FRIENDSHIP-AND-DATING

by Christine Akiteng

The most asked question by women of all ages is: “Is he in love with me?" I have a different take on what is “love’ and what is not, but for the sake of answering this question, I’ll use the word “love" to mean romantic attraction and sexual chemistry.

Romantic attraction and sexual chemistry happens for a majority of men in three stages and in real life, this can be a little bit confusing for us women because romantic attraction and sexual chemistry happens for most of us in two stages: first when we meet him and decide he deserves a chance to try to “make us fall in love" and secondly, when we have collected enough evidence (what he did and what he failed to do) for falling in love with him.

Even if the process of "falling in love" happens to us in only two stages, it is actually much more difficult for us women to "fall in love' than it is for men. I am sure, this is news for some women, and even hard to believe for others. So let me try to explain how easy it is to increase chemistry with a man if you know what you are working with and what you are up against.

1. The first stage of "falling in love" for a man is instant: fast and furious

Unknown to a majority of women, men fall in love at first sight even more frequently than do women. Research shows that within the first fifteen seconds, a woman will have decided (sub-consciously) if she will give a guy a chance to try to “make her fall in love’ or not. In the same amount of time, a man will have decided if he is “turned’ on by how a woman looks or not.

Yes, I know, I know, this is not fair. But despite our lofty notions of “appreciate human beings for their character rather than for their looks", nature has programmed our brains (more programming on men’s brains) to select out and respond to stimuli as sexually compelling or repelling simply based on good reproductive sense - who is best suited to carry on our gene, and legacy.

While women use visual, emotional and safety (including financial) cues to assess a man’s desirability, over 90% of a man’s decision at this stage is purely based on visual cues. When his eyes lock on to a woman for the first time, they lock on to her visual presentation. Whatever he recognize as “suited to carry on his gene, and legacy", that’s what he focuses on, admiring and lingering on its details. Some men get super glued on boobs, others on booties and others on legs etc. Physical features and bouncy behavior that suggests youth, health and vitality place one woman ahead of all the other pack. And if you are attentive and not trying to delude yourself or force a relationship to happen, you will know when a man is visually attracted to you. HE WILL TELL YOU - in very specific verbs and he simply can’t take his eyes off you!

Keep in mind that at this first stage, it’s just pure sexual chemistry. At this stage you are still dispensable and interchangeable. You’re still just another woman in the pack, and he is still very much attracted to several other women at the same time. But just because this stage is very much based on “animal" instinct does not mean it is not very important. How physically attractive a man finds you determines how much time he’ll want to spend with you, and later in the relationship "looks' confirm to him again and again why he finds you attractive. If a man is not physically attracted to you, trying to make him “fall in love" with you is like trying to wake up a dead horse - you see and believe what you want to see and believe.

2. The second stage of "falling in love" for a man is when he begins to see you as unique and special

He may still be visually attracted to other women and you may be the woman with the “less than perfect" body but there is just “something about you" - and it is driving him nuts. It can be the way you talk or the way you laugh or the way you think or your enthusiasm and passion, or whatever it is you do that makes him think you must feel more deeply and experience life more profoundly and therefore you must be more delightful to be with. He feels more energized just by being around you which in turn makes him feel good about himself and about life in general.

At this stage, like his counterparts in the animal kingdom, he begins to mark his territory. He pays more attention to your needs, spends more time with you and is over protective when other men try to make a move on “his woman". In other words, if you are with a guy who still wants to keep it “an open" relationship and does not mind you dating other guys, then he still has not reached this stage of attraction. He (and you) are pretty much still up for grabs.

Are there things you can do to intensify attraction in order to speed up the process? Yes. There are many things you can do, and discussing them requires me to write another article. The bottom line is, the more positive (happy, deep, and moving) and less negative (painful, stress-full, dull, and "full of yourself") experiences he shares with you, the more likely he is to look at the future with good feelings about you.

3. The third stage of "falling in love" for a man is when he has convinced himself that he is a happier and more fulfilled person with you in his life than when by himself

He feels he is with the right woman at the right time, and at this stage, you will not even be asking the question “Is he in love with me?" because you will know. He will have NO problem declaring to you how he really feels. He might not always use the words, "I love you," but he manages to get his point across. He is strongly attracted to you to want to start the breeding process or if he is past "breeding", he is attracted to you enough to want to “settle down". Keep in mind that in this age and time "settle down" does not necessarily mean marriage to all people but it simply means "I AM WITH THE ONE" (which is the title of my upcoming book). This feeling of "I AM WITH THE ONE" is not the same thing as when he feels he “needs’ you (see my article: How Do You Know If He or She Loves You Or Just Needs You?).

You will do yourself great favour if right now, here and today, you decide to exercise your power of choice to have what you want and to stop wasting time, emotions and energy on going-no-where relationships.

Being in love is supposed to feel great. But sometimes it just feels confusing.
What can you do if you are being hurt, controlled or treated badly in a relationship?

I read this story of Isabella from the internet, and it just touched me. I would like to share it with you.

A story or Isabella

I met my boyfriend when I was 15. He was three years older, and we started going out. He was my first boyfriend. I just thought he was so cool, he's really good looking. At first he came across as pretty nice towards me, sort of protective of me, looking out for me etc.

But it wasn't long after we got together that he started this jealousy thing, like he was constantly watching me to see if I was cheating on him. He just went crazy if I talked to other guys at a party or something, on and on at me like I was flirting with every guy I spoke to, which I wasn't. He was like "you're my girlfriend and you do as I say", basically that was his attitude. At the time, I took it as a sign that he really loved me, he wanted me so much.

We slept together after about a month. I was quite nervous, mainly because my parents are really strict and I was like, just so scared about them finding out. They're Italian and are quite religious, they don't believe in sex before marriage. I didn't really want to do it, it was my first time and I was really stressed out about it, but I thought I'd better, because he really wanted it. He'd say "I don't think you really love me, because you don't want to have sex with me", and he'd accuse me of liking someone else instead of him. And he went on about how everyone else did it, what was wrong with me? Eventually I gave in to the pressure. Every time I had sex I felt so guilty, and I was really worried that my parents would find out. I don't know why, I just felt like I'd done the wrong thing and felt really bad, even though I knew quite a lot of other girls at my school had already slept with their boyfriends.

My boyfriend's attitude towards me was really like "you're mine", like he wanted to control everything I did. He wanted to control who I saw, what I wore, what I said, it was like he wanted me to be what he wanted. He didn't like me talking to friends, he was really critical of all my friends, thought they were stupid and stuff like that. After a while it got really bad, if I told him I'd spoken to a friend on the phone he'd be like "you know I don't like you talking to her". Whenever I tried to argue with him, he'd just get so aggressive, start shouting at me, and sometimes he'd like, start grabbing onto me really hard, he'd come up really close and stand over me and shout. Even though I was really upset, I'd just give in.

Sometimes he'd apologise for shouting at me. He'd be like "I'm sorry, I can't help getting angry with you, if you didn't do these things I wouldn't be so angry, it's just because I love you so much". Other times he'd stay in this really angry mood, he'd just sit there in silence and sort of smash things around, or if he was driving he'd drive like a maniac.

He was always suspicious of me and it was like I couldn't do anything right. Once he was waiting for me after school and he saw me talking to this guy in my class. Anyway he got so angry with me for talking to another guy that he pushed me, really hard so I nearly fell over. And then he's still going on at me "Why were you talking to him? What were you talking about?". I'd really had enough, so I said "Just shut up". Then he says "What did you say?", so I repeated it, and then he just slapped me across the face. And there were like a few people there watching us, and my boyfriend screams at them "you mind your own business". So no-one said anything, they all just turned away.

That was the only time he actually hit me. The rest of the time it was all this harassment and criticism. It just wore me down. Normally I'm like, a really talkative person, really social and happy, but I became really quiet with him, hardly ever smiled. I was just so stressed out all the time, constantly worrying what he thought, trying to do what he wanted so he wouldn't get so aggro or hassle me. I was really nervous around him and scared of setting him off.

I lost contact with most of my friends because he harassed me so much when I saw them. I didn't really tell anyone about how he treated me, because I thought it must be my fault. Once some friends saw him shouting at me about something and they were like "Why do you put up with it? You should just break up with him". That made me feel really bad too, because I felt so stupid, like there was something wrong with me for putting up with it. But I just couldn't leave him. I thought he really loved me, and he wasn't always so bad to me, sometimes he was really nice. I thought if I was more like what he wanted me to be, he would treat me better. I suppose I really blamed myself, felt like I wasn't good enough. I felt really unconfident. After being treated like shit for so long, that's how I felt. And I was totally scared of his reaction if I left him, he'd just go crazy, I didn't know what he'd do if I tried to leave.

One time when I had told him I'd had enough and didn't want to see him anymore, he threatened to tell my parents that we'd had sex, and that I'd smoked drugs with him. I thought my parents would absolutely kill me if they found out. It was like he tried to blackmail me into staying with him.

His older sister used to see how he treated me, but she made out like it was my fault. She'd say "you know what his temper is like, you don't want to go and provoke him, why do you provoke him like that?"

He used to get me to ring him every night I didn't see him, when I got home from school and before I went to bed, just to check up on what I'd been doing. My parents didn't want me to make so many phone calls, so I had to try to sneak around and ring, which was not easy.

This went on for nearly three years. I don't know why, but finally I decided I had to break up with him. I think I realised he was never going to change, it was always going to be like this with him. It was like I just snapped, I just had enough and couldn't take any more.

On the day I broke up with him, I'd been late to meet him, then I had to hand in an assignment that I'd worked really hard on. He was so angry about me being late, he grabbed the assignment and just ripped it up, right in front of me. I'd been told by the teacher I'd probably fail if I didn't get that assignment in. So I just lost it. I said "that's it", and I walked off in the other direction. He comes after me and says "don't you walk away from me". I said "I've had it with this shit". So we're screaming at each other in the street, he's grabbing me by the arms and holding me and shouting at me, saying if I leave him he'll tell my parents what I've done, like having sex and everything. But I just didn't care anymore, I thought I'll cope easier with my parent's reaction than I can with staying with him. Finally he walks off, he's just wild at me, and I know this is not the end of this, because he's said he's going to go and tell my parents.

When I get home he's not there, and I just walk in and burst into tears in front of my mother. I just blurted out everything. She was pretty shocked, going on about "How could you? You should have told us, we knew he was bad for you" etcetera. Then there's a knock at the door. My dad answers it, and it's my boyfriend. Dad won't let him in, so my boyfriend starts yelling at him. Dad manages to get the door shut to keep him out.

It took a while for my parents to calm down, but I think they had to calm down eventually because I was just so upset and crying and everything. I was partly crying with relief, the relief of having finally told someone. The next day I left school early so I didn't have to see him afterwards. I stayed at home all weekend. My parents have an answering machine and he left a few messages, some angry, some apologetic, but I didn't talk to him.

One night the next week he arrived at the front door again but my dad didn't let him in. He was shouting threats and banging and throwing stuff at the house. My parents decided to call the police, even though I didn't want them to. He took off when he saw the police car on the road, so the police didn't see him. The policewoman was quite nice actually, and said we could get an Intervention Order to stop him coming near the house, or near me at school. They said I would need to go to a Magistrates court and say what had happened, and why I was afraid of him. I said I'd think about it. I was scared to go to court, scared of how he'd react, and of what other people would think.

He didn't come to my house again after that - I think he was scared about my parents calling the police. But for a while he kept turning up after school, and would come up to me and either shout at me, or plead with me. I'd told a few school friends, and they were really good about it actually. It was such a relief to tell people, I felt so much stronger. My friends helped me by looking out for me to see if he was waiting for me, and they stood around if he tried to talk to me. They hung around until he left.

Sometimes I felt really guilty or sorry for him when he was hanging around, but then I just thought about how stressed he'd made me feel, how he had tried to manipulate me and dominate my life, and I felt angry at him. Feeling angry helped me keep away from him.

After a few weeks he sort of gave up on trying to get at me. I think he knew he couldn't get to me as much since I told my friends and my parents, and he knows I'm pretty determined to keep him away. It helps knowing that if he harasses or threatens me again I could call the police or take out an Intervention Order. If I see him on the street my friends stand around me, to protect me.

He's got a new girlfriend now, so I hear. I hope he's not abusing her. Maybe after I stood up to him, he'll be more careful to treat his girlfriends with respect.

Now, a year later I've got a boyfriend who really respects me. He never pressures me, and I can be myself with him. I won't put up with any shit from a boyfriend or from anyone. At the first sign of control or manipulation or pressure it would be like, 'I'm out of here'. Now I know no-one has the right to treat me like that. If you love someone you show them respect.

If I knew someone who was being abused, I'd try to talk to them about it. I'd tell them, don't feel ashamed, it's not your fault, it's his. I'd say to them, if you feel like you are able to, then get out as soon as you can, because the abuse just wears you down more and more. Stop hoping he will change, you are probably wasting your time. But be careful, because with some guys things can get scary, especially when you try to leave. If my friend didn't feel like she could break up, I wouldn't criticise her, I'd hang in there and support her. I'd say, make sure you have ways to protect yourself. I'd tell them how much it can help to talk to people about it, because if you have support it can make you feel a lot stronger.

I'd also tell them that things will get better when you are free from the abuse. You feel like you have your life back, your confidence comes back, your enjoyment of life. And even though it takes a while to start trusting people again, it also makes you stronger and more aware of your own rights.


Source: http://www.dvirc.org.au/whenlove/IsabellaStory.htm