found this today and thought it was pretty interesting:
http://postmasculine.com/the-power-of-th...care-giver
http://postmasculine.com/the-power-of-th...care-giver
Quote:Quote:
Earlier this year, I returned back to Boston for the first time in almost six months. I had been traveling steadily and consistently for the past eight months and when I arrived home for the summer, it marked the first time that I was living in the United States for more than a few weeks since mid-2009.
When I got home I was excited to actually date a girl consistently over multiple months again, as when you travel, you’re really severely limited by when you’re leaving or when she’s leaving, etc.
And that’s what I did, when I got back to Boston, I immediately started dating two different women. We’ll call them Ava and Susie.
Ava was similar to the women I typically stick with for more than a month. She was smart, driven and successful, beautiful and a bit of a party girl. She had a biting sense of humor and could throw back beers with the best of them. She was strong and assertive, but not in a domineering or bitchy way, just a confident and attractive way. I met her during the day and when I stopped her to tell her I thought she was cute, she smiled and said, “Well, with a line like that, how could I not talk to you?” When we went out, we had a ton of fun, danced and inevitably ended up drunk and hooking up. Again, pretty standard for girls I date.
Susie was nothing like the standard girls I date. She was a little meek and timid. A short and petite blond but naturally very beautiful, although she didn’t dress ostentatiously or flaunt it in any big way. She rarely drank. I met her through a friend at a get-together. When I made a move to try and kiss her, her immediate response was, “Why are you doing this? I just met you.” I ended up going home with her that night but not having sex. She was very traditional. She cooked me breakfast the next morning… at 8AM… on a Saturday. She got excited about things such as reality TV shows, new cookbook recipes, and phone calls with her sisters. Some guys like girls like this, but I usually don’t. Even after me staying over a few times, she was still noticeably shy and reserved in bed. Our conversations often ran out after the first hour of seeing each other, and we had few mutual interests.
As the month wore on, I saw both of these girls regularly. It was clear in my mind that I liked Ava a lot more. She was sassy and sexy. A ton of fun. But something strange started to happen… I started spending more and more time at Susie’s. In fact, I have pretty strict rules about dating women casually, one of them being that I never sleep over more than once a week… and I was breaking that by a mile with Susie… I was staying over there 2-3 days a week at times, often not leaving until 6PM the next day.
And here’s why… and prepare for this to totally sound misogynistic, but it’s true. She cooked for me. Every meal. When she came over, she’d clean my apartment and do my laundry. I never told her to do any of this stuff. She just enjoyed doing it, and why the hell would I stop her? But suddenly I found myself not leaving. Suddenly, I found myself sitting in front of her TV all day watching lame TV shows with her, because she had just served me an awesome meal and made special margaritas for us while we watched a cheesy movie. She would cuddle up next to me and somehow I’d end up sleeping over again (after timid and mediocre sex). Still, we had nothing substantial to talk about, and barely any chemistry. She seemed to enjoy the male company and somebody to pamper. As for me, as if by pure inertia, it was easier for me to stay there and be taken care of than for me to get up and deal with the high’s and low’s of trying to pick up another girl. So I stuck around.
The funny thing was that consciously I was bored out of my mind. But on a very primal and instinctual level, I was extremely satisfied. When I spent nights with Ava, she usually kicked me out by 7AM because she had to get to her internship. When I hung out with her, it usually was just to meet at a bar and get drunk and fuck because she was so busy with her school (she was in vet school).
Ava dropped off the map fairly quickly. She was too busy during the week, and I was often busy during the weekend. We enjoyed each other a lot but one day she just called me and very plainly said “this can’t work” as if it was some calculation she had just completed on a napkin.
Susie on the other hand… I was spending more time with her than I had with any girl since my girlfriend and I was beginning to feel bad because I actually didn’t like her that much. She just treated me so damn well.
Ava was one of those girls who despite being very attractive hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in years… she was always too busy or partying too hard. Susie, on the other hand, was used to having a boyfriend whenever she wanted. Despite not being the sexiest, or most exciting, or most glamorous, or even the most interesting girl… she could keep a guy happy and content… in fact, she could keep a guy happy as well as any foreign girl I’ve ever been with, which says a LOT.
One day, not long after Ava broke it off with me, I told Susie that I was going to go to Asia for two months in the Fall. She got a slightly disappointed look on her face although she didn’t seem surprised. As if I had just confirmed something that she had been thinking in her mind for a while. She smiled and told me she was excited for me. That was the last time I saw her. Despite me calling and texting her multiple times over the next two weeks, she never responded.
My grandmother used to always joke that she won my grandfather over by cooking for him. She used to say, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I thought it was a cute joke. But it got me thinking — again, none of this is scientific — but maybe there’s something to it.
And this is coming from a guy who generally isn’t attracted to the old-fashioned, stay-in-the-kitchen girls. I like my women edgy, ambitious, adventurous and a little bit crazy. But every time I’ve dated a woman who knew how to really take care of me, there’s been a STRONG unconscious draw to them. I can’t even classify it as attraction, because it’s not. It’s a gut-level response of, “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here with her.” Which, anyone who knows me at all, knows that this is a VERY odd response for me to have.
