So I just finished watching Oprah...and Steve Harvey was on the show discussing his new book: "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man"...and it sounds like a hilarious and truthful book!! So of course I thought I would google it and find a little bit more about it: here is an article that was posted online at Globeandmail.com by Zosia Bielski (From Thursday's Globe and Mail February 19):Steve Harvey has some advice for women: Scrap the flats for heels; ditch the T-shirt for lingerie in bed; make the kitchen your "friend;" leave the heavy lifting to a man, and never, ever utter the words "We need to talk."
These and many other timeless suggestions can be found in the comedian's new, bestselling relationship-advice book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, published by Harper Collins.
The onetime insurance salesman says men are simple - so simple he could have written the book in "35 pages." Men in love, he says, do just three things: They profess that love, they provide and they protect. Anything beyond that and "you're in the bonus round."
Mr. Harvey spoke with The Globe and Mail about what else women don't get about men.
You write that the "need to feel needed is way bigger to [men] than we've let on." You also write that a woman's financial and educational gains should "never be bigger than the relationship with the man." Do you think women's gains are wrecking relationships?
They do if you present the aura that you don't need a man. It's great that women are upwardly mobile now. I think that a woman would love to have a shoulder to lean on, love to have a strong male figure around, but you've got to allow for that to happen in your life. If you're going to portray that you don't need a man, that's not really going to attract too many men.
You've talked about women underestimating how much looks matter to men, that if she isn't primping, she might be in for a rough ride. Can you expand on that?
We just like shiny stuff. We are that simple. Women get older, they have kids, they get the van, they get the route to the school, they get the little mom slacks that she drops the kids off in, the sneakers, she stops wearing the makeup. If that's not what won over the guy in the beginning, please know, he's still attracted to those [external] things. If you don't want your man to ever stop feeling certain things for you, you gotta always maintain. And that goes for men too.
Can you see how this stuff might make women resent you?
The fact that you do not like what I'm saying does not stop it from being the truth about men.
You say men expect three things in return for their three Ps: support, loyalty and the "cookie." "The way we men connect is by having sex. Period," you write. You say that if a woman withholds sex for one month, she risks losing a partner.
Here's the deal: If you're pregnant with our child, we understand, we're not barbaric - we got that there's a waiting period. Now, if you're just holding out, what are you saying to this guy? A guy has to have certain things and the woman knows it.
At the same time, you suggest women should abstain from having sex with a new partner for 90 days. Do you think that's realistic in this day and age?
I think it's absolutely realistic. That's the problem: Women have given up their standards and their requirements because of us. We have made you think that if you don't put out in a certain amount of time, you're going to drive us off. The real deal of it is, there's nothing you can do to beat a guy off that really wants you. If your wall is a foot and a half high, you're going to have a lot of guys playing in your yard, digging up your grass, messing up your flower bed. If you've got your bar set high, that's what we're going to rise to.
That brings me to the "keeper," a woman who commands respect, and the "sport fish," a girl with no rules who keeps things "day to day." Popular culture seems to favour the second kind: the low-maintenance woman, the non-nag. You preach the opposite.
It's you, the woman, who has the power to determine whether you're a keeper or a throwback. It's the way you act, it's your standards, it's what you're willing to accept, what you will put up with. A woman has a right to know when she's going to get married, if you're going to marry her. A woman should not be at a guy's beck and call. That's ridiculous.
I find it hard to believe that a woman who tells a man upfront she is looking for marriage and children is a keeper. Most men would run.
That will get the right guy for you.
You write: "Whatever the case, we men are no longer connecting with that special part of you that makes you a woman." What do you mean by that?
When a man does not understand your value, we disconnect from you. That's why I implore women, keep your standards and your requirements high. My wife never lets her standards down. When we're heading to the car, she stands by her door because she knows, and she expects and she requires, that it's my job to open her door for her.
And you enjoy that.
I love it. Please. I love her showing that I am a man, that I am her man, that she made the right choice. The average man enjoys being a man if given the opportunity. But look, if you're going to be a "chirp" girl, where I hit the button and the car door opens and you pop in, then that's how I'm going to treat you. A man relishes and takes pleasure in doing those things because it makes him feel like a man. If a woman just grabs the door or pulls her own chair out, I'm telling you, you're killing it.
