What Women Want From Men

Women are a complex gender. We can be multi-taskers, nurturers, expressers, romantics, and tough as nails - all at the same time. It's no wonder men can have a difficult time finding their way around what a woman wants; a woman is an emotional being with a very practical side, and in today's day and age, struggling to find her place in a world that no longer has clearly defined roles for men and women. On the one hand, a woman wants to be with a man who makes them feel taken care of, and on the other hand, she needs to still feel independent. How can these two seemingly paradoxical concepts even exist within the same brain? That's part of what being a woman is all about.

What Women Want From Men

1. Call it evolution or socialization - call it whatever you want - but a woman wants a man who exerts a certain amount of confidence. She's looking for someone on whom she can depend both physically and emotionally - but only when she feels she needs to. If you are too doting, forget it - if you don't appreciate her enough, she will notice. If you are too cocky, it'll get old fast.

2. To know when a woman needs what, you need to understand how to listen to her. Have you ever heard two women carry on a conversation? It may seem almost one-sided from an outsider's perspective, but there's a very distinct and important Talker/Listener dynamic going on. The talker is explaining and sharing something emotional she wants to get off her chest. The listener is listening, without judgment, and offering no advice while the talker talks. There's a lot of, "Really?", "Oh my god - he DIDN'T", "Oh you poor thing!" going on - this is simply the way women validate each others' experiences and feelings. Often women just want to vent. We're not looking for a solution (we probably already have 20 of them planned out in our heads), we just want to share our feelings. Men tend to see women sharing as asking for help. If women want your help or opinion on a matter, they will usually ask you for it.

3. Women want someone good with their friends. Women value their friends' opinions just as much as men do and if her friends disapprove of her, it's not going to be smooth sailing. Find a way to co-exist with a woman's friends, and you'll find your support network grows and their support of your relationship will grow too. It's also important to make sure you know the "real" deal when it comes to whomever you're dating, and seeing them interact with their close friends is a great way to get to know someone.

4. Women want someone with goals and ambition. Even though they are quite capable of earning and care-taking and all of the above, why would they want that? A woman wants a man who knows who he is and isn't afraid to go after what he wants.

5. Women want spontaneous affection and some romance. We all want to be appreciated as human beings and it means a great deal to a woman to have her man call her out of the blue or surprise her with flowers or a dinner or a card - anything - just to show her he's thinking of her on his own.

6. Women want to trust men, and to be able to trust a man a woman will look to whether his actions line up with his words. If a man doesn't follow through on what he says he's going to do, trust will simply never exist. When a woman can't trust a man, she fears the uncertainty that this fact can bring into her life. Often, when women nag or accuse or try to catch a man in a lie, chances are she's scared that she can't trust him.