What Do Women Want

Sigmund Freud once wrote, “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?”

So, what is the answer? Does she want appreciation? Sympathy? Respect? Personal freedoms? I believe so. But the greatest of them is something more moving and emotional.

A woman wants to be chosen. That’s it.

It is true that those closest to us, namely our parents, can do many things for us. They can love and appreciate us but they cannot really choose us. It is precisely because they are our parents that we consider much of the praise and adoration they give us to be nothing more than a genetic obligation, complements which are usually returned by a rolling of the eyes than with a bright and lasting smile.

Don’t misunderstand me. What is conveyed by our parents has a real and lasting impact and is nothing to be discounted or viewed as fleeting. However, there is a real tangible difference between a parent telling their daughter she is beautiful and then a complete stranger saying the same thing. Even though the words are the same the feeling is very different. The former one says it regularly while the latter one tells you unexpectedly.

Think about it. When a man suddenly singles you out of a room filled with twenty other women to tell you that you are the most beautiful one then you must be something special. And, it therefore must be true.

This notion of choice is primarily why so many women dream of marriage. Why? Because marriage provides the one thing that a woman wants the most, namely, to be chosen. For on that day a woman can hear from a man the words, “I choose you.” “Yes, there are many beautiful women. But you are the most beautiful. There are many caring women. But you are the most caring. And to you I now publicly declare that the other 3.3 billion women in the world are not as special. You are the most special to me and I love YOU.”

To this day I have yet to see a bride frown on her wedding day. There is truly something to be said about being chosen that brings out a woman’s best, which in all actuality is her highest self for she lives to love and be loved.

But, for far too many women, the happiness once felt on that chosen day lasts for about as long. The love and adoration so readily shown in the beginning has become hidden from view and sound leaving the prior chosen one alone in a relationship now bereft of any emotional feeling or closeness.

And in its place lies the groom, grown quiet and distant through work and TV in total neglect of the woman he once told an audience he would forever live ‘to have and to hold.’

A scripture tells us that “the woman is the glory of the man.” If that is the case, and the women in our lives have become resentful, distant and strange, then the fault lies with us in our choosing to shelve the ‘person’ we once chose for the ‘things’ we now choose more.

Noticing a woman helps her to come alive and brings with it a new excitement in getting up in the morning to make herself beautiful, for there is someone who makes it worth it all. With it also comes a new incentive to please, impress and desire.

I often think of how many marriages could be restored if a man would just show his wife proper attention – if he would bring her flowers, tell her she is beautiful or pen a love letter. Such acts of chivalry would put a new vitality into a disintegrating marriage and make a knight out of a man for the queen that is his woman.

Truly, a woman’s need for love and attention is deep and serious. A poem reads:

Blow me a kiss from across the room, Say I look nice, when I’m not. Touch my hair as you pass my chair, Little things mean a lot…Give me your hand when I’ve lost the way, Give me your shoulder to cry on. Whether the day is bright or gray, Give me your heart to rely on. Give me the warmth of a secret smile, To show me you haven’t forgot. For now and forever, for always and ever, Little things mean a lot.”

Happiness is a choice. So why not make the woman in your life yours again?