I remember many years ago, being about 20 years old, and I was out with a group of girlfriends.
When you’re young, you go out and you enjoy being flirty with other young, attractive men.
Well, that night no one wanted to talk to me. At least not compared to the number of men who were interested in talking to my “friends.”
I felt sad. The men seemed interested in chatting with my girlfriends, but not me. I couldn’t figure it out.
Not that I was trying to actually figure it out; I was too busy feeling sorry for myself.
One can’t get clarity when they are feeling sorry for themselves.
On this particular night, one nice young man did come up to me and introduce himself. He asked what I was doing with myself. I said: “I’m studying Law.” Which I was.
…And I’ll never forget his reaction. He pulled his head right back and stepped away from me, taking one step back, literally. And he said ‘OH’. ‘Woah. Ok.’
From that day on, I noticed that whenever I told men this, this particular reaction was not uncommon at all.
At the time I secretly smiled. “I’m doing a LAW degree!”
(Now I look back and cringe because the law degree has done nothing for me, nor was it ever a good choice for me as a career. But I digress).
The Fallacy: Men Don’t Want Me Because They’re Intimidated By Me
I remember walking away from that club where I was at, and weeks later, started to tell myself the boring story about how men don’t want to be in a relationship with me because they were intimidated by me.
I was actually totally clueless, because it was none of that. It wasn’t even that I was ‘successful’. It wasn’t that I actually intimidated men.
The reality is that attraction generally occurs when there is polarity.
Polarity happens when there is opposite energies, it didn’t have to be that way, it is just how it is in our universe.
Looking back, I now realise that it wasn’t that men were intimidated and THAT is why they didn’t or couldn’t be in a relationship with me.
I mean, it’s a really ego stroking way to look at things, and that can give you blind spots.
In retrospect, asking the question “are guys intimidated by me” or “why are men intimidated by me” leads you down a certain path that isn’t effective for building a relationship with a guy.
It’s much healthier to making it about what actually matters (for attraction and connection to grow).
To think that men are intimidated by your success is a dominant attitude. This dominant attitude has consequences that you might not like as a woman.
Especially if you’re truly a feminine woman at your core!
Men Aren’t Intimidated By anything About You!
I have received so much hate on this article over the last decade that I need to address this particular comeback:
“Men aren’t just intimidated by my success and my career, they’re intimidated by my beauty!“
Here’s my question to you:
Why would a man be intimidated by you? He’s not in competition with you when it comes to dating and love.
And if you say he’s intimidated by your beauty because it means he has to put more “effort” in to wooing you, then you’re totally misguided.
He’d be intimidated by the men he’s competing for you with, not you.
Men Gravitate Towards Value (To Them)
…What ultimately matters is that men gravitate towards what is valuable to them for a relationship.
So if men aren’t intimidated by me, what’s the deal?
In my case, it was that there was no room to be in a relationship with me.
I made this law degree a part of my value and my worth, but it simply wasn’t. Nobody cares, and nobody cared.
Men had no perceived positive rewards for their efforts to court me, because I put out a tonne of masculine energy.
It was that I walked around, living my life from this place of thinking that my worth came from being career minded and successful.
And that became a habit. So much so that when I spoke to men, my body was tight, I wasn’t trusting, I was fully set on directing my own life.
Nothing wrong with that, right? Of course not.
And yet – it pushed the better men away, because I didn’t need their masculine direction.
I wasn’t soft, I was hard and trying to just be enough.
I was trying to be worthy. This focus on trying to be worthy made me wear masculine masks that only bought me less success in love and dating.
I bought in to the false idea that ‘men commit to women who are better; women who are achievers’ – which leads to the reality that:
When We Think This Way, We Will Always Be Alone
As women, our appeal to men in a relationship has nothing to do with how much we achieve.
It has everything to do with our soul; and our heart as a woman.
It has everything to do with how high value we show up. Things like your feminine radiance, kindness, health, and loyalty.
You don’t need to have any kind of career or achievement to be in a relationship with a man.
Men compete with each other to achieve more and therefore gain more status.
Because we all secretly know unconsciously that women trade up and compare men all the time.
As Jada Pinkett says: ”no woman wants a man other women don’t want”.
In other words, women go for the man with the most status they feel they can get.
(Men may value a woman’s status too, but in very different ways.)
We choose the best man we believe we are worthy of.
Do the quiz: Which of these 8 feminine archetypes am i?
Why We Need To Question The Idea Of ‘Men Are Intimidated By Me’.
If you focus on the question of do I intimidate men, then what happens is that even if they are intimidated by you, it doesn’t mean a whole lot.
If men are intimidated by us, fine, whatever.
But if we keep that story in our heads that men are intimidated by us…then we are simply avoiding facing the fake stories we tell ourselves about why we can’t get a guy.
MORE: How To Get A Boyfriend: Avoid These 3 Things & Get One Quick.
if you think a guy is intimidated by you, that’s ok. But I believe your focus should be less on how intimidating you are due to being successful, and more on other realities that you may be unconsciously ignoring that ultimately damage your love life.
Realities such as:
- Because we spend so much energy directing ourselves in our career and life, in other words – using this masculine energy in ourselves….
A man can’t be attracted to us for a relationship because we’ve already put out so much masculine energy in the world.
There’s NOTHING wrong with using our masculine. But when we go in to the dating world assuming that our worth comes from this; well, we don’t get to complain that men aren’t attracted to us and that there are no good men.
- Or the other fake story we often tell ourselves. That…we prefer living with the internal story in our minds of ‘guys are intimidated by me’ than feeling how much we yearn for a deep attachment to a guy.
If we allowed ourselves to yearn for this deep attachment, and to focus on our desire to connect with men instead, we’d be much more successful in dating.
In fact, your need for attachment to a guy is what we call your “feminine bias for early attachment”, and if you use it correctly, it can only serve you to attract the kind of man other women envy.
If you’ve like to learn how to use your “innate feminine bias for early attachment” to create deeper attraction with any man, then CLICK to watch our free video on this.
The One Truth I Discovered…
Here is an inconvenient truth.
When we say; ‘men don’t court me because they’re intimidated by me’…
Men actually just weren’t attracted to us. It doesn’t mean we AREN’T attractive; it just means that we didn’t show up that way in the eyes of men.
I hear women saying to me: ‘but, men are intimidated by beautiful women!! It’s true!’
I say ‘so?’ Why not be less ego and self focused?
Why not be more approachable then, if we really value relationship and connection and opening to a man?
See, it’s one thing to feed our ego with nice thoughts about our beauty. It keeps fears at bay after all.
It’s another to be a woman of value to men and show up that way.
You can choose your own path, this is just me sharing my perspective. You don’t have to like it either.
Here’s something interesting about being “beautiful”.
You can always wear a sloppy item of clothing and dull your attractiveness on the outside if you were so worried about being intimidating to men.
This is to say:
If you’re complaining that not enough men give you attention and commitment due to your attractiveness AND you want a real solution to that problem, then try removing the thing causing the problem.
But you don’t, because this isn’t about relationships with men. It’s about your ego.
See, wearing a paper bag wouldn’t change how radiant and feminine you are.
It wouldn’t change how much value men see in you, because they see it, they know it. Millions of years of evolution have brought them to this point.
What’s interesting is that wearing a paper bag would force you to become the kind of woman who relies on what is real: her ability to emotionally connect with men.
MORE: How To Build Emotional Connection With A Man: Game Changer.
Don’t Let Your Old Stories Hold You Back
I’m well aware that for a strong woman in her 30s or 40s who is finding it difficult to find a good man who is not a jerk, can feel disillusioned.
I completely understand feeling angry. Hurt. Sad. Pissed.
I can understand carrying a lot of resentment towards men due to having bad experiences (or even poor boundaries with men).
Some men re just toxic, and they can leave you scarred. But if your desire is love deep down, then you’ll do what it takes.
Related: 3 Reasons Why Women FAIL To Attract High Quality Men.
There’s a lot of pain surrounding not finding a man for most women in this world. We just try to cover it up with silly stories like:
“Men are intimidated by me”.
“There aren’t enough good men in my town.”
“Men aren’t good enough for me.”
“There’s a shortage of men in my town.”
Yes, perhaps generally speaking, there’s more women than men in your town.
But what you’re really saying is that there’s not enough high value men that you’re attracted to in your town.
Be that as it may, it doesn’t have to many an ounce of difference in your ability to attract a great guy.
This is because men always gravitate towards you when you show up high value!
That’s the rule. Just like women flock towards the men of value to women!
Alas, when we are in pain, we have to survive somehow. And to survive, we have to tell ourselves an internal story that makes us feel good enough.
Is He Intimidated By Me?
So, are men intimidated by you? Mostly not.
Maybe in the corporate world where they’re not thinking about dating you but moreso about out-competing you for a position at the office.
Even if they are intimidated by you, that usually only counts for a small percentage of the reason why they are not wanting a relationship with you.
…And even if they are, what does it matter?
How is men being intimidated by you even relevant to your love life?
What matters is whether men are attracted to you or not for a relationship.
So WHY are we really focusing on the silly story of ‘oh yeah well men are just intimidated by me!’.
Simply because we feel sad and hurt that we are alone.
And instead of feeling our pain, the story is more convenient.
See, the funny thing about pain is that like many difficult feelings, when they come up, we tense up and try to hold it at bay.
But there ARE some fears in life that we should feel more of. I’m not saying that you should wallow in fear. Not at all.
In fact, I’m really suggesting that if you felt your fears more, you’ll give them the respect that they require.
And when you gives them the respect that they demand (to be felt and to be processed), you’ll be able to at some point, let them actually guide you towards better decisions!
So, for many of us, instead of acknowledging our pain, and feeling our oneness with everyone’s else’s pain, we decide it’s more important to have a ‘cool identity’ and the idea that we are important and significant.
But sometimes, vulnerability will be a better friend to your desire to hold onto significance.
Do the quiz: What is my attachment style?
Attraction Is The Thing That Lights Up His Life & Lights Up Yours.
THIS really means that to get in to a relationship with a guy, to get a boyfriend, we need to uncover the mask we wear of ‘being intimidating’.
If that mask or that defensive mechanism is not removed at some point, then we can’t reveal our vulnerable self that is worth far more for a real relationship to men.
Truly, decent men couldn’t care less how intimidating you are to men. They care about connecting with you – because this is what they can trust.
They can’t trust your masks. What is more valuable to men is that you reveal your true spontaneous, alive, and innocent feminine self.
Of course, provided we are feminine inside; which is most of us women.
I believe that our BS – ing ourselves with a story about men being intimidated by us only closes us down to men further.
It makes you a smaller and smaller woman with less and less love in her life.
I know this because I have been there and felt it. It feels awful.
It took me ages to learn that my own silly story was destroying my ‘light’ as some new-agey people might describe it!
(Click here to take the quiz on “Am I Dating a Commitment Friendly Man? “)
The Honesty That Is REQUIRED For You To Find A Good Man…
But what if this kind of honesty with yourself is required for you to find a loving relationship?
I want to ask you today to have the courage to be honest with yourself, instead of remaining a small woman for the rest of your life.
I want you to feel the power that comes with being incredibly feminine and attractive; and not falling for the silly ideal that you have to be masculine to be worthy in this world.
No.
You could have failed school and many men would love you (perhaps more men than you think).
You could be a bimbo and men will love you for it.
You could be a stay at home mom and be provided for financially fully by your husband, and would still love you and commit to you.
You Could Fail At Life, And He’d Still Adore You.
(Perhaps even while other women are seething, HATING you for having this apparent fortune. Despite that, your man still adores you to bits.)
It’s other WOMEN and dishonest men who perpetuate these myths about what you have to be in order to be enough for everyone in this world.
And by the way, these women are acting from their fears. They’re not necessarily showing up as open, loving women, they’re women who are feeling disillusioned.
Disillusioned but too scared to feel their fears; because facing our fears is more painful, and harder than ignoring them.
Nobody loves you for being successful, for being intimidating, or for being more ‘powerful’ in society than other people are.
That’s the silly illusion that we’ve all fallen for at certain times in our lives.
People love you for your soul.
Is He Intimidated By Me Or Not Interested?
So is he intimidated by you or not interested?
There’s not a whole lot of difference. If he truly is intimidated by you, then that’s a man living in his fears.
And a man living in his fears can’t really be attracted to you or be in a relationship with you anyway.
Yes, some men are intimidated by beautiful women. But again, these are fearful men. Do you value a fearful man? You are the only one who can answer that.
The price you pay for telling yourself that men are intimidated by you.
The price we pay for telling ourselves the story that a guy is intimidated by us is bigger than the worth of the story.
In relationships, you either value connection and create connection…
…Or you value your own feeling of significance and create disconnection.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel significant. This is a natural human need that we all have. But if you make this story a habit, it will make you more closed off and less vulnerable.
Again, the price of the story you tell yourself about guys being intimidated by you is that the story causes you to create disconnection.
See this article on Why Men Pull Away.
Here Is The Price We Pay For Telling Yourself The BS Story That Men Are Intimidated By Us:
- We will never actually become more attractive. Instead, we stay closed and guarded which will repel more and more men away from you.
- We don’t get to feel the power that comes with being able to attract any man you want.
- We may never have our own children (if you want your own children, then this could be a huge and urgent worry for you).
- We will never grow, instead we will remain closed, guarded and eventually, totally bitter.
Men Are Attracted To Femininity & Value, Not Success…
Men are men.
Most of them are proportionally more masculine in relationships. Which means they are attracted to femininity and what is value to them as a man.
What am I getting at here? What’s the ‘answer’ in all this?
The answer is that even if we did a law degree, even if we run our own business; that success means nothing to us as a feminine soul in comparison to having a healthy, emotionally attached relationship with a man.
Did you also notice, I didn’t say “you are not pretty enough.”
I didn’t say: “men don’t think you are sexy”, in fact they probably do think you’re sexy.
I am talking about men not being emotionally attracted to us. Which is a totally different thing. Attraction is a feeling; it’s not a judgement.
Recommended: 8 Ultimate Signs A Men Is Emotionally Attached To You.
See, when I say men aren’t attracted to you, do you feel rejected?
If you do, that might be because you think there’s no hope, and that men are judging you.
They’re not. They just don’t feel attracted to you. And that’s just their FEELING. Nothing more.
The good news is, men are always responding to WOMEN.
They’re responding to YOU.
Which means, how you show up in the dating market is crucial.
How You Show Up Is Everything!
If you’re always showing up as the ‘sexy, successful’ woman; then men will want sex with you, but not commit to you.
It’s important to tell yourself the truth and acknowledge that.
Unlike what other women would have you believe; looks aren’t important; but ATTRACTION is, when it comes to finding a man.
And ANY woman can be attractive; she just has to be feminine. Dark and light feminine; whatever she wants to be.
The missing ingredient in any case is still emotional attraction and being ATTRACTIVE to men.
What’s the real reason men seem turned off?
Did you wonder why, in my above story, the men backed off when I said I was studying Law?
If you were, great!
(By the way, I’ve just published my brand new program titled “Becoming His One & Only!”… Click HERE to find out more details and how you can get your man to fall deeper in love with you and beg you to be his one and only)
I Was A Hard Woman, Not A Soft Woman…
The answer is NOT because I did a Law degree. It’s because of my energy.
And my energy is what is behind what I said. It’s the way I said it, and the way I go about meeting my needs every day of my life.
Is it any wonder men don’t approach me? My energy put out the message that my identity was about the achievements I had made.
My vibe was that was that of a hard woman, wearing masks to cover up her attractive natural energy.
How could men be attracted to me? Much less approach me and want a relationship with me?
Back then, I thought my worth was in my achievements.
Now, let me just say, doing this is not wrong. You can choose to put out ANY energy you want.
You can turn yourself in to a man if you want, and there would be nothing wrong with that at all. It really just depends on what you want in your life.
To guide you through what I’ve finally come to learn myself, I’ve put together the 17 Attraction Triggers that guarantee to get any man’s blood boiling…
Some of these triggers are primal, sexual, some of them are emotional. They will help you feel closer to your true self, your true core and feel more feminine and attractive. Here’s the link to 17 Attraction Triggers.
Finally, I’m very interested in hearing your opinion on all of this. What are your thoughts?
In fact, what is your true experience of dealing with men out there in the big wide world? Do you agree or disagree?
Share in the comments section below so that other women can also learn from you!
Renee is the founder of The Feminine Woman & co-founder of Shen Wade Media where we teach women how to show up as a high value high status woman whom easily inspires a deep sense of emotional commitment from her chosen man. She graduated with a bachelor of Law and bachelor of Arts majoring in sociology and psychology. She has been a dating and relationship coach for women in the past 15 years and together with her husband D. Shen at Commitment Triggers blog, they have positively influenced the lives of over 20 million women through their articles and videos as well as 10’s of thousands through paid programs through the Shen Wade Media platform.
Connect deeper with her work through the social media links below.