Vironika Tugaleva thought she was showing her man how much she loved him by being the perfect Cosmo Girl. Instead, she almost lost him.
I remember being little, about 11 years old, and watching “Show Girls.” I probably shouldn’t have been watching “Show Girls” when I was 11, but it happened. I remember this one scene where Nomi—with her long legs, flawless shiny skin, and perfect ass—is giving this man a lap dance. She moves with masterful control and leaves him bulgy eyed and completely incoherent. This, I thought, was the epitome of female sexuality. She was sexy, strong, and beautiful. I remember feeling a complex mix of arousal and shame. I didn’t have long, skinny legs. My skin wasn’t shiny like that. Neither was my ass. I took a deep breath and swallowed hard. There was a lesson in all this. If I was ever going to get a man to love me, I’d have to learn how to give a lap dance.
I also remember talking to my older sister* when I was a teenager. I remember the sincerity in her eyes when she told me “You will either get a man who wants to have sex with you all the time, but he will never be faithful. Or, you get a man who will be faithful to you, but he will never want to have sex with you.” I nodded and swallowed that, too. I would meet men, from that day on, and the more sexually attracted they were to me, the more I’d mistrust them. The more they wanted me, the more I pushed them away. You won’t fool me, cheater, I thought. I know what guys like you with your libido and lolling tongues want.
A few years ago I was working at a sex shop and this CEO came in to buy a vibrator. Her hands were laden with expensive rings and she carried herself with the air of someone who knew she was important. My coworker Sandy* and I, excited by her ultra-powerful presence and happy to put vibrator dusting on hold, leaned over the counter, wide-eyed, while she explained to us what we needed to know about men.
“You see, girls,” she leaned closer to us, her Chanel perfume swimming in my nostrils, “The key to men is—never give them everything. If you give them everything, you lose. Then, they don’t want you anymore. You have to always keep them chasing you. Never quite give them what they want. Don’t ever, ever tell them how you feel about them. Never tell them how much they mean to you. You know, that’s how Kate Bekinsale got the Prince. She always kept him wanting more.”
I tried my best to not be one of those psychotic girlfriends that we women read and hear about and secretly fear becoming. One of those girls that, when I was 17, I most definitely was.
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Sandy and I exchanged looks and nodded. This was the truth. It had to be. This was why, as my sister said, the sexually virile man would lose interest and find someone else. It was because women out there were giving these men who were really attracted to them everything that they had. They were giving them their hearts. I felt privileged that I would no longer be one of those women. Now I knew what I had to do. If I wanted a good relationship, I had to find a man who wanted to have sex with me and then keep that man’s interest by withholding my feelings and by learning how to give a proper lap dance.
The problem was—the thought of giving a lap dance made me want to projectile vomit and run away. The other problem was—I have a lot of feelings. When I love, I love hard. I swallowed that, too. I guess I would have to keep my psychotic neediness to myself. I guess I would have to learn to be sexy and withholding.
Over time, I practiced. I read sex tips. I learned tricks. I withheld my feelings. I never, ever told anyone how I felt about them. I still didn’t know how to give a lap dance and I still had a tendency to love way harder than anyone I knew, but I learned to do other things that I thought were just as drool-worthy and I kept my feelings nice and hidden. Overall, I thought I had everything perfectly under control.
Then, one day, I fell in love. I met someone with whom I could talk into the late hours of the morning night after night. Someone who made my body swim with endorphins at the sheer sight of him. Someone who shared my values. Someone who was funny and charming. Someone who was really sexually attracted to me. Yes, I thought! This is my chance! My chance to do it right! My opportunity to do what other women would never think to do because they were ignorant to these facts that I knew about men. I would succeed where other women had failed. I would be the perfect girlfriend. Withholding and sexy.
I thought I was doing really well. I never told him I liked him. I turned him down to hang out with me all the time. He would compliment me and I would accept his praises without reciprocating. If I did reciprocate, it was mild. I couldn’t tell him how I really felt, after all, because then he would get bored of me and leave, so I was vague and sparse. I did everything I was supposed to do as a modern-day Cosmo Girl. I felt really confident that I had managed to be, finally, the perfect girlfriend.
It went well until, very suddenly, it didn’t. Quite suddenly, I got really angry. I was really angry because I didn’t feel like I was sexually satisfied. I was angry because I didn’t feel loved. I was sad because I didn’t feel like I was seen.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. It must all be his fault. I did everything right and he still didn’t appreciate me! I did all the things that you’re supposed to do to make a man happy, but he still didn’t love me like I deserve? I guess men were even harder to please than I thought.
I tried to keep all this stuff in, I really did. I tried my best to not be one of those psychotic girlfriends that we women read and hear about and secretly fear becoming. One of those girls that, when I was 17, I most definitely was. One of those girls I swore I’d never be again. I canceled all my plans with him. I made excuses. I very seriously considered ending it though these thoughts made me feel nauseous and depressed. Was it him? Was it me? Was I so hard to love? Was he selfish? Was it men? Were we all doomed to suffer in painful, unsatisfying relationships forever?
A few days into my discontent, I went home to visit my family. I went out for dinner with my sister and her husband. We sat in a cozy booth at an East Side Mario’s during Labour Day weekend. I picked at my sad excuse for vegetarian food and watched them interact with each other. I watched him say things, without eye contact, that caused my sister’s face to twitch, her lip to curl, and her head to shake slightly. She would say things and they had no such effect on him. She sat beside me and I felt how his words, his innocuous comments about his coworkers, made her shake. I realized, quite suddenly, that my sister really, really hated him. Everything suddenly made sense. She really did. She really, really hated him.
And it hit me.
Who is my sister to be giving me relationship advice?
My sister is miserable. She’s in a relationship with a man who cheated on her. A man she hates. A man she never forgave. She told me what she told me because she believes it. She believes it because that’s her experience.
I thought back to the CEO. She was 40-something and single. I remembered—with the lightning speed that previously insignificant details come during an epiphany—that she also mentioned her divorce and hiring young men from escort agencies as dates to corporate functions.
These women, I realized, had horrible experiences with relationships! These women were not gurus in the relationship realm. These women were not experts on the minds of men. These women were bitter, lonely, and seeking to share their pain.
I watched “Show Girls” again. In that scene, Nomi’s getting paid $500 to give a lap dance to a stranger by a woman who is trying to convince her that she’s not a performer, she’s just a hooker. After she gives it, she feels cheap. That is most definitely not the epitome of female sexuality. It’s not about love, beauty, or strength. It’s about money and show business. Definitely not a place to be getting beliefs about how relationships work.
I could hardly wait to tell my partner this as my bus home rolled in.
I still remember the look on his face when I told him why I had been so withholding both emotionally and physically. I remember that sigh. I remember that relief. His realization that my behaviour made no comment about him, only me. My realization that every time I withheld my emotions and my intimacy, I made him feel rejected.
I was trying to do all these things to be perfect, but all I was doing was constructing this completely false, inauthentic reality that, in the end, really hurt both of us. It made both of us feel unsatisfied and unappreciated. It made us both feel like we weren’t enough.
Before this, I thought being authentic was about my appearance. I thought it was about coming to terms with what I look like. This experience taught me that being authentic was also about coming to terms with what I want. I want to be loved and appreciated.
On my journey to spread the message of authenticity, I’ve learned something very valuable. That I’m not alone. That to feel loved and appreciated is what we all want. That so many relationships are thrust apart by the very same dynamics that mine was. That some couples out there never figure it out and walk away because they both feel so inadequate. We try so hard to be perfect for each other, but we fail because we’re not being ourselves.
I’ve learned a lot and I keep learning. I’ve heard it said that we teach best that which we need to learn the most. For me, it’s authenticity. Even after I learned to share my positive emotions, I’ve still had trouble with sharing negative ones. But I keep learning and growing.
It’s hard, sometimes, to live in a culture of gender stereotypes. It’s hard, sometimes, to believe in lasting, powerful love, in effective long-term relationships, and in gender equality when all we hear are sob stories.
I hope that, if you can only take one thing away from my story, it’s this—sometimes, we make our own sob stories. We believe that the world is a certain way because of what we were told or what we’ve experienced. Then, we filter the rest of our life through the lens of that belief. It doesn’t mean that we weren’t hurt. It doesn’t mean that people weren’t hurt. It doesn’t mean that our beliefs aren’t justified. It does, however, mean that our beliefs are often opinions, not truths.
I think that the truth about men and women is—we’re more similar than we are different. We just want to be loved and appreciated for who we are and what we do. We all deserve that, too. So let’s give each other that and expect it in return.
* Not really my older sister, and not really named Sandy, respectively; these identities have been obscured to protect their anonymity.
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Image credit: istock
These points are true. Personally, we women can stand to take a better look at how we respond to men. They too are sensitive and just vulnerable. A student I became here. What an excellent article. Thank you.
Well said, and congratulations! Our gender stereotypes keep so many of us in a negative pattern of expectations and lies. The thing is, truly intelligent people can move past nonsense if they just realize that we are humans first. The trick is finding someone who’s on board with that progressive thinking.
What for a site is this? Cosmopolitan?
I woke up this morning longing for my boyfriend and wanting to text him that I miss him so much. I pushed the feeling away because I’m gonna see him tonight and I didn’t wanna seem pathetic. Then I read this and now I’m sending the text with lots of hearts and kisses because the fact he calls me crazy for loving him so much is just coz he still can’t believe anyone could.
That is just adorable, Gabi. Love this! Love you!
I’m curious- did your partner ever try to confront you before your revelation about your coldness or lack of openness? If so, how did you respond? If not, how do you think you would have responded?
Yes, that would interest me greatly as well…
Ah, yes, he did communicate about something and I took it to heart. He told me he didn’t like calling me and having me tell him I was busy or doing something else. He wanted me to spend more time with him. I remember, actually, that it was hard for me. I think the most important part of all of this was that I was in a certain mindset. I was not forcing myself to be independent, I was in that state. So, when he wanted to spend time with me, that actually repelled me. In order to act the… Read more »
Gotta say this is a great article, I believe you’re right. We’re always sticking up to lots of somehow external shit when it comes to the way we carry ourselves in a relationship. I’m very thankful for having ran into this text, I’ve been going through the exact same situation for a couple months now and though I’m a Mexican gay guy, I’ve also always felt bound to draw myself away from him emotionally as an unconscious strategy to succeed and all I’ve gotten is that same feeling of emptiness and hollowness.. I’m now trying to be always honest with… Read more »
Cosmopolitan and the like are best viewed as comedy. If you buy one and actually take their advice, it’s your loss. If you buy one for the sheer, unintentional comedy, then they are worth every penny. But don’t be fooled into listening to their advice, or YOU become the joke.
I fell in love once and only once. I didn’t with-hold my feelings, exactly. I didn’t tell him I loved him because it was very soon into it. But I told him multiple times that he made me feel very happy and that I felt like I could share everything with him and be vulnerable and be myself around him. He dumped me for “liking him too much” We’re friends now, as I try to understand what happened. He tells me that if I played it cool for a few more weeks, he might have given me a chance, but… Read more »
It sounds like you may be holding onto this experience to justify not being open, loving, vulnerable and emotional (unless you were acting in a needy manner, and frankly, no one likes this, men or women). This experience is exactly what the writer of the article was saying, just not specifically. The RIGHT man would not be freaked out by those declaration of feelings. This phrase “he might have given me a chance” feel condescending as well. There’s a phrase I just love, and in my ‘advanced’ years and many dating experiences, I’ve found it to be true: Rejection is… Read more »
I liked your article a lot.
A while ago I was standing in a book store looking at self-help books written by women for women about how to deal with men and they gave advice along the lines of ‘men are the enemy’ ‘treat them mean, keep them keen.
So forth and so on. Sorry, I didn’t mean to post that yet and I don’t know how to edit comments here, or even if you can.
I really think there is a something inside us that’s bound to make us afraid and pessimistic. How many times have you heard the expression “if it’s too good to be true, it is probably because it is”, has anyone ever come up with a mirror expression, to mean that a horrible story (or advice) can be just as fake as one “too good”? I grew up with the same gloomy vision of men and love, among survivors of sexual abuse. I grew up with stuff like “if a an has a chance to abuse you, at any time, any… Read more »
Vironika, Thank you so much for writing this. I’ve had a very similar experience–everyone (and by “everyone,” I mean the people who speak the loudest on these subjects–usually single women) kept telling me that the only reason I wasn’t happily in a relationship was that I gave too much emotionally. Anything other than being cold would project an image of desperation, they said. And I didn’t know any better, so I went along with it. Naturally, men don’t respond well to women who give them nothing–who’s going to ask out someone who gives them every reason to believe they’ll be… Read more »
Very good article…
There are a lot of people who have been hurt commenting here. My take of the article is that it is a very honest article. The author was trying to “do the right things” to find a man who she could truly love and who would love her back. I’m not sure why she was so willing to accept the bad advice but lots of people are influenced to accept bad advice. Women seem to love “women’s magazines” – maybe their drive to create content to keep the money coming in has something to do with it. The long and… Read more »
Hi Scott, I think most of what you say here is right, especially that we are all given loads of really appalling advice. I wanted to pick up on your comment that ‘Women seem to love “women’s magazines” – maybe their drive to create content to keep the money coming in has something to do with it.’ You say this as though it is rather mystifying that women enjoy women’s magazines, and I can see why it would seem that way – I used to enjoy them in the past, but since my views and ways of seeing the world… Read more »
Great article. Media & some of our closest allies create a lot of havoc on the truth of being a woman, what we want and what men want as evidenced by my own marriage. Hope to be better example for our daughter. Sidenote: if you republish this I think you meant Kate Middleton, not Kate Beckinsale, unless that CEO was confused 😉
Great article, both in form and substance. Will circulate it to share the love.
I was told that being a “slut” means no man will love or respect you. I’ve slept with any man I felt like sleeping with on the first date, I find if they don’t respect you after you fuck them they didn’t respect you in the first place.
“I’ve slept with any man I felt like sleeping with on the first date, I find if they don’t respect you after you fuck them they didn’t respect you in the first place.”
Amen to that.
If you find that this is true, should you still sleep with someone you don’t really know? I know there’s a culture of hookups, but there’s also lots of discussion about how it’s really not been that great for younger people. I’m not saying no one should ever do it, just that it is important to know what you are getting into.
I agree, Robynn. After years of struggling with what I thought were feelings of inadequacy, I realized that most of my hesitation was just latent self-respect. I need to be intimate with a person before I have sex with them. I love all people, but intimacy is part of relationship-building. It is not surprising that a culture that promotes quick romps has such a high rate of failed relationships. We discard people and move on instead of discarding our limitations, fears, and wounds and moving on. I agree that everyone’s entitled to do whatever they want to do. If people… Read more »
Here’s the thing, I’ve respected myself enough to have sex when I wanted to have sex, if they turned me on, if I was into it, then I’d do it. If they didn’t respect me afterwards, I’d filtered out a douche I didn’t want to be with ANYWAY. Intimate emotionally intense sex is GREAT, but you don’t have to avoid having casual sex along the way in order to get it. I had sex on my first date with my now husband, a man who has treated me with the utmost respect since we first met, since we first had… Read more »
It makes me sick to know some people don’t respect people they have casual sex with, thinking of them as whores n what not….If you can’t respect them then why be with them??
This piece spoke volumes to me. We’ve all been taught to play games with people because our sincere and genuine selves would either scare people off or bore them. That we’re not likeable the way that we are, and must manipulate others in order to be liked. What a horrible thing to be taught! And like in this story it can often backfire. I have learned not to take advice from unhappy people. I still struggle with withholding a huge part of myself for fear of making myself vulnerable. But I feel that if I have to use it to… Read more »
First saw this article at Elephant Journal and had to comment here, too. What a wonderful piece! Please, everybody who identifies with this, Google Alison Armstrong, who has tons of free material online (and some paid, but worth it). What I learned when I did that has changed my life and the way I relate to men. Really wonderful.
Thank you for your kind words, Karen! Thanks for sharing Ms. Armstrong as well. I’m glad to know other women out there are spreading the message of compassion. It’s so important 🙂
Everyone learns twisted or at the least nuanced perspectives from others both early in life and along the way. This is not a predicament for women or relationship issues only. However, I appreciate Veronika’s clear voice and vision in giving focus to how our attitudes toward a potential lover or mate can dictate our success or failure at realizing the intimacy and sense of belonging for which we all yearn. So much of our pain is based on the ill-conceptions we pick-up and lug-around without closer inspection. Great article on breaking free of what does not serve. Good advice and… Read more »
Thank you Brooke! It’s funny… I’ve been looking lately into male Pick Up Artist books… just seeing how the “other side” (as in the male version of Cosmo) is telling men to act… and it’s no wonder, really. Men and women alike are being given terrible advice. They’re being told to go against their natural feelings and do something ELSE. They’re being told “Hey, you don’t want this intimacy and sense of belonging crock, you want SEX, only SEX.” Even more dangerous is when we’re told stories like that of the bull who gets put into a pen with different… Read more »
For a long time i have found reading so many opinions outlooks etc halted somewhere halfway through as i felt an opinion of my own form and an old familiar tug of “this is where i stand” take its grip. No problem with it just happier without it. Felt really refreshed by this conversation with it’s eye on authenticity. For me its an ongoing process that changes day to day, its the nature of the beast ,it doesn’t leave us in a place where we can say “this is who i am”. To be in relationship means this can be… Read more »
It’s truly sad that 4 decades of gender warfare results in the sexes seeing each other as “opposite” rather than equivalent (equi-valent = of equal value). In my practice I see the pain and mistrust of each sex toward the “other” based on the “advice” of bitter members of the same sex. Yet an abundance of research literature speaks to these matters, from an inquisitive search for understanding of matters relational and sexual. It requires an educational approach where the protagonists learn, over considerable time, to similarly seek understanding from those who took the time and effort to empathise with… Read more »
I never thought that women (or men) analyzed themselves or the other sex that much. Quite an eye opener. This may sound like a stupid question, but do all women obsess this much? Do men? Maybe I am being naive but all of this toying around seems manipulative. I guess I grew up a lot more simply than most because if I feel something, I share it. I don’t go through some kinda love playbook in my head to see how my actions are going to play on whoever I am dating. I am darn sure glad to be married… Read more »
I think it is a matter of how you’re raised, yes. I wouldn’t call it manipulation. Manipulation sounds intentional. I wasn’t taught to share what I feel. I wasn’t told “Be yourself” and all of that self love stuff. I grew up on “Be number 1, be perfect, or be worthless”. So, I tried to be perfect. The best I knew how. I feel like this isn’t a pressure that everyone is succumbed to. But those of us that were put under that thumb know how it is. And it’s not about manipulation. It’s about survival. Trying to preserve self… Read more »
I preach and live authenticity since I transitioned.
No book or magazine could have convinced me to do otherwise.
Asperger people tend to be less influenced by second and third hand advice or information (tends to want to verify if it works or is true, each and every time, unless big big trust in the person and the issue).
“I think that the truth about men and women is—we’re more similar than we are different.We just want to be loved and appreciated for who we are and what we do. We all deserve that, too. So let’s give each other that and expect it in return.” This. This paragraph sums it all. This paragraph tell us all we need to know about sex, dating, and relationship. Sees opposite sex as just we see ourselves. We both are human. But what I found funny is most women and men seems to afraid to admit that we are not that different.… Read more »
I agree. Men and women are both from Earth. I think it’s fear that keeps us believing in dividing principles. We fear being taken advantage of because we didn’t listen to reason earlier. That feeling of “Wow, I’ve been such an idiot!” sometimes makes us learn all the wrong lessons.
I actually write a blog post about this kind of thing a little while ago….
Sometimes it’s better not to learn your lesson
Sorry, apparently my HTML coding is not working lol… Likely because I have no idea how to code HTML!!
Sometimes it’s better not to learn your lesson:
http://authentunity.com/2012/11/26/sometimes-its-better-not-to-learn-your-lesson/
I’ve always worked under the theory that when in a relationship I am asking my partner to give a bunch of trust to me and it’s completely disrespectful if I’m not willing to do the same back. And I have to really sit and think if I’m not ready to hand over some trust should I even be in a relationship? If I’m going to with hold my feelings, thoughts or whatever… should I really be in a relationship. I really think the games people play while doing these mating and pair bonding rituals are tiring. And entirely too hard… Read more »
@Kat,
“Treat people the way you want to get treated. Keep it simple. Don’t like how you’re being treated? Look at how you’re interacting with the world. Little self reflection never hurt anyone.”
Yes, so please think that Mr. Nice likes sex too! Look at how your’re interacting with these men vs the other degenerates. “Little self reflection never hurt anyone” Right?
Jules,
How disrespectful.
I think Elizabeth’s point is the key one. People – men & women – are so fixated on ‘succeeding’ in relationships and frightened of being hurt that they look for one answer, one truth and other people are comforted by thinking they have that truth to offer to others. Some people here have commented that they’ve experienced relationships ruined by withholding. I myself have experienced relationships that were all moonlight and roses while I was getting to know and trust the man and as soon as I opened up completely and trusted quickly deteriorated in to my being taken for… Read more »
I agree, my nature is to be warm and emotionally generous in relationships, but more often than not, I find men prefer me when I am distant. I back off and seem distracted, and they will suddenly start calling more and asking me to spend more time with them. Sigh.
This reminds me of the Princess asking “Am I kissing the wrong frogs… or am I kissing frogs wrongly?” I’d have to say that, if you are receiving the message that you’re best off distant, you’re kissing the wrong frogs. There’s nothing wrong with being warm and emotionally generous.
Just remember that you’re only as rich as the radius of your imagination. If you can imagine powerful, long-lasting love where you’re both emotionally involved and close… then you’ll get it. It’s possible. I promise.
Indeed, there is a woman I have a mad crush on (sadly she’s married, yes I hate my silly crushes:P) who is VERY warm, nice, sweet, caring, and that is a huge turn on dating wise. I feel very safe around her, comfy, her presence alone makes you feel heaps better. That type of feeling is madly multiplied in dating and feels great. It’s nice to feel loved, desired, wanted, just avoid clingyness but that differs person to person so you’d have to ask the partner what is ok and what isn’t.
I think the idea of a “successful” relationship is key. Here success if often defined by the consensus of your peers, there’s a lot of peer pressure to have relationships in a certain way, and a lot of a person’s esteem gets drawn into it. However the idea of different people being forced into a similar relationships seems like a recipe for disaster for me. Earlier in life this is probably worse, though it could give you a lot of emotional baggage down the line. A lot of people feel trapped in outwardly “perfect” marriages, actually that was the whole… Read more »