Stop Telling Women They're Intimidating

Arguably, one of the greatest pitfalls that men fall into in modern dating is twofold. One, telling women how to behave, trying to shape them or mold them or, you know, prevent them from falling into some train wreck in their life or in their career or with their family trying to fix them. And secondly is telling them that they're intimidating. And for a lot of women, this has become a sort of like, badge of honor. You know, men find me intimidating, and they say, men, you know, I'm intimidating to men. And it has become this thing that they take on. And I get a lot of questions when I do Q&As on Instagram. I get a lot of questions from women around this topic asking, you know, why do men tell me that I'm intimidating? What does it mean? Is it okay? And, you know, same thing with men saying, you know, I'm dating this woman, I've started seeing this woman, and she's intimidating to me. What does this mean? And there's a number of reasons for this, but I just want to start off by saying, stop trying to control or alter the behavior of the woman that you're with. This is one of the biggest traps that I see a lot of men falling into. Especially guys that have gone through, like the pickup community, you know, are trying to be more assertive, more direct, more. More alpha. You know, maybe they've watched some. Some red pill videos or black pill videos or whatever, colored pill pill videos online, and they've adopted this narrative that in order to be more of a man in the relationship, in order to be more masculine, you need to control the woman that you're with. What this ends up doing is that the. The man in the relationship ends up taking on responsibility for the woman that he's with. And he starts to try and control her behavior, what she does, what she says, how she behaves. And he ultimately takes responsibility for. For who she is. And he. He personalizes when she fails, when she's upset, when she's happy. So if she's happy, he's doing a good job. If she's upset and angry or disappointed, he's failing in some capacity. And that might not be what he would say consciously or outwardly, but behind the scenes, it's how he's responding. You can see it in the way that he's re acting. So you're not responsible for the woman that you're with and how she behaves. If she wants to act like, however, if she wants to be responsible, if she wants to focus in on her career, if she wants to act like a train wreck, you're not responsible for those things. If she wants to destroy her career or friendship or, you know, implode certain relationships, again, you're not there to do the job that her parents should have done for her. And a lot of men confuse leading in a relationship and leading a relationship with parenting their partner with becoming this sort of surrogate father figure within their partner's life. And this creates all sorts of challenges. You know, it can create resentment for that, for that man down the road. It can create codependency where that woman starts to rely on him, to regulate herself, to regulate her emotional response and experience, where she becomes dependent on him to make certain decisions, choices for her. And for a man, this can feel initially, if he's looking for a purpose in the relationship, it can feel initially rewarding where he feels like, ha, I have a function, I have a purpose within this woman's life. But what's actually manifesting is that he needs to be in control. He needs to be in a position of superiority. And in many ways, he's. He's being parentified. And so this can have a negative impact on intimacy, on sex, on connection, on communication, on how the couple moves through conflict. So it can really impact a lot of. A lot of pieces. And on the flip side of this, trying to control a woman's behavior is the. The narrative of telling a woman that she is intimidating. And this has popped up a lot in the last decade or two as sort of female culture has changed quite a bit. And a lot of women have adopted more masculine forward orientations where they are quite a bit more direct, quite a bit more assertive, maybe more prone to conflict and combativeness. So when a lot of guys get into a relationship with a woman, they say that she's intimidating. For a lot of women, that can seem like a good thing at first, until that man doesn't stick around, until he ghosts her, until he becomes needy and she feels like he's, you know, he's constantly needing something from her and he can't soothe himself, he can't regulate himself, he can't lead himself. He's not responsible fully for himself. And in some ways, it's the opposite of what I was talking about before, where a man is stepping into this sort of father figure. The. The man steps into a boy role and kind of parentifies the woman as she becomes this mother, this maternal figure for him, where she inevitably feels like man that she's dating has become more boy like because he's intimidated by her. And you know, when you're intimidated by someone, ultimately what you're saying is, I'm afraid of you on some level, I'm scared of you, I'm afraid of you. And within intimacy, that's a. Within, especially sexual intimacy, that's a very confining space to be in. You're less likely to want to engage in healthy conflict. That's going to help to build the connection within the relationship. You're less likely to express yourself emotionally, intellectually, sexually. You're less likely to express your opinions and your perspectives. And so what ends up happening is, is when a woman is dating you and you are telling her that she's intimidating, she might like being in this seat of superiority for a brief period of time. But what she'll very quickly figure out is that you are withholding. You're withholding a lot because you're intimidated by her. And so I just want to break down some of the interpretations that I've seen in the men that I've worked with. When they're dating a woman, they say that she's too intimidating. It can mean a number of things. And for a lot of the guys that are out there that are watching this, a lot of the men say, I don't know why I feel that way. I don't know why I feel intimidated. I don't know what it is about her or I don't actually know what it means. I just feel intimidated. So I'm going to translate a little bit of this. So it can mean a number of things. Number one, it can mean that you feel like that woman is more dominant, more outwardly masculine, more outwardly assertive or direct or choice oriented than you. So she's more effective and proficient in saying, doing and choosing what she wants for herself and for her life. And that can feel threatening to you and intimidating to you because you might not know what, where your place is in the relational dynamic because of that. It might also mirror back to you and reflect to yourself that, that you maybe lack some confidence, some assertiveness and some directness in being able to choose and say and do what it is that you want to have sovereignty and independence as a man. And so that can feel intimidating for you. The next piece is, is that when you as a man say that you feel intimidated by her, you could be communicating that you feel inferior to her, that in some ways you feel like she is not your, your equal, but that she's actually better than you, that she's out of your league. A lot of the guys that I've worked with and spoken to that have fallen into this category, they do feel as if that woman is somehow superior to them. And that falls into the relationship. That begins to lay the foundation for how they gauge they engage in a relationship. And so the question is, are you too understanding of that person? Are you, are you pedic canceling that person and devaluing your own worth? Now the last piece is communicating that a woman is too intimidating or that she's intimidating in general might mean that you view her as being combative, as being more conflict oriented. And it's a way for you to skirt around and, and not have to address the fact that you don't want to be more direct, be more assertive, that you don't want to claim fact that you feel scared of engaging in conflict with this person or speaking your needs or speaking your mind in some way because you're going to be bowled over or disrespected or whatever the case may be. And so these are all really important things to look out for if you feel intimidated by a woman. Again, it's. This isn't about being good or bad, right or wrong. That's not necessarily the case. And it's not about her right. This isn't about her behavior necessarily. This is about how, who you become in the face of a woman that you feel intimidated by. Because maybe you feel intimidated by her, but you feel very drawn to her, you feel very attracted. You want to start a relationship with this woman and you need to be conscious of that because if you are intimidated by her, you are naturally putting her in a superior position to you. You're not on equal footing. And that's the work that needs to be done, is to see and rehumanize that person by reflecting back what it is within yourself that is feeling inferior. What is it about yourself that is feeling inferior and insecure in that moment that needs to be cultivated? Do you feel like you don't want to engage in conflict with this person? Do you feel like you, you can't trust this individual because they're out of their, out of your league in some capacity? Do you feel like you aren't as assertive, aren't as direct, aren't as owning of your own wants and needs in the relationship? And so you feel smaller and you feel weaker in some capacity because you can't own and you're not wanting to own what it is that you truly want? So that's where the focus needs to reside. If you are wanting to pursue that type of dynamic with a woman that you feel intimidated by, then this is an opportunity for you to reflect on and cultivate the part of yourself. And that will tell you whether or not that woman wants to stay around. Because that might cause more conflict. She might not want that. She might like being in this position of superiority where she has control or dominance over the men that she dates, and she might not want to move out of that position. But either way, you need to decide if you want to continue to explore and experience being in a relational dynamic where you feel intimidated by the woman that you're with. And if you do, then you need to decide on the part of yourself that is feeling inferior or less than or weaker or frightened of that woman and either cultivate that part, develop that part, build that part up so that you're standing on equal footing, or it's a sign that that maybe is not the right relationship for you in some capacity. Again, maybe because she's wildly combative and rather than saying, you know what, you're just disrespectful and you're just combative and you, you're just starting conflict for no reason at all, you are just saying, hey, I feel intimidated by you. And you eventually ghost, which I see a lot of men do, rather than saying, hey, you know what, there's something about your personality that. That I don't really jive with, that I don't. That I don't really respect, that I don't really want to be around, that I don't know necessarily how to handle. Rather than saying that, usually a lot of guys will just say, oh, you, you're very intimidating. You're a very intimidating woman. And they kind of. They say it like, I see a lot of guys saying this as if it's a positive thing, but they actually mean it in a very negative way. So be more transparent about what it is that you actually mean when you're telling a woman that she feels intimidating. Don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you are listening to this or watching this. And don't forget to share this video if you enjoyed it and you feel like somebody will get something out of it. Until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.