Security or fantasy: which rules a woman’s mind?

“How can you love someone without the trust of their soul?  Surely no matter how obsessed or infatuated, the two simply go hand in hand to form one.  The trust acts as the feeder for love, and once starved of trust, the love can only die.”

                 

I remember watching a horror movie in the late 1980’s when I was a little boy.  It was an 18 rated certificate, film but my Mum was kind of good like that.  She’d hire it out for me and my friend to watch as ten year old kids, much to kill a bit of summer holiday boredom for us as much as anything else.  Curtains would be closed to form a room of darkness, with popcorn and cookies on the table.

In truth, even at this tender age the film left us scratching our heads.  Scary and nerve tension scenes were few and far between, whilst the storyline lacked any real substance in terms of beginning, middle and end.  It was pretty much left open for a sequel - which happened a year later.

Although it meant nothing to me at the time, many years later I couldn’t help but think more about the sub-plot in the film rather than the purpose (if there was one) of the film itself.  Basically, a beautiful woman in her late 20s was married to a rich, average looking, financially secure and boring man who looked about 10 years older than her.  He was the typical nice guy beta male, trying and saying anything to make her happy.  Even then, I recollect her facial expressions in desperately forcing a smile and seeking reassurance that life was actually worth living.

One day, when her husband was away with work, the back door knocked and she opened it to see a younger man (around the same age as her) standing in the pouring rain.  He was far better looking than her husband, in an unshaven and rugged way, with a look in his eye that couldn’t give a care in the world.  You could tell that he looked the irresponsible, jobless and inconsiderate bad boy type, and he looked into her eyes asking if he could enter the house.  The look in her eyes painted a thousand words.  She was a contrast of excitement, intrigue and infatuation, alongside fright, intimidation and fear of her potential uncontrolled emotions.  It turns out this guy was her husband’s younger half brother.  Within two scenes of the film the two of them were having aggressive, steamy and unconditional sex.  As they lay in bed, post orgasm, he looked moody and unconcerned, whilst she stroked his leg begging him to stay in town and offering to do anything for him.  He did leave, probably onto his next conquest.

If this sub-plot in the film does not emphasize the trials and tribulations of a rich beta male, attractive woman and bad boy relationship triangle, then nothing ever will.  I’ve come away from so many cinemas with ex-girlfriends after watching the typical “sweet loving” man capture the vulnerable woman.  We would step into the car with her speaking the words of “what a lovely guy, every woman’s dream is a romantic man”.  I can guarantee 10 minutes later, once the vision of that film has been erased from her mind, she would realize this is the last thing that truly turns on her passion compulsions.  She will just never admit this, and she will continue with the fairytale fiction of romance.  But one small sub-plot in a film like this would replicate the emotions of millions of women around the world right now.

So if this is the case, how on earth do inundated numbers of attractive women end up with a perennial nice guy at some point in their lives?  Well firstly, not many women will concede in their conscious mind that they are with a man who is a beta male (many do not even know what a beta means in attraction), and they will devise a vision of him being far more interesting and intriguing than he actually is in reality.  Equally true is that only a small percentage will concede they are with the typical bad boy type.  This only happens in her sub-conscious mind.  If she confessed to being with someone who is so nice and unchallenging it would be like her admitting she only sees him as a friend.  If she concedes she is with someone who is on the bad scale, she will worry what others think of her for openly admitting to dating guys like this.  So it is all internal, even though she is aware of it.

Most women have dated at least one bad boy before settling down with a nice guy.  This is all part of growing up and learning from experiences.  Often she will have her first true boyfriend as a nice guy, but these relationships rarely last for the long term such is her need to experience something more challenging.  There is also a fair argument that women actually desire to be in long term relationships, and beyond, with bad boys, but they settle for nice guys as the former group are more rare in existence – therefore harder to track down or drive them to commitment.  But nearly all women, especially physically attractive women, will reach a stage when she needs the following three things in her life:

• To be idolized by a boyfriend.
• To find financial security.
• To be with someone where she perceived herself to have higher physical value than him.

We all are aware that most beta males will tick all those three boxes:

• He will idolize her because he can’t do better than her in attractiveness terms.
• He can offer her financial security that a low earning bad boy will be unable to.
• She will live in the knowledge she is more visually impressive than him, therefore she feels valued not only by him, but in herself too.

In the short term, all three aspects are seen as positives to a woman in this situation.  However, as time goes on, point two stays as a positive, but point one and point three turn into negatives.  Not many women would ever turn down financial security, especially if it meant they never had to work again and they could spend their lives walking down shopping streets for materialistic things to paper over the cracks of unhappiness.  But the idolizing factor is now seen as a man who simply does this because he cannot get anyone better, and we know women like to think other women want their man - they just don’t want him to actually cheat.  And what she once enjoyed in having higher physical value than him is now seen as a lack of a challenge.  This all points to the perennial beta male meets beautiful woman dynamic.  So in essence, she has to weigh up in her mind whether the financial security and money side of things is worth staying with him.  The older she becomes, the more likely this will carry more weight.  She is also not getting any more attractive, and her options with other alpha men will not be as high as they once were.  This acts like the beta husband’s neutralizing weapon - he’s managed to hold onto her long enough for her to become less desirable to other men. The only problem is that her mind is still in the same place as it always was.  She may have rationalized a little in terms of knowing he gives her a secure life, but how strong are her sexual urges once a visceral temptation comes her way?

So as a man, who are you better off being?  The nice guy who gets the hot girl but has to work multi-fold harder to keep her, or the bad boy who has the armory to have sexual encounters with her on his terms?  Women want the fantasy of the bad boy, but the financial security of the nice guy.  Depending on how bored she is, coupled with how much she has to lose financially, this will usually combine to result in whether she adulterates.  She wants both, but it is almost a non-existent commodity.  No matter how beautiful a woman is, if a man is acting in a bad boy manner he will only see her as the same as another woman with a sexual entrance to his world.  If he’s a fundamental nice guy, as most men are, he’s got a fixed thought in his head that the better he treats her the more she will appreciate it.  There is one problem with this easily made assumption - he doesn’t understand women.  He doesn’t realize that the higher the bar he places, the higher she will raise it the following day.

What a beta male fails to ever acknowledge is that he actually has a huge advantage.  At the end of the day the bad boy will always have an expiry date.  She knows this, and he (the bad boy) also often knows this.  From his point of view it is no issue as he’ll just move on.  But surely a woman can only keep moving from one bad boy to the next before she feels cheap.  If the nice guy just stepped back, stopped doing so much for her, refrained from jealous and supplicated ways, and acted more like he was the main man in his life, she would see him in a more attractive way - and not be so tempted by jerks.  But he doesn’t.  Such is his admiration and infatuation of her is that he continues to chop up the wood with the same blunt sword.  It is the ever so common predicament of a man who believes he can never do better.

There is an unfortunate and twisted reality of life: this is the distinction of our feelings to find love against our sexual fantasies.  The painful truth, both from a female and male perspective, is we cannot satisfy both predilections.  A man searches long and hard for a feminine, caring, warm-hearted and considerate woman who he can aspire to one day label her his wife.  A woman, whilst not needing a man who is too nice in day to day life, will fundamentally set her heart on finding a man who offers intermittency in romance, protectiveness, firmness, affection, support and honesty.  However, although this is the route to love, neither party is completely satisfied with their optimum sexual compulsions within this relationship.  A man, deep down, would concede his day time princess in replacement for a lady of the night in the bedroom.  A woman, usually in denial of this fantasy, craves for the prince to transform into her forbidden bad boy once the lights go out. 

Even those most genuinely in love would silently confess this is the case.  The simple reality is that our erotic compulsions are most aroused when existing in the forbidden world that is detached from the emotions of love.