Women's Love.

As a man, I’ll say it right away: writing this post is going to be quite a challenge. It will be like walking blindfolded through a minefield. I know perfectly well how much women care about this topic and how vocal they are in this regard.

On social media, especially TikTok and Instagram, women are expressing their discontent regarding a negative romantic landscape. According to them, everything concerning a loving relationship with a man is something hateful, negative, violent, and even terrifying. Some extremist fringes want to destroy the man, accusing him of all the evil that exists in the world.

Apparently, men are horrible, violent, possessive, control freaks, and they don’t understand what a woman wants. Of course, hearing the rhetoric on social media and television, it's no wonder that women and men are practically living in two parallel worlds.

Now, as a man, I ask myself: what does a man need to do so that women can find that trust in the other half of the planet again? So today, together, let’s try to find the answer to a very simple question: what does a woman look for in a relationship? What does she need to be happy? Because you hear so many things. If I had to summarize, apparently a woman wants everything and nothing. Could that be true?

Body vs. Mind.

Let’s start with a line of reasoning that is at the base of everything: men and women look for two completely different things. The goal is always love (mental and physical), but how one gets there is diametrically opposed. The man seeks physical contact to express love; the woman does it through the mind. So a man starts from one side to reach the center, while she starts from the opposite side.

On Instagram, I happened to hear a reel. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it again. Anyway, it said: a man needs to be physical to be emotional, while a woman needs to be emotional to then seek out that physical contact.

And it is an absolutely correct reasoning. Think about seduction. When we talk about seduction, it is a purely feminine thing: it is the woman who needs that emotional "something" to ignite physical attraction. She is the one who needs the words, the gestures, the touch, and the atmosphere. For a man, you just have to ask.

For a woman, sex is often the finish line of emotional well-being, not the starting point. For a man, it is the starting point for emotional well-being. A woman is capable of "forgiving" an infidelity, whereas a man is not. There are women who can stay in a sexless relationship if they are emotionally satisfied, whereas a man cannot.

It’s as if one part of humanity were deaf and the other mute, and neither side understands the other. And yet, until a few years ago, men and women met, dated, and got married. Why is finding love so damn difficult for both sides now?

Because women no longer settle. In the past, a woman took whatever came her way. Practically, she chose the "least worst" on the market and made it work. Now, that game no longer flies. A woman knows what she wants and won’t stop until she has found it, even if it means staying alone and not finding what she’s looking for.

So we return to the question: what does a woman look for? A woman is not pragmatic in love. She is in business, but in love, she thinks and speaks with her heart and her feelings. A woman is an emotional creature and makes her decisions in an emotional way, often following instinct or listening to the emotions she feels. A man makes decisions based on merit using his head.

Once this is understood, writing this post won’t be so complicated. What I have to do is just one thing: follow the emotions and let myself be guided by them to write this post.

Emotionality.

The biggest accusation a woman makes against a man is that the man is seen almost as a robot, an entity without emotions. In the eyes of many women, men are emotionally unavailable beings. This leads to an impossible dialogue. You cannot talk with your head to someone who speaks with her heart. They are two different languages.

A woman needs the man to be emotional. For a woman, it is fundamental that a man shows his weaknesses, his fragilities, his emotions, and becomes vulnerable. Just as she exposes herself—crying, screaming, yelling, laughing, and flirting—the man must also be at the same emotional level.

A woman needs to have an emotional connection with her man. If this connection is missing, she will feel he is distant and cold, and that relationship will become a trap from which she will want to escape, not feeling reciprocated, wanted, or desired.

It is often thought that not exposing oneself, especially when arguing, is a way to protect the relationship, when instead it is precisely that silence that digs its grave. A woman doesn’t look for a perfect man; she looks for a present man, even when there is yelling and fighting. A woman prefers a man who knows how to apologize after a storm, rather than a man who avoids the rain by staying motionless behind a glass pane. Not that one should fight, but a woman wants an emotional reaction from her man. A woman has this concept in her head: "I’d rather you yell at me than look at me like I’m a stranger." And you cannot be present if you keep your heart under lock and key. A woman wants to enter inside a man’s heart; she wants to see all its nuances and understand his true being. If a woman had wanted a logician, she would have asked Alexa.

I know that opening up is not easy for a man, given that there are horrible stories of women who have used a man's emotions, fragilities, and weaknesses to win an argument, but if you want to be happy in love, then you must expose yourself. You must risk being fragile and being hurt with the person you love. I know it’s more convenient to close yourself off to avoid being hurt, but it is the worst thing you can do when you are in a relationship. Closing off leads to the death of a love that could have been enormous, if only you had exposed yourself.

Dialogue.

Speaking of fights, a couple must talk. This is what a woman expects. A woman expects a partner with whom she can communicate anything, from "take out the trash" to "I am ready to become a mother." How can one even think of planning something lasting if you don’t talk?

A woman dialogues. A woman converses. A woman, if in love, talks with her partner constantly. She wants to know how it’s going, how he is, and if everything is okay. An interested woman wants to know what you do, why you do it, and she wants to know everything, because a woman shares what she did, how she did it, and why she did it. She needs to have this connection, a safe harbor where she can say anything she wants. It makes no sense to stay in a relationship if you don’t communicate.

If that harbor is closed because he is a person who doesn’t talk or doesn’t want to share, she will feel neglected, left out, remaining inside a relationship where she attempts a connection but there is no response from the other side. Talking is not natural for all of us, but it is a muscle that must be trained. It’s not an interrogation; it’s the way you allow her not to feel alone inside the room. A relationship works when there is dialogue. If the man doesn’t talk, the relationship dies. There are no other solutions.

Furthermore, a woman expects the partner to listen and remember. A woman's talking is not just simple chattering. For heaven's sake, it can be. Often, however, that talking also has the goal of instructing the partner about her life. It can be the smallest thing, like the color of a t-shirt, to the name of her mother or that woman who hurt her. When she talks about a t-shirt or a friend, she isn't making "background noise," she is handing over her treasure map. Remembering what was said is a determining factor. For a woman, remembering means that the partner cares and that she is important to him. We all know that a woman wants to feel, rightly so, at the center of a man’s world. If the partner isn't the number one priority, why stay together?

The woman expects the man to remember. She expects him to remember that restaurant, that dress, that detail, or that moment. It’s not hard. You just have to pay attention. A woman in love pays attention to everything, even the smallest detail. Everything the man says will be inside her mind forever. She wants the same thing from the man. If he forgets something important, it is a sign of indifference and neglect.

Beyond this, she wants a man who simply listens. There will be moments in the life of the couple where she will be like a pressure cooker. She tries to accumulate and repress, but when the limit is reached, she explodes. In that moment, a woman doesn't need an advisor, but just someone to sit through a two-hour monologue about how "bitchy that colleague is." Here, you aren't required to remember anything. It is just a moment of venting and the man is the valve. Even just nodding and agreeing with what she says is enough for a woman to be happy. Knowing she is being listened to, she knows that the man she loves is present during that infinite monologue.

Romance.

Romance is a huge point for a woman in a relationship. It is very often said that if there is no romance, there is no love, and therefore a couple does not exist. In this sense, cinema, television, and the internet try to turn the matter of romance into a mess. Because everyone out there thinks they have the recipe for universal romance—the kind that works for everyone. It doesn’t work like that. We hate being labeled in a certain way because we feel like unique individuals. If you treat all women with the same romantic approach, you aren't actually loving any of them specifically.

What is often misunderstood is figuring out what is romantic and what is not. Let’s start with a very simple concept: every woman is different. If a man wants to determine his uniqueness, a woman has every right to do the same. In this sense, the idea of romance can vary from woman to woman, even radically. It can range from a small gift bought in a place she mentioned months earlier, to taking her to dinner at that restaurant she told you about, or simply spending a day alone shopping. Or it could be something unique.

How do you find out? A woman talks, and when she does, she will say things. Among the many things she says, there will be that one thing that allows you to understand what she wants and what she considers romance to be.

What a man must do is capture what is being said and remember what his woman has said. Because a woman shares these things with her man. A woman says what she finds romantic or not. The man just has to sit there and think: "What did my woman tell me she considers romantic?" Or, even cuter and more tender, write it down somewhere. Sometimes romance isn't a diamond, but remembering that she hates diamonds and prefers that out-of-print book she mentioned offhandedly three months ago.

If she were to find that note, she wouldn't think "how forgetful," but rather "look how much effort he puts in not to disappoint me." It is tangible proof of interest. There is nothing more romantic for a woman than her man remembering that romantic thing she said herself, having noted it down and kept it in a protected place so as not to forget it.

Spaces.

The fascinating thing about a couple is that it consists of two in one. The couple thinks as one outside of their own bubble of existence (with friends, at a party, at an event), but in daily life, they are two unique and distinct entities who have found fertile ground to cultivate their love. However, there is also another ground. This ground was fertilized long before the two became one.

Although life as a couple is a succession of moments to be lived and compromises to be made together (house, children, car, holidays, and so on), there must be fundamental spaces for both individuals to still feel like "single individuals." I don't mean "feeling single" in a relationship, but simply maintaining one's identity within a love relationship, trying to preserve all those hobbies or small moments that allow for the well-being one had before falling in love. Because falling in love means sharing every single nuance of your life with someone, not canceling yourself out to serve.

For a woman, as for a man, those spaces are sacred. A woman might do Yoga or physical activity, she might run, she might read, or take a hot bath complete with perfumes and ointments, or whatever a woman finds beautiful to do in the time she has for herself. Those moments are for her and her alone. If she then wants to share them with her partner (which she often will if in love), it is the woman’s personal choice, but if she decides "no, those are my moments and they must stay that way," so be it. There is no man on earth who should tell a woman what she should do in her free time. What the man can do is only react accordingly (adapt and accept, or leave, if the hobby is humiliating or if he does not accept this individuality).

Or a woman might not feel well (due to her cycle or physical problems); maybe she feels down because of what happened to her and needs space—those minutes to recover, to vent, so she can be ready to talk about it. That is the moment where she expects respect and understanding from her partner. A woman hates feeling "oppressed" with a thousand questions or a thousand requests. If she wants to be alone, even if she shares a space with the man of her life, it must always remain a right and a personal choice. Knowing when to take a step back is an act of love just as much as taking a step forward.

Only with personal space can a couple survive, and these spaces must be determined from the very beginning. If the couple does everything together, in the long run, what is there will become boring, and when someone tries to have private space, it will be seen as distancing. And the last thing a woman wants is boredom in the relationship.

Sharing.

Spaces are fundamental, but it is equally fundamental to have something in common. It makes no sense to be with a person, cultivate your own personal hobbies, and forget the hobbies of the couple. If you focus only on yourselves within the couple, that couple is not a couple, but just two people sharing a property. Space for oneself is fundamental, but it must be a small part compared to shared space.

A woman wants to live that relationship to the fullest. Sometimes this need for sharing can seem overwhelming to us men, but it is precisely in that excess that the vitality of the relationship resides. It is the sign that she truly wants us in her life.

Sharing something that she can do with him is fundamental to revive that daily routine that would otherwise be pure and simple cohabitation with some sex here and there (maybe not even that).

When people think "the man is neglecting me," they always think the man has to do something spectacular every day, all day long. It’s not like that. Even for a woman, too much becomes too much (and therefore boring). A woman doesn't ask for much. Just something to do together that both enjoy. It could be going shopping, watching sports or a TV series, working out together, doing something manual, traveling, cooking, even cleaning.

A woman needs to know she is connected to her man. Besides dialogue and sharing emotions, spending quality time together makes a huge difference. It doesn’t need to be all day, every day. Even just that thing you do together two or three times a week, like a cooking class or a good workout, is enough. I know it seems like little, but if you have something in common, you talk about it on the other days, so you share, and from one thing you can go further.

A woman is curious by nature and wants to try new things. Whether it's seeing a place, tasting something, or doing something. A happy woman in a couple will make requests to her man regarding this or that thing to do. The man, in turn, must give that new thing a chance. Saying "no" immediately, for a thousand reasons, could disappoint the woman... and a disappointed woman is a woman who slowly fades away emotionally and physically.

The beautiful thing is that the man doesn't even have to break a sweat. It’s not even necessary for the man to show off or strut around. That’s not what a woman wants. What a woman wants is just the man’s commitment to being present in the moment. Whether he is good at it or not doesn't matter. It’s enough that he tries and finds that moment pleasant, because in the end, being happy is the only thing that counts.

Understanding.

A woman is an emotional being, and as such, she lets herself be carried away by the emotions she feels. This is her way of interacting with the world. Every choice she makes, she makes with emotions. It goes without saying that a woman could be happy one day, angry the next, and euphoric the day after that. It’s not a matter of madness, but of a being that follows her emotions and lets herself be swept along by them. This is human nature. How many men have woken up to a woman angry with them because the man did something wrong in her dream? Instead of being perplexed, we men should be happy. Our woman dreamed of us. Sure, she could have dreamed of us in other (perhaps more "fun") contexts, but it’s still a sign that she thinks of us, even in her subconscious. And that is something great... or would you rather she was thinking of another man?

A woman should not be controlled; she should be supported, and therefore understood and comprehended. You must know your woman and how she thinks in all the circumstances of her daily life. You must know how she behaves when she is unwell, when she is frustrated, angry, disappointed, or happy and euphoric. Because if you don't know, even after years, she might take it personally, saying, "See, you don't know me at all!" and she would have every right to say it. If it were the first time something like that happened, then I could understand the man—but if the man doesn't know how to react, then she has every right to be angry.

A woman is one, no one, and a hundred thousand versions of herself. It sounds complicated, but it isn't. With dialogue and an awake, trained brain, you can easily live with a woman.

Planning.

A lasting couple must have a plan of action. It must have goals to reach in the short, medium, and long term. And they must be goals to be achieved together. A woman cares about planning. A woman wants to know where the relationship is going. She wants a partner with whom to grow, evolve, and become better.

Planning can be buying something, a vacation, a child, a business together, staying in shape, or something else. If a woman does not see that will in her partner to have a future, she leaves, feeling trapped in a relationship that leads nowhere. It is no coincidence that the best relationships are those where the two have a plan to achieve.

Presence.

A woman will always say "I am a free and independent woman," both because she truly is and to reaffirm that equality of the sexes that is so sought after. Which is absolutely true. A woman in modern society is a woman who fights and searches for her own identity in a world that is hard for everyone.

A woman fights alone and will always try to do everything she has to do without a man’s help. For her, it is almost a "matter of life or death." It would be the end of everything if she were helped by a man. It is a territorial issue: she must "mark" her own territory and prove to the world what she is worth and that she deserves what she has, because she thinks that "at the first mistake, even a minimal one, I’m out!"

The relationship is the same thing. She could live alone, because she doesn't "need" a man to survive, but she chooses to have a man to live better. And in that choice lies the need for emotional protection.

However, she is a human being like everyone else. She has limited energy and is not perfect. She also reaches the end of the day exhausted, tired, or angry. When she comes home, she does three things: takes off her heels, her bra, and that "mask" of a tough, free, and independent woman. When one is "at home," the mask must disappear and leave room for the true essence of the soul. There is no need to lie or prove anything to one's partner.

Just as a man seeks comfort in a woman's arms, what a woman expects is to come home and be reassured by a man who understands her struggle and her commitment, who makes her feel safe, protected, and in a place where she can rest and recharge her batteries for the new struggle awaiting her the following day. It seems only fair to me: support must be reciprocal, and if the woman is present to protect the man, the man must do the same. We often talk about "King and Queen"; it is time to prove it.

Presence must not only be in the house, but also outside. If a woman has a career, or is a woman with many friends and acquaintances, she will have a socially active life. Those moments for a woman are a constant emotional trap. Between false female friends, false male friends, and masks everywhere, it is easy to feel alone and lost in the middle of other people. She must be able to think, "Okay, I am surrounded by false masks, but if I turn around, he is there, and he is real."

The man must answer the call in those moments. The woman needs to know that a man, should there be a social event, will be there as an emotional and logistical anchor of salvation. Just as a woman dresses up elegantly for a socially active man, the woman expects exactly the same.

A Good House-Man.

And here we are at the sore point of many relationships. I don't know if this is a reason for a couple to break up, but it is certainly a cause of friction, especially in the long run. The rhetoric is "my man does nothing, while I do everything!" The collective idea is a woman with ten arms doing everything, while he sinks into the armchair.

I understand it is said that a couple works when tasks are divided, and it is indeed a wise choice, but it doesn't mean total delegation of the type "you do that, I do this," without one knowing how to do what the other does! A woman wants all household duties to be shared by the man as well. A woman expects a man to be capable of washing, ironing, cleaning, and cooking.

The idea is simple: just as I learned to do these things and am willing to do them, he must do them too.

It is not a wrong line of reasoning. Both live in the house. Both eat, both get things dirty, and both get dressed. It is a reasonable request for a woman to ask her man for his contribution to "using the house!" Of course, the rhetoric in these cases is "well, but the man comes home late!" True, but so does the woman. Yet she doesn't say a word and does things; he grumbles. It doesn't seem very honest or respectful to me. Furthermore, if these kinds of household tasks are divided equally (for example, he washes up while she does the laundry), a lot of time and energy is saved—time that can be used for something more pleasant and fun, whatever that may be.

There is another aspect that must be taken into consideration. An independent man is a man who protects the woman. In what sense? Well, for one week a month, a woman has her period. There are women who do everything without too many problems, and others who can't even stand up. But how disrespectful would it be if the woman still had to do the chores, cook, and take care of the house, just because the man isn't capable? Or think of when she is sick. We all know a woman is a tank, and with a 102°F fever, she is up and "agile and snappy," but a woman would also like her man to take care of her and the house, as she does when roles are reversed. She too would like to stay in bed and rest, but she doesn't do it because she can't. We know that we men die on the sofa with just a slight fever, while she manages the world with 102°F. Learning to manage the house is the bare minimum to reciprocate that strength.

Being an independent man (capable of doing chores) is not a shame, but it is the only way to truly protect your woman when she is fragile. Romance here is not a flower; it is a ready dinner and a clean floor while she rests.

A Small Reflection.

It is said that a woman is complicated. Well, if you look at what a woman asks for, these are not exactly out-of-this-world requests. A woman wants a man who shares, opens up, is present, respects a woman, and supports her. Are we sure that this is really such an incredible thing to ask?

M.