"Real Men" Don't Exist: The Man In Front Of You Is As Real As It Gets

Women are looking for 'real men' (and men look for 'real women') but unfortunately, our ideas of such things are way off base. We want a man to protect us and be a saviour but then are ticked he doesn't respect our independence. We want toughness and strength but then are upset that he isn't more sensitive and attune to his feminine side. We need to stop expecting men to be a certain way and realize that the men we do have are perfectly real and perfectly wonderful just as they are.

We want a man who doesn’t cry, then shame him for being insensitive.

We want stoicism in our men. And yet when we are crying after a bad day or want him to pick up on the slightest change in our mood, we are upset with him for being unable to feel.

We raise him to be tough and angry, then get mad when he’s aggressive.

We tell our sons and our husbands and boyfriends to be "manly," to be tough and are then shocked when they are overpoweringly aggressive. We tell them they are too angry and expect them to keep it all bottled up inside until it explodes, blowing everything up with it.

We want him to be a gentleman of yesteryear, then get mad at him for not being progressive.

We want him to pull out chairs for us, hold doors and pay for dinner but then complain that he isn't a feminist. We hold him to a Disney Prince level standard without realizing that those princes are NOT REAL.

We want him to drool all over us, then tell him to close his mouth.

We want him to find us sexy, to desire and yearn for us but then get upset because we are so much more than 'superficial beauty.' We want him to put us on a pedestal but are upset when he doesn't treat us like equals. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be sexy for your man, just don't lock him into a no win situation.

We expect him to be a gentleman without knowing at all what that entails.

We don't know what being a real gentleman is all about because real gentlemen don't exist. Men are complex and varied. Holding him to a standard that doesn't exist is only setting him up to disappoint you. Is that really fair to him?

We want him to take control, and then call him controlling.

We want him to plan the entire date. Pick the time, place, but when he tries to order for us, we pull the rug out from under him and call him controlling. We say we want him to take control but can't handle the loss of power.

We want him to be a man until we want him to be a woman.

We want the aggressive, insensitive and dominant type until we decide we want him to be just like our bestie and settle in to watch The Bachelorette. We want him to be a boyfriend until we want him to be a girlfriend.

We want him to rescue us, then we want to save ourselves.

When single, all we dream about is a man who will come and save us from this life. We want rescued from bad dates and lonely nights. But when he does, all we want is our independence. We feel suffocated while forgetting that we once begged him to take us away. Are you looking for a real man? Stop. You've likely already found him. We want men to give us the room to be all the wonderful, amazing, complex things that we are as women, so lets extend them the same courtesy.