It's a Guy Thing (8 page)

Naturally, and very healthfully, these women have developed a strong masculine ability to do. This makes it all the harder for them to trust a man because now a man has to come along who is especially good at conscious, masculine doing, since the woman is so especially good herself.

It is difficult for a lost or weakened man to match this kind of woman. For her to truly embrace him as a
man
means that she must feel that his masculine energies are at least as strong as her own. This means she must feel his integrity as a conscious doer: He has a vision of his life. He knows how he is going to accomplish that vision. And, on a daily basis, he is bringing his vision to fruition. This is what the masculine force does in either man or woman.

Is Fairness Always Best?

Certain things that feel like a real gift to you may mean nothing to your man. For instance, most women really love to receive flowers from men. They’re seen as a transmission of love. For most men, flowers are nice, but nothing to weep about.

Women and men “speak” a different language of love. After working for years every day with many men and women I noticed that about 80 percent of the women I work with share a language of love and about 80 percent of the
men share a language of love. Both languages are distinct and express the specific masculine and feminine feelings about love. But there are always exceptions: Some women may be indifferent to receiving flowers, but not many.

It might be difficult for a man to understand how flowers can make a woman feel so loved, sometimes even to the point of tears. But if a man loves a woman, and he wants his woman to receive his love, he learns to speak love in
her
language. He can learn to give her the gift that most touches her heart.

When we have grown beyond the ideal of constant equality, we can learn how to gift each other in intimacy. When it’s no longer an issue who kills the cockroach or who opens the door for whom, we are free to learn each other’s language of love. At that point, we can begin to look at who receives the greater gift. If she kills the cockroach, does he feel it as a gift? When he kills the cockroach, does she feel it as a gift? Gifting is rarely perfectly symmetrical. Usually, women and men appreciate giving and receiving different gifts of love.

Over time, we can learn how to express one another’s language of love. Then, the relationship fills with life, because we do the specific things that really give each other energy. Either partner could do these things. She is as capable of taking out the garbage as he, but who receives it as a greater gift?

If equality was the main issue, then he would say, “Look, I took out the trash yesterday, so you take it out today.” That’s fair—but it’s not necessarily a gift. So-called fairness is not always the best way to measure a gift.

Once you have achieved fairness in your relationship, once you are no longer clinging to your ideas of roles and “have to’s” and “shoulds”, then serving one another becomes a matter of gifting, and your gifts to each other are unique.

You might stifle your true motivation to relax a little bit and be honored as a woman because of the notion of fairness or equality, or because you feel you have to do your part and participate in the world, and in your relationship, in a certain way. It’s good to honor what you truly desire, deep inside, in the silence of your heart. Then you are able to offer and receive from your partner true gifts, instead of performing according to external roles or because of an internal voice that says you should always be equal in your daily chores. A deep relationship is not a matter of balancing a ledger sheet documenting who did what and when, but a matter of partners first discovering and then giving and receiving their deepest gifts of love.

Who Should Pay for Dinner?

The masculine quality of cherishing and protecting the feminine develops in three stages. In the
first stage
of a relationship, a man wants to cherish and protect his woman. But he also wants to “keep her in her place.” She has her role and he has his. “You are a woman, and I want you to act like one. I am a man, and a man acts a certain way.” This rigidity is dogma. It becomes something to grow through, something to rise above. This is the first stage.

During the
second stage
of a relationship, equality becomes important. For instance, who pays for the dinner on a date? It used to be that men always bought dinner. Men felt like they “had to.” They felt weak if they didn’t. It also kept a woman in a certain place and created all sorts of games between the sexes. Our culture soon began to see this as a limitation. It
became very positive to break out of these limiting roles, so that men and women on dates both felt free to buy each other dinner—they had equal rights to pay for the date.

It is healthy to grow beyond “shoulds,” to grow beyond roles, into this second stage of freedom and equality. You could open the door for your man as well as he could for you. You could pay for his dinner as well as he could pay for yours.

Once equality has been established in a relationship, then we are free to ask, “What is the real gift I can give?” This is the
third stage
, the stage of mutual gifting between men and women, that stage I call “intimate communion.” Through which gifts do you best transmit love to each other? Each couple can freely experiment with this.

For instance, most men, when they are acting upon love rather than a “should,” feel like they are giving love when they buy their woman dinner or open a door for her. A woman usually receives such a gesture as a gift. It is a way for his masculine “do” mode to express appreciation and honor her feminine radiance.

As long as it doesn’t become a role, there are certain things we find that gift each other that are not symmetrical between men and women in every case. For instance, when a woman opens the door for her man, he may appreciate it, but probably doesn’t feel anything special. It might as well be a mechanical door.

Ultimately, of course, it doesn’t really matter who opens the door or who buys dinner for whom. But it might be worth experimenting to discover who receives it as a real gift of love and who enjoys giving it most.

Are Artists Always Feminine?

Any task done well requires wholeness, a full complement of masculine and feminine energies. Let’s look at art as an example. If you are an artist and have too little masculine then you may be very intuitive and very sensitive, but you’ll rarely complete a project. If you have too little feminine energy, then you may produce a lot because of your disciplined approach, but you may not be as sensitive to the elements of your medium. A balance of masculine and feminine is required to be creative, sensitive and disciplined as an artist.

Anything done well requires a balance of the masculine and feminine. If you are a high-powered executive, for example, you won’t do as well in your job if you don’t have a good intuition for people. Being attuned to another’s feelings is a feminine quality. Even if you have a very strong organizational ability, you also need sensitivity to people in order to make it as a good executive. The best people in all fields usually have a strong complement of both masculine and feminine energy.

Do I Really Want a Masculine Man?

The religious myths of Hinduism contain a beautiful archetype for the essential masculine and feminine characters. In these myths, God is considered to have a masculine and feminine aspect. The masculine is called Shiva and the feminine is called Shakti.

The masculine is the transcendental aspect. Shiva is totally
free yet pervades everything. The feminine aspect, Shakti, is the energy of the universe. Sometimes she is called Parvatti and is considered Shiva’s consort. In paintings and sculptures she is shown half-naked with a very curvaceous, feminine body, encircled with jewelry. She wears a gauzy wrap around her waist and legs and is often depicted dancing.

In Hinduism, the play between the masculine and feminine, between Shiva and Shakti, is shown very clearly. The feminine form of God dances and attracts Shiva into life. The masculine form of God pervades through and through everything, including Shakti and her dance. He is attracted into incarnation by Shakti’s devotion and radiance.

Just so in everyday life. A Shakti-like woman attracts a man out of his head into his heart. She attracts a man out of his projects and abstract ideals into the reality of life and the relationship of love.

On the other hand, when a woman is lost in her moods, a Shiva-like man’s humor and love will lift her out. He will open her out of her moods.

Imagine you are angry. You run into your room and slam the door, telling your man to leave you alone. Your man respects what you say and so he shrugs and walks away. He goes off and finds something to do, or goes out with his friends to let you cool off.

Now imagine, instead, that your man comes into your room and puts his arms around you and looks lovingly into your eyes. You are angry, so you fight against him, push him away, perhaps hit him. But he stays in place with gentle firmness. He quietly tells you with a smile how much he loves you and that he is going to keep holding you, loving you, until he feels you loving him, too.

What kind of man do you want? A man who turns away at
your closed door, or a man who settles for nothing less than love? A fair man, or a Shiva-like man? The choice is up to you.