Facebook Doesn’t Fill The Love Bucket?
June 1st, 2010 Posted in Dating, Mating, Relating | No Comments »This goes out to all the lovers out there…
Women and Body Image (empty love bucket?)
May 27th, 2010 Posted in Love Bucket | No Comments »
“Women and Body Image”
By William Leith Published: 23 May 2010
Women and body image: a man’s perspective
Ever wondered why a man can look at an advert featuring a six-pack and laugh, while a woman might look at a photograph of female perfection and fall to pieces? William Leith thinks he might have uncovered the answer
~~~
Plenty of guys have told me this story. The guy in question is preparing to go to a party with his girlfriend. She is trying on shoes and dresses. He is telling her how good she looks. She tries on more shoes, more dresses. And then: the sudden, inexplicable meltdown. She crumples on the bed. Something is horribly wrong. Now the party is out of the question.
The guy sits down. He hugs her. What’s the problem? Gradually the truth emerges. ‘Do you know what it was?’ the guy will say later to his friends. ‘She said she “didn’t look right”. She felt … I don’t know. Fat. Or that she was the wrong shape. It’s all about her body.’ He goes on: ‘I told her she looked great. Which she does, right?’
At this point the other guys will say, ‘Yeah – she looks great.’ And: ‘She looks fine.’ And: ‘I saw her the other day, wearing those shorts.’ And: ‘She is hot.’ Then the first guy will say, ‘That’s what I kept telling her. And that’s when she got really upset. She said, “You just don’t understand.”‘
It’s true – men, by and large, do not understand. In her book The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf made this point very powerfully. When a woman has a crisis of confidence about the way she looks there is nothing a man can do to console her.
‘Whatever he says hurts her more,’ says Wolf. ‘If he comforts her by calling the issue trivial, he doesn’t understand. It isn’t trivial at all. If he agrees with her that it’s serious, even worse: he can’t possibly love her, he thinks she’s fat and ugly.’
But it doesn’t stop there, says Wolf. What if the man were to say he loves the woman just as she is – that he loves her for her? An absolute no-no, of course, because then ‘he doesn’t think she’s beautiful’. Worse still, though, if he says he loves her because he thinks she’s beautiful.
There’s no way out. It seems to be, in Wolf’s words, ‘an uninhabitable territory between the sexes’. So why don’t men understand? And, given a bit of education, can the situation be improved?
Well, I’m a man, so let’s see. The first thing to say is that, when it comes to their bodies, men have a completely different attitude. I’m not saying they don’t think about their bodies, or worry about them, because they do. But men relate to their bodies in a simple way.
A man’s body is either fine, or it’s not fine. For a man, the body is a practical object. It’s a machine. Sometimes it works well; sometimes it needs fixing. Some guys know how to fix it, by taking up a sport, maybe, or cutting down on the carbs. Some don’t, and go to seed.
Men see their bodies as machines because, for most of their time on this earth, they have defined themselves as hunters and protectors. They equate being attractive with being strong and fast and muscled. That’s a simple concept, isn’t it? And that simplicity is hard-wired into the male brain.
When his girlfriend has a meltdown, and says she hates her body, that is not a simple concept. Unlike men, women do not have a simple relationship with their bodies. They have a complex relationship with their bodies. This is what men often don’t understand. When it comes to their bodies, women are extremely vulnerable – and, what’s more, lots of people take advantage of that vulnerability. This makes the situation worse.
Men don’t have to contend with this – the hair people, and the make-up people, and the fashion people, and the shoe people, and the bra people, and the nail people, and the eyelash people, and the Botox people, and the cosmetic surgery people, and the perfume people, and the hair-removal people. Oh, and the diet people.
Men are not at the mercy of corporate manipulation on remotely this scale. Sure, there are six-packs creeping into our field of vision every so often. And, sure, this is making us feel insecure. I know – I was fat, and it’s no fun being fat, especially with all those pictures of Brad Pitt nagging away.
And then there are the adverts for Lynx, and the Reebok advert in which a man is chased around town by a big fat hairy belly. But for men the message is very direct. Buy some running shoes. Go to the gym. Cut down on the carbs. For men there is no mystery behind the veil of the adverts. You either tackle the situation, or become a fat slob. End of story.
For men the holy grail is within reach – you just need to get fit, and then you’ll be fine; then you can think about something else. But the messages aimed at women are much more complex and confusing. As the American social commentator Warren Farrell has pointed out, women’s magazines often contain articles about being Superwoman, which are next to adverts about being Cinderella.
In other words, the words tell women how to be independent and in control. But the adverts, where the money is, tell them they have to be beautiful.
Farrell said this more than two decades ago – and, shockingly, nothing has changed. There’s a solid pulse running through everything our culture aims at women – be beautiful, be beautiful, be beautiful.
But being beautiful, it turns out, is a near-impossible task. It keeps getting harder and harder. Everybody knows that it entails being slim – and every year the ideal gets slimmer and slimmer. In 1960 the average model weighed 10 per cent less than the average woman. Now she weighs 25 per cent less. Soon she will weigh 30 per cent less. But she doesn’t have the breasts of a skinny woman – nor, as Susie Orbach has recently pointed out, the bottom. To achieve the ideal is vanishingly impossible.
And it’s getting worse. Orbach believes that we are exposed, on a weekly basis, to several thousand images that have been digitally manipulated. And this, in turn, makes more women opt for cosmetic surgery – which, of course, moves the goalposts even farther away.
When lots of people have surgery to make themselves look more beautiful this has the effect of making everybody else feel less beautiful. And this is happening on a global scale – in 2007 people spent £9 billion on cosmetic surgery; the vast majority of them, of course, were women.
So: men are told they should aspire to fitness and strength, and women are told they should aspire to something more nebulous. But that still does not explain, in terms a man could understand, why the female message is so much more powerful and disturbing.
It doesn’t explain why a tenth of women are anorexic, why a growing number are bulimic, why almost half of women, at any given time, are on a diet. It doesn’t quite explain the meltdowns. And it doesn’t explain why women want to be so skinny. Why they think they are fat, when they are not. It doesn’t explain why, when a woman’s body is perfectly attractive, she often thinks it isn’t, and can’t be persuaded otherwise.
In short, it does not explain why a man can look at an advert featuring a six-pack and laugh at it, whereas a woman might look at a picture of Gisele Bündchen and feel a sense of unease that hangs around for days.
John Updike once said that the female body is the world’s prime aesthetic object – we look at it more than we look at anything else, including landscapes, gadgets, cars. In fact, cars and gadgets are often designed to resemble the female body, and landscapes can be painted to remind us of it. When we talk about ‘the nude’ in art we are almost certainly referring to the female nude. As far as nudes are concerned, the male nude is a distant runner-up.
I once wrote the introduction to a book of male nudes by the photographer Rankin; it was a sequel to his previous book of female nudes. One thing struck me above all – male nudes were a much, much harder thing to portray than female ones.
That’s because the female body carries with it a huge weight of iconic significance – thousands of years of being looked at. The female body has meaning. Pictures of the female body can be profound, serious and complex. For thousands of years they have been depicted with reverence. Now imagine having one of those bodies. It puts a bit of pressure on, doesn’t it?
Now I’m beginning to see why women might be so addicted to perfection. They have a lot to live up to – a couple of thousand years of art history, and a couple of thousand airbrushed boobs and bums to deal with every week.
But what started this off in the first place? Why aren’t there so many airbrushed pictures of men around? Of course, these pictures do exist, and their numbers are increasing. But why are women so much more vulnerable to pictures of perfect bodies than men?
In his book The Evolution of Desire, the American psychologist David Buss goes some way towards explaining why this should be so. Since the Stone Age, he explains, men and women have had different attitudes towards sex. Men can pass on their genes with very little risk – all they need is a fertile woman.
But it’s different for women, because pregnancy is incredibly risky. What women need is a man who looks like a good provider – better still, who looks like a proven provider.
So let’s think about our Stone Age man and woman. If he’s going to settle down, and stop playing the field, he wants one thing above all – a woman who looks fertile. More than that, he wants a woman who looks as if she’ll be fertile for many years to come. In other words, he might consider being a provider and protector, as long as his mate looks young, fertile and unblemished.
And now consider his mate. What does she want? Not just a man who is a good hunter and a good fighter, but a man who has a track record as a hunter and fighter. In other words, an older man. And this is not only true of Stone Age couples. In a survey conducted by David Buss, 10,000 people, in 37 cultures, were polled. ‘In all 37 cultures included in the international study on choosing a mate,’ writes Buss, ‘women prefer men who are older than they are.’
Now I’m getting close to understanding why women are so critical of their bodies. Since prehistoric times they have had a hard-wired link to how they look. For tens of thousands of years it was crucial; it could be the difference between having a protector and not having one – between life and death, even.
For men it’s not the same at all. The odd wrinkle or grey hair doesn’t matter. Hell, it might even be an advantage. As long as you’re good at throwing spears and building shelters, you’ll be fine.
Twenty thousand years on, what has changed? Well, as David Buss points out, it’s unlikely that a Stone Age man would have seen ‘hundreds or even dozens of attractive women in that environment’. But now, when he looks at a Playboy centrefold, he is seeing a woman who has competed with thousands of other women for the part – not only that, he’s seeing the best picture out of thousands.
And it’s not just centrefolds, is it? Just look at newsreaders – mostly, it’s a pretty girl and a grey-haired man. Message to men: relax. Message to women: panic! And then there are the girl groups, and the short-skirted girl on Countdown, and even the characters in the Harry Potter films, where the boys are allowed to look like geeks but the girl must look like a model.
As the art critic John Berger wrote: ‘Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only the relations of men to women, but the relation of women to themselves.’ It’s a tough one, isn’t it?
Surely guys can understand that, at least. If it happened to us, we’d have a meltdown, too.
~~~
The Love Linguist Comments: Women have a finely tuned negativity receptor. Any lack of self-esteem heightens this negativity response particularly regarding external feminine body issues. Filling the love bucket requires that the love bucket is a vessel capable of holding the contents (meltdowns make that difficult).
And on the lighter side: a little parody (2 videos)
Dating Dance Patterns & Persuasion (can fill her love bucket!)
May 26th, 2010 Posted in Dating, Mating, Relating, Sherrie Rose Recommends, The Man Class Series | No Comments »It is said that in the sales process if you mimic (in an understated way) your prospective client that it builds rapport and you get closer to the sale. The same is true in when you are persuading and seducing a mate.
In the animal kingdom, firefly species use a special pattern of flashing to signal to potential mates. This happens during mating season. There’s another species of firefly that appears to be a remarkably successful seducer. By copying the unique blinking pattern they attract other fireflies. However, this second species goal is not to mate, but to attack and eat them for dinner.
How do you know if you are falling into love’s embrace or if you are an unsuspecting victim of persuasion?
In the dating dance when you mimic the other person by using exactly the same words phrases, you are generally more liked, but actually receive more green light signals from your prospective mate. This strategy increases rapport and there is higher likelihood you will “get lucky,” get a phone number, or get a second date.
Following and repeating patterns of speech and movement is an effective persuasive tool. It may increase a sense of closeness and understanding with another person. After giving someone your phone number, if they repeat it back to you in a way that’s different to how you remember it sounds it breaks rapport. Unexpectedly your phone number doesn’t sound right and you probably take a second (disapproving) look at that person.
When meeting people for the first time, you can develop good relationships in a quicker time by repeating back selectively the same words that they use. It does not matter if it is in dating, sales, business, or family functions. Communication that follows patterns of words and phrases that are repeated creates closeness.
As a result, your date may be persuaded to go home with you or will be anxiously waiting for your next phone call or text message.
Read more about Persuasion by authors Steve Martin, Noah Goldstein and Robert Cialdini:
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive
( New York Times bestseller)
Reminder: Today is the first day of Her Love Bucket 4-Day Sale
Get access now: http://herlovebucket.com/4daysale
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Sherrie Rose
The Love Linguist®
Dedicated to Enhancing Your Love and S*X Life!
Sherrie Rose Recommends:
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive
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Marriage Is More Beneficial For Men Than For Women (Help Fill The Love Bucket)
May 14th, 2010 Posted in Dating, Mating, Relating, Lifestyle | No Comments »Marriage is more beneficial for men than for women — at least for those who want a long life. Previous studies have shown that men with younger wives live longer. While it had long been assumed that women with younger husbands also live longer, in a new study Sven Drefahl from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany, has shown that this is not the case. Instead, the greater the age difference from the husband, the lower the wife’s life expectancy. This is the case irrespective of whether the woman is younger or older than her spouse.
R
elated to life expectancy choosing a wife is easy for men — the younger the better. The mortality risk of a husband who is seven to nine years older than his wife is reduced by eleven percent compared to couples where both partners are the same age. Conversely, a man dies earlier when he is younger than his spouse.
For years, researchers have thought that this data holds true for both sexes. They assumed an effect called "health selection" was in play; those who select younger partners are able to do so because they are healthier and thus already have a higher life expectancy. It was also thought that a younger spouse has a positive psychological and social effect on an older partner and can be a better caretaker in old age, thereby helping to extend the partner’s life.
"These theories now have to be reconsidered," says Drefahl. "It appears that the reasons for mortality differences due to the age gap of the spouses remain unclear." Using data from almost two million Danish couples, Drefahl was able to eliminate the statistical shortcomings of earlier research, and showed that the best choice for a woman is to marry a man of exactly the same age; an older husband shortens her life, and a younger one even more so.
According to Drefahl’s study, published May 12 in the journal Demography, women marrying a partner seven to nine years younger increase their mortality risk by 20 percent. Hence, "health selection" can’t be true for women; healthy women apparently don’t go chasing after younger men. While many studies on mate selection show that women mostly prefer men the same age, most of them end up with an older husband. In the United States, on average a groom is 2.3 years older than his bride. "It’s not that women couldn’t find younger partners; the majority just don’t want to," says Sven Drefahl.
It is also doubtful that older wives benefit psychologically and socially from a younger husband. This effect only seems to work for men. "On average, men have fewer and lesser quality social contacts than those of women," says Drefahl. Thus, unlike the benefits of a younger wife, a younger husband wouldn’t help extend the life of his older wife by taking care of her, going for a walk with her and enjoying late life together. She already has friends for that. The older man, however, doesn’t.
This means that women don’t benefit by having a younger partner, but why does he shorten their lives? "One of the few possible explanations is that couples with younger husbands violate social norms and thus suffer from social sanctions," says Drefahl. Since marrying a younger husband deviates from what is regarded as normal, these couples could be regarded as outsiders and receive less social support. This could result in a less joyful and more stressful life, reduced health, and finally, increased mortality.
While the new MPIDR study shows that marriage disadvantages most women when they are not the same age as their husband, it is not true that marriage in general is unfavorable. Being married raises the life expectancy of both men and women above those that are unmarried. Women are also generally better off than men; worldwide their life expectancy exceeds that of men by a few years.
Source: ScienceDaily.com – Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. "Downside of Marriage for Women: The Greater a Wife’s Age Gap from Her Husband, the Lower Her Life Expectancy." ScienceDaily 12 May 2010. 14 May 2010 < http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2010/05/100512062631.htm>
WOMEN AS EXPLAINED BY ENGINEERS (missing the component to fill the love bucket)
May 11th, 2010 Posted in Dating, Mating, Relating, Her Love Bucket, Masterman, Mastermen, The Love Linguist, The Man Class Series | No Comments »For all the guys who enjoy a good laugh, and to all the ladies who have a good sense of humor.
WOMEN AS EXPLAINED BY ENGINEERS
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
And Finally!
Have you ever wondered how a woman’s brain works?
Well….it’s finally explained here in one, easy-to-understand illustration:
B
Every one of those little blue balls is a thought about something
that needs to be done, a decision or a problem that needs to be solved.
A man has only 2 b_ _ _ _ and they take up all his thoughts.
Note: The source of this has come in various forms in email messages on websites; original author unknown.
The LOVE LINGUIST says: The love system that explains her love bucket is easy. Guys that take the MAN CLASS SERIES can easily accelerate their knowledge and win with women. A man’s greatest asset is a woman. (yes, really!)