There are two main characteristics you’re looking for in a guy. One is spine – his strength, decisiveness, masculine essence. The other is heart – his compassion, consideration and caring.
A guy with a lot of spine and no heart is a macho brute – Biff, as I like to call him. Most bad boys fall in this category, and although they may be a fun ride to start, they will cause you unlimited grief. A guy with a lot of heart but no spine is a sensitive new-age guy, or Lance. Most yuppie guys are Lances, stuck somewhere between trying to be chivalrous and acting tough. They will annoy you in the long run. And the guy who has both spine and heart is Victor. He is strong. He is compassionate. He’s a stud.
The Victor is rare, but he’s out there. Now that you know he exists, you know what to look for. He’s in control without being controlling, dominant without being domineering, sweet without being a pushover. He’s got direction and he’s got balance. And he knows how to take care of business, of himself, and of you. Settle for nothing less.
Comments? Thoughts? Sound off below — would love to hear from you!
Oh Dr. Ali. Sometimes your immutable membership in the category of male comes shining through. I’m a goddess, sure. I foster my talents, I’ve made peace with the fates, I flash men a killer smile, etc etc etc. Then there’s the men. I don’t know if you have any idea what it’s REALLY like for women out there these days. The men are atrocious. They want and expect sex immediately, and they bolt whether you give it to them or not. They pick on minute flaws to readily dispose of women whom they haven’t even gotten to know. They are married but willing to cheat at the first sight of a pretty smile. They are divorced and determined to keep you on a string for years for fear of ever committing again. They repeatedly — and I mean repeatedly — use the old “text phase out” until you get the hint that they no longer want to see you. These are 30 and 40 and 50 year old men. ALL THE SAME. I live in NYC. I am beautiful, brilliant, and fabulous. I’ve raised my standards, lowered my standards, gone on dating hiatuses, focused on my career, perused the web. It doesn’t matter. The guys are entitled and impossible. Victor lives in Arizona somewhere. Or maybe Idaho. And if he moved to New York, he’d be an asshole too. Dating has changed. Good luck girls. I’m exhausted.
Well, I’ll grant you that there’s a 200,000 excess of single women over single men in the New York City area, and that palpably changes things (I live in LA, where there’s a 90,000 excess of single men over women, and THAT changes things). So I hear ya. However, there’s something else that also changes things: your mindset. And starting out with ‘the men are atrocious’ — well, let’s just say we can do better than that :)
Wherever you are, there’s a micro-environment you can create which need not follow the general milieu. So start by being the change you want to see in the world, and notice if things are different. There’s never a bad time to be the light.
“I live in LA, where there’s a 90,000 excess of single men over women, and THAT changes things”
It really doesn’t. Men still want the same thing in NY, LA, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Marbella, Vancouver, and Paris —
– size zero,
– shorter than they are (the problem is not that tall women won’t date short men, the problem is that shorter men won’t date taller women — and when I say “taller”, I mean 5’6″ so the men are grumbling when she wears 2/5″ inch heels for work),
– willing to spend incalculable amounts of time and energy endlessly building up that eggshell-fragile ego a) despite her own job, and dealing with the house, kids, carpool, family, & friends that he won’t , and the second shift of “health & fitness”, which really translates to “doing whatever she has to to keep that size zero”, and b) whether or not he actually deserves to have that eggshell-fragile ego built up; and
– with a “sense of humor” — only that doesn’t mean she has one of her own; that means she laughs at their jokes.
Im — the ratio of women to men (the ‘sex’ ratio) tracks pretty well the sexual mores of a community, both by era and geography. When there’s an excess of women, standards are relaxed, permissiveness is high, and marriage is delayed. When there’s an excess of men, age at marriage drops, there’s a lot more monogamy and sexual morals are strict.
That said, your comment reflects a bit of a jaundiced view of men, which even if correct, is not likely to be endearing to them when expressed in this way. We tend to get more of what we focus on, so you may wish to consider giving more attention to what you like about men, vs what you dislike about them.
Just putting this out there: you are the common factor here. It’s not that all men are the same, it’s that all the men you get involved with are the same. You’re describing a very specific type of guy. The player. The “alpha”. That’s a tiny minority of the men who are actually out there.
And despite the fact that you say you’ve tried “lowering your standards”, I really doubt that’s the case. There are tens, hundreds of thousands of ordinary looking men in every city in the country who are single and lonely. Who don’t get laid all the time, who don’t expect immediate sex, who would feel LUCKY to have somebody they were interested in reciprocate.
Now, you aren’t meeting these men….or you just aren’t noticing them. You might want to think about why that is.
I will paraphrase Omar Khayyam – better be alone than with whoever…
Dear Goddess J, Dr Ali, I agree that it is easier to meet Unicorn than the notorious Victor. And I don’t mind to move to Idaho, Arizona or Zimbabwe if my Victor is nesting there and waiting for his goddess, princess, queen, yin, femina or simply woman to come and grant him eternal happiness…:)))The thing is: do we really, sincerely, clearly want that? I think most of Dr Ali’s aficionados (je suis in that number)are women in their 30s, 40s..etc, which means we have already very sharp definition of our dream mate aka Victor. And we don’t want to flex ourselves much if the target is not exactly fitting the Victor pattern, right? So we keep getting hurt by atrocious (oh so charming)Biffs and hurting poor Lances…because…we are good in our skin, we are comfortable with ourselves and we don’t really want to change much in our lives. NB – it is my opinion. Sure, most/all of men are driven by basic instinct regardless their civil status, looks, capacity and citizenship. And it’s getting more dominant while they grow older – blame it on hormones. Our libido is more selective or definite – we want that one special man, no substitutes, thank you. And that brings us legato to the first line of this message. )))Mille baci.
Great stuff, Nanar! I will refer you to the latest post on the blog, “#11 of 13: Let acquired taste be your greatest ally.” To be set in one’s ways is to be unable to acquire new