RELATIONSHIPS
Should Men Always Be Scared of Disappointing Women?
If you believe some of the more popular interpretations of modern dating practices, there are apparently few mortal sins committed by men worse than disappointing women.
A lot of guys now claim to walk a fine line between attractive confidence and careful obedience, just to have a shot at dating modern women.
Is this mentality an unfortunate side effect of feminism? Or an exaggerated complaint by those who prefer traditional gender roles?
Frankly, that’s a question that’s going to take a long time to answer, and even much longer to really do justice to. In any case, it’s not what I’m interested in pondering.
What I want to ask is if the idea has any merit at all.
Should men really live in constant fear of disappointing women?
Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Many say that to love is to fear.
That to love a thing is to fear losing it. That to love a person is to fear the idea of hurting them.
That to love is to fear the pain that often comes with the very act of loving.
When you disappoint someone, it usually means you fall short of their expectations of you. You failed to live up to what they wanted you to be.
For men in relationships, disappointing women can mean a lot of things.
It can mean failing to keep your promises and commitments to your girlfriend or wife.
Or being unable to read her mind when she wants you to know her needs and wants.
Or changing into a kind of person who is too different from the man she first loved and chose to be with.
Being afraid of disappointing someone you love is an expected consequence of loving them — of having their opinion matter and striving to make them proud of you.
But is fearing disappointment all there is for men and their relationships with women?
Walking on Eggshells
Even if you’re the type to believe that people can’t have love without fear, you’d still be hard pressed to claim that fear is the only motivation for love.
As such, the fear of disappointing women should also only be a facet of loving women, not its entirety.
Is a man who loves a woman supposed to try his best to live up to her expectations of him? Certainly. It comes with the territory. In fact, the same applies to a woman who loves a man and who wants to live up to his expectations of her.
But should a man build his relationship with the woman he loves around the fear of disappointing her? I don’t think so.
It’s exhausting, is what it is: to constantly walk on eggshells because every little mistake can end everything.
It also matters that the reasons behind different degrees of fear are not the same.
Being scared of disappointing the woman you love because you care about her opinion of you is one thing.
Being scared of disappointing women because society will judge you for your actions and brand you unfit to love women is entirely another.
Perhaps we owe it to ourselves to ask not just whether men always fear women’s disappointment but also if expecting them to be is too tall an order.
