The Quest
Secrets Revealed: How Women Think
How do women think? WAY too much. They let their imaginations run amok with what-ifs, from soaring fantasies to the parade of the horribles. They harbor conflicting thoughts about their relationships, careers, mothers, food…pretty much everything.
In short, women overthink.
But you can’t blame them. Their lives are complicated. At any given moment they’re trying to figure out how they should feel or act, torn between trying to solve a problem on their own or ask for help. Picture Hillary Clinton veering crazily between victim and bully. It’s because, like all women since 1972, she’s been told she can have it all, be whomever she wants. This is a dangerous kind of freedom for a gender that until recently was reared to be simpering and dependent. Women are still grappling with the ramifications.These days, women are trained not to depend on a man, to stand on their own two (high-heeled? Skechers-shod?) feet. But those old lessons die hard. There’s a lot of tap-dancing between self-reliant and needy.
Some helpful facts about this mysterious gender:
1. Women keep secrets deeper and darker than men will ever know. Women’s secrets don’t define them, but are responsible for major shifts in perspective, life-changing decisions, deep regrets and great relief. They are part of the reason women are so empathetic and “intuitive.” They’ve been through things men can’t imagine.
2. All women feel fat, even if they’re thin. The plague of poor body image prevents women from going to parties where they think their ex might be, keeps them away from the pool and causes inhibitions that can ruin the enjoyment of sex. Losing 10 pounds won’t solve these problems. Constant reassurance over the course of 20 years might, but no guarantees.
3. Women feel guilty pretty much all the time. No matter how much they do, they never think it’s enough. Ironically, the more their efforts are recognized and the more they’re praised, the more guilt they feel.
4. Women are so predisposed to fall in love that often it’s difficult for them to respond honestly to a new man. In roughly the first 30 seconds this is what’s running through their minds:
- How will he fit into my life?
- Will my friends/kids/parents like him? Think he’s a good match for me?
- Will he think I’m pretty enough/thin enough/smart enough/too smart/too old?
- How would his last name sound after my first name?
- What would my new initials be?
- How do our first names sound together and whose gets said first?
5. Women live to please their men, but doing so for years can build resentment like you wouldn’t believe. Without reciprocation and appreciation, the happy homemaker finds herself fantasizing about life as a merry widow.
6. Women don’t want to hurt other women. Scratch that. In fact, scratch its eyes out. Women don’t want other women to think they want to hurt them. Yes, there is a sisterhood, but sometimes the quest for a particular man bulldozes that camaraderie.
7. Women are hard-wired to respond a certain way to someone they find hot: "Oh, that smile! I’m melting!" Only later (a split second, six years, it all depends) will she wonder, "Is he taken?"
8. Women are able to think "I can change him" in the face of insurmountable odds. Living in this kind of denial can keep a woman going for decades.
9. A woman generally won’t sleep with a man unless she can imagine herself in a relationship with him – even though that can require a lot of imagination.
10. Women agonize over decisions, weighing pros and cons, soliciting feedback from patient girlfriends, overlooking and justifying what they can, obsessively parsing what they can't overlook. Don’t rush her. And don’t dare question her decision, once she finally makes it.
11. Women who have great sex lives live in constant fear that it will all go away and they will be left with a Jack Rabbit. Not that there's anything wrong with that. They're secretly relieved that they never have to fake it with Jack.
by Laura
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