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wikiHow to Understand the Male Ego

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Boyfriend blues? Hubby troubles? Do you sometimes ask yourself just what the heck do these guys think?
Answers to your burning questions might be closer than you realize...

Steps

1. Recognize that he's not from Mars. Men and women are much more alike than many people would like
to admit. He's a human being just like you, with feelings and thoughts and personal beliefs. So don't get
caught up in thinking that you two will never be able to understand each other, because sometimes you
just have to open up and accept each other's views without wanting to change them. Men have just as
wide a range of emotions as women. That being said, men's emotions often center around different things
than women--sports teams, favorite childhood toys, even special TV shows. Make the effort to get to know
a man's secret passions and you'll unlock his affections towards other things, like you!

2. You're not his mother. You really aren't. Please, don't try to be. When articles talk about how men are
looking for women who remind them of their mothers, you can be pretty sure the nagging, tyrannical harpy
demanding we clean our rooms is not what we're after. Even if you're a man also, don't try to turn a sloppy
guy into a neat guy, or make a straight laced guy into a booze hound. What we're really looking for is
someone who makes us feel safe, protected, and for the love of Pete, accepted. Accept us as we are (and
tell us that you do so!), and you'll have a loyal partner for as long as you can stand him.

3. His barriers are generally of his own making. Men who are happy are confident, and therefore are
more attractive. Men with less confidence generally become unhappy with their lot in life, and so start a
vicious cycle where their bad moods make them less and less attractive. For all you men reading, find a
way to break the cycle. Get a dog, quit your job, buy a guitar, anything. Nothing is less sexy than crushing
self-pity. If you want to help a man who seems caught in one of these cycles, try to bring him back to a
place of normalcy--a road trip with a good buddy, a weekend away from his distractions, or anything to
remind him of who he really is. Warning: if his problem is you, this exercise will exacerbate your troubles; if
you really love him, you really should let him go.

4. Understand where he's coming from. Single men are at their most emotionally fragile times when
encountering new relationships--social pressures to "be the man," emotional issues about present and past
relationships, and sex confuse both parties' emotions by sometimes creating the illusion of an infatuation
that isn't there. Communication, rather than sex, should be free-flowing early in the relationship. Both
partners need to get their footing in relation to one another, so replacing intimacy with sex is unhelpful.
Men will respond to sexual cues (who doesn't love pleasure?), but oftentimes will be fundamentally
confused as to the nature of the relationship when based only on non-verbal communication.

5. Don't rush him, even if he wants you to. This is most evident in flirting and courtship, where many men
mistake infatuation and emotional rush for "true" emotions, often jumping headlong into emotionally risky
situations like sex, weekend trips, meeting parents, etc. This rush is unavoidable, and any attempt to
ameliorate it by either increasing or decreasing intimacy will not dissuade men from believing their feelings
at the time to be their "true" feelings. Thus, it is advisable not to radically change your schedule for your
partner immediately--incorporate boring getting-to-know-you dates early on to encourage a sense of reality
in both partners. Plus, imagine the sexual tension you'll build up by making yourself seem like a challenge!
That having been said, potential partners are still obliged to make their intentions clear. Players who
are "just having fun" or "just playing the field" should know that they are doing so at the expense of
their man's emotions. Stringing a guy along for free food or booze, attention (see Warning section
on male validation, a.k.a. daddy issues!), or starting side projects while involved in relationships
already, and you've got a perfect storm of emotion-crushing. Consider it relationship karma: if you
don't want to be played, don't play.

6. Get to know his feelings on intimacy prior to sex. Most everybody loves sex. Men will love sex whether
it comes fast or slow in the relationship. Let sex be a natural outgrowth of intimacy; actively dissuade your
partner from jumping straight to sex by encouraging public intimacy--hand-holding, walking arm-in-arm,
and other family-friendly PDA. Pair-bonding is a fundamentally social experience, so if you're not
comfortable kissing your man in public, you shouldn't be bedding him in private.

7. Share private details from your pasts. Ask your man to reciprocate; you might be surprised, even
mortified, by the honesty of your man. Many guys are desperately looking for someone to understand what
they've gone through, so a great intimacy-builder is privacy-sharing. Notice that you don't want to go
overboard with this...

Be wary in privacy-sharing of "Mr Fix-It." There exists the desire in all of us (both men and women)
to solve problems. Traditional male jobs often encourage problem-solving skills, so this might be
very pronounced in an engineer or a managerial partner. However, most emotional problems require
a listening ear, not a fixing tool; if you don't want him to fix your problems, but do want him to
understand where you're coming from, tell him to deactivate that part of his brain for a minute.
There's nothing wrong with simply saying "I need a minute to vent without judgment or opinion,
okay?" Also, make sure you know the difference--wrapping a problem in the relationship in the guise
of a story from your childhood is an example of an IED (improvised explosive discussion--see
Warning section below).

8. Realize that men want to be playful. This is not to say that you should encourage sloppy or lazy
boyfriends, but keep in mind that you shouldn't try to clean up after him, change his habits, or any other
mothering tactics. A better way to look at his slovenly nature is that men generally are chasing after one
ideal throughout their lives: play. Reaching that blissful state of unworried play is often the entire goal of
men's careers, whether it comes through monetary security, dangerous forms of employment and
recreation, or even just through a gambling or drinking habit. While some men take it too far, most men are
simply looking to have fun; his video games, golf clubs, or cigar collection may be his ticket to Nirvana!

9. Learn what he wants from how he interacts with his friends. Men everywhere seek this unworried
mind, this state of play, through games and hobbies and even relationships; most men, when asked, have
remained long-term partners with their wives because they consider the wife a "best friend"--that is,
someone who increases their possibility of playfulness. If you are of the drama-seeking bent (Twilighters!),
you may disagree; but which is more important--long-term stability, or the temporary insanity of brief,
charged, often highly sexual encounters that invariably end as quickly and emotionally as they started?
The vast majority of single men, just like single women, are out there looking for a simpler, happier, less
tragic kind of love.

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Tips
It's crucial to really get to know the other person first before jumping into intimacy or a relationship.
Especially for men, the beginning of a relationship resembles an audition, or even a job interview--we show
off our skills, paint ourselves in the best light possible, and make ourselves look much better than we
probably are. You shouldn't judge a man based on the first impression, but rather on the overarching
pattern of behavior he shows when he is not performing for your benefit.

Statistically, men are more single-minded in their pursuits than women, preferring one activity at a time to
multitasking. If you want your man to really pay attention, don't bother disrupting a gaming session or
poker night. You're better off scheduling sit-down time with him when neither of you are distracted.
In this age of heightened awareness to rape, sexual assault, and harassment, women should get used to
men abdicating making the first move. It is simply more pragmatic for women to make first moves in
establishing relationships. With beautiful women the subject of affections from numerous men, it's simpler
for the woman to choose the man she wants to be with, rather than have several men fight over her like
she's a hockey trophy; this can also be attention-seeking behavior, if the woman in question purposefully
plays several men against each other for her affections (Example: Bella in the Twilight series. Yes, I went
there.)
If you are a drama queen (or king), learn to recognize the difference between an actual issue or problem
between you and your partner from an excuse to fight or bring up past grievances. Realize that the present
argument may be just a cover for some other larger issue that has gone undisclosed and left to fester. The
next time you feel yourself unable to stop yourself from arguing, ask yourself (or your partner) where this
anger is really coming from. If your partner is unable to provide you with an answer, end the conversation
until you both have a chance to calm down and identify the root problem. Otherwise, your tiny relationship
cavity will become a huge seething relationship abscess!
Everybody should know by now that guys aren't mind-readers, but they are also as stubborn as mules
when it comes to their emotions. Gals--be aware that your guy friend might want more than friendship. If
you don't feel the same way, make sure you let him know a.s.a.p. Many guys twist in the wind for months
because they can't (or won't) interpret subtle brush-off signs, or figure that friendship will lead somewhere
eventually. Surrounding yourself with doormat guys who will never act on their desire to have sex with you
does not count as having friends; it's just attention-seeking behavior (see Warning section below).
If you want to talk about something serious but don't want Mr. Fix-It, connect your desire to share with his
own . Example: "Hon, I need to share something important with you, like that one time you told me what
happened to you in gym class." Note: avoid IEDs if you want to avoid a major fight--guys never forget their
most shameful experiences, so don't cheapen them by trying to score points in the present argument.

Warnings
Attention-Seeking Behavior: Everybody wants attention, and that's fine. What's not fine is manipulating the
feelings of others to get that attention. Examples include: starting fights with no grievance, or in a public
place; setting ultimatums; deliberate deception for the purposes of his or her own pleasure; stripping your
self-confidence through verbal harassment or manipulation (including passive-aggressive techniques
called "negative compliments" in the Pick-Up Artist community), etc. Even more dastardly behaviors
include getting violent, involving the kids in arguments (if you have them), blaming current strife in the
relationship on your own past problems, or (lowest of all blows) impugning your self-identity as "not a real
man" or a "real woman" for refusing to put up with his or her behavior. If your partner (male or female)
persists in any of these behaviors, feel free to DTB (Dump That B****, or Bastard).
Not all men either have or want emotions, just like women; however, you will most likely be able to tell the
emotional men apart from emotion-less men because emotional men don't treat relationships like a game.
Competition, bravado, machismo--these are emotionally stunting characteristics in human society, creating
boundaries, teams, conflict, and ultimately hostility. Men that delight in emotional combat are not generally
reliable long-term partners, as they tend to turn on their own partners just as readily as their fellow
competitors.

On sharing private details: don't compete. If your man has a tragic experience, you can tell him your evenmore-tragic experience, but maybe you will want to save that detail for the next conversation. Sharing is
difficult enough for men in American society--don't make it seem like you're beating his worst with your
worst, or he may stop sharing at all for fear that no matter how bad he has had it, someone else has had it
worse. Men don't feel compassion when sharing equally bad private details, they feel competitive--and
society encourages that competitiveness by requiring men to sublimate their fears into action rather than
reflect upon their deeper meaning.
IED: Improvised Explosive Discussion, or anything that you know will be difficult to talk about, so you will
wrap it in something innocuous to ease its passage into conversation. Wrapping questions of "where is
this relationship going?" in discussions of what movie to see that night is a time-honored example. If you're
worried about the relationship, set aside an appropriate time to simply tell him you're worried. Nobody
responds well to discussions that rapidly change course and importance, and you might end up starting a
fight rather than avoiding one because he has been thrown by the dramatic reveal.
Daddy Issues: Male validation is sorely lacking in today's culture--whether through the spike in fatherless
households, the general disappearance of local business owners, or the outsourcing of tough labor to
other countries, we're losing touch with our men and manliness as an ethical ideal to strive towards. Some
men try to capitalize on this dearth by attempting to fill this hole for a role model, father figure, or big
sweaty man-hug; unfortunately, this can also be manipulation, as nobody should ever be required to fulfill
someone else's emotional circuit. Men who encourage co-dependency should be avoided like the pedobears that they are, and women who seek validation by a daddy-figure should get their rocks off in an
honest job as an exotic dancer or a sex worker. Above all else, don't join or start a cult, or some freaky
pseudo-polyamory group that recruits and renames cadres of impressionable youths to be snacks for their
depraved leaders. That way lies the dark side.