The always interesting and entirely lovable Demetria Lucas wrote a very nice article on TheRoot.com asking whether or not men avoid successful women. I had to chime in on this one. For the busy and successful women who are reading this, I will try to save your valuable time and cut to the chase. Your success may be standing in the way of you finding a meaningful relationship, but not for the reasons you might think. The success itself is not your primary impediment to reaching your goals, but rather, it is the way success may affect your personality that could be the problem.
Here are the reasons why some men might choose to avoid some (not all) successful women:
- If you are emotionally selfish: Busy people can sometimes have a habit of always believing that they are the most important person in the room. The issues on their mind are always more meaningful than your own, and how they feel tends to matter a lot more than what you're going through. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a person who will talk all day about her problems and then suddenly have to hang up when you start talking about yours? Well, that's what it's like to date the self-important professional who has never learned to reflect or take responsibility for their dating challenges. In some cases, she was always the special girl in her family, the one who could bathe in the awesome power of perpetual narcissism. Daddies brag about spoiling their daughters, but the sad truth is that there is nothing good about something being spoiled, whether it be a piece of fruit or a human being.
Treating your man as a pet that you claim, constrain and neglect is a great recipe for disaster. So, after you finish your 80 hour work weeks, canceling one date after another and turning down his requests for affection, don't be surprised if you come home from work one day and see that he's packed up his sh*t.
But one thing that's true is that whether you are making a financial investment or an investment of the heart, you usually get what you give. What's also true is that investing the wrong assets into the wrong places is a great way to end up broke (or broken). So, as you try to reach your relationship goals, you may want to read books about the opposite sex, find out what they are seeking and learn how to deliver the things that will help you to reach your goals. This is a lot more effective than wasting your life on simple trial and error.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Financial Lovemaking. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.