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Notes -
Continuing my theme in the previous comment of springboarding off the QC thread for discussion topics...
War of the sexes, but specifically regarding long term relationships and marriage.
What, in your opinion, should/does a desirable male partner bring to the table? What should/does a desirable female partner bring to the table?
The goal here is not specifically symmetry, if the desirableness is asymmetrical. For example, if you think a woman should desire a man with a stable job, but a man would be neutral or negative towards a woman with a stable job, then there's no need to include that on both lists.
To make the discussion more specific, less hypothetical: excluding amorphous concepts of "chemistry", what is the concrete package of measurable traits the opposite sex needs to offer for you to want to commit to a relationship with them? What is the package you are offering them in exchange? Do you feel this is a "good deal"?
(I'll answer for myself in a reply rather than answering within the question.)
As always, the most interesting answers to this question probably lie in what isn't said in the replies because it is taken as self-evident. I am not perceptive enough to tease that out, but maybe somebody should.
So, I could wax lyrical about the love of my life for ages here, but I won't. She's too precious for you cynical lot and you don't deserve it (neither do I, but I digress).
Instead, I will tell you an anecdote. When I was in my late twenties and freshly heartbroken, it was around the time PUA became a thing. And I remember leaving a comment under one of those blogposts to the effect of "but I want to be able to cry in front of her, I want to be able to show vulnerability without that being taken as a sign of weakness!" and the reply was "sure, and she wants to cut her toenails and pick her nose in front of you, it just fundamentally makes you less attractive".
Well, let me just say that I found someone that lets me do that without thinking lesser of me (it probably helps that she also said similar things about me as @raggedy_anthem recounts below). Or, as loveless harpies would put it: She provides emotional labor for me.
...So, does she pick her nose in front of you?
(Fwiw my husband's ability to cry from sheer emotion is something I cherish about him, coming from a family that has all the emotional range of a shriveled peanut. He cries whenever he's feeling really deeply and just thinking about it makes my heart go all melty. He's just so emotionally well adjusted and not fucked up and repressed! I thought that kind of thing was a myth!)
I see womwn talking a whole lot about how they conclude that a man who cries is in touch with his emotions. That is typical minding males.
It assumes men that men can or even want to cry to begin with but are hiding it.
I for example, cry maybe once a year or two. Not because I dont feel strong emotions, quite the opposite. Its just that crying is not my natural physical reaction. I couldnt do it even if I wanted to. Its a testosterone thing.
I mean, I assume the men and women I know who never, ever cry — my grandfather was noted as having cried a total of three times in his entire adult life, my aunts/uncles do not cry at funerals or weddings— have plenty of emotions. It's nonetheless also obvious they are uncomfortable with expressing said emotions in a lot of contexts, not just crying. The ability and willingness to cry is a symptom of being more emotionally open, not more emotionally feeling.
It's fine for you if you don't cry, it's not like it even would have been a deal breaker for me, given how used to it I already am. But that doesn't change that it's a relief to me that my husband does cry, and that I appreciate that about him.
I think many of us view crying as being emotionally overwhelmed. In this view, it's not about openeness, it's about self-control and emotional maturity.
Right, and viewing crying as a lack of self control and a lack of emotional maturity would be something I'd want to run away from. Someone who lets himself cry is strongly signalling that he does not believe crying is a lack of control and a lack of emotional maturity.
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