Men go hard for what they truly want, so if he isn’t going hard for you; you aren’t what he truly wants, walk away and be grateful for the heads-up.

I saw something close to the above the other day traveling through the Facebook pages of women I know. I thought to myself, ‘yes, this is probably true but for one thing’, the women they are chasing. You know, all of us, we are not always the easiest, softest or most accessible targets in creation for them to ‘go hard for’ or catch. So, if going after us ‘hard’ doesn’t seem to be happening, should we take at least part of the blame for our decision to demand political correctness over hard courtship.

Think about it ladies, what is it we want or what message is it we send when we talk about men, whether the men in our lives or the men we want in our lives. Do we send a mixed message? Does the man of our fantasy come with a pair of clippers we can use to emasculate him upon capturing his attention? Do we have a secret rule book we pull out and does it match up to what we say we want in a man? Are we truly prepared for what it is we want from a man or are we blowing smoke up our own skirts?

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that defined the beginnings of the Grown Assed Man I wanted in my life sometime in the future. I said then I wasn’t ready, since then I have been challenged in my thinking, part of the challenge was would I recognize that mystery man if he showed up on my doorstep, the other part though was what would I do if he did. I think all of us, women that is, have to consider those questions; this is especially true if we have a history, whether it is a love history, marriage history or any history involving men and our relationship to them. All of our history goes into making us, we wrap ourselves in layers of protective swaddling bought with our hearts and hurts, only showing what we choose only letting in what we think is safe. We have learned, from our sisters over wine and bitch sessions, ‘Grown Assed Men’ might not be the safest partners, in fact though we build our fantasies around strong, capable, smart and sometimes militant men, ones who will ‘go hard’ after us and make us feel desired in every part of our lives, these are not the men we allow to catch us, these men scare the hell out of us. These men, these hard, grown assed men, they tell us they want to own our hearts, our souls, our bodies and while we might want to polish the silver platter and hand it over, kneeling down in front of them to do so, most of us won’t do it, we will run hard and fast in the other direction. These men are not what we have been taught to let catch us.

What we have learned, from our friends, from modern life, from hours upon hours of media, from divorce is to be hard ourselves. We have learned to show no weakness, as women we have defined ourselves based on our strength, our ability to take everything on without being dependent. We have learned that showing submissiveness, even in our private lives is a sign of weakness rather than strength and trust. What we are in the boardroom carries into all facets of our lives, from home, to money to bedroom; no quarter asked or given. As women we have armored ourselves against the world and told men to stand down and stand aside; don’t open our doors, don’t pull out our chairs, don’t stroke us, pet us, pamper us or otherwise treat us like ladies or cherished, don’t act like our protectors. Don’t behave as if we need protection or are in anyway ‘inferior’ or we will kick them in the balls, emasculate them with our sharp tongues. If we feel we are at all threatened by the strength and will of that grown assed man we secretly wanted but were scared to death to open up to, scared our friends would hate, scared we would give too, we will run like hell. What we run to is someone softer, some other model more complicit in our agreement to lie to ourselves about what it is we truly want.

Men go hard for what they truly want? Why though would they want us in our bitterness.

Women need to begin to do the same, our going hard needs to be some self-examination though. If we are afraid of the fantasy of the grown assed man who will treat us properly, perhaps it is us not them. If we run to hard from that man showing up on our doorstep, we might need to look inside ourselves and ask why we don’t recognize what is standing before us, instead turning to what is weak and unable to cherish our strength and our spirit. If a man holds your door, wraps his arm around you to keep you from stumbling, acts as your strength so you can simply feel are you trapped or freed? As women we need to begin looking at the trap we have set for ourselves, with our demand we be treated just like them.

Our strength isn’t diminished by our softness, we are women our softness, our ability to feel and heal is part of our strength. We are the flip side of the coin, not the same side. Why do we want to emulate men, rather than strengthen them? Yes, I know there are parts of our lives we are and should be absolutely on equal ground, work, education, opportunity and pay. This though is not what I am talking about and I would never suggest I don’t believe in equality in the boardroom, only that perhaps we have carried our demands for equality too far.

It is simply my rambling thoughts for the day. I don’t know what I would do if that Grown Assed Man showed up on my doorstep. I hope as I continue to explore my relationship with myself and my mystery man, I will figure it out.