Men, if you want to be with a woman these days, you need to be a partner, and not a project. And not for their sake, but for your own. Here’s why. And how.
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MANY YOUNGER men today find themselves single and without a partner. A commonly heard explanation is that is due in large part to women’s increasing independence, especially their financial and sexual independence: they’re more likely to select only the top few percent of men, who enjoy all the attention, while the rest flounder.
Now, while there may be some truth to that argument, there is an easy counter, which is this: when men had all the economic power and sexual freedom, which means pretty much since forever, we didn’t find only the hottest 10% of women getting married. So, unless women are way more brutally materialistic and ambitious than men, that argument doesn’t have a lot of legs.
There’s another reason why I, as a coach, don’t buy into that reasoning. It’s disempowering. It places the power to do anything about it outside of the man who is offering it. I believe in every person’s ability to overcome their circumstance. So, I’m about you—and I’m talking to those men now—finding your way to an empowered solution, for yourself, and not allowing yourself to be limited by a narrative.
I also have some personal experience of this. Firstly, as a white male in South Africa, where black economic empowerment policies and practices have severely restricted my employment options, I’ve never complained. I’ve always gone for a solution. Secondly, I’ve always tried to live a balanced lifestyle and have pursued meaning more than money, so I’m not super-wealthy, I’m not one of those billion-dollar exiters, as I call them. Yet I’ve never had that be an issue in terms of finding and being with a woman. In fact, the women I’ve been with have almost always earned more than me and that’s never been an issue, for them or for me.
Here’s what I think is going on.
Women are pushing men towards the next stage of our evolution
I think we can say that women have always been the main civilising influence for men. I mean, it’s usually to impress a woman that a guy cleans up his act, isn’t it? It’s for a woman—or the hope of finding a woman—that a man will join a gym and exercise to build his confidence or find a job and buy a car so that he can take a woman on a date and hopefully impress her. Who knows? If it wasn’t for women, we men might well be living in some version of Lord of the Flies. I’m being partly flippant, and it’s easy to see that women have pushed men to evolve much more than they would have on their own. And perhaps that’s all that’s happening now, is that women are pushing men towards the next stage of our evolution. They’re sending us a message.
Let me explain.
There’s the joke—we can probably say anachronistic joke—that goes like this: a woman is getting married and she’s frantic that she won’t remember what to do. “It’s simple,” says her bridesmaid after she’s heard this for the umpteenth time. “You walk up the aisle. You stand at the altar. You sing the first hymn.” So the bride creates a little mantra for herself. It goes, “Aisle, altar, hymn. Aisle, altar, hymn. Aisle, altar, hymn.” Of course, if you say that out loud it starts to sound like, “I’ll alter him.” In other words, she’ll do what many women have attempted to do, which is to change her man in some way. To civilise him. To make him more sensitive, more responsible, more something. Few have succeeded. Instead, they mostly ended up frustrated, even exasperated.
It’s no good arguing about who started it, men, take the message
The point is that women have always made men their project. They didn’t ask and men didn’t agree, but that doesn’t matter. They still got angry with men for not accepting the task. Now, however, it seems that many women have woken up to the fact—as represented by the Julia Roberts meme below—that they’ve been turning men into their project, and they’re looking at it and saying they don’t want to do that anymore.
Women being economically independent probably has a lot to do with it. They just don’t have to put up with that stuff anymore. They have better things to do with their time and energy. Relationships are important, but not that important. And as with any trend or movement, responses are going to be a continuum, so it’s no surprise that some women have decided to go the solo route—or what started in South Korea and has spread to America as the 4B movement. I think those are more extreme, however. I’ve also read that that trend has faded somewhat in Korea.
And yes, as a man, it does feel like women are also blaming men for the fact of the project in the first place. Which is a bit unfair, if you think about it, because they never really asked us. I will address this in a separate article, but for now, let’s recognise that it won’t help anybody to try to win the argument about who started it. Instead, we men should take the essence of the message, which is that women want a partner and not a project, and work with that. Because I genuinely do believe it will be useful for us to listen. Plus, it’s a more empowered and empowering perspective, because it means you can do something about it.
The ratio of women developing themselves versus men is easily 70:30 or even 80:20, based on audiences.
Let me add this. For the past two decades, I’ve been in the personal development space, running workshops and coaching individuals. The ratio of women developing themselves versus men is easily 70:30 or even 80:20, based on audiences. If my wife runs a workshop for women, she might get 80 attendees. If I do the same for men, I’ll be lucky to get 8. Unless it’s a religious gathering. Men seem to flock to those. So, when women have moved into the space of partner, not project, while men are blaming economic factors instead of themselves, there’s an answer right there.
Sorry, guys, but I am on your side here. I do want to help you. It might just not be the medicine you want to take. Let me be clear on the prescription: Men, if you want to be with a woman, you need to become a partner, and not a project. And not for their sake, but for your own.
So, what does it mean that we should become a partner and not a project?
Listen, respond, and don’t be a pushover
In its essence, being a partner and not a project means, firstly, to listen. Like really listen to what your partner is saying. And listen to understand, not listen so that you can correct everything with facts.
Then, second, is to respond. Respond is different from react. To react is to have a knee-jerk reaction, to give an unaware, automatic, perhaps typically male, response. Like mansplaining or being defensive, or the one I mentioned, insisting that you have the facts when really what’s on the table is a matter of the heart.
In its essence, being a partner and not a project means, firstly, to listen. Like really listen. That doesn’t mean be a pushover.
That said, don’t be a pushover. Don’t be so overly attentive that you’re perfect, because women do still want some sort of a project. They still want some part of you that is out of reach, just not all of you. (I’m only half joking when I say this: if a woman gets exactly the man she wants, she probably won’t want him anymore.)
And this is not about playing games, it just means do it for your own sake and use it to develop yourself into a better person, don’t do it to please her. Let the woman’s asking guide you, point you in a few directions, but don’t actually become everything she asks just because she asks it. That’s not at all what I’m saying.
Five pointers to being a partner, not a project
I’ll be offering more on this topic in this channel. For now, let me give you some pointers to being a partner and not a project:
- Demonstrate self-care and home care. These are the first signs that a woman is not going to have to look after you. Have a grooming routine. Be able to choose your own wardrobe with some level of sophistication, by which I mean knowing what you want, having made reference to information that’s out there, fashion magazines or blogs or YouTubers or whatever. Keep a tidy, organised home and do your own laundry and cleaning, so that she can feel comfortable that that’s not what you need her for. Stock your fridge with real food and make meals for yourself and her.
- Pursue your goals with your feet on the ground. A woman will want to know that you’re self-reliant and capable, not (these days) so much that you can take care of her, but that she won’t have to take care of you. If you’re an idealist or dreamer with your head in the clouds, thinking you’re too good to get a real job because one day the world will recognise your brilliance and she’ll be lucky to be with you, you’re scaring her. Unless she’s a rescuer, she’s going to run a mile. And if she’s a rescuer, you’ll be making yourself her project, which puts us back at Begin.
- Make your work important, but not the only thing. If your work is the only thing that matters to you, it says two things about you: firstly, that you’re ultimately not looking for a partner, but a placeholder for something (arm candy, wallflower, mother, cleaner-upper, pet, sex doll, whatever). It also says that you have no sense of self aside from work and achievement, and that indicates a rather brittle, maybe shallow, personality. You need to find out who you are aside from work and achievement and be that person—once again, for your own sake, though she may guide you to it.
- Develop your self-awareness and your emotional language. This is changing now, but historically, most men have had a limited vocabulary when it comes to their inner world and their emotions. In men’s groups, you often see the emotional wheel being presented: it shows a circle with only five partitions, each one representing a broad category of emotions: mad (angry), bad (guilty), sad (depressed), glad (happy), and afraid. Once they’ve familiarised themselves with those, the men then move out to the next concentric circle, which has more words per category and so on. If you find yourself needing something like that, then google it. At the same time, don’t overdo it and become all shiny and woke. That can be a bit off-putting. As I said, women still want some sort of project.
- Be willing to be wrong, and to be guided. This one is important. Somewhere inside the male ego is the feeling that he needs to be right, to be in charge, to always get his way. This is especially true when it comes to family members, where we feel a sense of ownership. You don’t own anybody, not your partner, nor your kids. Having to win, be right, get your way, is often a sign of fragility—not always, I’m not saying be a pushover, but often it’s not needed. The discernment about when it’s needed or not comes with maturity. A mature man who is strongly connected to his spirit doesn’t need to get his way, doesn’t need to be right. He can watch, with mild amusement, while the world goes about its ways—and that includes members of his own family, and even if they make mistakes or do things “wrong”.
Right, so there you have it, my view on whether men should be women’s projects, or partners. Clearly, I’m on the side of the men—being partners for their own sakes, and nobody being anybody’s project.
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