By Eric Jurado
THE weather bureau, Pagasa, officially declared the start of summer last Monday, and many couples are now happily planning their vacations.
The London newspaper, The Daily Mail, however, listed the top 10 problems experienced by couples on vacation together. Topping the list was men looking at other women in bikinis on the beach.
It takes massive willpower, in fact, for a heterosexual man not to look at bikini-clad women. And few men —even the nicest, finest, and most monogamously faithful and loving— have such willpower.
So, the Daily Mail notes, this frequently causes problems when a couple’s itinerary includes a visit to the beach.
And what exactly is the problem? The problem is that the wife or girlfriend feels threatened by his looking. And why does she feel threatened? Because she thinks he is comparing her to those women. And why does this disturb her?
Here are three reasons.
First, virtually every woman, no matter how attractive, thinks that when her man is looking at other women—other women in general, and in bikinis especially—he is finding them more attractive than her.
Second, she thinks that he is therefore dissatisfied with her, which in turn arouses the unspoken but primal fear that he might leave her.
And third, she is sure that her man will continue to think about these women long after they have disappeared from sight.
Now let’s analyze these reasons.
First, does the husband or boyfriend find these women on the beach—or for that matter anywhere else—more attractive than he finds his wife or girlfriend?
Well, since I believe that only honesty works in the long run, the answer is sometimes, yes. He may very well find some of those women more physically attractive than his woman. But, here’s the point that most women, again understandably, don’t know: with very few exceptions, it doesn’t matter!
You read me right. Of course, when looking at these other women, he may find some of them more physically attractive than the woman he is with. But—and here’s the good news—SO WHAT?
Presuming he is attracted to you —and if he isn’t, it doesn’t matter if you’re vacationing in a monastery and all he sees are monks—he wants YOU. I repeat, he wants YOU.
And if he does, all these other women don’t amount to anything.
There’s another thing women need to know. Within seconds of their disappearing from view, he has no memory of any of these women. When in sight, they can take over his male mind. But out of sight, they are out of mind. It’s as if they never existed.
Yes, the visual gets men’s total attention in a matter of seconds, but as soon as the woman he was focused on vanishes, most men forget what they saw in an equal number of seconds.
Why does this come as news—and hard to believe news, at that—to most women? Because you, the woman, remember the women your man looked at. And you therefore think that he, too, remembers them. But let me assure you he doesn’t. Most men under torture couldn’t identify the women they looked at the hour before, let alone the day before, if they were shown photos of them along with photos of women they had never seen.
And more good news! His seeing women who he thinks for that moment are more attractive than you has no bearing whatsoever on his being “dissatisfied” with you.
Men find other woman attractive in large measure just because they are other women. Men are programmed by nature to want variety—indeed endless variety. That’s why God-fearing King Solomon had 700 wives and another 300 concubines, and secular Hugh Hefner had at least that many lovers.
In sum, then, when your man looks at these other, perhaps even “more attractive” women, he is:
A) Not comparing you to them,
B) Not in any way becoming dissatisfied with you, and
C) Certainly not thinking of them later.
He looks at them because they are other women, whether they are more attractive, just as attractive, or less attractive. They are women in bikinis. So he looks.
Where there is basic domestic harmony and mutual physical attraction, more than anything, your husband or boyfriend wants you. When he looks, he isn’t comparing, he isn’t getting dissatisfied, and he won’t have a clue later as to who he saw. So, when you’re back in your hotel room, put on your own bikini, and tell him you want him. Because again, more than anyone else in the world, he wants you.
And if you don’t believe me, ask him. You’ll be glad you did. And so will he.
Eric Jurado covers important issues with liberty as his guiding star.
