The Rules of The Game

In my current work, I spend vast amounts of time on my own in forced silence. Therefore I tend to over think A LOT. Today I spent a long time thinking about my current relationship, how it affects me and how I affect it, both positively and negatively.

As if by fate, a chapter of the book I have been reading ('The Game' by Neil Strauss) was very appropriate on this very lunchtime. Its only a short chapter, but its extremely enlightening, so I'd like to share. (I've bolded the key bits for me personally for those that don't wish to read the entire passage.)

Male sexuality may seem on the surface like it runs rampant in society - there are strip clubs, porn websites, 'Maxim'-style magazines, and titillating advertisements everywhere. But, despite all this, true male desire is often kept repressed.
Men think about sex more than they will ever let women, or even each other, know. Teachers think about f*cking their students, fathers think about f*cking their daughters friends, doctors think about f*cking their patients. And right now, for every woman with even an iota of sex appeal, there's probably a man somewhere in the world who's touching himself and thinking about what it would be like to f*ck her. She may not even know him: He may be that businessman who walked past her in the street or the college student who sat across from her on the subway. And any man who tells a woman otherwise is most likely doing so because hes trying to get in her pants, or the pants of someone else within earshot. The great lie of modern dating is that in order to sleep with a woman, a man must pretend initially as if he doesn't want to.
Most appalling to women is the male obsession with strippers, porn stars, and teenage girls. It is abhorrent because it threatens a woman's reality. If all men really desire a woman like that, then where does that leave her marriage and happily-ever-after fantasies? She's doomed to live them with a man who really wants that Victoria Secret model or the neighbors daughter or that dominatrix in the videos he hides in his closet. As a woman ages, an 18 year old will always be 18. Love is dashed on the rocks in the face of possibility that a man doesn't want a person but a body.
Fortunately, this is not the entire story. Men are visual thinkers; thus we're often deceived by our eyes. But the truth is that the fantasy is often better than the reality. I had just learned that lesson. Most men eventually learn that lesson...
Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we are. But, by believing in our nobler nature, woman have amazing power to inspire us to live up to it. This is one reason why men tend to fear commitment-and sometimes...even tend to rebel against it by endeavoring to bring out the worst in woman.

This really is an excellent read with a lot of depth. Highly Recommended.

:)

TO