They come in all shapes and sizes, but some of them share something in common, the ‘stigmatization’ of being intimidating for men. I wonder, as a woman, what does it mean. What does being intimidating mean? When someone tells you they are attracted to you but afraid, what does it mean?
Let’s remove the so used cultural cliche and take the bull by the horns.
Firstly let’s deny the sexist idea that women are intimidating and men afraid of them.
Let’s learn that our early experiences about love mold the way we perceive relationships, men and women, intimacy, and all of us, in our deepest core, we do need to be seen and heard without judgments. Let’s stop feeding magazines or Hollywood fantasies and fast recipes about You, I, and us should behave. Let’s return to what is ‘important’ and connect to what matters.
When we carry inside the idea that we are intimidating to men, we are not only denying upfront the power of connection but killing our chances of showing up entirely, eroding the proposition of vetting/dating someone to understand if they fit our life. Fear and shame are the common reasons why we tend to sabotage relationships even before their flourishment.
On the other side of the fence, I would like to warn men about something beautiful, the opportunity to discover another human being different from what they have experienced before. By this, I mean that before hasty conclusions, allow yourself to experience and feel what comes with that so-called intimidated woman. Ask her about her story. What’s the story behind her. Yes, you will shake inside. Yes, you will think about her all the time. Allow it to happen. That’s the process of getting to know each other.
Are we as intimidating and inaccessible as you think? No! And we don’t have a vast list of men waiting for us. Actually, to be honest, we are so tired of dealing with men full of themselves who behave in a passive-aggressive mode that we want a man who can hold us, and in the process, willing to show up entirely his scars, his vulnerabilities, the man we can trust. Perhaps, at first glance, we are emitting a non-clear signal of what we want. Maybe we don’t know how to verbalize it. Mayhap we want to make it right with you. However, we want to be free with you. Laugh, feel, live outside the daily life pressure. Is this supernatural to ask for?
From an evolutionary perspective, Intimidating women are, in fact, women who know what they want and where they stand. Therefore, they have come a long way, perhaps like you, and now they wear their skin with pleasure. Intensity, Sovereignty, denying the need to prove to anybody else who they are. But they want to reveal it to you. You are attracted to them because your primitive instinct tells you that she is a good match, but afraid because societal norms claim she will clash with your ego. What is crucial for you? Well-being and mental health or following the normative conclusion of what is best for you?
As women, we need to share our feelings, our attractions, name them and claim them. We need to approach the man we would like to know, invite him to go out, and let him understand that we are approachable, letting him know that we are fully capable of receiving a no as an answer. And rejection is part of the process.
As men, you need to understand and ask yourself before anything else. If you are ready to meet that ‘intimidating’ woman, after all, she is a fragile and normal person. Maybe she looks like the moon, and you are the sun, but what else?
The most rewarding experiences come from different people who can align themselves in life together. Remember, perhaps tomorrow we might not be here, so as long as we are, be sure to surpass yourself to the point where the one you love will continue his or her’s prosperity even in your absence. Because you nurtured their individuality and saw who they were despite their ‘malfunctions’.
We are humans. We are fragile beings.
With love,
Alexandra
Credits:
Photo ©Carlos Gomes – 2020
‘Stronger’ w/ Carol V.
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