* There are two basic realities that no amount of social conditioning are ever going to erase.
1) Most heterosexual women like confident, dominant men, even if they feel intense pressure not to say so and feel confused about the gap between what they actually like and what they feel they should like. And unfortunately for women, they are heavily pressured to also be “nice” and to be agreeable, regardless of how they actually feel.
2) Men don’t have the luxury of taking it for granted that they’ll have access to companionship by virtue of just being there. One of the reasons men tend to respond deeply negatively to the perceived gap between what women say and do is that they can less afford to get the question wrong. There’s also a communication gap here: men are just not nor will ever be good at detecting hidden, subtle secondary meanings, but women have to deal with the reality of talking to someone who can physically overpower them if things turn ugly.
