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The Girlfriend Test
How Datable Are you?
By Wendy L. Walsh Ph.D.
Book Excerpt:
It was 8:20pm. It was a Tuesday night. It was a first date. And, I was having absolute panic attack. Actually, I wouldn't have let myself have a full-on attack complete with tears because that would have ruined my mascara, but I was at least having trouble breathing and had a slight pain in my chest. The catalyst was this: My date, a cute, young doctor, was twenty minutes late and had not shown yet. And I was acting like my father had just died.
While a part of me knew that my knight-in-shining-armor (for the moment) was indeed on is way, another part of me felt utter terror about the possibility of being stood up. Consequently when the guy finally did show his adorable face at my apartment door, my fear had somehow morphed into anger, and there was not much he could do to win me over. Granted, showing up twenty minutes late on a first date is not only rude but a great indicator that a man doesn't respect a woman's boundaries, but my panic at his lateness was way over the top. It was the kind of anger more suited for an abandoning father, not a truant boy-toy. Yet, my brain had confused the two. Obviously, I had some "issues" I was unaware of. In short, I was lousy girlfriend material.
What is a great girlfriend?
I have a giant confession to make. When I began to write The Girlfriend Test, I had no idea about how to truly be great girlfriend material. I mean, I know what fashion magazines tell us about creating physical attractiveness and I can name a few smart girlfriend tricks that seemed to have worked in some of my own relationships, but I never really knew what "great girlfriend material" meant from a man's point of view. For better or worse, I had never been inside the head of a man.
Besides being uninformed on the subject, I was also crippled with prejudice. Forgive my sexist perspective, but since learning that the average man's use of the internet is limited to the three S's --- stocks, sports, and sex--- I assumed that those subjects occupied most of the real estate in guys' noggins. Since those three S's loosely translate into "make money, fight, and get laid," I also assumed that anything else of value --- like, oh ya, feelings --- was tucked away in some low-rent walk-up in their cerebral cortex to be unearthed only by their mothers or their God. Remember who Puff Daddy, er, I mean P-Diddy, gushed with gratitude for when his butt was saved from jail? That's right. His manly tears spilled for Mom and his almighty. Granted, he couldn't thank his girlfriend who had split during his trial. But I'll bet this wasn't the first time that Mom caused a stir in his, uh, in his, heart.
Now here's where my confession continues. I'm taking a deep breath now. I was W-R-O-N-G. Men actually have feelings and want more from women than sex. Wow. As I began to interview many men and ask them to confide in me about what worked and what didn't work in women's games of seduction, I was stunned to hear very little about physical attraction, and a whole lot about emotional qualities. When asked what made a woman a great catch, I heard nothing about face make-up and plenty about brain make-up. I was stunned.
Granted, at times, trying to obtain adjectives to explain cliché terms like "needy" and "high maintenance" was like pulling teeth. I stand by my sexist opinion that we are the gender that excels in language. They are the gender that excels in keeping secrets. To back me up, psychologists have a diagnosis for people who have an inability to express feelings with words. It's called alexathymia. In fact, the condition is so wide spread in American males that a new sub-group has been added to the disorder called, "Normative Male Alexathymia." Basically, it means "can't find words for feelings." I swear, this is a bonafied psychological diagnosis, the kind that keeps therapists in business. And, it keeps regular women, like me, near insanity.
My Search For Commitment Minded Men
The first challenge, of course, was finding credible men to speak to the subject of grading and rating women. I interviewed a couple dozen single men, but somehow felt I needed more support for their criticisms because I couldn't be certain that they weren't blaming women for their own dating shortcomings. Think of women who complain that all men are jerks, when they're the ones choosing them and putting up with their bad behavior! Now think of single men who blame their situation on women who they say "play head games, are gold diggers," or, that statement I had to wince at more than a few times, "are just too emotional." When you hear a single man talk like that, don't you wonder what his failings might be? I, for one, usually congratulate him on devising such an efficient strategy to protect himself from intimacy: A good offense is the best defense. Works on the football field as well as in the game of love.
I had hoped that married men would provide the bulk of my material, but I had another concern there -- that they wouldn't even remember the dating scene, or that it had changed a lot since they left it. I know that absence makes the heart grow fonder and the absence of an active bachelor life might elicit nostalgic stories that, though wonderful to hear, would probably be far from the truth. I needed men who were familiar with the current dating scene yet definitely commitment minded.
I decided to focus mainly on men who had recently made a commitment to a woman. These included newly engaged men, newly wed men, newly co-habiting men, and men who had been upstanding boyfriends of at least six months. (I depended on their girlfriends nod for proof of their good boyfriend status.)
So with my target population identified, I ventured forth to get the opinions of this strange species called commitment minded men.
They were surprisingly easy to find though harder to get to talk. After exhausting the verbal capacities of the one at home, (yes, this extrovert had chosen to live with a quiet introvert) I posted notices on web sites, gabbed with my seat mates in business class, and made a beeline at social gatherings for my girlfriends' newly crowned boyfriends and husbands --- with their permission of course.
In the end, I talked to more than one-hundred men. My pool of male experts included members of four ethnic categories and ranged in age from 21-50. I padded my research with my interviews with currently dating men and even sought the advice of matchmakers and relationships coaches who work with men. Finally, I scoured the internet for the latest scientific studies on dating, mating, and male/female behavior.
I hope all my research captures the voice of the average male but I must remind you that this is not science. My work as a journalist is largely anecdotal and I am limited by the particular features of my study population. For instance, since I found most of my subjects either through the internet (Bridal sites were particularly helpful) and through referrals from my peer group of young professionals, I don't think I gathered a wide enough economic range. Missing might be those who are unemployed, low-income, or at the other end of the scale, extremely wealthy. Also missing are detailed pictures of cultural courting practices. Not every respondent or interview subject chose to reveal their race to me so I am unable to make any generalizations about culture.
Almost all of my interviews were conducted through anonymous phone contact as I wanted men to feel safe being honest. Many of our conversations lasted an hour or more and some even exceeded two hours. I loved it when I got a man who was a talker! A core group of men completed a detailed fifty-question survey that I emailed to them. Most of the direct quotes you'll read ion this book come from those surveys and the identities of the respondents are concealed to protect them.
I truly thank all the men who helped me with this project. I hope their insights help us test our own aptitude at being better girlfriends or girlfriend material. I, for one, was grateful for the help.
I got men to say the "F" word --- Feelings
So, what did I learn? Well, first of all, give me a metal. I attempted to do the impossible -- get men to talk about their feelings with a woman. And, surprisingly, with some gentle coaxing, I managed to gain insight into men that might be earth shattering to some women. For instance, did you know that when we, out of the goodness of our kind hearts, offer to contribute to that first-date check, most men think we're telling them that we are not attracted to them and won't be sleeping with them in the near or far future? And, we just wanted to show them that we are financially independent!
The role of boyfriend is best played by a boy
And, speaking of independent women, I also found men have a hard time when we are too independent. According to men, many women today seem to have confused independence with Nazi-style aggression. As a feminist, I squirmed in my chair through many an interview with a man who described women as being too much like men. Apparently, a by product of our economic accomplishments, is an inability to turn off our competitive nature when we hit the dinner table. "Too much male energy!" was the reigning complaint of my research.
Because I wanted to be sure that these men weren't pining for an old fashioned play of female passivity, I really grilled them about what "male energy" meant to them. I heard words like controlling, competitive, aggressive, angry, pushy, and demanding. Okay, I thought, all those adjectives are part of a description of a normal healthy woman who has obvious unfulfilled needs --- I mean, how can you ensure that your latte is non-fat unless you are sort of demanding about it? And, when someone crosses one of our precious boundaries, we have a right to be angry, right?
Well, the problem, according to men, is that we get defensive and controlling long before any hurt happens and when we ask for help in a hostile way. Some men even suspected that they were being punished for all the previous bad-boys in women's lives. One guy told me he has to repeat over and over to his girlfriend, 'I am not your ex-boyfriend!"
Men told me that, too often, women enter a dating dynamic with a preconceived plan in mind --- a sort of Cinderella story -- and then try to mold the man to their plan, rather than getting to know them first and then creating a plan together. Ahh, so that's what they call male energy, being an architect or an orchestra leader, rather than a partner. Interesting that they give themselves so much bad press.
In The Girlfriend Test, I share all of those insights and tips for better girlfriend behavior. It's a message from the other half of our species -- the secretive half.
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If you really gave it some thought, would you say that you are a full-fledged Daddy's Girl or queen of the Girls Girls? On dates do you wear your best Barbie Doll outfit, or are you the proper Miss Priss?
Check out if you are really dateable or not.
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The Girlfriend Test is the ultimate guide to being a better date and a better mate. It is a chance for women to look at their own dating blunders on the road to commitment. |
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The BoyfriendTest is the definitive tool foir any woman intent on choosing the right man to be her best friend and lover. |
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"Well done, Ms. Walsh! Today I saw your entertaining interview on The Early Show, CBS. You convinced me - at the gym running on the treadmill facing the tv - to check out your website. Tired of narcissistic men (save me please from these assholes), I am planning now to buy your book. Very good interview, sister."
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