She Just Doesn’t Care About You: Self Interest in Relationships

by Martin

“Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory”

-Cervantes

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Women don’t care how men (that means you!) feel until they’re “in love” and even then, they’re really just worried you’ll get rid of them.

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Growing up, my mother used to say to me, “Get a good job and a good woman will come and find you.” To me, this meant someone who would support me, help me reach my goals and dreams, look out for me, take care of me, and would love me forever.

However, as I got more and more experience with women, I had some rather disturbing revelations. The first one was that I was brought up to be self-sacrificing for the people that are important in my life and I believed that women grew up the same way. My “job” was to make my partner happy.  And with both me and her on the same page, things would work out wonderfully.

Over time, I realized that my model of what was supposed to happen (and the models that I saw in the media) were totally different from my real world experience. In my own family, I started to realize that my father put way more work into my mother than the other way around.

Us men are action oriented and when our woman is not happy, our first instinct is to do something about it. Women on the other hand, seem pretty ambivalent about our wants and needs.

In marketing they tell you that everyone’s favorite radio station is WIIFM, What’s In It For Me radio. I didn’t realize that this type of self interest applied to relationships, too.  In fact, I refused to believe it despite getting smacked in the face with it again and again. I’ll never forget how much it stung when my first girlfriend, who I lived with, said angrily to me, “I can’t fuck you all the time!” – as she shunned my sexual advance yet again that week. I remember thinking, “Ouch! All the time?!  I’m 20 years old, you’re my first girlfriend, and I sleep next you every night – yet we barely have sex once a week?!” And I here I was, thinking that she loved me… Yet in the meanwhile she was terrified that I was going to dump her and find someone else. I did end up dumping her  (unfortunately, given my skills at the time, it took way longer than anticipated to find a replacement).

At this point in my life, I’ve dated a lot of women, and many of them for several months at a time. I’ve dated some of them for years. And while I do often feel sympathy for a woman with poor prospects and have gone out of my way to let them know that they really are wonderful people who deserve love and attention, I have rarely had women do the same for me.  If anyone needed a reminder, it was me in my early 20’s when I was busy impoverishing myself trying to wine and dine my way into of women’s hearts, totally unsuccessfully. My experience has shown that no matter what your situation, women are only out to see what’s in it for them.

What’s really interesting, though, is what happens when women actually do fall in love with you.  Then they star to be hyper-sensitive to any indication that your interest in them might be waning. All those things that you pointed out to them that would have made you happy, that she ignored start to seem really important when she thinks you’re about to walk out the door or kick her to the curb. When she senses something’s up, she’s more than willing to bend-over for you.

Some guys like to regularly take advantage of this, threatening women with a breakup to get what they want, but I don’t recommend it – that generally leads to a crazy, drama filled relationship where she’s always crying, insecure, and jealous. Instead, guys can improve the value of the relationship to them by keeping a tight rein on the escalation in their relationship, so that she gets more when she gives more.

Ultimately a relationship is a sort of implicit agreement two people make, so make sure that you’re reading the situation right and not getting short-changed.