James Michael Sama on one of the most important aspects of a relationship — the ability to make yourself vulnerable, and in turn, accept your partner’s vulnerability.
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Trust, without question, is one of the most important bricks when building the foundation of a strong relationship. Without trust, you cannot have real love. I have emphasized the importance of trust in a relationship in previous articles, but I have just recently [about 20 minutes ago] started to ponder the importance of trust before a relationship.
My most recent article speaks of how a man should pick up a woman for a date. This is what I have always done with any woman I have ever spent time with. To me it is normal behavior worthy of no praise or even a second thought. It’s just the way things are.
However, two different women left a comment on that article almost immediately which reflects some opinions I recall hearing in the past but never experienced first hand: They would not feel comfortable having a man pick them up, and would rather meet him out.
While this may sound perfectly normal to some, it is completely outside of my reality and raises a few questions in my mind. I completely understand that the world is a dangerous place and that many people cannot be trusted. Giving out your address to a complete stranger is likely a bit off-putting and many may avoid it.
But the prominent question in my mind is — Does this indicate that men are not properly building trust with a woman they hope to form an intimate connection with? If a woman cannot trust you to simply pick her up and/or drop her off for the evening, how can you expect for her to open up to you over dinner, or suddenly realize that you are a trustworthy man? It simply does not happen that fast.
My having never experienced this type of distrust does is not meant to send the message that I am some sort of infallible dater — far from it. But it does spark an interesting discussion about the reasons why women feel this way towards men.
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The fact that it does not happen that fast is even more of a reason to work on building trust beforehand. If she is completely guarded during your entire date, the odds are slim that chemistry will be felt from either end, leading to a potentially beautiful thing being extinguished before it was even ignited.
In my experience there has always been more than a fair amount of talking before a date is established and certainly before it actually happens. This means there may be a week, two weeks, or maybe even more if both people are busy — of speaking and connecting before they actually see each other. For this reason, it makes me wonder what apprehension can still be left that would prevent a woman from being comfortable enough to get picked up by a man.
My having never experienced this type of distrust does is not meant to send the message that I am some sort of infallible dater — far from it. But it does spark an interesting discussion about the reasons why women feel this way towards men.
Obviously, no man can never fully comprehend the feeling of insecurity that a woman may experience, likely because of other men she could not trust in the past. So for that reason I ask you to leave your thoughts in the comments below:
Women — have you ever insisted you meet a man somewhere rather than being picked up? If so, was there a specific reason why you did not trust him?
Men — have you ever offered to pick a woman up or drop her off and had her offer meeting somewhere as an alternative? If so, do you feel as though you did your best to cultivate trust beforehand, or did you just ask her out and leave it at that?
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This article originally appeared on James Michael Sama’s Blog.
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Photo credit: Michael Knapek/flickr
Women often have contradictory expectation. She wants a man to provide her with an experience that she doesn’t trust him to give. The idea of dating as a way of getting to know each other is simply outdated. It’s an interview for marriage. Get to know each other as friends first. Then you can decide if you both want to build the romance and you’ll be in a position to do so with much less drama. Barring that, I vote with Rob. Put your best for forward and accept her response at face value. The point is not to impose… Read more »
Pick me up at home. But i have a question which became at issue with my recent date and cause of not dating me again. I invited him in my ex bf wedding which also happens to be my friend now. He was my ex bf 9 yrs. ago.. he reacted negatively on that and he said “you really scared me when ou invited me on the wedding. You made me remember how I was treated like a fool by my ex.” Fyi.. the guy is on my same age 27 and has 9yr old son to that ex gf.… Read more »
Ridiculous. So only a woman’s trust is important?
Oh please Rick, don’t act incredulous, who is generally the aggressor? Who is generally larger and stronger? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Pr-haps if you impress the lady
Most politely, most politely
Flatter and impress the lady
Most politely, most politely
Humbly beg and humbly sue
She may deign to look on you
But your doing you must do
Most politely, most politely,
Most po-lite-ly
From my experience and perspective; my gut reaction was that you’re making quite an assumption that a woman should trust you incredibly quickly in the beginning. But when I think about it more, what I come to is this: my general policy is to act in alignment with my belief and code and then adapt to the response I get. How this plays out in your scenario: I would ask to pick her up in alignment with my belief that I am a trustworthy guy. If I get a positive response, then great. It tells me a lot about how… Read more »
For me unless I know the guy pretty well before hand, I would prefer to meet him at the location for a first date. If I feel comfortable and am convinced this guy is an ok guy by the end of the date,then its alright for him to drop me off,otherwise I prefer to leave on my own. First dates are just that:first dates. Its an opportunity to get to know someone better. But in a relationship if u don’t trust your man enough to pick u up and drop you off then there is definitely an issue. 🙂
In general I’ll go for meeting in a neutral location near to where I live. This way we can both drink (assuming she used public transport to get there) and if the date doesn’t go well we can easily both go our separate ways. If it is more promising I can invite her to walk back to mine for a cocktail and a snog.
I think you’ll find a majority of women are more comfortable meeting at a more neutral location given that it’s much safer and if the date doesn’t go well you aren’t forced to endure a drive home with the awkward goodbye! It’s about safety and caution, especially in a world like ours which blames women when they are assaulted/raped because they “endangered” themselves or they “could have prevented it” somehow. Why do you believe the man should pick the woman up anyway? That’s quite archaic, really. Have you seen the screenshots of the conversations women have with men who they… Read more »
I would rather meet a man that have him pick me up. Until I feel comfortable with him and know him better.
They would not feel comfortable having a man pick them up, and would rather meet him out. While this may sound perfectly normal to some, it is completely outside of my reality and raises a few questions in my mind. The lesson here is that we should never underestimate the extent to which different people’s realities can be different. I have had lots of dates, and 90% of them involved meeting on neutral ground. Both me and the women would not have had it any other way, for good reasons. (1) Picking her up can potentionally make her feel unsafe,… Read more »
Great article 🙂 As a woman, I have had to insist on meeting a man out rather than giving him my address. It was a first meeting and I just didn’t feel comfortable given that I had only had limited email contact with him. He was a bit pushy about it at first which is why I had to insist. I think it’s fair enough to protect your private information until you feel comfortable enough to share that with someone. I have also had the opposite situation. A man I had been getting to know over several weeks didn’t feel… Read more »