What does he mean "Mysterious?"

Ladies, I present to you the long awaited return of the “Ask a Male Blog”.  Your one stop location to have your questions answered about what and how men think.  Contrary to popular belief, yes we do think.  We often spend a great deal of time thinking.  The downfall is that we often don’t enact what we think about and we often don’t follow through with it. 

Today’s question: What does a man mean when he says that he finds me “Mysterious?”

The age old question, and one of those goals that the staff (of one) that this blog represents, attempts to dissuade some of the mystery behind what either gender is thinking at any given time. Now, I’ve stated in the founding post that I cannot propose to ponder what women think, because I am not a woman, nor what a gay man thinks because I am not a gay man.  I can however attempt to clarify what a straight man means to women when he says something.  

 (Yeah... That pretty well sums it up.)

We have different ways of thinking. The greatest issue that we across the gender gap have is the concept of communication.  We both have issues expressing how we feel, what we want, and what we need from each other.  Both sides honestly feel that the other should just KNOW what we are thinking at any given time. 

But none of us are Psychic.  Honestly; if any woman could read my mind… I’d be rendered dateless for the rest of my existence. 

 

But I digress…

The question is, what a man means when he says “Your Mysterious?”  

Often, when men first meet Women, we are conditioned to see a woman and judge her based on first impression.  Our first trained response is to judge her on the basis of what we find attractive in a woman.  That varies from man to man (or boy to boy as often as the case may be). I could write a whole dissertation on just what men are conditioned to believe is attractive in Women and just what we often realistically do find attractive in Women.  Suffice it to say, if we sit down to have a conversation for longer than five minutes, then we find you ladies attractive. 

The second thing we are attempting to do in conversation and we are trained to judge you on is whether your interests possibly or even remotely match our own.  Now, it would be foolish to expect that our future love hold all or even an exacting amount of interests that we share. At best, we can hope for a few interests in common and enough to give us something to talk about. 

 

So here’s the rub in the scenario… 

After we get past the initial meeting, past the conversation, and our interest is perked… We as men go home after the first date and begin to formulate an idea about the person we’ve met and just what kind of person they may be. How we do it depends… We combine our images of our first impression with the conversation about your interests that don’t match ours and our ideas of what you may think about the future, love, life, faith, sex, whatever the case may be, and we begin to come up with either a positive or negative idea about you.  Usually if it’s negative, it won’t result in a second date.  At worst in the general douche bag scenario, a second date will largely just be a push for a one time sexual encounter and no call and no show. And let’s face it, that’s not a scenario anybody but the douche bag wants. 

So if it moves to a second date, we are attempting to explore our preconceived ideas about you. 

And that’s when you begin to shatter them all.  Because ladies, you are so amazing at that. We develop and indeed feel we have a perfect idea of what you are and what you have to offer. 

And then you have to go and amaze us.  Subtly at first, you might not even notice that you just did it.  But that cute little wink you did when we mentioned our favorite movie.  Or that way your hand touches our knee when we talk about our favorite band.  Or the way you light up about the things that just seem so mundane to us.  Our entire vision of you has shattered…  And you now become so much more interesting. You’re… MYSTERIOUS… 

 

So perplexed… We have to break down our preconceived idea of what we thought you were.  The difficulty we have thereafter is;  can we overcome our preconceived ideas and explore the woman you really are, or is the mystery too insurmountable that we have to disconnect?  

Men have issues, I will be the first to admit it.  Human beings, men and women both, have issues.  The greater strength is shown when we put aside both of our preconceived ideas and begin to explore the mystery that each other holds.

"You are NOT Captain-Save-A-Hoe!"

This post will either gain me some readers or cost me some readers. In either case I think it needs to be said. This particular post I’m directing to both my male and female friends and readers.

Ladies and Gentlemen raise your right hand and repeat after me, “I… AM NOT… CAPTAIN SAVE A HOE!”

Ladies and gentlemen, we both are consequently guilty of falling consistently for the wounded bird syndrome. We meet people who have gotten themselves into some form of disaster or another. They are lovely, good looking, people who consistently seem to need bailing out of one disaster or another. In exchange for your assistance, they promise eternal love and affection but only so long as you keep dumping money or time or energy into supporting them.

Both genders are guilty of falling for the scam; both genders are guilty of perpetuating the scam. And both of our genders need to garner our self-respect and stand up to the wounded doves. We need to stand strong and say “I AM NOT CAPTAIN SAVE A HOE!”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the next time you find yourselves single and alone, you WILL find yourself getting called by someone you know. You WILL find yourself meeting someone and you WILL find yourself tempted by a wounded bird.

We all know the scenario. We find someone who has run out of money and is about to lose their house (for the fourth or fifth time). We find someone who has spent all their money frivolously and can’t get Christmas or Birthday presents for their own kids. We find someone who has no groceries to feed themselves or their kids. They got beat up by their ex (again) and they desperately need to crash at your house (preferably in your bed with you) and they desperately need your finances to keep themselves afloat.

So we ride into the rescue shouting "I WILL SAVE YOU!"

These “professional victims” for lack of better terms KNOW that we can and will ride to their rescue. We will pull out all the stops, sell all our worldly goods, and skip on time with all our most important people to cater to and attempt to heal our wounded creature. We think that in doing so, as so many horrible romance movies have tried to teach us, that they will be grateful for our love and want to stay with us. Instead, they are little more than parasites.

Once they bleed you dry of your time, your money, your resources, your energy, your mental resolve, and you finally reach a point where you have nothing left to give. You are a dried out husk and suddenly you realize that they are now looking for someone new to save them.

We all know why we do it, why we always rush to the rescue. Many of us are on a constant search for love and hope and the chance for a future. We grow up with the belief that kindness is key and truth be told IT IS! But we need to pick and choose carefully who we give to and how much.

Guard your hearts but given to those who truly are in need and learn to discern who those people are. Be strong and confident in who you are and recognize that you cannot buy affection from anyone. Don’t let anyone drain you of life.

YOU! YES YOU! YOU ARE NOT CAPTAIN SAVE A HOE!