“A lady needn’t fear, when you are near.
Your sweet gentility is crystal clear.”
– Mary Poppins, from “Jolly Holiday,” Mary Poppins

Just a little reminder for my fellows, with s̶i̶n̶g̶l̶e̶’̶s̶ ̶a̶w̶a̶r̶e̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ Valentine’s Day incoming, to treat your ladies like ladies instead of, say, like props in the background of your life. 😉

I commented last week on something I personally want to be, having the integrity we all should demonstrate. It reminded me of something else I want to be. While it would feel a bit egotistical to call myself a gentleman (I let others do so instead), I do strive to be a man whom the ladies can trust.

And let me hasten to clarify: we men still do not want our women to be weak and needy, as evidenced by how we all like strong women. But we do want to be useful to our women. We want to earn their favor.

We want to be relied on and trusted. Even the worst man wants women to trust him, albeit for nefarious reasons. For the rest of us, there is something immensely gratifying in being relied on, in knowing that a girl knows she and her honor are safe around us, because it means we are considered worthy of that trust. It is deeply ingrained in our nature to seek that approval, to be highly regarded by women. It often gets twisted, such that men think they have some greater status if they can run around with a number of women, but that is a perversion. The core of it, the essence of being that man that women want, remains true.

Put another way, we want to protect our women not because we want them hiding behind us, but because we want to stand beside them, as equals and partners, worthy of one another.

Man is not meant to be alone, and neither is woman. The two are meant to be one, and whole, rather than alone and incomplete.

When a man is a gentleman, he is not trying to hold women down, he is trying to be the right man.

When a woman tells a good man that she feels safe around him, that she can rely on him, let her barriers down around him, lean on him when she is the one in need… well, that makes us feel like Superman himself, and who could ask for better than that, eh? 🙂