Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my experiences with past love interests, and it dawned on me: Did they ever really like me, for me, at all?
Before I dive into this, I want to disclaim that I didn’t have this thought in a self-deprecating way, but rather from the perspective of how men view love and romance. Much like other women, in my failed relationships, it’s so easy to look back and say, well where did we go wrong? What did I do? Was there something wrong with me? And while these questions are of varying importance depending on the context, I’ve concluded that this timeline that men work, think, and essentially live by (I will be speaking in reference to men as my experience has only been with men) is what ultimately determines their genuine attention to love.
What do I mean by this? Well, I’m sure most have heard that men will settle down when they are ready to settle down, often breaking off things with their partner of however many years only to jump into another relationship in a (relatively) short time right after and get engaged or something. This concept intrigued me. How could men just become ready or decide when to just then start taking love seriously? In most of my experiences and even on dating apps, it’s apparent that most men aren’t looking for love — they’re looking for someone who fits into their current lifestyle.
“Just looking for someone to go hiking with.” “Looking for my gym partner.” “Need a cuddle buddy.” And the list goes on. The interesting part of this is that men will seek out these counterparts and then give the facade of a relationship by spending what seems like quality time, perhaps even throwing some romantic gestures in there because why not you’re there, right? But then be offended or confused when that idea is brought up by the confused feminine. Under this, it seemingly doesn’t matter who you are or what your personality is like really. As long as you’re okay with being around while he does his thing, he’ll keep you around. The ideal partner to them, under this notion, is complacent with just being around while he lives his life (most of the time keeping both his life and you separate). He’ll keep you around as long as he can look to his side and get his ego boosted by seeing a pretty girl next to him. It all works under a performative intention, almost as if men confuse the ego boost of having an “audience” with actual love.
This “performance” works in an egocentric way for him to feel good about himself as he has someone to spend time with and get what he wants at the moment, all while he sorts himself out but never actually sees his partner for who they are. Men love the idea of having a woman, but not the idea of how to maintain one — for some, they can’t even bear to imagine what/how much it takes to do so. And this is what confuses us girls, because men will put on this performance of liking you by spending time and doing things together, making you think that he’s letting you in when the harsh truth is that men only allow women in on the basis of their desires.
The worst part of all this revelation to me is that the counterpart, the woman, is essentially interchangeable. Because again, like I said, it doesn’t really matter who you are. If you are willing to settle into whatever focus that he is currently dedicating his life to, you’ll earn the limited award of being his arm candy and a person dedicated to making him look and feel good.
In contrast to women, we typically want to immerse ourselves with/in our partners, understand them further than anyone else does, and support or assist them the most we can in their journeys. But recently, I just haven’t seen that in men, or at least in the ones my friends and I have been involved with. Seemingly none of them want that same level of reliance and confidence with someone else.
Perhaps men function in an individual sense until they are made aware that life is boring alone, especially if your friends only perpetuate a tiresome lifestyle. With age and maturity, stability and good company become some key components in making sure your older adult life is fun and comforting, not dreadful and dull; but I suppose that realization comes at different times for everyone.