Women Have Been Asking These 8 Questions About Men Forever — Here Are Their Honest Answers
Steinportraits | Pexels A few months ago, I sent out an email to my email list requesting that my female readers ask me questions about men that they've wanted answers to forever. Within 24 hours, I had received hundreds of responses. The most common topic among the questions women asked me to answer? Relationships.
More specifically, women wanted to know what men really think: What do men think about women? Do men really respect women, or do they just tolerate them so that they can have a regular drip-feed of physical intimacy in their lives?
Honestly, I really appreciated the directness of the emails. I guess hiding behind a screen gives you a certain sense of anonymity, and so the women emailing me didn’t feel like they had to hold back at all. So, without further ado, I would like to share the honest answers from men regarding the most common (and some of the more entertaining) questions that I received in those hundreds of emails about what men want and what men think about a variety of issues.
Women have been asking these 8 questions about men forever — here are their honest answers:
1. What do men want from women?
“I would love to know what men really want from women. — Tina
While men certainly aren’t all the same, and individual variation always needs to be taken into account, there are definitely some important themes I can touch on here. The vast majority of men (which, from now onwards in this article, I will just refer to as men) really aren’t that hard to understand, once you understand a few core concepts about the reality of being male.
First, men crave freedom. And what freedom means to any one man changes from person to person. One man might crave the freedom of being a perpetual bachelor and travelling the world and never having a relationship last more than three months in his entire life.
Another man might crave the freedom to live out his life’s work, with as few disruptions as possible, from the time that he discovers his life’s work, to the day he dies. You don’t need to search for long to find many famous examples of men who toiled away on their magnum opus until the day they died.
But one thing that I have seen in my male clients, disproportionately so compared to my female clients, is that they burn with passion for their path, their mission, their purpose, their life’s work. As David Deida, author of The Way Of The Superior Man, has written about extensively, the feminine in every person craves love and connection, whereas the masculine in everyone craves a sense of purpose above all else.
So, more often than not, men crave a woman who helps/adds to/is supportive of their purpose in the world. So make sure that you partner up/have partnered up with a man whose mission in the world is one that you believe in.
2. What annoys men most?
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“What do women do that annoys their partner?” — Libby
The biggest thing: not trusting them. All men want to be with a woman who trusts them. And not being trusted by them hurts viscerally. Trust matters so much to men because trust is an indicator that their partner has confidence in the core of their masculine essence. Their directionality. Their decision-making ability.
The hurt of not feeling trusted would be the equivalent of a man not responding (or explicitly shaming or speaking against) his female partner’s radiance. If a man commented on how ugly or smelly you were… or if he made fun of the way that you danced or the sounds you made when you finished, these things would hit deeply. So it is for men when they feel like their women don’t trust them.
So, trust them if they are trustworthy. Practice surrendering more deeply on a regular basis. And, if you really don’t trust them, and they have continually made decisions that you don’t agree with, then don’t be with them.
The other thing that I think is worthy of being mentioned here is that all men will resent the mirror of their partner, at least occasionally. No matter how much work a man has done on himself, there will still be times when he registers his partner’s care for him, at least 1 percent, as "nagging." Because men crave silence, peace, stillness, and freedom, there is something about being in a relationship with a woman that is like voluntarily chaining yourself to the antithesis of stillness.
Men become more aware of themselves and all of their shortcomings when they are around a woman. And so any man who complains of a woman who is nagging at him is simply a man who is afraid to step into his power and potential in life, nothing more.
3. What are men most insecure about?
“What are some of men’s biggest insecurities?” — Anna
Men are people, and thus have the insecurities that any person would have. But there are definitely a few that are more common for men: The biggest ones that I hear from the mouths of men most often are the following: how competent they are as providers/earners, how competent they are as lovers (physical stamina, satisfying their partners fully), and how competent they are at finding/attracting a mate (if they are single).
Obviously, there is a huge factor of self-selection bias here. In other words, the types of men whom I talk to most frequently are men who are proactively seeking out relationship advice. But this data is also informed by the men in my men’s group and the men in my life in general.
But those are the core themes that I am most privy to. Insecurities surrounding "can I attract a partner that I feel aligned with?," "can I provide for my life/my family?," and "can I provide an amazing experience for my partner?" Anything past that (their beer gut, whether or not they can throw a football, etc.) matters less. But the core theme is competency. While women are raised and conditioned to be pleasant and attractive, men are primarily conditioned to be effective and useful.
4. How do men feel about successful women?
“Men say that they want a successful woman who has her own money, but I’m a career woman, and I feel like no guys are interested in me. What gives!? I followed the whole third-wave feminism ‘I don’t need no man’ script, amassed my own wealth, and I feel like it bit me on the behind. What would you recommend for someone like me?” — Angelica
This is a great question. And to answer it, I want to provide some context on it by swapping the genders and giving an alternative example. Across an average population sample, there are many women who say they want a man who is in touch with his emotions. What this looks like in reality is that he would be able to express his emotional reality, cry at the occasional movie, and be sensitive enough to emotionality in general that he could always feel into what she was feeling.
And while this is a beautiful, well-intentioned concept, a certain percentage of women who claim they want this from men aren’t able to be with it because they have not done their own deep inner work. When men show up in their lives who are fully in touch with their emotions, they might feel repulsed or turned off by their emotional sensitivity. And so it is with a certain percentage of men who say they want to be with a powerful woman.
The idea sounds nice. And it might sound progressive and of the times to say that you want this. But that doesn’t mean that every man who says he wants this will be in touch with his own internal sense of power enough to be able to be partnered up with someone who makes more than he does.
Ultimately, this all comes back to our relationship with ourselves. A woman can be with a man who is deeply in touch with his emotions (and is in the habit of expressing them) when she has accepted the full range of her own emotions, and when she can source her own sense of stability within herself.
Just like a man can be with a woman who makes a lot of money and/or has a high-powered job position when he is in touch with his own internal power source and doesn’t need to feel worthy/powerful as a one-up-one-down covert competition with his partner. Such a man knows that a powerful partner doesn’t threaten his sense of power, but rather, if anything, helps to bolster it.
So, to directly answer this readers question, I would say that: 1) I would recommend doing some honest internal searching to see if there’s any part of you that feels wrong, guilty, or bad about wielding such power, 2) accepting/loving the fact that you hold the position that you do, and 3) going out into the dating field fully expecting that there are men who will absolutely adore this part of you, and accepting nothing less in a partner.
In short, you need to make friends with your power. That is the place from which you will start meeting men who also love and appreciate your power. Because those men absolutely exist. And any part of you that believes otherwise is simply a projection of you not being in love with this part of yourself. Also, another factor that has been at play for the majority of career-minded women that I have worked with is that they have a difficult time dropping into their softness when they get home.
It isn’t that being rich, or powerful, or driven is a deterrent to sustaining a relationship with a man, it’s that the women in question might not be able to switch from work mode to relationship mode, and without being able to drop into her more surrendered feminine flow, she will continually struggle to meet someone who can hold space for the totality of who she is. To any woman who struggles with dropping into her softer, feminine essence, I would recommend having a transitioning ritual like a bath, or dancing, or stretching/moving your body in some way that gets you out of work mode and into your body.
5. What does it take to have a relationship with a man?
“I’d love to know how to manifest and sustain a relationship with a healthy man?” — Kali
First, believe that these types of men exist. Feel it in your body. Know, without a shadow of a doubt, that these types of men are out there, even if you have never met one of them in your life thus far. Nothing I say past this point matters if you don’t engage this step honestly. If you secretly believe that all men are simple Neanderthals and that there aren’t any men who can truly meet you in the depths, then you will find ways to sabotage or stop your search early by settling for someone who isn’t your equal.
Next, constantly be seeking out any places where you may still be carrying heavy elements of self-rejection. What parts of yourself do you routinely make wrong? Engage in talk-based therapy. Note, own, and drop any beliefs you carry about yourself that do not serve you. Be kind to yourself in your daily life.
Then, cultivate your openness and receptivity. When a woman is open to a relationship, it can be felt by men. Be easy to approach when you see a man that you feel drawn to, while maintaining your standards completely. Be easy to get along with, but hard to impress. Similar to a queen.
The queen of a kingdom is approachable, accessible, and kind to the people of her land, but that does not mean that she would be best friends and close confidantes with just anyone. Cultivate your queen energy, while also being completely open and accessible to the right men.
As for how to sustain a relationship with a healthy man, be a healthy woman. Do your work. Take responsibility for your projections. Make generous assumptions about his thoughts, words, and actions. If you feel that he is a trustworthy man, trust him fully. If you respect and support his direction in life, then support it fully.
You sustain a relationship with a healthy person by doing everything anyone should do when they have met their match. You love them fully and let them love you in return.
6. How can women make men feel safe when labeling a relationship?
“I have been in a semi-relationship for the last year. We have been friends for longer, but we have been on and off lovers for the last twelve or so months. He has been divorced several times and is generally gun-shy about naming what we are in a relationship. How can I help foster a safe relationship where he doesn’t feel so afraid of me? I am genuinely not trying to trap him. How do I help him go from this current pattern of hot/cold/hot/cold... to just being there for me consistently, and feeling comfortable enough to call me his partner?” — Maria
There are two layers of feedback that I would give to this. First, if he is truly dead-set on not being in a relationship, and you want a relationship, then I would recommend believing his words and moving on. He is telling you that he doesn’t want a deeper commitment, and has shown so consistently, so honor your standards and find someone who wants to be with you.
Second, I will address how to get a man to commit to you in general. I like to think of people as fairly simple and logical. In my worldview, people do everything that they do for a reason that makes absolute sense to them, whether they are aware of their internal process or not.
The equation that men run through their minds when it comes to deciding to commit to a partner or not is simply: “Will the benefits that I glean from this relationship win out over the amount of headache that I will endure to be in said relationship?”
For example, if a man is deeply in love with his career, he will run a cost/benefit analysis on whether or not entering into a relationship with you will result in a net-positive win for his career. If you need constant hand-holding, and the emotional processing is incessant, and you take up so much of his time and energy that he can no longer engage in his life’s work, then you will not make the cut.
But if he sees all of the benefits that being in a relationship with you would bring to his life, and the amount that those things would add to his career (and to his life in general) is greater than the energetic costs of dating you would take, then he will happily be two feet in your relationship.
Does this sound decidedly unromantic? Too heady or formulaic? Well, too bad. People can be calculating and cold. But I would encourage you not to see it as heady or transactional, but rather, a simple diagnostic tool that he uses to test for alignment in his life.
Men who are up to things in the world run this diagnostic tool on everything in their lives, not just their romantic partners. Does eating this food serve or inhibit my ability to maximize my greatest potential? Does maintaining a friendship with this man serve me or limit me? Does waking up at this particular time serve me or limit me?
So why would there be a different assessment tool for his life partner? And so, the action step that you can take away from all of this is simple. Find a man whose life you believe in, see ways in which you could add to his life, and then communicate those benefits to him directly.
7. Do men really care about physical imperfections?
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“Be honest with me. How much do men care about physical imperfections (wrinkles, cellulite, love handles, and all that)?” — Kim
It depends completely on the type of man that you are referring to. If you are in a relationship with a man who is predominantly driven by the tangible, superficial world, then those things will matter very much. He will have his identity and his ego bolstered by the fact that he is with a smooth, conventionally attractive, and acceptable partner.
If you are in a relationship with someone who values more than just the superficial world, and who sees himself as more than just a body or a wallet, and who sees you as more than just a body or a toy, then those things won’t matter in the slightest. Ultimately, a man who has done any amount of deep inner work recognizes that he is not in a relationship with a body. He is in a relationship with a heart, a soul, an essence. So he fully expects that the body will fluctuate and change with time, because all things ever do is change.
So, speaking personally for a moment, not only do wrinkles, cellulite, love handles, and stretch marks not turn me off, I prefer them because they speak to a body that has lived and experienced life. I would rather a body that shows depth and experience than a smooth, new body that hasn’t yet lived a fuller spectrum of experiences.
Similar to how I feel a deeper sense of trust and comfort in conversation with people who have experienced great loss or grief, as opposed to someone who has yet to be put through the paces of those parts of life. As always, this stuff is all just a hall of mirrors.
If you carry self-rejection around certain parts of your body, then you will be more likely to meet and attract partners who share that same judgment about those parts of your body. Conversely, when you come into a place of love and acceptance of your body, you will be much more likely to call in romantic partners who love and accept your body in a similar manner.
8. What does it mean when men want to be alone?
“Why does my partner seem to need so much more alone time than me? Is that a guy thing? I know that his work is really important to him, but it seems like sometimes when I am telling him about my day, he can just hit this internal wall, and his eyes start to glaze over, and then he needs to decompress from our conversation. Might sound tangentia,l but it’s related. Do guys simply need more alone time than women? Or is it more something to do with masculine/feminine energy dynamics?” — Rachelle
When women need to dig up deeply personal insights, it is often best for them to go deeper into their community to talk it out with close confidantes, whereas when men need to get in touch with deeply personal insights, it is often best for them to take a break from people and be completely by themselves. Now, I am not advocating that men build a life of isolation (as this is one of the core things that leads to the high suicide rate among men), but it is one factor as to why men might need more alone time than most women.
Furthermore, men often have more steps that they need to take in order to get in touch with themselves. I know 10x more women who can drop into a place of feeling connected to their bodies, or connected to something that they would consider spiritual and/or their higher selves, whereas men tend to need to work at this with a bit more intention and effort.
So if your partner seems to need a lot of time alone, he could be in a time of transition and simply needs to be with his innermost thoughts (that come up as whispers instead of clear directions), or he could just be on the more introverted side of the spectrum and doesn’t need as much social stimulation.
Jordan Gray is a five-time Amazon best-selling author, public speaker, and relationship coach with more than a decade of practice. His work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Women's Health, and The Good Men Project, among countless others.
