Giving Up the Driver's Seat
Well blog readers, the girls of Infidelity Chronicles have decided to take on yet another boy challenge. Yesterday, during our daily boy debriefing, Miranda and I pondered the question "Why is it easier to reject some boys while almost impossible to turn down others?"
The night before, I had easily and painlessly shut down The Inmate when he tried to get all lovey dovey. Before Romeo and I started dating again, I was shutting him down like it was nobody's business. In the early stages with The Barber (may he rot in hell) I told him 'no' all the time and I was all cool, calm and collected. In each of these instances, the rejection seemed to drive the boys wild. They ate it up with a spoon for God's sake. They loved the challenge. It's easy to turn them down when you know that they are into you, but then it gets tricky. The inevitable power shift happens - we sleep with them or make it known that we like them and they start acting uninterested. Then we freak out and then the thought of turning them down or even saying no to simple requests brings on full blown he's-going-to-leave-me-if-I-don't-do-this panic attacks.
Then to make things worse, you start trying to sneakily run the relationship. Ladies, you know what we mean by this. We may not go so far as to ask the guy out on a date but don't think we won't try the old suggestive texting "So, what are your plans this weekend?" or "I'm just dying to see that new Brad Pitt movie, wish I had someone to go with." or maybe the classic "I just heard this song that reminded me of the other night when we hung out." All of these things we do because we want them to communicate with us and let's face it, we fear that if we don't steer the ship that the ship will never leave the harbor. Miranda and I decided that we have to break out of this vicious and unproductive cycle ASAP (Jules was there in spirit lol).
The need to overtly take the lead in every aspect of our relationship with a man is a very masculine trait we have acquired. Maybe it's our independence, our ability to just go out and get whatever it is that we want. Maybe we're tired of sitting around and letting the guys make all the decisions and waiting for them to 'pick us'. Whatever the reason, it's not working. In fact, it's killing our chances of being in a happy relationship.
Men are designed to lead. To hunt. To take on challenges. To be in charge. They like it when we play hard to get. They like it when we need to be rescued - they may say they don't but what else would explain the endless number of men who marry strippers, drug addicts, women with 3 kids by 2 men, women who are bat shit crazy, etc. They don't want an independent woman. Sure they write songs about it but I think all those songs really mean is "I don't want to have to spend my money on a girl when I can just find a woman with her own money so I can cheat on her and spend my money on my mistresses"...sorry I digress. This is a concept that our mothers have been trying to get across to us for years, it's just that we've been too busy being independent to put it into action. Well, that's about to change. It's time for Miranda, Jules and Gwyn to hush that fuss and move to the back of the bus...I'm hoping those of you in my demographic catch the song reference here and realize I'm not being a racist lol.
So here are the rules for our latest challenge:
1. No initiation of any interaction with any members of our man teams. This includes any and all suggestions (whether verbal or written, overt or sneaky) of who/what/how/when our next interaction should take place. Also included in this rule - if the man asks us what we want to do on a date/interaction we will not take the bait and will insist that they decide the plan totally themselves.
2. Continutation of the no responding to or initiating communication with any members of our man teams. This means that if the man doesn't text a question, we don't respond. And under no circumstances do we text or call without being prompted to by the man, this includes pointless texts, 'accidental' phone calls and making up things to ask the man just to get him to respond.
3. We will play hard to get. Although this is hard to narrowly define, it may include things such as saying no to a date...not answering when he calls and waiting a good while before calling back...not responding to all questions sent via text...going MIA for a day/couple days/week and having no contact at all with the man...you get the point. Men do this naturally - but us women have to work at it. Damnit why do our mothers raise us to be so concerned about being nice and making other people like us!!!!!!
If our experience has taught us anything and if we follow these rules closely, our relationships should improve noticeably during this experiment. Hopefully that will be enough incentive for us to turn the experiment into our permanent reality!
-Gwyn
The night before, I had easily and painlessly shut down The Inmate when he tried to get all lovey dovey. Before Romeo and I started dating again, I was shutting him down like it was nobody's business. In the early stages with The Barber (may he rot in hell) I told him 'no' all the time and I was all cool, calm and collected. In each of these instances, the rejection seemed to drive the boys wild. They ate it up with a spoon for God's sake. They loved the challenge. It's easy to turn them down when you know that they are into you, but then it gets tricky. The inevitable power shift happens - we sleep with them or make it known that we like them and they start acting uninterested. Then we freak out and then the thought of turning them down or even saying no to simple requests brings on full blown he's-going-to-leave-me-if-I-don't-do-this panic attacks.
Then to make things worse, you start trying to sneakily run the relationship. Ladies, you know what we mean by this. We may not go so far as to ask the guy out on a date but don't think we won't try the old suggestive texting "So, what are your plans this weekend?" or "I'm just dying to see that new Brad Pitt movie, wish I had someone to go with." or maybe the classic "I just heard this song that reminded me of the other night when we hung out." All of these things we do because we want them to communicate with us and let's face it, we fear that if we don't steer the ship that the ship will never leave the harbor. Miranda and I decided that we have to break out of this vicious and unproductive cycle ASAP (Jules was there in spirit lol).
The need to overtly take the lead in every aspect of our relationship with a man is a very masculine trait we have acquired. Maybe it's our independence, our ability to just go out and get whatever it is that we want. Maybe we're tired of sitting around and letting the guys make all the decisions and waiting for them to 'pick us'. Whatever the reason, it's not working. In fact, it's killing our chances of being in a happy relationship.
Men are designed to lead. To hunt. To take on challenges. To be in charge. They like it when we play hard to get. They like it when we need to be rescued - they may say they don't but what else would explain the endless number of men who marry strippers, drug addicts, women with 3 kids by 2 men, women who are bat shit crazy, etc. They don't want an independent woman. Sure they write songs about it but I think all those songs really mean is "I don't want to have to spend my money on a girl when I can just find a woman with her own money so I can cheat on her and spend my money on my mistresses"...sorry I digress. This is a concept that our mothers have been trying to get across to us for years, it's just that we've been too busy being independent to put it into action. Well, that's about to change. It's time for Miranda, Jules and Gwyn to hush that fuss and move to the back of the bus...I'm hoping those of you in my demographic catch the song reference here and realize I'm not being a racist lol.
So here are the rules for our latest challenge:
1. No initiation of any interaction with any members of our man teams. This includes any and all suggestions (whether verbal or written, overt or sneaky) of who/what/how/when our next interaction should take place. Also included in this rule - if the man asks us what we want to do on a date/interaction we will not take the bait and will insist that they decide the plan totally themselves.
2. Continutation of the no responding to or initiating communication with any members of our man teams. This means that if the man doesn't text a question, we don't respond. And under no circumstances do we text or call without being prompted to by the man, this includes pointless texts, 'accidental' phone calls and making up things to ask the man just to get him to respond.
3. We will play hard to get. Although this is hard to narrowly define, it may include things such as saying no to a date...not answering when he calls and waiting a good while before calling back...not responding to all questions sent via text...going MIA for a day/couple days/week and having no contact at all with the man...you get the point. Men do this naturally - but us women have to work at it. Damnit why do our mothers raise us to be so concerned about being nice and making other people like us!!!!!!
If our experience has taught us anything and if we follow these rules closely, our relationships should improve noticeably during this experiment. Hopefully that will be enough incentive for us to turn the experiment into our permanent reality!
-Gwyn
I love this challenge and I hope it has the same habit changing results as the texting challenge! And this post is grade A hilarious! If it wouldn't revel my secret identity I'd print it out and post it on my fridge and in my office at work!
ReplyDeleteMiranda
Bring it on! Most of these I already live by, although I did catch myself texting Miranda today about the lack of early week contact with Gavin...and then I remembered myself. I'm getting ready to own it in my pathetic girl post. ;)
ReplyDelete-Jules