Why Men Love Bitches (18 page)

Now let’s hear Bart’s version: “I’m not in love with her the way she is with me.” He shared with me a story of when she was doing his laundry for him in his apartment. “I was being a total jerk. You know what she said to me? ‘After I finish your laundry, I’m going home.’ There were three more loads, and she did them. I really would have respected her if she had said, ‘Screw you’ and walked out.”

A tip: When you are at his place any day of the week, don’t do any housework. The only laundry you do is your own. The only tub you scrub is your own. The only person you clean up after is yourself. If his place is a mess, go to yours. If he asks you to help him clean, be subtle. Just tell him the maidservant has the day off on Sundays.

Just remember, it isn’t about a man. This is your life … and it’s too precious to waste. Do things when it is convenient, especially if it regards your relationships of choice and who you let in on the “inside.” It will yield a much better return on investment … especially in the dignity department.

Like the bum on the street with a sign that says
Will work
for food,
your sign now reads
Will work for attention.
Well, no more “slummin’,” girlfriend. We are under new management. Under the old management, you dealt with his lack of attention by nagging. And if you’ll notice, it hasn’t worked. This is why all of the steps discussed in this chapter involve changes in demeanor. When you nag at a man, he becomes more reclusive.

Essentially, you always want to remember that although he is a grown man, inside there is a three-year-old causing him to have Appreciation Deficit Disorder. Whenever you nag, you activate this toddler, and you have a thirty second window before you’ve activated the “little boy gland.”

It’s as easy as changing a radio station. In thirty seconds, he’ll tune you out and won’t tune you back in until the nagging is over. It doesn’t matter if his pants are on fire and smoke has filled the room. He won’t hear a word you say. This is why you should communicate with your actions…rather than your words. Since a man won’t discuss feelings as a woman does, anything past the second repetition seems like nagging. Never ask a man to do something more than twice or he’ll feel as though he’s being scolded by Mom. And whenever you nag, he’ll behave like a stubborn teenager and rebel.

Women often say, “Little boys are so sweet. What changes?” According to Freud, it gets messed up somewhere around the potty-training years. To better understand the origin of the “little boy gland” and to see how a man takes a woman for granted, let’s now turn our attention to examine the behavior of a toddler.

A three-year-old wants to be independent of Mommy, but he also wants to take for granted that she is still right there within his reach. So he tests to see how far he can go. The disobedient little boy wobbles around a corner mischievously and pauses. Then he runs back around the corner to make sure Mommy’s still right there.

With a grown man, there’s one extra step in the middle. After he wobbles off but before he runs back, he will turn to look over his shoulder to see, “What will Mommy do next? Does she nag? Does she panic? Will she chase me?” Your reaction determines whether he’ll take one step closer or another step farther away.

Think about how futile nagging is. It gives him the reassurance that he can continue to be distant and you will still be there. Very little is negotiated with words. He doesn’t sit down and say, “Look, I want to be lazy in this relationship. But I’d like you to keep cooking me meals and I’d like you to keep having sex with me whenever it is convenient for me. In fact, I’m a little horny right now…wanna hop on?”

One would think a woman who’d accept these terms would have to be high on crack. Yet women accept these terms every day. Nonstop. “What went wrong?” she asks. In the beginning he went out of his way to show her he’s a gentleman; he opened car doors, he let her order first, and so on. So he knows how to treat a woman. The slacking off happens gradually without any negotiation and certainly without her consent, so she doesn’t fully realize it is happening until things have gotten so off course. Then she nags to try to get them back on.

Once a woman realizes a man is going into “couch potato” mode, she often mistakenly tries to address it. “You never take me out or bring me flowers anymore.” Or, “We never spend time together.” This is a sign to a man that he
has her right where he wants her.
Now he doesn’t participate because, in his mind, all it takes to satisfy her is his presence. He quips, “I’m with you, aren’t I?”

To get the three-year-old to run back to Mommy, she has to stay just
outside his reach
. The reason nagging keeps her within his reach is that he senses she is “locked down” waiting for him. She may be waiting for him to give more, participate more, or be more attentive in some way. But she’s still waiting.
On hold.

The only thing worse than him being locked in a cage is the feeling that he has you locked in his. Hence the need for a 180-degree change as prescribed in this chapter.

When he takes you for granted, you’ve triggered the same kind of love he had for his mother, grandmother, or some other woman who raised him. Now you’ve become “old faithful.” No matter how much you scream at him, he knows you aren’t going anywhere. “She may kick my ass, but she’ll still love me and I can do whatever I want.” And it’s this very security blanket you
don’t
want him to have.

Men know it’s wrong, but they’ll still try to see how far they can push the envelope. As one man said to me, “Men will get away with what you let them get away with.” That isn’t to say there aren’t great guys out there. But a man with integrity, or anyone with integrity for that matter, doesn’t want something they haven’t earned. That’s why a high-caliber self-respecting guy will be attracted to a woman who won’t let someone walk all over her.

If he takes you for granted and you pull back a little with no explanation, it catches him off-guard and gets his attention bigtime. You’re no longer acting in a way he is used to and you are no longer his mommy. This action generates desire for you as a lover. But if you posture yourself as “old faithful,” he’ll perceive you as his mother and he’ll take you for granted.

Failure to get enough attention isn’t the only thing women complain about. Often women nag about household chores. Again, you have to condition him
without
words. Most men don’t particularly care if the place doesn’t look great or if it’s messy. Most guys are happy to come home and plunk down on the couch with the worn-out spot and his butt imprint on it. He doesn’t care if the sink is full of dishes from the day before or that his shoes left muddy prints all over the carpet.

When you’re standing in a grocery line and you look at people with children, you’ll notice that the mother who has control over her child doesn’t nag or holler. She says one sentence or she gives the child a look. Because the child respects her and he is not sure what will happen next, he’ll straighten up. Words are not needed to teach a man how to treat you. A little bit of silence or distance will often do the trick.

Sometimes as a lover you will have to set forth terms that are also in the best interest of the “diapered one.” Why?
He
is a man
. And there will forever be a three-year-old trapped inside him.

All of the behavioral changes discussed in this chapter allow you to keep a calm, charming, and pleasant demeanor. The objective is to avoid being his mother and to make the transition back to being his lover.

A man can’t correlate sexual feelings with feelings for his mother. So be careful of the female figure that you become in his life. To stay his lover, you have to keep him on his toes. This behavior incites his interest and makes him come your way. He is happier being your lover than he is when you become his mother. Granted, he looks comfortable and content on the couch. But he isn’t content when you become his mother because he no longer has a lover…and neither do you.

The balance of this chapter gives you insight into how to turn things around and bring him back to pursuit mode when his mind drifts elsewhere. Men are hunters. What he gets from the nice girl is a protective kind of motherly love that lessens his sexual desire. He doesn’t pursue his mom. What the nice girl needs to understand is that it takes the heat out of it for a man when you give him a predictable security blanket.