What Men Really Want – Fresh, Honest, Open

Hi there,

We are now on Week 6 of the “What Men Really Want” series so there are only a few more weeks of videos remaining for you to watch. I hope that you’ve found the series useful. I know that I have personally learned quite a lot for the wonderful, open men who have very kindly volunteered their time to answer my poring questions (of which there were quite a few that we’ve edited down significantly for you to benefit from). Some of the points seem to be repeated on quite a few of the interviews, telling me that they’re even more important to men than I even could have imagined. I now emphasize them even more in my upcoming workshops and my one to one work. I know that you like me are eager to learn as much as possible from what the men out there are telling us. We all want to be loved, appreciated, and understood. We also want to be accepted for who we are and not have to change ourselves to fit someone else’s mould. That’s been the toughest part for me to integrate into my work with clients, but also the most important. How do I help you to stay true to who you are while also helping you to brand yourself to be that ideal woman that your ideal man wants to spend the rest of his life with? All of this has been a work in progress and I have personally put every single thing I teach clients to do to practice myself. I’ve had my own amazing success story and I’ve seen so many clients with incredible success stories, all differing of course, but all incredible.

I know that you won’t want to miss any of the videos or blogs from the past, so we’ve made it easy for you to catch up on any that you’ve missed here.

This week’s theme seems to be about “freshness”. Men have mentioned over and over liking a woman who is fresh and also about keeping the relationship “fresh” even long-term. This theme has come up over and over again often phrased as a woman who’s playful, easy going, fun, elegant, graceful, charming and feminine – among others. So what is that freshness that men are looking for? The two interviews this week go into more detail on this, explaining what they think makes a woman fresh.

.   Fresh equals vitality. Vitality, by the way, is explicitly not exclusive to youth. Many men who were interviewed were asked the question of whether youth was an important factor for the woman they chose. Many of my clients are over 40 so this is of particular interest to me. Unfortunately, the culture we live in often puts quite a lot of emphasis on the beauty of youth. However, what the biggest reason stated by the men I interviewed for choosing women who were younger had to do with this aspect of vitality. One thing mentioned was fitness and the aspect of keeping a healthy body. Many of the interviewees who preferred younger women pointed to the fact that these women had more energy and were more active than the women they knew of their age. These men had woken up in their advanced years to the importance of fitness, exercise, and healthy eating and hence they were interested in women who expressed those same interests. I have seen many such women of all ages who demonstrated this vitality, as well as grace and femininity. This interviewee mentioned meeting such women in yoga classes, and I personally have met both yoga instructors and students in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who clearly were full of this vitality. Some of them demonstrated more grace and beauty than women I’ve met in their 20s who take less care in how they look after, and what they put into, their bodies.

2.   Fresh is an expression of character. Beautiful eyes and a nice smile have come up again and again for a reason. “The eyes are a mirror to the soul,” as the expression goes. We show a lot more than we know through our eyes. For example, I know some women who are models or former models and are clearly very attractive who take great care to make sure that their clothes and makeup look immaculate when they go out, and that’s after spending hours at the gym each day. However, they neglect spending time on their minds and their lack of interest in the world is clearly seen through their eyes that lack energy and that give away disinterest when anything outside of their world of superficiality is mentioned. I know other women who are perhaps less beautiful or superficially perfect who manage to captivate with their energy, genuine interest, and constant spark. These women are the ones who keep a man’s interest beyond just sexual attraction. Men constantly mention the need for an elusive thing known as chemistry, which they say is “difficult to explain”. But chemistry is something they claim that goes beyond just physical attraction. It includes her captivating smile; eye contact that seems to speak directly to the man inside him; a warm and tactile nature; and an expression of character which is curious, internally energetic and friendly. Freshness is another word to describe this kind of nature. Freshness is the expression of one’s openness. It is a constant renewal of interest, a persistence in learning new things and an openness to new ideas. When I did my NLP course recently, for example, there were so many students and trainers of vastly different ages. All of us left that course feeling renewed, refreshed, and excited for all of the new information that we’d learned. Freshness is a quality of a person who is present, not stuck in the past dwelling on once experienced hardships and pains. Looks is only one aspect; but freshness and attraction and chemistry goes well beyond just looks.

3.   Fresh is a term that can apply to that amazing relationship. We all dream of having that ideal relationship: the one that seems always loving, romantic and is constantly self-renewing and flowing together. Another point that has come up over and over again in the interviews is the aspect of creating a life together, doing things together with full honesty, integration, and genuine mutual interest. This seems like the ideal for those of us who are genuinely interested in many things, and something potentially easy to fake for those with limited interests outside their own superficial worlds. While I personally believe that any reason to learn new things and begin new hobbies and potentially open up our worlds to new ways of seeing things is something positive, it should be something that we do because we genuinely are interested in doing it and not just for the sake of pleasing the other person enough to get that next date. Trying any activity should therefore firstly be done with an open mind and a genuine interest. So it is not the fact that I change my interests to adapt to yours, but rather that we both have an open mind to giving some activities a try together. This will then essentially be linked with self-discovery as well as with discovery of the world and new ideas in general. I discovered my keen love of cycling, for instance, because of a former boyfriend who was a cycling fanatic. I still remember fondly some of the incredible holidays and weekends away we would go on together cycling through many different territories and discovering new paths. I still to this day am an avid cyclist thanks to having my eyes opened to the sport by this significant person in my life years ago. That’s very different than pretending to like doing something just to get to the next date and then returning to the person we are once that person isn’t watching. That isn’t being genuine or true to ourselves and that lie of self will eventually come out as it always does. I can recount one story that a male friend of mine tells with particular distaste about a woman he was very attracted to who pretended to be as into healthy eating and exercise as he was. He thought they were ideal for each other, until one day when he took her for what he thought was a romantic cycle and she spent most of it whining about how long and arduous it was. Shortly after when they stopped for a rest to buy some “healthy snacks” he was further dismayed when she insisted on getting two very unhealthy candy bars and some crisps. Ordinarily, eating unhealthily every once in a while wouldn’t be a big deal for most people. However, she had insisted the entire time of their dating that she was as much of a health fanatic as he was and so that “romantic” weekend together that was supposed to bring them closer together actually served to make her seem like a liar in his eyes. The point of course is that in order for a relationship to remain fresh both of the people in it have to first be genuine and honest with themselves and with each other. Then there is the potential for each to introduce their favourite interests and for both to grow further together by seeing things through the other’s point of view and by learning from each other.

Hence, my mission to help people find love always begins with sessions of self-understanding and uncovering what is genuine and true for you and the core essence of who you are. I first ask my clients what it is that they like to do and then to imagine what their ideal partner would be like.

Does this resonate with you? I’ve put the learning from the research with men into a workshop that will help you to Unleash the Irresistible Woman Within? Watch the video below and sign up to one of my upcoming workshops and learn how you too can remain genuine to who you are while also making yourself into the ideal version of you that has him wanting to know you better and better.

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