Playing Games, Playing Second Fiddle

When a Man Loves a Woman

Subjective beauty

She isn’t a professional model, but her particular configuration of features are those he deems most attractive in a woman. In short, whether he personally finds her beautiful.

Objective beauty

When a man or woman starts dating someone new, they’ll share a photo of their beau with their friends. Women are simply excited to share, and therefore her girlfriends will mirror this enthusiasm with, “You guys look so happy together” or “You’re such a cute couple”. No judgment — at least to the woman’s face — is made. (On the other hand, if you're just a prospective Tinder date, they'll have no compunctions pointing out to her that your head resembles a turnip.)

When men share photos of their new girlfriends, it’s with the air of seeking a second opinion. They’ll furrow their brow and squint at the photo on their phone, only seeming to relax when their mate, looking over their shoulder, assures him “she’s very pretty” or “definitely cute”.

If a man finds you subjectively attractive it’s not enough, you must also be conventionally attractive — someone he can show off to his buddies.

One run-of-the-mill, highly valued trait

I don’t know too many men who ardently love their female partners — rather than a lukewarm regard, “She’s a great girl, we get along well, I might even marry her some day” — but the ones who do all have a very specific way of talking about her. They claim she is inordinately skilled at “X” — with “X” being something they in particular value.

It’s nothing as broad and obvious as, say, “kindness”— rather, the devil’s in the details. One man might wax poetically about how his wife is the most “assertive” woman he’s ever met, while his anecdotes paint a portrait of a person who, at most, makes waiters’ lives needless complicated. In a world full of competent artists and good listeners, why is a particular man so very impressed by one specific, not-at-all rare quality in his beloved?

Perhaps, it’s the warm glow cast by the halo effect — her beauty acting as the ultimate personality-enhancer. Could it be a case of introspective blindness, where a love born of nothing more than physical attraction is subsequently attributed to personality traits that otherwise wouldn’t be a blip on the radar? (One could also be less cynical and assume that it's love, rather than beauty, that's the Vaseline greasing the lens.)

I can’t explain it — but time and time again, I have observed it.

My advice to women: be a raven-haired, alabaster, leggy goddess adept at putting people at ease socially, or else an ebony-skinned, freckled, beauty of short stature with the uncanny ability to put together an amazing meal from the contents of a near-empty fridge. Too easy!

You must be clingy and hard to get (and live on a different continent)

There’s no shortage of men claiming to hate the “playing hard to get” tactic— however, this is only when the perceived value of the chase — the bedroom conquest, and perhaps even her affections — eclipses the effort required. (Men don't want women who play hard to get, they want women who are hard to get.)

If a man deems you worthy of commitment, you can get away with playing hard to get. In fact, it’s imperative you do so. It’s this strategy rather than your innate value which will make you worth pursuing in his eyes. It’s crass, reductive, objectifying, and the human-equivalent of Tommy Hilfiger slapping a $500 price-tag on a cotton t-shirt — but it’s true.

Being “easy” to get by loving a man for his inner qualities rather than his efforts to impress will mean he won’t see you as “high-value”, a woman worthy of his love, time, and commitment. (There is also the Madonna-Whore complex at play, if the affections you offer up are of the physical variety.)

If you are “easy” to get, men will be entirely happy to have you as their loving, invested… placeholder. You will be unceremoniously dumped the second a) you ask for commitment, or b) they lay eyes on their future wife — the woman they’ll be champing at the bit to jump over hurdles for like a trained pony.

Just as playing “too” hard to get is subjective, so is almost every other criticism levelled at the ex-girlfriend. A man might spend a few hours a week with one woman and deem her “clingy”, only to find a woman he wants to plaster himself to as if she were a shapely derriere and he a Gummy Venus de Milo.

A half-hour drive to the ex-girlfriend’s house was an insurmountable obstacle, one of the reason given for the break-up, but now he spends the better part of his weekends in airport lounges because the love of his life lives across the ocean. He might claim to be staunchly anti-marriage during the ten years he strings you along, only to get hitched two months into his next relationship. And so on… It’s not that your expectations were too high, it’s just that his love was too meagre.

If you’re the sort of woman who doesn’t need or want your partner to spend every night with you (you value your alone time), or to be wined and dined at expensive restaurants (you’re uncomfortable not paying for your own meals) —you’re condemning yourself to an unfulfilling relationship. You’re throwing away the only litmus test you’ll ever have before you become too invested/entangled in a doomed relationship.

I remember a reoccurring thread from my relationship where my boyfriend would pay for a $10 meal for the both of us. And then expect me to pay for a $20 pizza because twice $10 is $20. Each and every time I'd have to point out that half of $10 is $5 dollars and that my financial contribution always outweighed his in this ostensibly tit-for-tat relationship. I wonder if such men once their wife, who also works fulltime (otherwise she's a gold digger, natch), has had and raised them three children... I wonder if they ever look back and think, Hmm, maybe I should have paid for an entire pizza just that one time.

A man who doesn’t put in a lot of effort — jumping through those proverbial flaming hoops — during the low-investment stages of the relationship, will do so for its entire duration. He’ll be thinking more along the lines of “You’ll do” than “I do”. Remember, as men love rarely, but still want the perks of a partnership, they have few qualms about entering into a relationship with a built-in expiry date and tepid feelings on their end.

Playing the game

If I’ve given you the impression that being loved as a woman is entirely out of your hands — then let me rectify this. To be loved as a woman, you also need to know how to play the game.

Women far more canny than I know the importance of fluffing male egos — “You’re the best in the world at X, Y and Z”. Not to mention the importance of thrusting upon him the illusory mantle of leadership — “You’re the breadwinner of this family (even though I also work)” and “You’re the protector of this family (even though statistically-speaking, you’re its greatest physical threat)” — to coax and cajole them into lifting a finger for the family.

Playing second fiddle

Men typically want to be the ones with the higher intelligence, income, libido, what have you, in a relationship. If you’re an ambitious woman, you’re going to have to find someone even more so, or else someone incredibly secure, otherwise you risk threatening their masculinity.

A Woman’s Measure of a Man

A friend recently referred someone as a “good man”, this was later elaborated on as being “very clean”. For women to fall in love, it seems there are a small number of check-boxes which must be ticked off, none of them onerous. (Well, if you spend all of your time thinking only of yourself whilst opening the tenth tab of porn or playing vidya games till 3AM for the cheap dopamine thrills, these may indeed appear onerous.)

Basic requirements

• Good personal hygiene and housekeeping
• Can support themselves (just themselves!) financially

Relationship-specific requirements

• Attractive enough to make a physical relationship possible
• A degree of compatibility (no major personality clashes)

Desirable bonus qualities

Put-a-ring-on-it requirements

• A return on a her love, effort, commitment, and time

If you’re man and meet this low, low bar, your girlfriend will love you for whatever positive, unique traits you have, overlooking the negative ones— and here’s the kicker — for a time, even the way you treat her.

Having fallen in love with whatever makes you you, she’ll want to spend the rest of her life with you. Provided, of course, you don’t treat her intolerably poorly, and keep meeting the basic requirements (see above).

Parting thoughts

Men seek an alluring beauty in possession of a certain je ne sais quoi; women are content with a responsible adult who knows their way around a loofah.

Having put my theory to paper, I wonder: if men are so much more selective in regards to marriage, are they the real romantics? If women are more loving and have laughably basic standards, then is their love — in a way — cheaper?

A footnote on “high” standards

I’ve often heard it espoused by men that women’s standards are “too high” (perhaps because qualities other than physical appearance are sought-after), however, all the basics above are essential to one’s personal happiness — even if you’re content to be single, these are things you ought to be doing for yourself, regardless.

Angela Volkov writes about the full gamut of human experience, and is the editor of Sike! Psychology for World Domination.