Of Suds and Sundry Matters

I was having a pint of beer with a couple of friends of mine, in itself an unusual occurrence, and we fell to talking about sundry matters (though sudry matters may have been more apropos). They are a married couple, very quirky and extremely well-suited for each other. I thought I was eccentric, but they make me look tame, even if they look very tame from the outside, but that’s beside the point. Plus, I love that about them, their eccentricity. Anyway, we were talking about relationships and I inquired, as part of my ongoing research, what women look for in men. Rebecca gave three criteria: men have to be intelligent (I’m thinking: “Check.”), self-confidence (“Uh-oh”) and not embarrassing (which, when I requested clarification, simply means social decorum). Despite my unfortunate tendency to commit social faux pas in groups of friends, generally I can negotiate social interactions with strangers with aplomb. I am reasonably intelligent, though I realize more and more just how unintelligent I am compared to how intelligent I think I am. That just leaves Self-Confidence. 

This was the least surprising of Rebecca’s criteria; I’d heard this from literally every other woman I’ve surveyed. And of course this is where I struggle the most. But that long and sordid tale is not the aim of this rumination. I’ve noticed a certain dynamic in relationships, my perception of which, granted, comes largely from the portrayals in drama (movies, TV, literature) and is therefore to be taken with a metric ton of salt. However, working on this basis, I find this requirement of women to be problematic. Let me explain.

Let’s say, for instance, that a woman is approached by a man. The man is smooth, suave, confident. The woman is impressed. They strike up a relationship. Now, most of the time, women want to go deeper and deeper with their emotions and dialogue with men. In other words, they want to get to the reason why the man is so confident, why he is how he is. And if the man is only fronting his confidence, as it seems the vast majority of men do (aware, as they are, of this requirement women have of men), then either the man will maintain an emotional distance from the woman, since any real relationship must show the man’s self-confidence to be the fraud that it is, or the man opens himself up to the woman, and then becomes needy and lacks self-confidence, which is what attracted the woman in the first place. (The third option, that the man is truly confident, will be dealt with later.)

Do you see the conundrum? Either the woman cannot truly get close to the man, or they succeed and find the man’s self-confidence to be a lie. Now some women would probably say that they want a man to be vulnerable, but they would also say (if pressed) that they want a man to be assertive and quasi-domineering rather than milquetoast. And they are quite right; a woman must ultimately despise a man who allows himself to be ruled and run roughshod over by the woman, who will continue to do so even as she berates the man for allowing her to do so. A happy and healthy relationship cannot be built upon such a foundation. 

What is the solution? No, really, I’m asking.

The third option, the man who is truly self-confident, can be self-confident in one of three ways. First, if he is obtuse to his own shortcomings and blithely assumes that any character flaws others might ascribe to him are jealous mutterings. Easy to see and diagnose the cure: avoidance. Second, if he is aware of any possible flaws and chooses not to care about the options of others; in other words, a narcissist. Again, an easy person to avoid.

The third way is the most tricky. This man acknowledges his own failings and has made peace with them, an uneasy balance of banishing self-recrimination with seeking self-improvement. Obviously the ideal in a man (and human at that), and certainly the rarest of beasts that walk the earth.

So just as the man might wish for a gorgeous, intelligent, and doting wife who will meet all his needs and adore him unconditionally, equally imaginary is the woman’s desire for a truly self-confident man, or one who they might break down and build up. A man cannot find his self-sufficiency in the woman; she is coming to him for that. It would be like two people sitting on one end of a teeter totter and expecting the device to function properly.

In the end, the answer, which is in a sense vaguely unsatisfying, must be that God must provide that sense of fulfillment and confidence that men and women must have so that they won’t try to elicit from each other. I say it is vaguely unsatisfying because it seems like God is a panacea: whatever is wrong in your life, God fixes it. But how does He fix it in this particular instance?

Herein lies the interesting paradox, which was echoed in the original conundrum I outlined above. Because God does know us deeply, intimately. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And we must journey with Him in the heart of darkness, pain, and doubt that each person bears because of sin. We must be broken down, all our false bravado and hollow self-confidence shattered. But He can mend our hearts, He can provide us a confidence and peace of mind and heart that nothing can shake. For we can place our confidence in who we are in Him, which means putting confidence in His sufficiency and power and assurance. His perfection.

Then we can give out of the wealth of our sufficiency in Him instead of giving out of our own poverty. He meets our needs, our deepest desires and gravest wounds He cares for. We can pour out our darkest sins and know that they are no more, that He knew of them before He descended from on high to crawl across the face of the earth, a man, and to bear the punishment, the utter rejection that was my lot, deservedly so. O blessed Savior! How great a salvation! How wonderful to know that I am a hopeless failure and God loves me just the same! I can laugh in the face of ridicule, I can huddle in the Everlasting Arms when the Devil throws my sin in my face. I can cry out for His forgiveness for failing Him again and again, and know that it is mine before even I form the thought.