(Well, I mean OK, we aaaare crazy, but that's not the point of this post)
Last night I was lying in bed with BB and feeling sweet and lovey. In my head, I wanted to tell him, in a cutesy/funny voice, to tell me nice things (about myself obviously). Then, I realized that most likely it'd seem completely nuts to him. You see, while my main goal would be for him to think, "oh, my girlfriend is so cute and funny," what would really have happened would be that he'd bestow some insincere and stiff general compliments that leave me feeling confused and vulnerable and hating myself for bringing up the topic in the first place...not exactly the end result I'd be going for.
As women though, we set each other up for this imminent failure; we all, somewhere down the line, decided that this which men would later recognize to be a massive character flaw (insecurity) is a nice way to get a self-esteem boost from one another. You see, if I'm feeling down I could still lie my head on my mother's lap and say "Mommy, tell me good things about myself." And yes she might laugh a little, but most likely she wouldn't bat an eye before rattling off a laundry list of my finer qualities. Our friends do this naturally as well. If we see one another in distress, we're always ready with an arsenal of compliments: you're too good for him, she doesn't like you because you're so pretty, etc. To us, this is all second nature. To men however, this is extremely bizarre.
If you're feeling unloved in your relationship with a man, to ask him to compliment you is like taking the hammer out of his hand and banging the final nail into your own coffin. If you're feeling down, the worst thing you could do is ASK for a confidence boost. What we should do with men is act like every day is Opposite Day. (This illustrates my point perfectly.) Currently sitting in silence? Great! I had a headache anyway. Not loving you enough? Excellent! I was feeling smothered. I really think that the less we care, the more they do. It's like all of the sudden they realize "wait a second, she hasn't asked how my day was all night...I hope she's not mad at me. I better step up my game!"
Now don't get me wrong, if he's any man even remotely deserving of our time he should be going out of his way to do these things for us all the time, totally unprompted. However, if it is that occasion where he's not chomping at the bit to tell us how absolutely amazing we are, we should just. let it. lie. You see most of the time when we hear these niceties from women it's because we need to hear them, when we hear them from men it's because we waaaant to hear them. Very different.
I've really restrained myself in my relationship with BB; really tried to learn from past mistakes and even, gasp, take in a few of the lessons from The Rules. So instead of asking that question last night, I just laid there.
And you know what he did? Completely on his own, a few seconds later, he picked up my hand, just because, and kissed it.
