Feb 19, 2015

Ladies, Stop Expecting The Worst Of Men

This article goes out to all of my (hetero) female readers…

On average, I get about ten messages per week from my female readers around the world along the lines of “Where have all of the good men gone? Where are the guys who will open the door for you? Why do men only want to hook up and not have a real relationship?”

Let me get something absolutely straight right off the bat…

Whatever you continually attract into your life, reflects back at you and the way that you a) live your life, and b) expect the world to behave.

And this concept doesn’t just apply to romantic partners (the quality of food you consume, the money you make, the exercise habits you maintain, the depth of friendships that you have, etc.) but for simplicities sake I will focus on romantic partners.

Blaming your cities socially cold ways (excuses), or hook-up culture (a sexy sounding term invented by a PR team), or the high divorce rate (which is bullshit), are just walls that you are erecting in order to hide behind.

In my experience and the experience of hundreds of my private clients, the higher your standards the more you attract people with high standards. So even if there is a large amount of truth to the concept of our modern dating climate being geared towards a ‘hookup culture’ mentality, who gives a shit about what 90% of people are doing? You’re not trying to date 90% of people.

Beliefs are funny things.

Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? Basically it says that when you expect the world to act a certain way you will select information from your environment that will further reinforce that way of thinking. So if you expect men to be a certain way, you’ll more readily attract men who will agree with your existing viewpoint.

I have one client who went on a month long man-loving journey where she wrote down a list of five things she loved about men every day, and she verbally praised a different man in her life every day. Now, her history (childhood experiences and dating history) had given her a ton of evidence to the contrary and the month long exercise was not an easy one for her… but she did it. She decided that she had had enough of her old way of thinking and she wanted to expect more from men. And, what do you know, when she expected more from the men in her life she started to attract higher quality men with standards as high as hers.

In my first year of business I was incredibly hard on myself (still a work in progress) about my businesses rate of success. I have always intentionally surrounded myself with a crowd that few people would call an “easy” crowd… as in they have incredibly high standards and so I often feel like the small fish in a big pond.

I went to my therapist to ask her advice on how I could stop being so hard on myself.

“How can I be happy with my business that is doing $10,000 per month when I have close friends my age who are doing over $100,000 per month? It feels like I’ll never be able to catch up.” And her advice was as elegant as it was profound. She told me “If you want to find someone who is doing better than you, you can find it. And if you want to find someone who is doing worse than you, you can find that too. You’re deciding what you want to pay attention to.”

And it’s the exact same thing when it comes to partner finding.

If you tell yourself that there’s any validity to the concept of “hookup culture” that mainstream media loves to talk about, and you assume that all men just want sex with no attachment, the world will happily provide you with lots of feedback of that being the truth. But if you decide to assume that the majority of men are kind, compassionate, generous, loving individuals who want a committed intimacy just as much as you do then the world will provide you with lots of evidence to support that version of your reality.

As hippy-dippy Secret-ish as it is, thoughts become things.

Know what you want, have the courage to ask for it, and honour yourself enough to only stop searching once you’ve found it.

Stop settling with partners that you’re not proud of. If you’re with someone that isn’t right for you then you’re only taking them away from the other person who is right for them.

If you are on a path of growth, self-awareness, intentionality, and becoming the best version of yourself possible, then you will inevitably meet and attract people that are living their lives the exact same way.

Put another way, if you’re crawling your way through a full marathon then you’ll notice the other people that are doing the same and the sprinters will be a blur from your vantage point. But when you get up on your own two feet and start taking responsibility for the fact that you want to run with the fast crowd, you’ll be able to keep pace with the runners and the people on their hands and knees will be the blurs.

The choice, as always, is yours.

Dedicated to your success,

Jordan

Jordan Gray
About Jordan Gray

Jordan Gray has been a sex and relationship coach for over 15+ years, with his work reaching over 200 million people worldwide. His writing has been featured in Vogue, GQ, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, and countless other publications around the world. When he’s not working with 1-on-1 coaching clients or writing a new article, he’s most likely to be found reading, chopping wood, or spending time with his wife on a little island off the west coast of Canada.

Blog

Related

See All
5 Practical Ways To Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
Oct 10, 2016
Jordan Gray
5 Practical Ways To Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
“How can I improve my emotional intelligence?” I’ve had three clients ask me this question over the last week, and whenever something pops up that frequently, I usually take it as a sign that it needs it’s own article. What is emotional intelligence? How does having it improve your life? Is it something...
Continue Reading
The 3 Best Questions You Could Ever Ask Your Partner
May 16, 2015
Jordan Gray
The 3 Best Questions You Could Ever Ask Your Partner
One of the worst things that we do in our intimate relationships is make assumptions. We assume that our partners receive love in the same manner that we do. We assume that our partners expect the same things from marriage. We assume that our partner defines monogamy the same as we do. The assumptions...
Continue Reading
29 Things I’ve Learned In 29 Years
Apr 21, 2016
Jordan Gray
29 Things I’ve Learned In 29 Years
At the time of my writing this, my 29th birthday is a few days away. 29 laps around the sun... and I feel like I have experienced a fairly densely packed ride so far. I've struggled, I've conquered, I've travelled, I've felt, and I've loved. The following collection of words flowed through me in one...
Continue Reading
How To Heal Your Father Wound
Mar 1, 2020
Jordan Gray
How To Heal Your Father Wound
There’s a lot of talk about how modern men are in crisis. Statistics say they’re lagging socially, academically, and romantically. They’re drastically leading the numbers in suicide and violent crime. It also seems they’re getting a bad reputation among women in the dating world, stereotyped as acting...
Continue Reading
The Ultimate Guide To Male Grooming: 50+ Head To Toe Tips
Jun 2, 2018
Jordan Gray
The Ultimate Guide To Male Grooming: 50+ Head To Toe Tips
It’s easy to get lost in the world of male grooming advice. With thousands of tips, tricks, tools, creams, colognes, and cuts to choose from… where’s a fella to start when it comes to grooming himself? Every man wants to be able to feel 100% confident in how he looks, smells, and feels when...
Continue Reading
Radical Acceptance: How To Live And Love With Greater Ease
May 2, 2017
Jordan Gray
Radical Acceptance: How To Live And Love With Greater Ease
Do you think that you would be happier if your partner would just change a few, little things about themselves? Like if they put in a bit more effort. Or if they listened to you better. Or if they stopped wearing those stupid looking socks. Or maybe you would feel happier if you were just a little bit...
Continue Reading