What Do Men Find Romantic?

If you read my blog from yesterday, I had addressed that men and women perceive romance differently. I think men and women would both agree, that women need a lot more attention to the romance factor than men do. But does this mean that men aren't romantic?

Not at all...

Men are romantic, but we are romantic in a different way, and to tell you the truth, it is YOU, the woman, that often determines how romantic we are! Most women think that men are unromantic, and this is true to a large degree, but this is often because of you...You can easily change this!!

I said yesterday that there are 3 ways that men show their love for a woman. The comedian Steve Harvey, calls it The 3 P's... They are as follows:

1) Provide

Men are usually the hunters, and we like to be able to provide for our loved ones. This gives us a feeling of fulfillment and it really works with our egos that we can do this. Most men take great pride in being the Providers of the family, and they think that this is their only role. As long as they are providing, that is the most important thing. Romance falls second fiddle to making sure that the house is in order, and that our family has the means to have the things in life that we never had growing up. Of course, there has to be a balance, but most men think that being the provider is showing you that he is taking care of his own and that to us, is romance. Sad, but true.

2) Protect

The sad thing about being a guy is that we are always trying to accumulate during the ENTIRE course of our lives. We are collecting cool toys, and one-up'ing everything we see come out as the "newest thing" We like toys like cars, boats, stereos, gadgets. These things tell the world around us that we are successful enough to afford them (again going back to our ego-stroking) However, with all these toys and such, it would be pointless to have them, if we could not protect them. And being a guy, we are ALWAYS looking over our shoulders to protect what we have earned. Somewhere out there, a guy is trying to steal our house, our wife, and our livelihood. We are always over-protective of what's ours. -It's like this from when we were a little boy. Have you ever seen a little boy playing with his favourite toy? -Just TRY to take it away from him! Not a chance! We have this built-in protect mechanism into our being genetically. We protect our mothers, sisters, brothers, and it is a learned response. When our Father goes away, he tells us that we are the "man of the house" until he gets back. So this protection really rolls into protecting our wife, and family. We will do anything to make sure that our family is safe, and we do this because we love you.

3) Proclaim

Trust me when I tell you that if we like or love you, we will let you KNOW it. We would cancel anything to be with you, drive the farthest distance, and make time to see you. We will proclaim this love feeling to all of our friends (in different ways of course. Not all of us are as nuts as Tom Cruise was on Oprah about Katie Holmes)  We may all have different styles, but if he's acting really weird, chances are, that he's got a bad case of YOU on the mind. (We act like complete and utter morons during this phase...)

So with that being said, let's get back to how YOU the female controls the levels of romance in us men.

Men are creatures of habit. We are usually slow learners to things such as women, and your "tells." What you might think is an over obvious flirting behaviour, to us means you are being friendly. It's painful how stupid we are sometimes about this. It takes a lot of experience for men to understand this. However, once we do, we repeat the same behaviour because we know it worked once. (this will explain if you ever caught your man giving, or doing anything for you that he had previously done with a former girlfriend...)

So when we do something nice for you, it really helps your cause if you make a really big deal about it. The more you like it, the more you mention it. -It's just that simple with us.

That's romance to us. We do something nice for you, you show us that you really, really appreciate it. Drop us notes in our lunch box to thank us for loving, and providing for the family. Tell us that you appreciate us for all the hard work we do so that you can enjoy the finer things in life. Give us constant reassurance that our male ego needs to let us know we are good men. When we give you a compliment, please just say "Thanks Honey!" and don't fish for more. Just accept it, and we will WANT to give you more. You see, it's all the way that you TAKE a compliment that determines whether you get another one. If we think you are needy, we won't give you another one because we don't want the drama...

It sounds really silly, but a smile from your woman, and a hug at just the right times is romantic to us. When we come in from a really tough day, greet us at the door with a simple smile and hug us. That makes any man melt, I promise you.

Unfortunately, romance to most men revolves around our massive egos. So if you hit us in the spot where we only allow a few people to go inside our circle of trust, you can use these traits to get us to BE romantic. If you cater to us in this manner, I promise you that you will have your man do more romantic things for you and you won't even have to ask him. You know how I know? -Because it is bred and taught to us to be this way from the time that we were little boys. Nature will kick in, and I promise you, it will work in most cases.

Romance to us, is not the same romance to you. But once you understand how to show appreciation to your man, I will show you a man who will provide, protect and proclaim his love for you.