What are women really looking for?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-15-2004
What are women really looking for?
82
Sat, 04-23-2005 - 4:14pm

I would love a female perspective here. What do you all (I could've said "yall" but I refrained) look for in a man?

I know this is a very general question, but I want you to be specific.

Imagine that through the marvel of modern technology there was such a thing as a "Man Store". You could go in and custom order your perfect guy. A week later, your new man would be ready for pickup (or delivery if you so choose). He of course would be madly in love with you. :-) What physical characteristics would you choose? Would you want him to look just like Adrian Paul? (lol, just kidding). Be shallow if you want. If you want him to have 6-pack abs, say so. What about personality? When you were ordering your man, any detail that you left out would be automatically chosen. So, if you did not specify a hair color it could be whatever.

Look forward to reading your responses.

Eric

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-15-2005
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 2:55pm

It's not that I'm not picky - I'm just open to variety.

So here's a scenario (and this recently happened to a guy friend of mine):

He and GF had dinner plans for her birthday. He gets a phone call 1/2 hour before they are due to leave for the restaraunt. A GF of his (never romantically involved, if that matters) and her child (his godson) were in a car accident. Mom has to stay in the hospital over night for observation, but has no one else available to take the boy. He cancels on GF, rushes to the hospital, keeps the kid, goes back the next day to take Mom home, and actually keeps the boy a few days, so she has more time to recover.

How do you react to being put on the back burner?

I'll let you know what his SO did later....


iVillage Member
Registered: 02-07-2005
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 4:38pm

goobersmooches, I can understand your "preference" of not wanting to get involved with a clinically depressed person. I have many in my family and most take medication regularly and are totally fine, one being my dad. Yet there is always the possibility that they could stop their medication and living with a person like that is very challenging, I have seen this as my dad would go off and on his medication and we (his family) always prefered his "on" times over his "off" times.

I believe the previous poster said something about depression and I just wanted to add a little on that subject. (Sorry Eric this is off topic).

I love people no matter what issues they have, but can definitely see your choice of preferring to be involved with a person who doesn't have depression issues. Yet if you were to meet someone whom you didn't realize had those issues and you fell in love with them, then found out later about the depression issues, do you really think that you would end the relationship just because of that? Just a thought...

You said, "...As for the depression, no one ever died from depression (barring them killing themselves), whereas you can die from diabetes even with treatment, so it's not technically the same thing..." I don't agree with your statement. Both ARE diseases and both can be treated with medication - they are technically "different" diseases, and there is unfortunately more of a stigma on mental issues rather than physical ones, yet both are diseases, yet of different body parts.

There is something in part of the brain that isn't working as it should in depression, just as the diabetic person's body parts are not working as they should either, just as a heart patient may take medication to make that part of their body work correctly. Chemically, all of these body parts are being helped just as the brain is being helped also in depression, all with meds.

You can not "see" the brain as easily as you can see other body parts that do not work properly, so it makes the brain issues seem different, yet in reality they are still body parts that are not functioning as they should and being chemically altered with meds, just as the heart, pancreas, and other body parts of people with other diseases, are also being altered chemically with meds to work properly. But they are ALL diseases that may be helped with medication.

When a person kills themselves when they are depressed, they ARE dieing from the depression. That part of the brain is not working correctly and causes them to do things that they would probably not do otherwise. It may not be a direct cause of the brain giving out as a heart muscle would do in a heart issue, but it is still caused from something not working correctly in the body part - the brain.

Many people are living great lives while taking medication for depression and yet I feel that many non-depressed people still attach a stigma to these people which isn't really fair to them. Stigma's are not attached to most other diseases in this way. I just felt the need to stand up for the people who have conquered depression and are doing so great.

Yet you also are entitled to your opinion to not become involved with such a person. We all have our personal preferences.

Sunshine

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 5:23pm

Wow sunshine! Great post. My younger daughter has been dealing "mild" dperession since her dad passed away. Therapy seems to be working so well for her.

She wanted help, but she was afraid to go to therapy because of the stigma that goes along with any mental illness. I can't tell you the number of times I've told her pretty much what you said. So many times I told her that she wouldn't be ashamed to go to the doctor if she had a stomach ache and that the what she was exepriencing was pretty much along the same lines. It's an illness that needs to be treated.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-07-2005
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 5:46pm

Hi Luv,

I'm sorry your daughter has to go through that, but hopefully with your support, the therapy, and by her working through it she will deal with it well. But her depression has been brought on by her dad's passing, so with time she will get better I'm sure. Was she depressed before this happened? How long has it been since her dad passed? Grief is such a hard thing to go through and all of us take different amounts of time to go through it and work through the process.

I have grown up around depression and have been the "sunshine" for many people in my family for years. Sometimes it's trying, but they are beautiful people in every way.

Last week my son and his girlfriend lost their full term baby, he was born stillborn (cord around his neck 3 times) and it has been a very difficult thing to go through - he looked so perfect. It's so hard when your children are hurting so deeply and there is nothing you as a parent can do to make them feel better except just to be there for them.

It's very frustrating because we as parents are used to being able to help our children and to fix things for them, but some things we can't make better for them and that is the hard thing to accept. I'm not really sure how to process my grandchild's death myself. But each day gets better for my son, his gf, and all of the family, so we just keep rolling through life. The kids are going to a support group next week with others who have also lost babies, so I think it will be good. I may even go myself as they encourage grandparents also.

I hope that one day your daughter will feel better about things and know that it's normal to grieve and to be depressed some. All of us feel some depression at times, it's just that some people can let go of the feelings quicker, and work through them and process them, while others don't know how to process them and it takes longer. I wish the best for your daughter.

Sunshine

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-17-2005
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 8:09pm
You got that right! Let me at 'em!
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-17-2005
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 8:13pm
What did she do? I know what I would do. I'd help take care of the boy too. Someone is hurt, I'd want to help however I could. I can't even imagine pouting about this situation.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2004
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 8:45pm

>>The men in my life cheated with one of these "girl-friends" and the other's "girl-friend" insulted me repeatedly at every chance she got, and because she was friends with him before he found me, he told me straight out that she would basically ALWAYS be more important to him than I would.<<

Um, your problem isn't the girl-friends. The problem is you pick crappy guys. The fact that you keep picking crappy guys with the SAME issue means that the root of the problem is IN YOU, not in them.

It's not as though every guy in the world who has female friends, even close ones or ones he's known for a long long time, is the kind of guy who'd do the sorts of things you mention.

I have several close friends who're female, and I'd never cheat on my gf with them, or tell my gf that they're more important to me than she is.

What's really ironic is that by insisting that you don't want a guy who happens to have female friends, you're blocking yourself from ever meeting and knowing a guy who IS a good guy who happens to have female friends- which means you're blocking yourself from finding out that they (we) are out there (here), and hence your choices of crappy guys becomes a self-fufilling prophecy.

Wanna fix it? Don't insist on guys who don't know any women. Fix it by finding out why you keep picking those guys for yourself, and quit sticking around guys who DO have that issue.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2004
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 8:52pm
Tell your friend I think he's a real hero!
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 9:19pm

Sunsnine,

I'm so sorry about your grandchild. No loss is ever easy. Hugs to you, your son, and his girlfirend. I know your strength and positive outlook will carry you through this very difficult time.

Thank you for your good wishes. My daughter seemed "fine" prior to my husband's passing 2+ years ago. But she did take so hard. Of my 2 daughters, she was the closest to him...Daddy's little girl. She is SO much better and has been for some time. Her therapy has been reduced to a monthly phone consult and I'm in regular contact with her therapist as well.

I think what spurned her to seek help was the fact that she couldn't stop thinking about him and the thoughts made her so very sad. I was not aware that it was botehring her to that extent. I am very impressed that at 12 she was wise enough to tell me and realized she may have a problem. My town lost quite a few people on 9/11 and berevement groups have been in place in the schools since then. I think those meetings helped her too.

Thanks again.

Luv

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-07-2005
Mon, 04-25-2005 - 10:06pm

Hi Luv,

Wow that is great at age 12 that she realized she needed some help - so she is still quite young now. The group sessions in your town I'm sure were also much help to her. I'm glad to hear that she is doing so well. I am sorry for your loss also of your husband.

Thank you for your kind words about the loss of my grandchild. Time does heal and I know that it will for all of my family.

Thanks again,
Sunshine

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