Ask Her This

You know, I think in the beginning of every relationship, we as men, maybe not all men, but for sure, most men are sort of prone and happy to kind of go through the motions of doing whatever the woman wants, right? Maybe not whatever, but we're happy to do things for her, you know, and culturally and socially, this is kind of the norm, right? You take her out on a date, you decide where you're going, you, maybe you buy flowers, maybe you pick up the tab of coffee. After a couple weeks of dating, she wants you to come and meet some of her friends. And generally we're happy to do those types of things, but I think what we miss out on is how we really get to know a woman in the beginning of the dating process. And even in a long term relationship, you can tell a lot about the woman that you're with by doing one simple thing that I don't think a lot of people are really talking about. And we're going to talk about it here. So I got this question on Instagram the other day and a guy reached out and said, you know, I'm dating, I've been dating for a couple years now. I've been single. How do I really get to know a woman in the beginning of the relationship? I've seen a lot of terrible advice through pickup scenes. I've tried it. It doesn't really work for me. I just don't know what to do anymore. So again, I think one of the big things that we're conditioned to do is to go through this process of really honoring the woman's needs in the relationship, right? What she wants, what she needs. You know, generally a lot of guys are happy to do that. And it's what women communicate wanting, right? And there's sort of this correlation between the more that you can do as a man in order to provide for her, in order to take care of her, in order to make sure that her needs are met. The more that she raves, right, the more that she'll tell her girlfriends how great you are and, and the more she'll tell you how, how much she likes you and engages and, you know, she's more likely to text you back and those types of things. But I think that generally speaking, this is because we, as men, we enjoy the process. We don't mind doing things. We enjoy doing things. And so we generally will take care of a woman's needs within a relationship because there's something that we're getting out of that, right? We enjoy the process. We don't, you know, we we maybe enjoy taking care of them or feeling responsible or have a sense of prioritizing them or providing for them or, or whatever that it is. And there's also a social narrative that says you as a man should not be needy. Right? The worst thing that you can do in a relationship is to be needy. And I don't think that that's necessarily bad or wrong. I think that, you know, as men, when we become needy in a relationship, I mean, if you've ever been in a relationship with a needy woman, it probably wasn't a very enjoyable experience, right, because it takes up a lot of time and attention and energy, and you become tasked with their happiness and their joy in some, some regards. But this idea that we as men shouldn't be needy is very, very prominent. And how a lot of men engage in a relationship is by trying to become needless men, needless men. And so they hide their needs, they hide their wants, they hide their desires. They don't ask for them, they don't even allude to what they. They might be. And the more that you fall on the sort of nice guy spectrum, the more you're trying to, you know, be this modern man who's very woke and conscious and tuned in to what the woman wants and, you know, all. All that other type of stuff, the. The more that it seems that we fall into this camp of becoming needless. And a lot of this is coming out of this notion of I, I can't be seen as a needy man. But the problem is, is that that's not a middle ground. It's not a middle ground, and you don't really get a true sense of who that woman is by withholding your needs. And one of the real tests that I found over the years when I was dating, and even when I started dating my wife, my now wife, was to go through the process of having very clear needs that I would ask for. And I think that there's a few things that you can do to, not as a way to test, but as a way to reveal who that woman is, how she'll interact with you as a man, when you have needs. Because the truth is, is that some women don't want to take care of a man, a man's needs. You know, I think some women have been in relationships with nice guys who have been needless almost the entire time. And so when they get into a relationship with a man that has needs, it can be confronting or it feels uncomfortable, or, you know, they might be women who have adopted this notion of Like, I don't need a man. I still want you to take care of a bunch of things and take me out on dates and buy me flowers and do these things. But I don't need you. And so you shouldn't need me. You shouldn't need me to do things. You shouldn't need me to take care of things for you or engage with your needs in any way, shape or form. And so there are a lot of women out there that will reject your needs immediately and they'll have a sort of very forward response for whatever reason. And so I think one of the big things that you can do right out the gates in the beginning of the relationship is to ask and to ask very directly and very specifically, say, I'd like you to do this for me. I'd like you to take care of this for me. Or, it would make me really happy if you did this for me. And you need to make sure that you're asking for something that doesn't necessarily benefit her, right? It's not like you're asking her to pick out the restaurant that you're going to take her to on Friday night. It's not that. It's that you're asking her to do something that really is about you. It's about you. It's about your needs. So you might ask her to pick something up for you on the way to your place, you know, for the third date or the second date or whatever it is. And it's not for her, it's something completely separate, right? Like there's something that you need her to pick up that's for you tomorrow, right? The day after the date. And this will give you a sense of how she responds to that, right? Does she become combative? Does she start to mock you? Does she start to make fun of you? You know, she happy to engage in it, right? Is she like, oh, yeah, of course, I'll. I'll pick that up for you. Or why do you need it? Or, you know, this interaction, having those needs, asking for those needs will give you a sense of two things. One, how that woman has traditionally engaged with men and their needs, right? So she may have had guys that are very needy, right? These sort of like, guys that have been insecure and have been very needy and have, you know, complained passive aggressively, tried to get their needs met, or they have been with guys that have had no needs and they really don't know how to interact with it, or they have a healthy relationship with it, right? And you can, you can tell that they don't mind going out of their way to take care of you, to provide, you know, something for you to be able to reciprocate that. And I think that that's the main component that a lot of relationships are missing out on. This notion that there isn't this reciprocation within a dynamic is wildly challenging. And so a lot of men end up idolizing or prioritizing a woman. And there's a great saying that says when you idolize her or, or put her on a pedestal, don't be so surprised when she starts looking down on you. And this is the same thing for her needs, right? If you over prioritize her needs, her wants, what she wants to do, who she wants to go out with on Friday nights where, you know, where you guys spend time on the weekends. If you over prioritize those things, then don't be so surprised when you say, hey, I need to go do this, I want to go do this. This is what I want to prioritize within the relationship. Don't be so surprised when she looks down on that. You know, it's a very common thing, especially for guys that have played the nice guy archetype for so long, when they start to shift that, when they start to make a change and they start to bring their needs into the relationship directly and ask for them, that it creates a little bit of tension and conflict within the relationship because that man has largely not taken up any space, any real estate within the territory of the relationship. And so you can tell a lot by simply just asking her to meet one of your needs, right? Go pick this up for me. I need you to take care of this for me, or it would make me really happy if you did this for me and ensure that it's actually all about you. And you'll see in that moment, in that sort of task or that action that you're asking her to take, how she responds. And that will give you a good sense of the type and the quality of woman that you're with. And it'll give you a good sense of whether that woman is interested in reciprocating, meeting your needs, or if there's a barrier for her to meet your needs. So let me know what you think below. Have you found this to be the case in your dating? Is this something that you have tried before? What. What's the results that you've gotten? And if there are other ways that you have found to be very helpful in figuring out the kind of woman that you are dating within the first few weeks of the relationship. So fire me off a message on Instagram at man talks. See you next week.