The Secret Invisible Obstacle Course

 

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The 7 Secret Obstacles that are keeping the man of your dreams from finding you and making a mad rush to win your attention

So I told you earlier that many of the reasons you aren’t getting your share of man-attention have to do with him, not you.

And in your head you might have heard some jerk telling you, “It’s not you, it’s me,” just before he headed out of your life, leaving you standing there with a broken heart and an armful of shattered dreams.

If that’s been you (or a friend of yours), I’m sorry that it happened that way. But whether or not a man uses that as an excuse for something else, sometimes it really IS him. Which isn’t necessarily cause for worry, because when you understand why things are unfolding the way they are, you immediately gain power in the situation, and you can make the best possible decisions about what to do.

It’s like an secret obstacle course that he’s running…except all the 12 foot concrete walls, snake-filled swamps, and treacherous single-rope crossings above yawning chasms are invisible.

Sure, guys love an adventure, but sometimes they are facing challenges that they can’t see, and often don’t even know are there.

And even if a man does know something’s blocking his path forward, he certainly doesn’t want anyone to know how many times he’s banged straight into that same damn wall or sucked into that patch of quicksand.

It’s no damn wonder he hasn’t found you yet!

But now you’re going to be able to see every last thing that stands between your dream man and your heart, and not only will you be able to understand why he moves in such weird patterns sometimes, you’ll also be able to clear away some of the obstacles, or at least stand where he can see you!

 

Secret Obstacle 1

He’s secretly terrified

Women have more power over men than they could ever suspect. A man would rather ask his boss for a raise while dressed only in Papa Smurf “Pop it like it’s hot” boxers than approach a woman.

I know, I know – they approach women all the time! That’s because their acute sense of vulnerability around women is only surpassed by their overwhelming attraction to them.

You are an incredible creature that he desperately wants to look at, touch, and well, okay – have sex with, and yet it’s also true that all women are aliens to him. You think differently, behave differently, smell wonderful, and scare the shit out of him. You have the power to amaze, arouse, and invigorate him, or to utterly humiliate him and crush his ego. It’s daunting, to say the least.

Wanna know the number one reason he’s secretly terrified? I can tell you in one word.

Feelings.

Men are all about tasks, objects, speed, toys, politics, food, friends, and sex, but they don’t “get” feelings the same way you do. You are intensely complex, and while he is too, you move around in the ocean of complex feelings with the ease and skill of an Olympic swimmer. Whereas he flounders around and stands a pretty good chance of

1. looking like an idiot
2. getting pulled out by a riptide and drowning or
3. getting eaten by sharks.

Feelings don’t have clear rules. They don’t translate well to a flow chart with well-defined tasks and timelines attached. And that has never bothered you, but it terrifies him.

So what’s a smart, sexy woman like you to do?

Easy. Don’t ask him about his feelings in the early part of your relationship.

Feelings are always serious topics for a man, and no one likes to feel off-kilter or out of their depth in a conversation with someone new. In fact, don’t delve into any serious topics too soon. If you confess that your ex was abusive and you used to struggle with bulemia, he’s likely to run for the hills.

Instead, invite him to tell you what he thinks, as opposed to how he feels. He’s likely to be eager to share with you his thoughts on the Water for Africa fundraiser, the kind of running shoes he just bought, the first season of Game of Thrones, or the best local frisbee golf courses.

In fact, he’d generally prefer to let actions do his talking. Those tickets he got for Stomp, his willingness to wash your car for you, even the Saturday spent working on a Habitat for Humanity house – they all showcase his interior feelings more than anything he could actually articulate.

Let the feelings discussions hold until later.

 

Secret Obstacle 2

He’s dying for you to take some of the pressure off him

For generations it has been the man’s “job” to make the first move. That’s changing, but it’s still a pretty common expectation.

And while men are keen for the game, they also get scared or uncertain about whether they are reading all the complex social signals correctly. And when they’re scared or uncertain, they wait.

Which could leave you waiting.

He may be collecting data on you like an engineer pulling readouts from the launch of a mission to the space station. He noticed that you stayed late when he stayed late at work. His head turns to find you in the crowd every time he hears your crazy laugh. The heels and stockings you wore the last time you ran into each other at a club made him want to groan with arousal. He doesn’t know what drink you ordered, but he remembers you catching his eye over something in a martini glass, and he is continually distracted by the scent of your hair when you walk by in the hallway.

But just like with the launch of a rocket, he wants to be 200% certain that all systems are go before he finally punches your number on his cell phone.

The reason he paces and frets and asks his buddy the same question eight times in a row (“Do you think I should I call?”) is that he’s not sure those signals you clearly seem to be sending were for him. After all, in his mind you are lighting up the circuits of every man in the room. Why should he be so lucky as to be the object of your attention?

And here are several things you can do to help him.

Men are simple, and do best with simple, even blatantly obvious, communication. Subtleties are not necessarily lost on them, but they can’t be sure they are reading them correctly.

Be your normal sexy, fascinating self. Keep on dressing to kill, sending those sultry glances, and otherwise working your plentiful charms. But don’t be silent.

Ask him outright how many screens he can complete on Ms. Pac Man, and challenge him to download it for a duel then and there, even if neither of you have ever played it before. Invite him to sit with you and your friends, and make sure he’s included in the conversation (squelch as many “insider” jokes and references as you possibly can). Tell him your plans to wait in line at midnight to catch the bargains at Best Buy on Black Friday, and invite him to join you. Ask him about his favorite hiking routes, then start planning a hike together.

It’s an incredible turn on for a man when you make the first move. It not only relieves the pressure, but it confirms your interest in him. And it can be downright sexy!

 

Secret Obstacle 3

He’s soft on the inside (but can’t let anyone know)

Have you ever wondered why guys don’t even talk to other guys about their hopes and fears?

Sure, spark plugs, second mortgages, grass seed and any number of other (fascinating!) topics are regularly worked over, but the inner life of a man is like the Pentagon – even he doesn’t really know what goes on in there.

Most guys will never confide in another guy like women do. Why not?

For one, he’s simpler.

Women tend to enjoy the endless complexities of our feelings, intuition, ideas, and experiences; we have entire beach weekends where we discuss them with each other.

Guys are more focused on action and tasks. The main reason for this is that they are secretly very vulnerable. They want to be strong and they want to accomplish specific things because their identity as a man is tied up in them.

Tasks are their main self-esteem measuring tool.

When they finish teaching algebra to their classroom of eighth graders they can say, “I’m a good teacher; I finished this task. I am a man.” When they paint the garage, finish a report, hike a trail, feed the cat, or even make love to a woman, they say the same.

What’s scary for them is when the task either doesn’t get finished or – in the case where it involves human interaction – is performance is evaluated. Let’s say he started painting the garage, but never finished. That’s a tiny little negative checkmark against his manhood. A big checkmark would be if the woman he made love to thought he was only so-so in the sack.

When you or I have an bad day, we spend a fair amount of time talking or thinking through it and making everything as psychologically neat and resolved inside as we can. When we’re overwhelmed, of course, we don’t do as good a job at this, but rarely do we think, I totally wrecked that whole deal. I’m not much of a woman.

Instead we say, I’m not much of an accountant, or I didn’t manage the client’s expectations well, or I was too exhausted to deal well with the kids today, or whatever. But we don’t think we’re not a woman. Even the sound of that is ridiculous, isn’t it?

But the thought that they might not be “much of a man” does go through a man’s mind on a regular basis. Men are scared to death of being judged inadequate as a man, either by the list of tasks they haven’t done, or by someone who hasn’t been satisfied with their performance.

And as a result, they lock and bar the doors to their interior Pentagon, and don’t even look at what’s happening inside. They’ll sometimes even avoid certain tasks at which they might fail, just because they are afraid of being considered less than a man.

To you it might sound soft. But it’s really only a different kind of coping mechanism.

 

Secret Obstacle 4

Flaws are loveable, perfection is creepy

When Kadeem waved them over to the bar, Yoshiko felt her blood begin to fizz.

He was like a black-haired, olive-skinned god straight out of Bollywood. And amazingly, he only had eyes for her. She immediately wished she hadn’t decided to slip out of her heels, which had been killing her for the past 3 hours and were currently swinging by their straps from her fingertips.

Elizabeth picked up on the chemistry immediately, and dropped straight into wingman role for her smitten roommate.

“Lovely, no?” she said to her co-worker Kadeem, twirling Yoshiko like a ballerina so that her form-fitting, bias-cut dress flared out enchantingly just above her knees. Yoshiko made an anguished squeak and quickly ducked down to slip her shoes back on before he noticed she was walking around in a club in bare feet.

Kadeem’s smile could have powered a New York city block. “You look incredible,” he managed to finally say, his eyes glued to Yoshiko as she flushed and nervously smoothed her dress down over her thighs.

Yoshiko groaned inwardly. I’ve put on 7 pounds in the past month, she thought to herself. This dress barely fits me any more. And no shoes! I’m an idiot. How can he not notice?

But Kadeem continued to behave as if he were crawling across a desert and she was a cool marble fountain, sparkling and splashing and turning sunshine into dozens of shining rainbows around him.

* * *

Guess what? Men don’t have a “flaw-o-meter.”

Yes, you and I can tell each other with freaky precision how much weight we want to lose, whether our cellulite shows if we don’t wear Spanx, and how many different hoping-for-a-miracle creams we’ve used on the microscopic wrinkles around our eyes.

We exhaust ourselves, focusing on that crap.

Of course we’re compelled to do it because we feel like everyone is comparing us with the painfully Photoshopped 14-year-old girls in the September issue of Vogue or Elle or even those soft-porn-style men’s fashion and sports magazines.

But a picture of perfection – whether it’s real or not – is no competition whatsoever for a living, breathing, fragrant woman sitting next to a man at a restaurant. Or pressed slightly against him in the elevator. Perfection can go hang; you are up close and personal.

You are real. And your crooked tooth proves it. If he’s noticed it at all, it’s to think that it’s sort of charming. But chances are, he doesn’t even realize you have split ends or your blouse is not straight off a fashion runway; how can he, when your lips are slightly moist and you just leaned forward and invited him to tell you about his kayaking trip?

Even stark naked in bed he’s not going to see you the same overly-critical way you probably see yourself; he’s just overjoyed to be in the same room as a naked woman and you’ll be lucky if he can put together three coherent words in a row because he’s so excited and nervous.

Have you ever noticed that the women who seem utterly perfect are also those that men are most afraid to approach? Oh yes, guys stare, but do they approach? If a woman is drop-dead gorgeous and actually getting men, it’s because she’s a) working hard to be easy to talk to and she’s b) incredibly good at making the first – and sometimes second, third, and fourth – move. (See Secret Obstacle # 2.)

Stepford wives are creepy. You can be assured that while he might fantasize about a playmate of the month, he’ll take a real woman over a figment of his imagination EVERY time.

 

Secret Obstacle 5

He doesn’t talk like you do; men take things literally

Gina had intentionally dressed to thrill, and she could tell Darrin was getting her buzz.

The hot little dress she was wearing was making it incredibly difficult for him not to stare at the smooth, delicious expanse of leg on display. Gina slowly uncrossed her legs, shifted slightly, and crossed them again. Darrin looked like he might go into cardiac arrest, she noted with satisfaction.

Their mutual friends had finally left for another bar, leaving the two of them alone. Gina decided she would give him Darren an opening so that he could finally ask her out.

“So, do you have anything fun to do this weekend?” she asked.

“Oh…uh, yeah.” Darrin dragged his gaze away from her beautiful legs and brought his brain back to the task at hand. “Yeah, I’m working on my brother’s car with him. We’re restoring his old T-bird. It’s a 1956, used to belong to my great-uncle.”

* * *

Aaargh! So close! And yet he completely missed the invitation.

Darrin was clearly interested; he was practically drooling on her; why did she suddenly feel he had been magically transported to a different planet without her?

What Gina should have said was, “We should go out sometime.”

Because most of the time, guys don’t hear what you’re not saying. Think about that one for a second. : )

When you ask a man what his plans are for the weekend, he will tell you, quite literally, what his plans are for the weekend. He doesn’t hear your question as a subtle invitation to make some plans that include you.

Here’s another way this secret obstacle plays out.

Women tend to talk about their frustrations as a means of getting them out so that we feel better. We also tend to exaggerate, simply because it helps us express how we feel. But a man will listen to you rant about your boss, and when you end it by saying, “I just can’t take it anymore,” he’ll assume you’re ready to quit your job, whereas you were just expressing your irritation and anger.

The way to deal with that one? When you’re upset, tell him exactly what you want from him. Let him know you’re just blowing off steam by saying, “Thanks for listening to me rant. Let’s go out for a walk together, and you can distract me from all that craziness…”

When you want something, ask for it. When you’re upset, tell him you’re upset, and let him know what he can do. It’s the surefire way to make sure this secret, invisible obstacle melts away and leaves the way clear for the two of you to make the magic happen.

 

Secret Obstacle 6

He wants you to be interested in him, not a lifestyle

First off: screw your biological clock.

Seriously, take that thing, wrap it in towels so you can’t hear the tick and mentally shove it in a box, then cram the box in the back of your mental closet. Whew.

You absolutely can’t approach dating, romance, or love and marriage from the perspective of “I only have so many years in which to make babies!”

There are men who are interested in being sperm donors and you know where to find them. If you are looking for a man to be a daddy, you’re only looking for part of a man, and I don’t think that’s why you and I are talking.

After all, you aren’t the kind of woman who looks at a gorgeous, fresh-from-the-oven gourmet cupcake and says, Oh, I’d love one, but I’ll only take the butter and baking powder. You can keep the flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and that marvelous lemon-cream-cheese frosting.

(Did you like that? I have more.) (But now I want a cupcake.)

Children are one part of a relationship. A very important and potentially beautiful part! But it works out best for everyone when they are the the result of a strong, loving relationship rather than the sole reason a relationship exists in the first place.

So if you’ve been missing some quality man attention, it may be because most guys don’t want to be seen as a baby-making machine, any more than most women don’t want to be seen this way.

Hold on to that dream of children! Hold on. But don’t put the minivan (with the little stick-figure family decals on it) before the man.

Now let’s talk about the other lifestyle thing, which is money.

Yes, money is hot and sexy and we want summa that. Lotta that. I do, anyway. And yes, you will find men who dangle their big, long, hard… rolls of money out as bait in the dating game. Most of those guys are more than a little creepy.

The man you want is financially savvy, absolutely.

You understand how big a role finances play in any relationship (and especially in a marriage), and if you are already carefully managing and building your own wealth and financial standing – even if you don’t count yourself as “rich” – you are much more likely to attract a man with a similar mindset.

Short-term guys are perfectly willing to parlay their dollars into dates, but do you really want to be one of a long string of bikini babes on his boat? A long-term man can smell “she only wants me for my money” a mile off, and will steer clear.

While it’s perfectly fine to be motivated by money to create the life you want (it’s awesome, actually), it’s just plain lazy to hope – and even plan — for someone else to do all the work for you.

 

Secret Obstacle 7

He is insanely conflicted about sex and love

Yes, guys want to have sex. A lot.

And it’s easy to make the snap judgement that “all he wants is sex.”

But they also want to be in love with a fabulous woman like you. They are hungry for attention and the pleasure of a woman’s respect, and thrilled to be needed.

So why does it sometimes seem that a man has to be dragged forcibly away from the driving desire to jump in the sack toward a more balanced understanding of love and commitment? Why does it sometimes feel like guys just can’t be romantic unless they’re trying to shag you?

It’s a good question, and it has some roots in our cultural screwed-up-ness. Seriously.

Think about how we always expect men to make the first move. Yes, I know, you have dropped the hankie a thousand times and he seems to be too blind to pick it up. (See Secret Obstacle #5, above – your “hinting” may not be particularly effective.)

But in most cases he makes the first move. And guess what? I don’t care how much he looks just like Matt Damon, Will Smith, or Robert Downey, Jr., he’s been rejected. A bunch. Boy does he have stories.

Which doesn’t make him thrilled about trying again. (See Secret Obstacle #2 – he’s dying for you to take some of the pressure off him.)

So lots of men try the “just friends” route for phase one of a relationship. Which lets them be close to you to find out whether or not you’ll accept or reject him in phase two, where the stakes are higher.

But sometimes the safety of just being friends is too good to leave. He may not be able to screw up his courage and risk the rejection he’s known and felt and agonized about before.

Add to this a man’s nearly overwhelming sex drive, which can be more all-consuming than a California forest fire in the dry season. So the sex drive is pushing him, but he’s “friends” with you and doesn’t want to be rejected… and pretty quickly things split into two big options: Have friends for “love,” have women you barely know for sex. Thus the phrase, “the kind [of girl] you don’t take home to Mother.”

And of course, friendship isn’t the same as love. But he tries to make it work anyway. And it sucks, because it isn’t what he really wants, but it’s all he has.

So when you talk about love, he’s likely to feel some frustration. Especially since most women can talk rings around most guys when it comes to relational issues.

He’s incredibly, undeniably conflicted about love and sex. But here’s the truth:

He wants love.

He wants sex.

He’s vulnerable to heartbreak and desperately wants to not be rejected again and again.

The right man is waiting for you to help him through that crazy mess to a truly loving – and even romantic! – relationship. After all, love is a task best shared, isn’t it? And that’s some of what we’re going to be talking about in the rest of this book.

So now you may have at least a few more reasons why the men in your life haven’t been chasing you down, hoping madly for just the slightest sign of your favor. It isn’t that they don’t want to, it’s just that there’s more going on inside them than even they could probably acknowledge.

Which doesn’t have to continue to frustrate you, because there are plenty of ways to smooth the way for your man, to become so irresistible he’ll be utterly unable to help himself! Before you know it, he’ll be running helplessly after you, begging for your love.

Hang in there girlfriend, help is coming!