Romance for Folks Who Value Their Peace

Dig, if you will, the picture:

A man is relating to you with warmth and making you feel seen as a fellow human being. He looks for common ground that you two can bond over and is interested in knowing what makes you you. He isn’t saying or doing anything overtly sexual that would make you feel like he’s only interested in you for one thing. You two have fun together and enjoy each other’s company doing non-sexual things.

And yet…you’re getting a vibe from him. A vibe that tells you you’re safe with him, but also holds the promise of a romantic, erotic adventure in a paradise where body-shaming and slut-shaming don’t exist, and where your pleasure matters because you matter. A paradise where he’ll inundate you in waves of passion and desire while also wrapping you in a warm blanket of love and tenderness. He’s fully comfortable in the knowledge that your body is there for your enjoyment, not his. In fact, he thrives in that knowledge. He would revel in making you feel beautiful and helping you tap into the ecstatic pleasure that is your body’s gift to you. He would make you feel seen and accepted in a way that touches you deeply and unleashes healing and joy. He understands the paradox that love should simultaneously stimulate and calm down our nervous systems.

But this vibe of his is an invitation; he knows that if you aren’t into it, then it’s not going to be good for either of you. So he won’t pressure you. And he radiates an inner peace that assures you, “I don’t need you to be my salvation, nor do you need me to be yours. I just want to share something wonderful with you that gives both of us yet another reason to feel grateful to be alive.”

Let’s face it: we all need experiences that make us feel grateful to be alive, don’t we?

This piece is addressed to women who are heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise attracted to men. More specifically, it’s addressed to women in that demographic who haven’t closed themselves off to a romantic relationship with a man but know that they would rather stay single than be in a relationship with a man that would end up being a net negative for them.

If you’re such a woman, I want you to know: I feel you. If you’re not willing to be abused, or treated like a “mommy bang maid”, or used as a human sex toy, then that isn’t holding standards that are too high; it’s setting healthy boundaries, and I would feel the same way in your shoes.

As a man, I have my own boundaries too. As a boy, I was used as a verbal (and occasionally physical) punching bag by women in positions of power over me. Fortunately, those experiences didn’t lead me to hate or not trust women, but they did teach me to proceed with caution. If a woman doesn’t feel like a safe space for me, then I won’t even open my zipper for her, much less my heart. There have been times when a woman gave me clear signals she wanted me to make a move on her, and I made a deliberate choice not to because she made my “spidey sense” tingle.

And some of the things Andre Henry has written about his experiences dating women resonate with me too:

As an adult, the notion that men and boys aren’t supposed to be sensitive hasn’t been reinforced by some tribe of toxic men but by the women I’ve dated. … More often than not, my feelings have been met with derision, dismissal, defensiveness, or accusations that I’m being manipulative (because, of course, as a “man,” I can only cause harm and can’t be harmed, so I must be lying about my feelings in order to control the relationship).

More often than not, regardless of race, I’ve found a common patriarchal thread connecting many of my experiences in dating: that some women dismiss male feelings because they don’t believe men should have them, while others do it because they believe male violence renders male pain unworthy of being heard.

I’m sure you can understand why I value my peace enough to prefer being single to being in a relationship with such a woman as Andre describes.

My need to feel a woman is safe before I make a move is one problem I have with the “man sweeps woman off her feet” model of romance. Another is how, as Y.L. Wolfe has written about, it leaves a woman vulnerable to a predator who will get her hooked on the initial high so that it’s harder for her to leave when he shows his true colors.

You find someone that you like, is a great friend, and that you want to get sexy with.

So that little picture I painted at the top of this piece is an attempt on my part to reinterpret romance in the context of an erotic love relationship between a man and woman that’s grounded in friendship.

I present it to you because I would like to hear your thoughts on it. Does that sound like an appealing way for a romantic relationship to start?

As I’ve written elsewhere, romance isn’t just some old-fashioned set of rituals; it’s a primal energy.

So we need to figure out how that energy fits in today, when we would rightfully choose our peace over being in a bad relationship.

With love,

© Ben Rosenthal 2025