when dating becomes a performance: How to Break out of old roles and choose real connection
One of the most common themes I support clients with is dating and relationships.
And since most of my clients are women, and many of those women date men, there are several common topics that arise through therapeutic work around the theme of romantic relationships between men and women. While I did write this article with women who date men in mind, you may still find some resonant nuggets here if you don’t fall into that category!
Most women I work with aren’t confused about what they want. They’re exhausted from trying to be chosen by people who are emotionally unavailable. Here’s where the message of this article comes in: Learning to prioritize dating men (and partners) who want to be in a relationship, as opposed to men who are looking for a partner to fulfill a role. Furthermore, some men are specifically looking to date women who demonstrate willingness to take on the emotional labor for both of them.
A little over a year ago, Anne Helen Peterson posted an article on her Substack, “A Unified Theory of Glenn Powell,” in which she refers to men who like women, and men who relate to women differently: “It’s different than knowing you can get women, or wanting to control women, or even loving women. He likes them. He appreciates them. He enjoys their company.” She really grabbed my attention with the concept when she listed a comparison of men who do, and men who don’t:
“Tom Cruise doesn’t like women. Neither does Miles Teller. Channing Tatum likes women. So does Ryan Gosling. Brad Pitt used to like women but doesn’t anymore. Leonardo Di Caprio only likes them occasionally. Bradley Cooper doesn’t, George Clooney does. Matt Damon doesn’t, Ben Affleck only does in that one scene in the J.Lo documentary. Marlon Brando didn’t, Montgomery Clift did. Paul Newman didn’t onscreen but did IRL. Cary Grant did, John Wayne definitely, definitely didn’t. Will Smith pretends like he doesn’t but I’m not convinced. Mark Wahlberg absolutely does not, but Daniel Day-Lewis does. So does Paul Mescal.”
Peterson’s take exposes something deeper I see often with clients.
Celeste Davis wrote a response to Peterson’s article on her own Substack, called, “The Men Who Like Women and the Men Who Don’t. Yes We Can Tell.”:
“But still…. there’s something here. I can’t stop noticing.
It’s in the listening, the curiosity, the respect. It’s in the eye contact. It’s how they speak of other women or speak over women. It’s whether or not they ever read women authors, listen to podcasts hosted by women.”
Davis goes on to add,
“Is it any wonder boys don’t like girls? Is it any wonder they grow up to be men who don’t respect women? When their entire lives they’ve been conditioned to shun all things feminine?
Why would they like the embodiment of everything they’ve been taught to hate?”
Davis adds the layer of embodiment of social conditioning. Just as men have been taught that their masculinity is defined by their distance to all things feminine, patriarchy conditions women to believe that this is the trade for being in a relationship with a man. That she will carry the greater burden of emotional labor, mental load, caring, managing, and more. And that on top of it all, she should be grateful to be chosen. All the while, men are rewarded for mediocrity.
Photo by Stephanie Lisa Kelly via Unsplash
I’ve witnessed countless women, including self-confident, successful, empowered, intelligent women, dating as if they’re hoping to be chosen. And then later, will stay much longer in these relationships than they might like to admit, beyond the point that they have realized that they are not cared for equally, that they are burned out, that they feel stressed more of the time than not. They stay because women have been conditioned to decenter their own needs, desires, and feelings, and to instead center how their partner feels, what their partner needs, and how to keep the peace. They stay because society tells women that they are worth more in a relationship than out of one, and that it is a women’s responsibility to manage the emotional labor and relationship maintenance. They stay because they start to believe that they are a failure if they leave.
In reality, the men these women date are lucky to be sitting across the table from them. These relationships have worked often because these women are bringing so much good energy, effort, love, and benefit of the doubt to the table.
My work often focuses on helping these women shift the lens through which they’ve learned to see themselves, so that they can see how great they are. How much they deserve in return. So that they feel confident upholding the standards that reflect the importance of their own needs in relationships when they are dating. I tell many of my clients that part of our work is taking off the lenses of the internalized societal conditioning that leads to women seeing themselves from the outside in, and flipping them around to see from the inside out again.
Starting to ask, “How do I feel?” and, “What do I want/need?” before, “How is he feeling?,” and “What does he need from me?” can be a challenging shift that requires practice and courage. A woman is taught to center men’s perspective first, not only to see and objectify herself through men’s eyes, but to attune to men’s emotions and needs before her own, in all circumstances.
As John Berger said in “Ways of Being,”
“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed is female. Thus she turns herself into an object of vision: a sight.”
Berger’s line points to what so many women internalize: that our value is confirmed only through someone else’s gaze. This looks like masking needs and desires, scanning for imperfections, anxiety or analysis of one’s partner’s behaviors and words, asking, “why am I not enough?”
Partners who are invested in building a relationship with you will behave in ways that make how they feel towards you clear, consistently. As the Gottman method says, they’ll turn toward, consistently. Perfectly? No (or at least, not always). But someone who is ready for, and interested in pursuing a relationship with you, will show you that. It will feel like they’re in it with you. It shouldn’t feel like you’re trying to figure things out on your own, to get to the bottom of what’s wrong, what you need to do more of, how you’re not enough, to get him to stick around or finally start turning towards you. It definitely shouldn’t feel like you’re trying to rehabilitate him so that he can become a good partner.
Perhaps some of the questions women who are dating men can ask themselves, is, not just “Does he like me?”, but “Does he like women?” (Or in other words, can he see me, and women, as whole humans worthy of effort, beyond the roles I fulfill for him?) Or, “Does he want: something from me, to control me, cast me in a role, derive pleasure or ego satisfaction from me? Does he just want to coast?” Or even better, “Do I like myself more or less when I’m with him?”
Because we live in systems that expect women to adapt, shrink, caretake, you’re deciding about the relational system you step into when you date a man. A man who wants relationship with you invites your agency, invites your embodied presence, invites your voice. Again, with his actions and behaviors, not just his words.
Your body will often feel things before you’ve observed the pattern or found evidence that something is off. Building a trusting relationship with your body becomes a source of self-trust, discernment, and power in relationships.
When you’re with someone who wants a real relationship with you, and puts effort into caring for you, your body gradually feels more grounded around him, not just excited on the surface. If you constantly feel tense, alert, or confused, that’s worth listening to.
Generative Somatics, in their article, “What is a politicized somatics?” describes one perspective on why somatics and body awareness as important:
“Somatics breaks the idea of the body as the thing we take to the gym or as the carrier of the more important mind. It replaces this rationale, with an understanding of the profound evolutionary wisdom of the body and its intimate connection to the mind, emotions and the environment. As we become more embodied, we have more access to information, feeling, and sensation, all of which allows us more choice.”
Dating from an embodied foundation of self-trust, provides a foundation of empowerment and self-worth that will make it hard to cast you in any role you didn’t audition for, and it will provide you with access to greater discernment in the dating pool.
In short: Listen to your body’s wisdom, pay attention to whether your partner sincerely likes you, whether he sincerely likes women, and ask yourself how you feel, first.
ways to work with me:
Online somatic and soul-centered counseling, yoga, and Brainspotting for women located in Bend, Oregon and the state of Oregon. Click here to schedule a free consultation.
Read more about sacred becoming therapy here and my approach to working with cycle breaking women here.
Enter your email at the bottom of this page to stay up to date on offerings!