Men Are Meeting You Exactly Where You Are

About two months ago, while I was in a session with one of my lovely clients talking about her dating life, she said, “Men need to start meeting me at my standards because all they do is give me crumbs.” 

She is a very beautiful, ambitious and successful woman. She’s got her own home, her own good career, she makes good money — all the things in that area. But her dating life now… that’s a whole other story. 

So when she said, “These men need to start meeting me at my standards, ” I replied, “They are meeting you at your standards though. What you accept from men is in fact a direct reflection of your standards and where they are. So if the men you’re dealing with are always giving you crumbs, and you’ve been accepting them… guess what your standards are? On the gawt damn floor.” 

Now, the majority of my clients fit a very similar profile, if you will. They’re between 30 and 46 years old and they’re all beautiful, down-to-earth, big-hearted women with great senses of humour, successful careers they worked hard to build, and a whole lot going for them. These women are lawyers, senior HR executives, therapists (I have a lot of therapists as clients), university professors, consultants, business owners, entrepreneurs, and creatives. And for the most part, they all seek me out for the same reason: their dating life. Men. The cause and the cure in the minds of so many women. 

You’re here because — like they did — you think the cause of all your dating woes is the men out here who ain’t shit, and the cure to that will be to find a good man who’s worth his weight in gold.

And that thought process isn’t even necessarily all your fault. 

Walk with me… 

Most of the women around you (and a lot of the content you consume, if we’re being honest) serve as your echo chamber. They tell you what you want to hear, what will soothe your ego, and protect your feelings. Mostly because that’s what they’ve been conditioned to do, also because that’s what they would want too, but — and this is the biggest slice of the pie here — because it’s easier to blame the ain’t shit men you choose to entertain and tether yourself to than it is to have multiple honest conversations with yourself about why you’re doing that.

Why are you accepting, tolerating, and settling for crumbs from a man?

So, because you’re used to being in an echo chamber like that, the moment you get around women who are outside of it — women who aren’t in the business of protecting your feelings by flattering your ego, but instead are in the business of being honest with you and encouraging you to reflect on the behaviours, patterns, and wounds that drive you to accept, tolerate, and settle for pisspoor treatment from men who, quite frankly, you should be viewing as beneath you…

You’re immediately shocked. Offended. Insulted even. 

Which just goes to show how ass-backwards this shit really is.

Because how are you more offended and insulted by a woman who is being honest with you, trying to help you solve a problem you say you need help solving, than you are by the men you allow in your bed and inside your body? Men who lie to you every day, treat you like the gum beneath their shoe, and are perfectly fine with being the problem in your life as long as they benefit from getting what they want from you.

You see, two months ago, had my client told her homegirls, “These men need to meet me at my standards,” they would have co-signed that statement. “I know that’s right! Yes they do.” 

But she didn’t say that to her homegirls, she said it to me. And my job is to be honest with her so she can realize that her problem isn’t and never was men. Matter of fact, I’ll take it a step further here and say that y’all give men way too much power in and over your life. But I digress.

Her problem, just like so many women, including you, is and always has been her standards. 

You see, you can say that your standards are super high, but your actions will snitch on you every time. Because if your standards were truly as high as you would like people (men) to believe they are, then riddle me this: how is it that you are constantly in the presence of men who have nothing to offer you except dick and headaches? 

Right. 

You meet men who say all the right things, but don’t walk it like they talk it. And rather than leaving them at the exact place where they thought they could play in your face… you stay.

You stay and tolerate their inconsistency, their lies, their excuses, and all the other bullshit they’ve got going on. Sure, you might kick up some dust, call them out here and there, and argue with them — but you continue to participate in the low to no effort, poor-quality, raggedy ass dating experience nonetheless because you catch glimpses of their potential and believe that if you just nurture that potential, you’ll be rewarded.

The reward in question? A title. Or a ring that represents a title.

And at no point did you ever stop to ask yourself why. Why would you want to be the girlfriend or wife of a man like that? Why would you ever want to stand beside a man like that and say, “This is my man,” or “This is my husband”?

Embarrassing.

Then you and your homegirls want to sit around telling each other that “men ain’t shit,” “the dating pool has piss in it,” and my personal favourite of all time, “the bar is in hell” — but y’all keep going back to the pissy pools, picking men from them, inviting them back into your homes and your lives, and telling them to make themselves comfortable… so they do.

Don’t you see?

The bar is in your hands, because the bar is set according to your standards.

Contrary to what you’ve been focused on, there are different types of men in this world, and the ones who ain’t shit wouldn’t even be able to breathe the same air as you, let alone have the privilege of making it into your bed, if your bar… wasn’t in hell.

The truth of the matter is, the cause of your dating woes have little to do with men and more to do with what you entertain, accept, tolerate, settle for, participate in, chase, beg, and even return to all because one of your core beliefs rests in the idea that it’s better to have a piece of a man than to have no man at all. Hence why you end up with crumbs.

Now if you made it this far, even if you were triggered the entire time you were reading, it’s because there’s something inside of you that knows it’s your truth. So I want you to do two things that will actually benefit you for a change.

1. Unclench your jaw, girl. 

2. Think about how you participate in your dating experiences. So never mind the men you date, they don’t matter for this exercise. Remove them entirely from your thoughts and just think about yourself. 

Do you say yes to the men you know you should be saying "absolutely not” to? 

Do you date from a place of desperation instead of from a place of self-respect? 

Do you abandon your own wants and needs the moment a man enters your picture? Notice I said your picture, not the picture, because this is your life that you’re inviting men into. 

And finally, are the standards you say you have actually your standards in real time? Or are they standards you wish you had? Because there’s a difference. A big one. 

Now, if this is the first time you’ve ever come across any of my work — hi. My name is Cynthia, I’m 41 years young, thank you very much, and I help women with many things, to be honest, but one of my specialties is teaching women how to get their shit together. A.k.a centering themselves in their own lives so that when they do date, their first instinct isn’t to abandon themselves for a man. (I always include my age because I think it’s important for women to know who’s talking to them and from which stage of life, you know?)

That said, if you know your dating life is a shitshow and you need some help unpacking and sorting through your own patterns, let me introduce you to the two options I’ve got for you.

The first is Auditing Your Dating Patterns.

This is based on the same processes and frameworks I’ve used in my group sessions and 1:1s — just structured in a way you can go through at your own pace. You can even go through one of the modules by clicking here.

The second option is to pull up to my virtual office and work with me 1:1. And you can do that by clicking right here.

I would say I hope this read gave you something to think about… but I know it did ;)

Sending you much love.

Now go make the day work for ya.

XO,

Cynthia