does still crop up from time to time. Whether I lust after a woman, are fond of her, or she’s in the ‘love em all’ group, I really wish the very best to all, including that you find someone who loves you as much as you love them.
