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August 18, 2005

For Women Only Part Deux

(2) A man always feels like an imposter
Feldhahn writes, “Despite their ‘in control’ exterior, men often feel like imposters and are insecure that their inadequacies will be discovered.”

I can find no better way of summarizing this chapter but by directly quoting a chunk of Feldhahn’s text (sorry copyrighters, hope this is OK).

At the risk of admitting that I am a closet Trekkie (hey, everyone has their weakness), let me take you to an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The confident captain, Jean-Luc Picard, and his friend Dr. Beverly Crusher are (of course) stuck on a dangerous and unfamiliar planet. And their predicament has an interesting twist: Because of some unwanted alien meddling, the two can hear each other’s thoughts.

As the captain leads them towards help, he scans the unfamiliar horizon, motions in a particular direction, and says, with his usual commanding certainty, “This way.”

Since she can hear what he is actually thinking, the doctor stares at him and says, “You don’t really know, do you? You’re acting like you know exactly which way to go, but you’re only guessing!” Then, with growing amazement, she asks, “Do you do this all the time?”

He gives her a look, then answers. “There are times when it is necessary for a captain to give the appearance of confidence.”

I really liked the respect chapter, but I think I like this one even better. Why? Because I finally clued in that what I had been suspecting all along, that men don’t actually know what they are doing, is not a character flaw but actually normal behaviour.

You see women do this all the time (myself included). We spot a man who has a chink in his armour, and we leap on it. “Ta da!” we exclaim. “You PRETENDED to know how to do it, but you really don’t! We exposed you!” And we go away feeling that we have exposed a hypocrite and have bettered society as a whole. Instead, we’ve torn up some poor guy’s self esteem. Sometimes we do it just for fun, such as when we laugh and laugh when a guy claims to know how to ski and then wipes out on the slopes. Joke for us, perhaps, but murder for him.

The solution? AFFIRMATION. Married women, if you don’t give affirmation and build up his confidence at home, he will seek it elsewhere. Single women, if you don’t give affirmation to that guy you sorta kinda like, he won’t come near you with a 10 foot pole.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)