Men you don't want to be! (Euphoria Magazine April '09)

The first rule every woman receives when about to enter the relationships' world is avoid the cheater, the liar and the cheap. The reason why those three traits stood solid through the test of time is not because of their frequency but because of their distinguishable luminosity visible only to women. Yes! Women can detect the liar, sense the cheater and feel the cheap. However, there are other markers or to be more specific snags surrounding men's personalities which immediately place them on the "men to be avoided" list. So, in order to escape being on that list you don't want to be:

1. The critic
I hate that! Every woman breathing or dead hates that too! Females are sensitive, that's just a curse men have to deal with and so cornering her every move, thought or even taste is suffocating and parentally! Generally speaking, criticizing is unidirectional, it goes from a superior person to someone he believes to be less superior. Thus if your criticism is moving past the it's for your own good phase then she'll react in either of three ways;
a. despise your voice since all you have to say are brutal judgments,
b. bottle up the bitterness inside until she' overly saturated or
c. respond in various aggressive ways that might seem irrelevant to your excessive criticism.
But regardless of the conducts, you'll end up with you getting dumped!

2. The Analyzer
Women of all ages crave men who can listen, understand, empathize and appreciate. But being a listener is one thing and being an analyzer is a completely different thing! Being understood inside out is sweet but being transparent is simply anti-human. Having a partner with whom a woman can unwind and speak her mind unguarded is one of the strongest reasons why she's in a relationship and probably the same reason why she's willing to leave Freud for a deaf man!

3. The rebounder
Saving a drowning man is pretty heroic and an excellent ego booster for women as well. She'll feel more feminine knowing that she has healed your broken heart and made you forgot all about the other woman.
Then why is this repulsing? The problem happens in the security context for it won't be long before she questions your relationship, is it a real thing or just a matter of time before you go hunting! It all depends on your punch line, if it's I just got out of a messy breakup then she'll gladly do the necessary amendments, restore your faith in women, have her moment of glory and leave. She knows it's a rebound relationship from the start, she's not stupid, she knows you're a rebounder and so you're meant to be cut off!

4. The wandering-eye man
Why is it a manly thing?! Whenever I asked a man, why do you check other women out? He casually replies "Because I'm a man!" I, on the other hand, trying my best to silence the demons yelling kill him, decided to search for the logic in his sentence. I even doubted my own information! To the extent that I spent hours researching for a fact to prove that men automatically cheat! Of course there was none, even the infamous monogamy gene is to be found in both men and women. Then it's a mixed matter of respect, self-control and commitment. Women didn't get the impression that men only think with their "sticks" from no where, on the contrary, it took an endless series of stories and stolen glances to build that reputation up. That women escape the company of such men, not only because of their disgusting habit, but because being around a wandering-eye man destroys what's left of a woman's self-confidence and accordingly he has to go!

5. The virtuous guy
It's hard living under the microscope where everything is magnified and divided according to borderlines. Usually preaching is done by parents, those loathed instructions of what's right and what's perceived as wrong without convincing reasons is probably the reason why we're not that attached to them anymore. What any normal person would do when facing such condensed pressure is run towards those who he/she deeply love and know that they won't judge! But when the partner is all about setting rules, defining what is acceptable and what is not, blaming and condemning, directing and moralizing, the entire thing just seem worthless. It's true that a woman loves to feel the wings of a man surrounding her existence, protecting her from whichever dangers she's about to get herself into, yet in a non-parenting, repulsive way. Why is everything wrong? Why the stiffness of the mind? And why the hell are you guiding her? Communicate, debate, convince and every woman will listen. Scare, threat, yell, force and you'll be researching for alternative ways to reproduce!

6. The insecure
Finding a romantic man is like discovering treasure, finding a clingy romantic man is like finding a rotten skull midst the jewels! That's really how bad it is.
As almost every woman dreams of the gentleman who meets her with a flower in his hand and romantic words on his lips, it's the once in a while surprise that defines him as a man who is romantic, not the other way around. But those who speak, walk, talk and sometimes even stalk are clingy beings; women won't see them as men. Unlike what most men believe, women cherish their spaces and they do sense pretentious gestures. If you don't really miss her, she'll know, if you don't really trust her, she'll know and if you don't trust yourself, she'll know it too. At first, your insecurities will seem nice to her, it's nice to have a powerful man feel scared of loosing a woman, it feels good but soon enough, time after time, suffocation after another, she'll translate those signs to insecurities and BAM! You're out of the picture!

7. The changer
As a rule of thumb, no one is capable of changing others. As a matter of fact, I can better relate to helping people see their capabilities and good sides rather than changing them! I can also relate to people trying to adjust to their partners' needs and personalities but not change for them. Since in the end truths prevail, people go back to their normal selves and realize they've been trapped in their own bodies. It's either you love her the way she is or not, for if you keep on putting words in her mouth, brainwashing her with your thoughts, she won't be an individual, but another Stepford wife. Even the Stepford wives took a stance and rebelled, putting their men down!

Mental Affairs

As human beings we like to believe that as long as our sins are unseen, then as far as we’re concerned, they’ve never happened! May be it is just easier that way, in the self-healing process. I mean it’ll be easier to forgive oneself as long as it’s only you who is pushing the blame button rather than the added exterior selves sharing in the guilt process. Accordingly, the defining moment where a person chooses to feel remorseful depends on his own evaluation of a situation worthy of being called a sin, which again could be very troubling or very alleviating.

It all starts when the going gets an itsy bit rough. Like in every relationship, it could be a fight, a misunderstanding or utter boredom that gets your mind working for other possibilities. In that very moment, which by the way everyone refuse to label as cheating, one finds his peace. But sadly that peace comes with someone else! We’ve all been there; the only difference is that some of us might dismiss the thought immediately while others cave in for the temporary joy.
The reason why all of us hate to refer to those moments as cheating is because there’s no physical action to prove it. It’s all just a bunch of thoughts that- I want to be optimistic and say most of us- don’t want to do anything about. It’s like a relieving mechanism, to think about someone you used to know, like an old love that wasn’t meant to complete. So you give it that honor only in your head. Unfortunately not every thought goes to people you used to know, like or even love. Sometimes it’s the closeness that creates the problem!

Let me walk you through it with a story about a woman who married the love of her life. But as time went by unconditionally of course, inviting the unwanted routine, she- unaware of it- got attached to chatting with a co-worker. And like every such story, it all happened every time she had a fight with her husband or was simply complaining about his diminishing interest in her. Now, I don’t know if the other man’s intentions where pure or not, but he started talking about how special she is and you know the drill. But she being a good woman as she is, it finally hit her that she was sharing her inner most thoughts and concerns with someone else other than her man, so she had to go cold turkey and get rid of that addiction. Despite the fact that she switched departments and got over him entirely, she still refuses to call what happened back then “cheating”. Her explanation is that she was going through some horrible time; he was there to comfort and nothing more.

Apart from me believing that no good could come from a man and a woman spending too much time together even as friends, this was cheating. Whether it happened while awake or daydreaming, it still counts as betrayal. For if ever I learnt that my partner had someone else in mind, even if for a split of a second, I would be devastated and I’m thinking so would he. So let’s just be thankful that our minds are the only places where no one, no matter how good they are, can go into without knocking!

However, all jokes aside, it is a serious matter that we all do at some point during the day where we turn into what ifs. How different my life would be if I married x instead of y? Or in severe cases what if I was never married?!

Thus it would be much more appropriate to invest the time spent wondering in the relationship itself. But first you got to move as far away as possible from the source of distraction whether physically or mentally. In other word, distract yourself from the distraction! Second you must, absolutely must, spend some time reflecting on the reason that pushed you this far. Then, comes the final step, where you get to talk with your partner to implement the necessary changes.
Although the solution seems so simple, tucked into these small lines, talking about it is easier said than done. For temptations lay everywhere and with the aid of the factor that is tough relationships, you do the math. Only this is the type of thing you have to consistently fight and push away. It’s hard having to go through those steps every time you sense a mental affair is about to hit. But if this is the kind of effort you have to exert to keep a relationship you want, then it’s worth the trouble. Just keep one thing in mind, the more you love your partner, the easier it’s to let go of any crawling disruptions.