Understanding Men and their Testosterone, part 1

To men, it's obvious why they love sports, guns, cars and loud things. But women can't always say the same for themselves. This article aims to help you ladies out there to better understand men and their testosterone driven behaviors.

Let's jump right in with this article because we have a LOT to talk about. Remember, this article is driven towards getting you to understand what goes through a guy's mind when he does those crazy things he does. To truly understand someone you have to let go of the need to label and/or judge them. Think less of morality and what is "supposed" to be and of more of simply understanding what's REALLY going on. As with all Kill The Crap Material, some parts may shock and disturb or offend you, but trust me, keep reading, you'll be glad you did.

I get women telling me all the time how much they hate how their significant others spend so much time on their cars. They say that their men spend more time with the car then they do with them. And it's like the more and more they complain about the car, the more and more time he spends on it. What's up with that?

In order to understand why guys do certain annoying things over and over, you need to understand some different aspects of what they get out of doing it.

Attention:

Any form of attention, is still attention. Positive attention is fine and healthy, but it's the negative attention we'll address in this article. Why does he piss you off as if he enjoys it? Now you and I both know that in some ways, a guy pissing you off is great flirting. But what about that "other" type of flirting? Why is it there and how do we get him to stop doing it?

When a man is raised by crappy parents ( i know parenting isn't easy, but that still doesn't change the fact that most parents are crappy), he often has a difficult time differentiating between positive attention and negative attention. This alone isn't the problem, a NEED for attention also exists within a large portion of the population (both men and women) that creates an active attention getting personality. In other words, most people spend a large portion of their day thinking of ways to be noticed, interacted with, and thought of.

In this instance, his perception of what types of attention he should be seaking out, and what types he should avoid are unclear to him. So instead he seeks out attention in general. Your goal is to stop encouraging the negative attention and start encouraging the positive kind.

"Sayings" are a big problem for women simply because they don't realize what it does to their relationship. Once you start formulating "sayings" you've pretty much put the nail in your own coffin. If you constantly say "he spends more time with that car then he does with me" in several different ways i.e.: angry, joking, complaining, sad, lovingly etc. it creates an unfocused perceived opinion in your boyfriend's mind. Anytime you go through the effort to define, and simultaneously do nothing to stop the behavior, it means not only are you willing to allow it to continue, you're also intriged by it. So of COURSE a guy is going to think that's a good thing, even when really it's not.

What I mean by unfocused perceived opinion is that his one action causes anger, amusement, love and sadness toward him. So if he stops doing it, he rules out your love and amusement. If he keeps doing it, he causes you sadness and anger, BUT... think about your relationship: Sadness brings you to him, anger brings you to him, amusement brings you to him and love brings you to him. Therefore, because of aspects that you cannot control (bad parenting, bad self image, low self esteem, bla bla bla) your boyfriend will choose to continue doing it, because in the big picture he's getting what he wants. And in return, you get what you want. Men know that women love drama. Anything that they do that will cause a mix of emotions in you, they will continue to do. The problem is, some things make you crazy in a good way, and other things just turn you off. We'd all love for our relationships to work out, but the only way for that to happen is for us to turn our partners ON twice as much as we turn them OFF.

What to do if you really want more time with him

The reason I say "really want more time with him" is sometimes women fight to get things they don't really want. Realize that there are times where your wanting to spend more time with him is actually a test to see if you can control him. For example; you tell him you want him to stop doing something he loves, and if he does, that lets you know how he will behave with other things he loves. When you ask for it to see if he will buckle, what you're going to get in return is resistance. If this is making you crazy, stop, take a breather, and ask yourself honestly, without any defensiveness, is this about us spending time together? Or is it about me testing him? If he's passed the test, then lighten up already.

Also, if you honestly want more time with him, you'll have to realize you've already inadvertently encouraged his behavior all the way up until reading this article and it will be difficult, but not impossible to undo that. If you go back on your encouragement now, it will only cause conflict. So while the direct approach will only spawn an argument. Try this instead:

Instead of sitting him down and trying to talk to him in a "heart to heart" fashion, instead of yelling at him, instead of crying to him about his car, all things that encourage him to keep doing it as we discussed above, simply wait for a really nice day. On that really nice day, come out, watch him with his car for maybe ten minutes and then kind of scrunch your face like you're bored with watching and say something like:

"I don't know babe, we spend too much time working on your car, we gotta mix things up if we want things to stay interesting" He probably won't be listening the first time you try this. Men hate feeling predictable, so the thought of being spontaneous should be encouraged from the beginning of the relationship. Encourage him when you don't have him figured out, and don't encourage him when you do figure him out. Say, "Ha, I figured you out", make it sound like being predictable makes him lose. Too many women sound proud when they figure their man out, so the man continually lets them figure him out in order to make her happy, the result of this is a boring husband/boyfriend. If you screwed up and allowed the relationship to turn into "rut status" it's fine, but just keep that "bored" attitude when it comes to things you don't like and be really positive and encouraging, or simply bang his brains out whenever he does something you do like.

Why act bored? Duh, you ARE. One thing I focus on greatly in my book is that the only way to truly be successful with women is to be real, another aspect of my book is that men and women are extremely similar. If it works for men with women, it will work for women with men. Being bored makes a man feel inferior, when a man feels inferior he will want to do something to make himself feel superior. In this instance, he will try to be spontaneous.

Do your best to be real about your feelings. Keep in mind that complaining, even in a "bored" way, won't do anything. What you need to do is offer alternatives. Let's take a walk, let's work on something else, let's see a movie, let's take your kick ass car for a ride, let's go out to eat. Let's stay in, cook some burgers and fries and rent a couple movies, etc. etc. keep offering things until A; he hears something he likes or B; he realizes something is different with you and asks you what's wrong. Prevent yourself from getting pissed when he asks you what's wrong, remember the first time he wasn't listening.

Of course you think he SHOULD be listening, but realize that anytime something becomes monotonous, both men and women start to ignore it. Your job is to snap him out of the rut. You've already complained about the car too much therefore he's not listening, this new approach will slowly catch his attention.

From there you can either A; go do something different for once, or B; get out what's been boring you lately. When you talk about being bored, don't focus it in a "I'm blaming you" manner, that will cause an argument and he'll stop listening. Make it seem like it's something that just happened out of the blue and you don't understand it. But that you'd like to try other thing and see if it helps. This tells him you're not just being crazy, you actually are feeling something, it tells him you are willing to work WITH him on the problem by offering alternatives and it lets him know that it's not all about you because you're letting him pick what he wants. Those three things make for a responsive man who will listen, where as the usual female approach just pisses guys off and make them want to go for a ride, alone, in their shiny car. Thus pissing you off more.

Okay, so that's what to DO about him and his sexual attraction to inanimate objects, but what is it all about? Help me understand him.

WHAT is up with his car? lol. Well... when you fix a car's engine, it runs well, performs well and gets you where you have to go smoothly without any stress. When you give it a nice coat of paint, you get a great looking car that gets you compliments, attention and at the end of the day you feel really good. A guy relies on his car, and the car relies on him, and at the end of the day, neither lets the other down. It's a quiet form of companionship with something non-threatening and because of it's reliability, he feels he can trust it.

But, let's be real for a moment. Usually, when men buy something for a woman, the woman uses him like he was a toy. When a guy buys the girl clothes, she doesn't appreciate it, and when he relies most on her to be there for him, she's not. Ladies, I'm not insulting you, I'm just speaking from what I've learned talking to guys from all over the place that either I spoke to while writing my book, or I spoke to after they bought the book. Like always, I'm just being real with you.

Keep in mind, while these may be generalizations, and could very well not apply to you, I'm saying this is how men feel. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, this is what you're dealing with.

Let's think about this to help you better understand. What do you do that could be similar to his behavior with his car? Do you really NEED to spend 2 hours getting ready to go out? Or is that YOUR process? Are you honestly in the bathroom tirelessly working at a fast pace to get yourself ready for your fun night out and it takes you 2 hours to do so? Or are you taking your time, thinking about things, letting your mind wonder, relaxing?

What guys do to their cars, women do to themselves. And men get pissed off having to wait for you, you get pissed off waiting for them.

Okay, great, so you know why he does it, and how to deal with it. But should you have to? This is a question, or complaint that both men and women have had for probably as long as humans have been around.

Basically this whole thing comes down to territorial behavior. You're used to living your life the way you live it, you're used to seeing the dating and relationship world as it's been taught to you. So when an instance arrives where you will not only have to change, but also rely on your partner to change... what happens? Well, most couples simply break up, lol. Others fight for a while and then break up, and fewer still, sit down and seriously talk things out.

What ruins a relationship?

100 little stupid things piling up on each other.

This is serious, how you deal with him and his "testosterone issues" is going to directly effect the outcome of your relationship. Respectively how he deals with your "pms issues" will also effect the outcome of your relationships.

Don't worry about men, I'll take care of making sure the guys know what they're role in the relationship is. But you, worry about you. Handle your half of the relationship whether he handles his half or not. Because if you get into a mindset of sinking to his level in order to show him what he's doing to you, all that's going to happen is you are going to put yourself on a downward spiral. The reason I think it's terrible for people to rush into relationships is because there are many aspects to a serious relationship and you need to be with a partner that wants the best for you, not materially, but emotionally and spiritually. If he can't grow, pardon the pun, stop being a little pussy and help him.

If it doesn't go anywhere after 1/12 of trying, you might want to think about leaving. (1/12 means 1/12 of your partners life. If he's 24, it should take him about 2 years to rid himself of a bad habit. If two years is too long for you, then you're full of shit about being in a relationship with him because relationships are supposed to last forever, that's like what? 60 years? Maybe 70? If you can't handle 2 then you're kidding yourself about being in a relationship, you're still just dating.)

Yes, you have to deal with it, and they have to deal with you and your quirks as well. It's not how "compatible" you are that judges a relationships quality, but how willing you are to work towards improving each others lives that rates the relationship. If you want him to spend more time with you, it should be because you want to broaden your horizons along with his and help him to see more of what's out there. IF not then you need to find someone different because you're with the wrong guy.

Continue on to part two "What's up with guys and their guns?" check out part two for part three "men and competition"