Straight women who’ve spent any amount of time dating in the hopes of finding someone to build a relationship with know that trying to figure out our male counterparts can be utterly baffling.
If you find yourself contemplating why some guys don’t want relationships, the answer is actually much more obvious than most of us would have ever thought.
After finally crossing paths with someone you’re really into, it’s only a matter of time before you might start wondering how to play your cards right so you can end up with the guy of your dreams, just in time for cuffing season to commence. But depending on his maturity level and what type of commitment he’s open to, there’s a chance he could just be looking to get laid.
Elite Daily reached out to Mark Stefanishyn, dating coach and founder of Relationship Minimalism — a relationship system designed to teach men how to create loving environments for women — to better understand why so many men seem to be exclusively focused on sex rather than relationships.
Although a male’s biological drive to sow their wild oats shouldn’t be ignored, Stefanishyn believes men getting a bad rap for being too sex-centric is largely due to the media. “The overarching message from North American culture has been telling men that they should only want sex and telling women that men only want sex for decades,” explains Stefanishyn.
And while he acknowledges that these messages may stem from gender stereotyped “truths,” he believes the lack of male voices in pop culture who don’t subscribe to this mentality is partly to blame for making this narrative seem much more all encompassing than it actually is. “Pop culture today never has any serious discussions about the importance of a man’s relationship to honor, loyalty, or commitment. Those ideas are way harder to sell than a bunch of dancing bikini girls. So if your culture is shaped by people who mostly want to make money, it’s obvious which one you are gonna choose,” says Stefanishyn.
So what does all of this mean to all of the women out there who haven’t given up on finding Mr. Right? Is there a way to troubleshoot the male mind from the get-go if you want a relationship when the person you’re seeing just wants to bang?
According to Stefanishyn, there’s no need to obsess over how to get a guy to want a relationship because the main deciding factors that drive men to pursue sex versus love are pretty much out of your hands. “It’s nothing the girl can control — he’ll have made up his mind going into it. The only real defense for this is to not give off signals that you’re down for just sex,” says Stefanishyn.
Stefanishyn points out that because relationships require so much responsibility, in order for a man to be at a point where he’s considering one, “he’s going to have some level of maturity and have worked on himself to value something deeper and more meaningful than the sexual cultural programming. That makes him rare and hard to find.”
Recently, pop culture has made a pretty palpable shift in starting to sell sex to women with a similar intensity with which they have been targeting men for decades. Since this is a fairly new initiative, however, it’s still hard for all of us gals to let go of our biological drive to connect with someone who can offer us security and depth — not just a great orgasm. “This means that there’s a ton of women who have a desire for a relationship, and a smaller number of men who want the same,” says Stefanishyn.
It’s worth reiterating that not all men fall into the mainly sex-driven category, but men who only want sex want it for pretty much the same reasons women want sex: because it feels good. Men who are motivated by pleasure above all else simply might not be ready to pursue more meaningful relationships yet. And this is totally OK! And honestly, the same can be said of some women, too. Ultimately, most people get to a point where sex is no longer the most important aspect of how they engage with a person of interest.
More importantly, you should go after whatever it is that you want. If that’s a relationship, then don’t waste your time on guys who aren’t on the same page.