When It Comes to Relationships… Are Men & Women Stupid, or Am I Missing Something??

A few days ago, I was watching Steve Wilkos’ show (a.k.a. Jerry Springer’s former body guard). On that day’s show, a woman was asking Steve to help her relationship with her “common law married” husband (who, for the record, was born a hermaphrodite but whose parents chose to make him a woman. He later said he felt like a man so… but that’s not the point of the article, so we’ll move on.)

But this wasn’t a simple problem like “he won’t wash the dishes” or “he doesn’t pay attention to me.”

Instead, the problems she had with him was things like “he slaps me,” “he verbally abuses me,” and the oh-so-hilarious “he kicked me in the stomach when I was pregnant and lost the baby.”

Steve, having gotten all this information, looked at this woman in the same way I would if I saw a man with no legs trying to walk on his knee stubs – with the “WTF” face.

He finally asked the girl: “If he’s done all this stuff to you, why in the f–k are you trying to work things out with him?”

And the response she gave is one I’ve heard women say over and over again when asked why they are continuing to go out with a guy that treats them like crap:

“Because I love him.”
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The most frustrating thing to me in the entire world is seeing someone make stupid relationship choices when they know full well how stupid their choice is.

I spent a good amount of college years hearing girl “friends” of mine tell me all about their woes with guys they were dating that they knew they shouldn’t be with – ya know, on account of the fact that he treated her badly – but whom they stayed with because she still had strong feeling for him.

Finally, I had to stop doing it. Why?

BECAUSE IN MY LOGICAL MIND, TALKING TO SOMEONE ABOUT GETTING RID OF SOMEONE WHEN THEY ALREADY HAVE THEIR HEART SET ON THAT PERSON – EVEN IF THAT PERSON DOESN’T REALLY SEEM TO WANT THEM – IS AKIN TO TALKING TO A BRICK WALL: IT’S POINTLESS.

Even though I do my best to avoid those conversation, the idea that a woman would stay with a guy that doesn’t treat her right irks me to this day. And when I see shows like this where a woman is trying to defend her bad dating decision to the host (while sounding like an idiot – “I mean, sure, he beats me, but it’s not like he does it EVERY DAY – just every-other day!) I get really, REALLY pissed off.

And yes, I’m fully aware that part of this bad decision-making progress is due to the more emotional brains women have that result in them having more sympathy for others, thus allowing them to be more willing to stick it out with a guy who may “just be going through stuff.”

But really – if a guy’s been abusing you or showing disinterest in you for YEARS, I got news for you: he’s NOT going to change, and, even if he does, he’s STILL not really feeling you, nor will he ever.

I just can’t figure out why girls don’t seem to get that point yet…
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But it’s not just women that are making bad dating decisions. Men can be just as bad when it comes to trying to date or marry women who really have NO interest in them.

Unlike women, who tend to stay in bad relationships for emotional reasons, men tend to do it for ego reasons – specifically, their egos can’t handle the idea that a woman would actually turn THEM down, so they continuously deny it.

For example: a guy may be dating a woman. At the beginning, things may be going great. After a while, though, he may notice that she’s not doing things the way she used to. She’s cooking less meals, requiring less sex, and starts going out more and more without him.

At this point, my observation would be (a) she’s losing interest, and (b) if he doesn’t change what he’s doing, she’s going to leave.

MOST guys, though, don’t have these thoughts because it would bruise their ego. Instead, they would think: “she can’t be losing interest – it’s ME! I’m too perfect for her! But why is she being distant? Well, one thing’s for sure – it can’t be anything I’M doing. She must be PMSing again…”

The reality is, if a woman is in a relationship with a guy, yet isn’t really feeling him, there are SO many tell-tale signs. Heck, I could give you a list of highlights:

*She stops cooking for you
*She’d rather go out with her girlfriends than you
*She doesn’t say “thank you” when you do nice things for you
*She stops complimenting you
*She stops doing nice things for you
*She only goes out with you or sees you when you initiate it. (Yes, the guy IS supposed to do the initial asking out in the beginning phase. But in reality, once you’ve started dating, a woman will try to suggest outings, or make visits to see you. It’s in their nature to find a way to be with you if they like you.)

It baffles me, then, when a guy falls head-over-heels for a woman who’s giving him all these “I’m not interested in you” signs… YET STILL CONTINUES TO CHASE HER!!

There are SO MANY OTHER OPTIONS guys have to choose from. There are more women on this planet than men; as I always like to say, if there’s a girl you want to date and she’s not feeling you, you literally have BILLIONS of other options.

Lo and behold, though, the ego usually trips them up, with thoughts like “but she HAS to want me, so I KNOW I can score her” running around in their heads.

And this isn’t even getting deeper into the subject, like talking about men who marry women who they KNOW don’t like them but just want to be married, or guys who marry women who just want them for their money, and so on. The bottom line is, a man’s ego can often be his downfall when it comes to relationships – and, quite frankly, it pisses me off!
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So, when it comes to relationships, are women and men just completely stupid? Is there something I’m not quite getting that makes women stay with men who beat them up, or that makes guys continually chase after girls they know don’t really want to be with them?

Truthfully, I don’t have an answer to this question. I’ve read plenty of psychology books about how the brains of men and women work; I’ve read plenty of relationships books about why men and women choose one mate over another; and I’ve watched and researched just about everything you can on women who stay in abusive relationships and men who have low self-esteem and are just happy to be with whatever they can get.

But, at the end of the day, it still baffles me that, for all the ways we’ve been able to advance as a species, we still manage to be complete screw-ups when it comes to how we choose the people we fall in love with.

If you’ve got any thoughts about the issue, leave a comment below!

-Aaron P. Taylor