Why Men and Women Want Love
Men and women are genetically 99% the same.
Out of 30,000 or so genes in the human genome, there is less than one percent variation between the sexes. That seems small, right? But, when that 1% impacts every single cell in the body, it makes a massive difference.
Here are just some of those differences.
Women are way better at reading facial expressions than men. Men pick up subtle signs of sadness in women only 40% of the time. But women pick it up in men and other women 90% of the time.
Neurological scans reveal that women, by simply reading facial expressions and listening to the tone of voice, can literally feel what the other person is feeling. Men, on the other hand, are largely unaffected by the emotions of others. The male brain keeps a firm boundary between its experiences and the experiences of those around him. This makes relationships more difficult but it strengthens his ability to rationally and analytically find solutions to complex problems.
This is why women, in particular, experience a deeper connection with their children at the beginning of life and are more inclined to stay at home. They literally feel what the baby feels based on tone and expression alone, creating a shared experience and bond. When the baby falls off the changing table and cries, the mother isn’t just a bystander, she literally has the same emotional experience as the baby.
The man, on the other hand, has a hard time relating or understanding non-verbal communication. He has to really work at it, memorizing patterns and tendencies to even become adequate at meeting the needs of a baby. So instead, he tends to play a bigger role and grow closer with his children as they get older and seek to understand the world around them.
One of the most important differences is something we’ve forgotten in the modern world. Men and women require different paths to love.
John Paul II once summed it up best when he wrote, “A woman wants to be loved so she can show love. A man wants to love so he can be loved.” In other words, a woman needs to be pursued and man needs to do the pursuing.
The greatness of (most) women is unlocked the moment they are free to live out of a safe and secure base of love. When a woman knows she is loved and when she feels like that love is never going to leave her, there is no limit to her love.
And the greatness of (most) men is unlocked the moment they start striving for something beyond what they think they are capable of. There is a prayer we say often at the end of Mass that goes like this: “may we live in a manner worthy of the gifts we have received.” This is a prayer mostly meant to attract men. When men strive to love in a manner that is worthy of the person he loves, he is finally free to receive love.
When a woman places a high (but not impossible) barrier to entry to win her time, attention and love, she is doing the man in her life a favor. It’s what he needs to become the man he was made to be.
When a man pursues a woman, when he takes the lead, when he asks her out, says, “I love you” first, when he proposes, it helps to unlock the best of the woman he loves. He’s letting her know his intentions, he’s taking the first step, he’s creating a safe and secure environment for her to truly shine.
And the thing is, this never ends. Even if you’ve been married for ten, fifteen, twenty years, it never ceases to be good for the man to be in pursuit of living a life worthy of the love of the woman he married. And it never ceases to be good for a woman to challenge him to do so.
