Blog Psychologist

I was watching Dating in the Dark and I find it to be fascinating on many levels. Contrary to what you might think, there are times when it's the women who seem more superficial than the men. What I found interesting about the most recent episode was that there was a young, attractive man, ready to start a family who all 3 girls were drawn to in the dark. But when the lights came on and they saw his age or whatever it was, none of the 3 chose him. This begs the question, do women really know what they want?

Yes, he was young looking, but he was a nice guy who was ready to settle down and start a family, which is something most women say they want. When faced with it, however, these same women run for the hills. This is why it is said nice guys finish last because the truth is, women say it's what they want, but nice guys without drama scares them.

I think there's a lot of reasons why this happens.

1. I think women don't believe they deserve anything more than to get put down and abused in one way or another.

2. Sometimes it's not the man so much as it is that women don't believe they could be a good enough partner to someone who treats them right. Wanting a good partner means having to be a good partner.

The list goes on, but it all revolves around self-esteem. Everything in this society now has worked to repress women. We see images of what we should look like, we go to the stores to see that normal sizes are considered "plus". Every woman on TV now has so much botox that wrinkles will start to look like an oddity. So yes, we get down on ourselves and women fall in relationships with bad men who feed on low self-esteem, telling them they're ugly and can't do better. Usually these men are controlling and segregate the women from any positivity in their life so the negative is all they hear.

For instance, my niece has decided to marry a man/boy who has cheated on her, been in jail for stealing, who is banned from every person's house in her family and who she can't even stand. Her reasons, she tells me, is she isn't going to find anyone else who will put up with her and that he's the father of her children.

To this, I said, "Yes, he has sperm. It's the only thing he did right." What kills me is this is a girl who had everything going for her and who had her pick of men. How she ended up with, honestly, the biggest loser I have ever met, I do not know! He's not good looking, he's not smart, he's not funny and he has absolutely no common sense.

It would be one thing if it was just me who saw these things in him, but it is everyone, including her. She bad mouths him every time we talk. She says she dreads the honeymoon and in the same conversation she will tell me she's going through with it.

These are times when I'm glad I'm not a paid psychologist. It's not that I can't take hearing these things from people, but my advice only goes so far. They have to follow it and most of the times they don't. I see my niece making the biggest mistake of her life and I'm powerless.

Men are right about one thing, women are complicated.