Women wearing engagement rings

“Never tell an expert how to do their job,

and instead humbly tell them what you would like doing.”

If I could pinpoint one decisive error I made with judgments of women in my younger and more naïve days, it would be the misinterpretation of how important an engagement ring was if seen on a female I was sexually attracted to.  For that matter, I would have also misconstrued in a similar fashion with women I was not keen on, as the principle is the same on both counts.

The first time I questioned the whole validity of rings of any kind seen on the female commitment finger was when I occasionally watched American reality TV programs, and similar in kind.  Certain girls or women would be sporting a ring on the left hand finger that is always associated as being committed to a man (or another woman these days), yet then in the midst of conversation they would allude to being single.  In any case, they were most certainly not engaged.  Maybe this is a North American thing, and I have not spent enough time there to know one way or the other in terms of the reasons behind this common observation.

First and foremost, I think it is only fair for women to know how most guys would assess an engagement ring on a woman in comparison to a woman not exploiting the same piece of jewelry.  Some women do have a tendency to arrogantly and ignorantly stroll through life claiming to not give a care about what men think of them, and that men must abide with who she is and what she does, but they can’t have it both ways.  If a woman doesn’t care what men think to her, then fair enough, but then don’t go moaning that they are not too proactive towards your existence due to the choices you have made.  So in respect to all this, I pretty much speak for the majority of the male population that, if all else is equal – which in the main is your comparative physical attractiveness -  we would pursue the woman not wearing an engagement ring and form a reluctance towards her female counterpart who is showing the bling. 

Nevertheless, engagement rings do not tell much of a story behind how much in love and infatuated a woman is with the man who bought it for her.  Sure, he will be her boyfriend in a relationship status manner, but you need to see the truth behind the diamonds to ascertain the likely future avenues they will take.  Will it lead to the altar, or is the more likely event one of him being left with a broken heart – with or without the ring left behind?

It is pertinent to understand why a woman would most like to wear an engagement ring, irrespective to how much intention she has for being with the man for a lifetime.  I offer you 3 main explanations:

• The vast majority of women take comfort in the internal and external knowledge of attaining a boyfriend.  The internal need derives from feeling special and knowing someone loves her, whilst the external requirements are a recipe that is the natural innate female concern to how people perceive her.  With most women, the absence of a boyfriend can cause enormous doubts in their minds with relevance to their whole worth to the world.  An engagement ring dispels, in her mind at least, any such vulnerability.
• Nearly all women, of all shapes and sizes, positively feed off a level of attention that is received from both men and women alike.   Some need it more than others, but what cannot be denied is 99% of women require it more than 99% of men.  This will usually come in the form of how great they look or how “cool” they are, but other methods can be found too.  Once more, the knowledge of an engagement ring on her finger will project more eyes onto her existence.
• A woman is an emotional wreck competitive animal, and although they will all come across as smiley and genuine in the face of their female peers being happy with their relative male partners, just about each and every one of them wants to believe her relationship is that bit more special and important than the next one.  Place an engagement ring on her finger, and add some fuel to the fire about how much her man does for her, how much he loves her and the castle in where they will marry, and her bond is then unofficially fired to the top of the league.

Unfortunately, many of these women forgot about one small item when they got engaged.  The primary motivation was how she felt in herself, and the secondary, almost oblivious, emotion was how she felt about him.  This is where men need to be careful, and they should ask the question, sooner rather than later, to where her motives truthfully sit.  If he can honestly say her feelings towards him are genuine, effortless and empathetic, he can, at least for now, say she is the one to make an honest person of him.  If it appears she is spending more time showing off to her friends and striving for social network comments than she is in making him happy, I suggest he has second thoughts.  The choice will always be yours, but if you read an article like this after you have been taken for a ride, and you still continue to make the same mistakes in the future, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

The unfortunate reality is that, generally speaking, women settle down with the men they are least sexually attracted to.  A small percentage of men do not settle down at the same age as women are inclined to do so because these men have options with other women.  Women, deny it as they will, like men who have options with women, because a man with alternatives shows he is a man worth having.  Men with fewer options are naturally more willing to settle down, often to the point where they instigate the rapidness to get married more than the woman, simply because he believes he cannot do better and that a marriage label will lock her down.  This is a foolish misconception, as if a woman wants to cheat on him, she will do it whether married or not.

And real life observations will back up what happens.  I would think there are many women you can think of who were accustomed to flirting with certain men in their wilder days, yet a few years down the line the man who put the ring on her finger looks nothing like the men from her past.  She may claim she has grown up and is far more mature and appreciate of giving men, but I wouldn’t be too sure this is the main reason.  The truth is she has now settled for the man she is with.

Many more women do not go through with it, because they are still young enough to be with a man who gives them butterflies.  Some of them do the honest thing and let him down before they act out the inevitable infidelity process.  But a good percentage of them carry on regardless, in hope that a ring, wedding day, honeymoon and, sometimes kids, will paper over the cracks of what was a love that was never organic, true or real.

So these days I, as the happy hunter, take the emblem of an engagement ring far less seriously than years gone by.  On sporadic occasions life surprises me, and I see the woman with a well suited man – hence a similar looking man in relative terms.  However, more often the man looks exactly how I imagined him in my peripheral vision.

Q-tip 1:

One of the worst mistakes a man can make in a relationship is to buy his girlfriend a “commitment” ring.  If she heavily suggests it on numerous occasions, then ok, the bad move is mitigated to an extent, but I still would advise against this deliverable.  Because a man who feels the need for his girlfriend to show her loyalty, faithfulness and committed love towards him fundamentally identifies a man who lives in trepidation of losing his lover to a better male candidate.

In the short term, a woman will feel better about her life due to the thought that a man values her so much, but over time, any half decent woman will resent being with someone who lives in fear of her potential departure.  She will know (if she didn’t already) that he believes he can do no better than her.  And hardly any women admire men who are emblematic of silently stating “I am so lucky to have her” or “I can do no better”, because deep down in their honest veins, a woman is more attracted to a man who keeps her wondering if she is good enough for him.

Q-tip 2:

If you are one of these men having doubts about your girlfriend’s integrity, take on this small and easy analysis.  Compare the ratio between how many times she is proactive in kissing you in private, in relation to the quantity of likewise moves she makes when external parties are around her vicinity or it is for benefit of posting on her social network pages.  If the ratio is high in respect to private:public, it is a fair assumption her love for you is born out of natural and empathetic instincts.  If the ratio is in the favour of public:private, this is a tell tale sign that she is more in it for herself than concerns for the collective partnership.  With knowledge of this, and after you have used her to your optimum benefit, it is the exact point where you should move on to something better without a tear in your eye.