Women want talk: Men want not

I have found that for most women, talking is the most important thing in a relationship. For most men, sex is the most important thing, next to breathing and food that is...

I have found that for most women, talking is the most important thing in a relationship. For most men, sex is the most important thing, next to breathing and food that is. However there is a rare breed of man out there, who is not driven by sex, these are those self proclaimed “nice guys”, or geeks in my book: Who would rather spend time on a computer game or with a video game controller in their hands, then to have a conversation with a woman, even if it means no sex for them! Most of the time these guys have had few if any sexual partners before finding what they view as the “perfect woman”. Often they claim---in the beginning of the relationship---to be romantics, loving, sweet guys; who don’t treat women like a piece of meat; who don’t just want her for sex; who like to go for hikes, picnics, dinners, movies (even like to watch chick flicks), and who could often be mistaken by the outside world as possibly gay! These guys can often be great in the beginning of a relationship, treating the woman with respect, and courtesy, even to the point of trying to be chivalrous. However this behavior ends at some point down the road, often without the woman’s knowledge and usually to her unpleasant surprise.
I know in my case I have had two of these types of guys. After dating a few jerks, who were only interested in getting into my pants, I decided to find a nice guy, what I ended up with were geeks in nice guys clothing. Now, some of you might be wondering “what's wrong with geeks?” Well, I am about to tell you. First, in the beginning they are great, then at about the three month point things will start to slide down hill. They become jealous if you are seen talking to other guys, they become jealous of girlfriends who might not like them, or who have the tendency to male bash (which of course we ladies often do when we are together, lets be honest). Though innocent male bashing is no big deal, and we know it, but they become very defensive, often taking extreme offence to any little joke that might be made about how guys tend to behave. Then they start to become controlling, but it’s not all at once and it’s done in a very sneaky manner. Geeks like to control with guilt, they will often make you feel as if you have done something so wrong to them, that you are such a bad person for making them feel hurt, or offended, that you actually feel guilty for something you have no control over, his feelings! Often these geeks will not shy away from using crying as a means of control, and they will often throw temper tantrums like a child, using silence as a weapon.

The control and guilt usually starts to pop out sometime after the jealousy has begun, with whining, and fussing when you want to see your friends instead of spending a night with him, like you have done every other night. These types of men expect the woman to be with him every second of the day that she is available, and if she doesn’t, he lays the guilt trip on thicker than any mother would ever dream of! He uses anything that he might have possibly given up for you as his usual weapons of choice...like he didn’t go hang out with his buddies at the bar so that he could be with you…or that he didn’t go to that Star Trek convention that one night to go to your company party, and the list goes on and on. They make themselves out to be the martyr of the relationship, that they gave up so much to be with you, that you can’t give up your girls night out for him? Then they start using all the nice things they have done for you, like taking you to dinner, buying you that necklace for your birthday, the candies and flowers on Valentine’s day, any little thing they have done for you ends up being thrown in your face saying, “what have you done for me lately” to quote a line from Eddy Murphy’s Raw (though he was saying women say that, well so do geeks!) They start to smother you with expectations, wanting you to fill this void they actually have within themselves, one that they refuse to explore.

Usually these geeks have low self esteem about something, be it their appearance, their intelligence, their job, something…but whatever it is there is some issue they have within themselves that makes them geeks and not true nice guys( though I am beginning to wonder if nice guys really do exist). So for me after spending almost a year with one of them, I had to end it. My first geek had already been discussing marriage after only three months of dating, plus we were only 19!

He was going away to college for four years, and I was staying home to go to college and work. So at the end of his first semester away I decided to official end it, though I had been seeing other people while he was gone, though he didn’t know it. The incident with him that, literally took the cake, was his insensitivity to my feelings, though he expected me to be so sensitive to his. It was Valentines Day, I made him a heart shaped cake from scratch, his favorite flavor, and even hand decorated it with frosting flowers like a professional cake decorator would. I gave it to him after dinner that night, which he took home to eat…I called him after I knew he was home to see how he liked it…and his response to me was “Wow, there is so much frosting on here that I think my teeth are going to rot out of my head.” Nice huh? After 8 hours of decorating a cake perfectly for him, that was the thanks I got, no thank you it was great, he could not even muster up a lie for me, just plain old rudeness. But heaven forbid I didn’t like the ugly necklace which he gave me for x-mas. He hand-made it out of wood and it was AWFUL! He had hyped up what a great gift he had for me (which of course I ended up spending over $350 on him in nice clothes for school), then when I saw it, I just sat there…and tried to make it sound like a genuine thank you…minus the slight cringe. He was home for a month and when he saw that I was not wearing it he asked about it. I finally told him the truth that I didn’t like it, and he blew up, yelling and screaming at me that I was ungrateful, and that I didn’t appreciate all the hard work he put into it. I broke up with him then and there.

Now the next guy took a little longer for me to figure out that he was not the nice guy that he claimed to be. In fact he is a nice guy to everyone but me. I, and now our kids, are the only ones who see the bad side of him. I suspect that the reason is that he spends so much effort on being this nice guy to everyone that he has nothing left when he gets home, because his nice guy behavior is an act. His true self is a miserable person, who isn’t any deeper than a sixteen year old boy. Everything with us started out great, I thought he was totally different from the first geek boyfriend, because he didn’t seem much like a geek at all. He was involved in rather manly things,bowling, shooting, softball, golf, fishing, hunting, heavy metal music, guy friends...But, as time went on, his involvement with these things decreased, his friends moved away, or he stopped hanging out with them, he wanted to spend every waking moment with me, then came the jealousy. It was the same thing all over again. However this time it was different, after nine months of dating, and right before I was going to break up with him, I found myself pregnant! (Here's the plug for multiple methods of birth control) I was on the pill, and since he was a virgin, and I had only had one other partner who had been a virgin, we didn’t use condoms. However the pills apparently don’t work very well if you forget to take them two days in a row! So ladies, always use condoms + pills+ diaphragms+ anything else you can get your hands on if you don’t want to end up with those two little blue lines staring you in the face under the harsh bathroom light .

So to make a really long story short, we ended up moving in together, having a baby, tons of stress, and after another child who came along and 9 years, we don’t talk to each other, and sex has become a special occasion…for him. Many fights were fought, he was verbally abusive, I was a sceaming b**** and I started to question my own sanity. But, after going back to college, which was another fight with us, and after 3 years of deep soul searching, I realized that I was not the crazy one! He was the one with the issues---not me! He suffers from low self esteem and immaturity, which led to his controlling behavior, which led to fights, resentment and anger. So how is he a geek you ask…well he would rather spend time with his computer and the internet friends he has playing video games with, then to participate in the family which he so wanted and helped to create. I didn’t realize he had a video game addiction, until it was too late, like after we bought a computer. But then we had to buy a second one after he broke the first one, though I think he broke it on purpose so that he could get a better computer just to play the newer games on. So after spending over four thousand dollars on computers for him to do nothing but spend every waking moment playing video games, the house repairs have gone undone, the car is in need of much repair do to lack of care, and we don’t even sleep in the same room---let alone the same bed. Actually he spends most nights falling asleep in the computer chair with a pair of headphones on his head and a video game going on the monitor! It has been like that for over 3 years, yet he refuses to do anything to change it.

Apparently computers have become a major issues for many couples, so much so, that it is becoming one of the biggest reason for break-ups and divorces just below cheating! Many women are suffering out there in loveless relationships because their man is more in love with a piece of hardware rather than his woman’s software! But still these men, these geeks will get upset when their woman goes out with her friends leaving him home alone with his computer and/or with the kids. He gets upset when the sex stops. He gets upset when she stops cooking him dinner and doing his laundry. But what these men don’t seem to realize is that all they have to do is talk to their women, take her out for dinner once in a while, and do some chores around the house---rather than planting their fat butts in front of a computer screen---to have the love they claim they wanted in the first place. But, then I have to question if love was ever what they wanted, or if it is more that they just don’t want to be alone. These men can’t stand being alone for very long amounts of time, they want to be in relationships, they want to get married, but then when they have it, they neglect to feed the relationship and it withers and dies. Then one day when they look up from their precious screen they see bags packed at the front door and/or divorce papers being handed to them, and wonder what the heck happened? They are utterly clueless as to the effect they have on their families, no matter how many times they have been told they need to change, it never lasts. Of course this is probably not the first time the woman has threatened to leave, and more than likely the water works have been turned on by him many times in the past, but eventually the tears stop coming and he has become complacent with her threats of leaving, until the day comes that she actually does it. Most of the time he try to blame her for having some other guy on the side as to the reason why she is leaving, or that she just didn’t try hard enough, because it is never him. I myself have not left, and sad to say that the kids are the only thing keeping me here, in a loveless relationship. But then I wonder if the kids would be better off without him in their home? Without having the only interaction from their Daddy being yelling because they are interrupting his video game. Most therapist would probably tell me to leave…and I think they would be right. But being a college student, and the idea of a minimum wage job and a roach infested apartment with kids is not a good prospect. But I have to wonder if change for these men is possible? Does the guy ever realize that it is he who has the problem, or does he continue through life clueless? It is like the ADD guy, I know you all know who I am talking about…that guy who can’t sit still, who his mouth tends to get him into trouble, who can’t hold a job to save his life…yeah that guy. Can they change? How does anyone change?

I know I changed personally through wanting to be happy. Not just happy in a relationship, but happy with myself. I wanted goals, I wanted to experience life to the fullest, I want to read as many books as I can before I die. I want to see Europe, Niagra Falls, the Grand Canyon, all before I am too old to walk. I want to write a couple books, and have dinner parties with friends in a nice house with a lovely kitchen. But these guys---the geek, the ADD boy, the work-a-holic, the party dude, the immature guy, the hostile angry abusive guy, all these men who have issues seem to like to “live in the moment”. Live with out goals or hopes or dreams. Who do nothing but drag the women they get involved with into the gutter of hopelessness with them. Can THEY ever change?

What about war? How many women are accused of being war mongers? Men start wars because they are like kids…they want something and if they don’t get it, they throw a tantrum and blow things up! Could there be a solution for this seemingly male problem? I don’t know, but I would be open to suggestions. I do know that we as women need to stop judging each other and join together as a unified voice against oppression, against the male run societies which have run our world into the ground. I know we as women have the larger voice in the world since we out number men almost two to one. So why are we still getting the short end of the stick? Because we don’t join together, because we are not unified, because men have kept us apart. NO I am not a hard core feminist, I just see the problems which are at hand, and wonder why we as women are just sitting back and letting the show be run by a bunch of immature men? Why wouldn’t we vote a female into the office of the President? There are more women in the United States than there are men, if we all voted for a woman she would win! But then would a woman actually make much of a difference? Or would power effect women just as much as it has men? I can't say, but something has to change in society as a whole.

So ladies this is a tale from the dark side, the dark side of an immature relationship gone really sour. A tale for good birth control, and waiting till you have an education, a career, and a house of your own before settling on a man to share your life with. A tale of avoiding the geek in nice guys clothing. A tale of woe, and misery, so that you don’t have to make the same mistake, and for those of you who already have, you're not alone. A tale of one woman, asking why women everywhere don’t just stand up and be counted?

About the Author: Jennifer Searle is a Mom's Source member and resides in a Rutland Vermont, with her two children; a daughter 7 and son 5. Currently a college student studying for a B.A. in English/Lit, eventually to get a M.A. in English with hopes of teaching high school and or college English. Also an apiring writer with novels in the works, some short stories yet to be published, and an amature advice giver on relationship boards on Myspace. When there is time to spare she makes jewelry, mostly chainmail necklaces and bracelets, but also earrings and some wire wrapped jewelry. Also she is an avid reader, film watcher, and general observer of the human expereince.