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Physical attraction can be instantaneous, but emotional attraction is more nuanced.
By The Good Men Project
Last updated on Dec 21, 2023
Mutual attraction is visual, initially. As you progress during the mating dance, it’s the sway of her hips, the hypnotic depth in her eyes, how she touches your arm or holds your hand. It’s the familiar feel of something you know, but it’s packaged a little differently.
It’s the same for women: the sound of your voice, how you walk into a room, how your hands feel strong, yet soft. It’s about how someone smiles, how someone talks or smells.
Physical attraction can be instantaneous. Emotional attraction is more nuanced, and if you can appreciate what it provides, it’s the glue that binds you together even when the visual attraction begins to diminish in later years or throughout the term of the relationship.
I don’t think of myself as an expert by any means. I have made better decisions based on making many mistakes, but also in allowing myself to be experimented upon by the women who have chosen me.
Those experiments and my journey in my relationships have led me to these eight qualities of women who are emotionally attractive to men. So, if you want to know how to get a guy to like you, pay close attention.
Here are 8 rare qualities that make women emotionally attractive to men:
1. Patience
We are very far from being perfect creatures as men. We have to put on a face when we walk out the door to do our jobs — or even just to survive in a world that has a preconceived perception of us just by looking at us. Despite the built-in pretenses that were taught to us when we were growing up, it is very hard to wear several faces throughout the day just to be accepted by society and appear normal.
When you are with that special woman you need someone who gets who you are, someone who is willing to patiently take the time with you without jumping to conclusions about who you are or how you may have responded to something.
Someone who will take the time to ask you if something you said was something that you meant to say. Someone who will take the time to slow you down and get you to think about your actions, your responses, and how you feel you may fit in or not in this world.
Until we have finished our earthly course we are all a work in progress. A patient woman can do a lot to ensure that you are stable of mind and that you are making the right decisions for yourself, and then the people who are in your orbit. Through your actions and responses to us, we learn to be patient (even with you).
2. Self-confidence
You are who you are. The size of your body and the sway of your hips may not look perfect to you. You may have put on a few pounds in the thighs because the food during the holiday season was so good and you could not resist the desserts.
There was something about you that attracted us to you. It may not have been the thin thighs or the perfectly round bottom. But it was also your personality — how you listened and responded to us. How your voice covers us like a cashmere sweater and how you seem to understand everything we say or interpret it better than we can.
And even if you have put on a pound or two, we may like it, you should try us on for size. You, being secure in your body and mind is the biggest aphrodisiac imaginable, and we men trust and admire the confidence you show.
The worst thing you can do is talk about how fat you are or how bad you look. Let it go, don’t say that around us because we have you on a different pedestal that we don’t even want you chipping at. If we aren’t complaining about it, neither should you.
In some cases we men like the facade that you have built. It helps us with our security when we know that you are an example to us.
3. Good listening skills
Sometimes, through the course of our relationships, we have to confide in each other about difficult issues. For some of us men, it’s very hard to have these discussions.
The problem is when we try to have hard discussions with you… don’t jump to conclusions, don’t freak out. Allow us to finish the point, and don’t under any circumstances, judge us — just calmly speak with us. That is how we get through the complex potentially painful or introspective issues that sometimes face us all.
However, allowing us to talk with you openly and freely without interruption or judgment is a way to build our trust and confidence in your ability to hear us. Learning to listen is an art form that many humans have not mastered. If you have the talent you can teach us by example.
4. Focusing on the positive
Given the state of world events and human nature, we all can go to the dark places in our minds very easily. By being positive you can ensure that the relationship stays in the light.
While nothing is perfect, positive perceptions could be very useful when you are looking for someone who you would be emotionally attracted to.
No one likes a Debbie Downer so when your man starts talking about what it is that he would like to accomplish do you allow that discussion to happen organically? Or do you start talking about the problems, pitfalls, risks...
Give it some time, and if there are real issues attached to the discussion have that discussion with us maybe a little later and by all means, address the issues that are of concern to you. If you give us some time we may come to the same conclusion that you have already realized.
5. Staying present
There is so much that has occurred in all of our pasts, and if we are lucky enough to get through it together there will be much to do in our future (hopefully together). But the “now” is what so many people miss because they are stuck in the past (wallowing in horse manure and what happened before).
Leave the past where it is. There is a reason why it’s there, in the past that is. There is only so much we should say (repeatedly) about past lovers, emotionally abusive exes, and abusive parents that any relationship should reasonably be subject to in dredging up old hurt and pain.
An emotionally attractive person, while acknowledging the past and learning from their mistakes, does not rehash old disappointments or negative experiences.
Talking to a current mate, about the proclivities of individuals who are long gone from your life or to look for similarities in individual personalities is not the way to lead on the road to longevity in any relationship.
Emotionally attractive people understand that there are sometimes signals and behaviors that, for lack of a better word, make the hairs on the back of our neck stand up. When you see these behaviors you address them accordingly not in the context of the previous relationship, but in the “now” so that you can make a sound judgment as to how you wish to address this new challenge.
Hopefully, we all learn from our past mistakes or our past challenges. Emotionally attractive people understand why the past is best left where it is and how to work with you to make your combined future even brighter.
6. Keeping secrets
Throughout the relationship, we tell each other things — some of the things are very personal, some are soul-searching. Sometimes we open ourselves up to you to understand ourselves better (or to confess past wrongs).
In this instance, you become the repository of our souls and the guardians of our psyche. Don’t breach that trust. Be Fort Knox and under no circumstances do you share intimate things that we have discussed with you, with your Mother, Girlfriends, Sisters, anyone.
The biggest no-no is to never, ever toss a secret back in someone’s face during the heat of an argument. To do that is indicative of your desire to end the relationship and a sure sign to him that you can’t be trusted emotionally (which, for men, is the equivalent of an Achilles Heel.)
They are called secrets for a reason, and if we trust you with it, then obviously we are looking for our deeper selves and we need to feel safe with you and hence with our deepest (and sometimes darkest) thoughts. If you do this with us, we will always tell you what you want to know, and maybe some things you didn’t want to know.
One word of caution: If he does tell you about multiple murders or killing pets as a child, immediately exit the building.
7. Communicating openly and honestly
We men are terrible at reading minds. Remember the actress who became famous playing the Jamaican psychic Miss Cleo, claiming to know callers’ futures in ubiquitous TV infomercials and commercials for the Psychic Readers Network during the 90s? She used to end every commercial with the catchphrase “Call me now!”
We are the worst at guessing what you need or require. It’s best if you tell us. Now, after some time in the relationship, we may see certain things or circumstances wherein we can correctly gather in our minds what you require, but we are bad at being psychics. Don’t place that expectation or burden on us, it may make our heads explode.
And please don’t read our mind or intentions, be decent enough to ask us. As men, so many people assume so much about us that can be simply alleviated by just asking a question. You will learn far more about us as individuals if we avoid your question, or answer it openly.
8. Appreciating efforts and not expecting perfection
There is that old Bible parable where Jesus talks about the person who is without sin cast the first stone when prominent men sought to execute a fallen woman.
We have all had challenges in our journey and it takes time to get to know people, so after the romance period has subsided you start to begin to look into the depth of who the person is and you begin to dispel those previously romantic and sometimes childish notions.
Emotionally attractive people leave their egos at the door within the relationships where they reside. They realize that we all have idiosyncrasies that make us different and in fact, can sometimes be annoying.
But if the individual that you have chosen has other qualities that appeal to you, that make you love them even more, and that make you a better person, then with a little patience that need for perfection will eventually subside. Learning this part of the relationship dance is significant to growing yourself in any emotionally attractive relationship.
Understand that our differences make us who we are. Different is good; it teaches us tolerance, patience and to see the value in different ways of thinking.
Emotionally attractive people embrace the differences and clearly understand that their way is not always necessarily the best and they are willing to listen to opposite opinions and analyze why something else, may make sense.
I believe that a woman is emotionally attractive when she treats you exactly as she wishes to be treated. While no relationship is perfect, how we treat each other can be.
Everybody has their good days and their bad days and given the amount of effort that you want to put into the relationship you can withstand momentary lapses in behavior as long as they aren’t rude or intrusive and of course physical. It all depends on your tolerance for understanding others and the challenges that they may have faced in their personal lives.
If you feel that someone is worth it then clearly it’s worth the effort as long as you have determined that you are getting what you need out of it. Because if you’re not happy you should not be doing it.
Being emotionally attractive is being in a place of comfort with yourself and being self-assured. You have your baggage in check. You pretty much know who you are, you’re comfortable in your skin, and you can be patient with the people that you care for — yourself most of all.
Being emotionally attractive can be summed up as leading by example and giving the person you desire what you want. If you improve upon yourself then you can respond and draw emotionally attractive people that you deserve to be with.
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Franklin Madison was an author who spent several years in law practice, and several more years consulting for the U.S. Department of Commerce, Homeland Security, and others.
This article was originally published at The Good Men Project. Reprinted with permission from the author.