Needles and Threads

Differences Between Men and Women
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach - Tuesday, 1 July, 2008


The Rabbi Shmuley Show on Oprah & Friends Radio"Differences Between Men and Women"Original Air Date: July 1, 2008

The Differences

For men, attraction is physiological, for women it is psychological
Men are physical creatures. A man will always feel initial attraction to a women’s appearance. If I offer to match a man with a woman, he always asks "What does she look like?"
A women’s attraction is more on a psychological level.
It is said that men fall in love with their eyes and women fall in love with their ears. There is great truth in this. Men are attracted to a women's beauty, while women must be won over by a man whispering sweet nothings to her.
Men are drawn directly to a woman, like a straight line. Woman feel her attraction growing and evolving, like a circle.
Women are in control, men would like to be!
Men like to feel that they are driver’s seat, making the important decisions, completely empowered to rule their own lives.
In reality, women are the ones who are really in control in both the private and public realms of the relationship. It’s just that men think this is not the case.
Men are "freelance," women are "salaried."
A man never gets caught up in a single deal, but feels he must always move on, improving on his last accomplishment. (This is why the idea of committing to one women seems so unappealing to your average guy.)
Women want the opposite. They want someone to drawn to them, someone who find them beautiful, to whom they can commit for life. They are like workers on a salary, rather than freelancers. They are not usually as afraid of putting all their eggs in one basket!
Women want confident men. Men aren’t always self-confident.
Women are similarly attracted to men to for their sense of self-confidence. Women love a man with a plan. They love man who is ambitious, who has a vision.
However, self-confidence does not come easily to men. Men are like a line, it is finite, with a beginning and an end. Self-doubt plagues men throughout their lives.
In relationships, women’s natural self-confidence is a boon -- women can confer it to men and thus give relationship as solid foundation.
Women enjoy the moment, men think of its outcome.
For men, this is a means to accomplishing something. They think linearly, always anticipating the outcome of any endeavor.
Women are far better than men at living in the moment. Like a circle that returns on itself, women enjoy the present. That is why patience comes so must more easily to women.
Women expect men to be competent. Men want women to be independent.
A man and women always has to feel that they are retaining their choice to give, to love, their choice to choose who they want to be in a relationship with. No one ever likes to be coerced. You must never abuse someone by forcing him or her to show affection or love they don’t feel
Women expect their men to be competent human beings. No one likes someone who can’t cope, and women are especially keen on men who maintain a healthy balance between their personal and private lives, and do not get overwhelmed by romance Similarly, men want women to be independent. One of the major problems facing women in dating is that few of them have learned the art of on the one hand being aggressive and yet on the other had, remaining feminine. It’s a tough balance to strike!

Today's Shmuleyism:Men and women are equal, but different, which is why they need each other. Too often, however, we seek to blight gender difference and become dopplegangers. But neither should we allow the gender divide to grow into a chasm that cannot be bridged. In this sense, men and women should retain their differences, so as to retain their polarity and attraction, but should also seek to be positively influenced by those differences in order to draw closer.

xoxo, SEF