Act like a lady, think like a man (16 page)

Whatever the case, we men are no longer connecting with that special part of you that makes you a woman—that thing that makes you so very beautiful to us, and that also happens to make us feel more like men. As I’ve already explained, the three ways a man shows you he loves you is by professing, providing, and protecting. Which means that if you’ve got your own money, your own car, your own house, a Brinks alarm system, a pistol, and a guard dog, and you’re practically shouting from the rooftops that you don’t need a man to provide for you or protect you, then we will see no need to keep coming around.

What in the world do you need us for if you have all of that?

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. We don’t mind it if you have yourself totally together—you can have your own house, you can have your own money, you can own your own car. You can have the Brinks alarm system, the guard dog, and the pistol, too. But if the man who is pursuing your affection is never allowed by you to exhibit his ability to provide or protect, then how can he possibly see himself professing his love to a woman who has not allowed him to feel like a man? The things you’ve acquired and gained financially and educationally can never be bigger than the relationship with the man. His DNA will not allow for that. Translation: we appreciate it when women treat us like men, when you let us know that you
need
us. The need to feel needed is way bigger to us than we’ve let on; we have to feel needed by you in order to fulfill our destiny as a man.

Of course, I’ve heard women say, “I’m not going to belittle myself to make him feel more like a man—if he can’t handle my money and my success and my independence, then he can’t handle me!” We understand and can handle strong women. In fact, we’re the products of strong women—women who “handle it.” It’s no secret that you allow us men to believe we’re the head of the household, but it’s you who makes all the key decisions in the house and with the kids. It’s no secret to us that no matter who’s bringing in the most money, it’s you who ultimately handles the finances and allocates how the cash is going to be spent. It’s no secret that when we argue, we may act like we’re right, but we know that ultimately, if we want to restore the peace, you’re going to get your way. We’re cool with all of this. But if you say things to this effect without keeping up the charade of our being essential to the household or you handle our egos with anything less than great care—then we’re not going to want to be involved with you. In our minds, if you’ve got your own money, you don’t need ours. If you know karate and can knock somebody flat on his behind by yourself, then you don’t need our protection. And if we can’t exercise two of the major components that make up who we are as men—providing and protecting—then we’re not about to profess our love for you. We absolutely will not say, “I’m your man” if you don’t let us fulfill who we are. What
will
end up happening instead? We’ll sleep with you and then walk away.

It’s the hard truth, but that’s real.

When I was a young man, I was in a relationship with a woman who I thought I loved. I had dropped out of college and was in between jobs, just starting to find my way as a comedian.

She was an enormous help to me; I was struggling, and she was holding it down for us financially, I admit, but I thought I was more than making up for my lack of cash by being all I could be around the house—doing what was necessary to keep our home in order. See, that’s what being in a real relationship is all about—finding that balance, even in the midst of adversity.

And adversity
will
come. Those wedding vows they make you say? The preacher makes you say them because he and everyone else who’s ever been married knows what’s coming. For better or for worse? Worse is coming. In sickness and in health?

Somebody is going to get sick. For richer or for poorer? Somebody might end up broke, temporarily laid off. Hard times will certainly come. The question is, how are you going to deal with it?

This was made clear to a friend of mine one particular day when he went grocery shopping. His woman was loading up the cart with everything she needed for the house—the meats, the vegetables, the fruits, the drinks, and everything. And then they turned down the aisle with the pineapple juice. Now one thing you need to know about my friend—he loves pineapple juice. Steak with pineapple juice—I can’t tell you which is better to him. And when they turned down that aisle, the first thing he put his hand on during that entire grocery store trip was a bottle of pineapple juice. He didn’t think anything of it—just grabbed a bottle and dropped it into the cart. She had her back turned when he did it, but when she turned around and saw the pineapple juice in there on the pile of groceries, she snatched it out and said, “What is this?”

“Pineapple juice,” he said simply.

“And who put this pineapple juice in the basket?” she asked.

“Well, I did,” he said, a little confused. Who else in the world would have put a bottle of pineapple juice into their cart?

“You,” she practically spit, “don’t have any money.”

And then she did the unthinkable: she took that bottle of pineapple juice and purposely dropped it on the floor; it hit the tile with the loudest crash, and broke into what looked like a million little pieces of shiny glass shards and yellow liquid—all of it just inches away from their feet. She glanced at it, then gave him the eye, and pushed the grocery cart on—away from the mess and him.

He walked out the store and waited for her; when she finally came out, he loaded the groceries into the car with tears in his eyes. You just can’t imagine how that hurt him. He knew he didn’t have any money, but all he wanted was a damn bottle of pineapple juice, and in that singular act, in that one moment, his lady shoved into his face that she didn’t consider him to be a man. It was more important to her in that moment to prove what he already knew—that he wasn’t fulfilling his role as a provider. I’m not suggesting that she didn’t have the right to have a man who was pulling his weight. But if she knew him—and men—she would have understood that making him feel less than a man wasn’t going to get her what she needed and wanted out of her man. Her actions were only going to drive him away.

Not long after, he left her.

And that is pretty much the reaction you can expect from men in similar situations where a woman makes more than her partner and she rubs that fact in his face. Will he be intimidated by your money and your success? Of course. Because you’re taking him out of his role as a man—to be the provider. It’s what society expects of him, and really, what you’ve been taught to expect of men, too—that he be able to sweep you up and take care of you. Sure, when a man is young and doesn’t know any better, he’s busy being all this other stuff he thinks fits into what it means to be a man: dating an excess of women; recklessly spending his money on things he doesn’t really need, much less can afford; using his muscle instead of his brain in his quest to appear tough. But most of us grow out of this eventually, and when we do, we recognize that a real man provides for the ones he loves. Even a male convict will sit behind bars and tell you, “The first thing I’m going to do when I get out of here is take care of my family and get a job—that’s all I want to do.”

Most every man comes to that realization. Some men never come out of the ignorance and die fools—alone. But for the most part, when we get around other men and try to validate our manhood, it’s not about how many women we’ve got, but who we’re taking care of.

We are trained to be providers for you, and you are trained to look for that in us. So the moment that order of things is thrown off, the relationship is out of sync. If a woman also has the bad habit of throwing a man’s deficiencies in his face, then he has a problem of a whole different magnitude. He’s going to struggle with not being the provider and she’s going to feel like his ego is getting in the way of her happiness. And everyone involved is bound to get—and be—miserable.

So how do we get through this situation?

Don’t give up your money, or your job, or your education, or the pride and dignity that come with all of that.

Just be a lady.

Oh, I can hear the collective teeth sucking—it’s as loud as a police siren and helicopter whir in Compton—I can see the universal arm folding and eyebrow raising as well. But your getting hot and bothered by what I’m saying isn’t going to change the fact that men, no matter what their financial situation, background, social status, or backstory, want their women to let them take care of them. And I say to you defiant ones, go ahead and act like this isn’t important if you want to, but the women who accept that it’s okay to let the guy take the lead sometime are going to win. So do you want a man or not?

You can do this.

We know you’re strong enough to move the television set.

But you should let him do it; say it’s too heavy for you—it’s a man’s job.

Yes, you’re right—there’s nothing wrong with your arm and you are perfectly capable of opening your own car door. But doggone it, when you’re going somewhere with a man, let him treat you like a lady and open the car door for you. If he doesn’t automatically open said car door, stand by the darn thing and don’t get in the vehicle until he realizes he needs to get his behind out of the driver’s seat and come around and open the car door for you. That’s his job.

We get that you’ve got plenty of money to pay for dinner.

But sit there and let him pick up that check. That’s what he’s supposed to do when he’s out with a woman on a date.

Yes, you are independent and you don’t need anyone to take out the trash for you or hang your pictures or run to the Home Depot and pick up the supplies you need to fix the sink. But I lie to you not: if you put your finger in your mouth and act like you haven’t a clue what to do or the strength to do it, your man will step right in and handle that for you—with a smile if you add a hearty, “Baby, thank you so much for doing this for me—I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

See, a lot of men would be better men if they were required to be, well, men. We’re in this new age, and women have taken on these roles out of necessity—I’ll admit that. But at some point, you’re either going to have to accept that you’re going to be the big ol’ strong, lonely woman, or you’re going to have to back down and just be a lady. Women play roles all the time—why is it when it comes to this, you’re so unwilling to play the role, even when you know it’s going to give you what you want and need? In the long run, being a girl allows you to relax.

Why not take the opportunity to relax? Honest to goodness, I promise you it’s not hard, it won’t kill you, and whatever it is that you need, he will hop to it if you just show him a little appreciation.

Take a page from my wife and I: there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t compliment each other at least several times a day, but on one specific day recently, when she left me in charge of the kids while she ran some errands and did some work around the house, she saw I was worn out from chasing behind the children. Chasing behind children is not something I do. I mean I can do it but it’s exhausting. Come on. Still, when Marjorie walked into the room and saw the harried look on my face, she very sweetly flipped the script on me and said, “Steve, thank you so much for watching the children—you’re a great father.” Boy, I can’t tell you how good that made me feel. She had hardly gotten the words out of her mouth before I hopped to, making sure those kids kept out of her way and stayed quiet while she was finishing up what she had to do. Had that compliment not come through, I would have been salty about having to sit around with the kids all day when there were so many other things that I could have been doing—and wanted to do. That compliment, you see, made me remember why I was in the game, and especially why Marjorie is on the team.

Appreciating a man, not undermining his confidence, is the best way to get the best out of your guy. And the best way to appreciate him is by being a girl, and especially letting him be a man.

Now, I’m convinced that being a girl is a lost art form—something that every woman can use some lessons in. So I’ve taken the liberty of showing you how to be a girl in some of the basic but most important situations in which you’ll find yourself with a man. Guaranteed, if he’s worth his salt, he’ll be all in.

Don’t tell him where you’d like to go—
tell him the kind of food and atmosphere you enjoy, and then let him figure out a place that he thinks will suit your taste.

Don’t tell him you’ll drive—
let him get you to where you all need to go.

Don’t tell him you want to go dutch—
let him pay.

Don’t invite him up for a nightcap—
kiss him good night and let him figure out what he needs to do to
earn
the cookie (but not before the ninety-day probation ends).

Don’t try to fix the sink, the car, the toilet, or

anything else—
let him do it.

Don’t take out the garbage, paint, or mow the

lawn—
that’s his job.

Don’t do any of the heavy lifting—
he was born with the muscle it takes to move sofas/television sets/bookshelves and the like.

Don’t be afraid to make a meal or two—
the kitchen is both your and his friend.

Don’t wear a T-shirt to bed every night—
a little lingerie never hurt anybody.

14  H o w  t o  G e t  t h e  R i n g

Your man knows what you want: the ultimate commitment—The Ring.

He knows, too, what he needs: you.

It seems obvious, then, that he would get himself to the jeweler, pick out a nice, hefty diamond, and then plot out an on-bended-knee proposal that would make the “will you marry me?” pitch that Grammy award–winning singer Seal made to supermodel Heidi Klum—he proposed in an igloo he had built on top of a glacier fourteen thousand feet above sea level—look like an invitation to the prom.

But your proposal never comes.

And the way your man is acting, it’s not coming anytime soon.

And so, you wait. And wait. And wait some more.