 Why are men emotionally unavailable? Why are men emotionally constipated? Why do men come on strong and then become distant after a few months of dating? Well, we're gonna dive into this in a second, but I want you to know there is something you can do to get a guy to open up emotionally. And I think it's really important to understand that most men are off in the early stage and the dating dynamic, dating, mating, relating are driven by their testosterone, they're driven by their biology, they're driven by their desire to spread their seed. Now, I have to say something, you all know this, you know this about men. What do men think about on a first date? You know this, we are just driven that way. In fact, there's this saying, men are the gas and women are the brakes and what that means is if you're the type of person that seeks a significant relationship with a life partner, if you have a long-term mating strategy, then it's important to understand this and not that being physically intimate isn't within your, I don't wanna say control, but I'm saying you're welcome to be sexually free as much as you want, but at the same time, if you want a significant relationship with someone, I think it's important to understand how men operate and it's important to also understand what causes men to be emotionally available, why they struggle with this. Okay? You know, the sad thing I see today, I've said this before that dating is oftentimes just a long drawn out version of friends with benefits. And what I mean to say, it lacks intentionality and it hyper focuses on attraction and the need to feel attracted to one another without really understanding the mechanics of a healthy, happy relationship. In other words, what makes a relationship work long-term? It's not just about attraction, it's about do you share the same values? Do you have a shared vision of your future? Do you, are your lives capable of blending with one another and more importantly, is this person emotionally mature enough from a perspective of relationship skills and we're gonna also talk about from the perspective of emotionally being able to invest in the relationship. So raise your hand or hit the like button if you've ever seen the show Good Doctor, the Good Doctor. Now, I'll give you a quick synopsis of this. This is about a man who is a high functioning autistic person who is a surgeon and throughout the show, we witness his shift of being able to, he struggles to express himself emotionally. He's kind of within a bubble. He also blurts out things without a filter. And when I think of this show, I think of most men from an emotional perspective. They struggle expressing themselves. They blurt things out or they repress their feelings within a state of emotional fear. Now, you have to recognize for those of us who are baby boomers or Gen Xers, at least here in the United States, most of us men were taught to stuff our emotions, to be stoic, that even violence to some degrees demonstrates masculinity, certainly within high physical contact sports. So we've been indoctrinated in this expectation of not being not, or we've been indoctrinated in this expectation of not demonstrating emotions. And because of that, most men on some level are emotionally constipated. What does constipation means? That they're stuck. That's all that they're stuck. And I'm gonna give you some tools here in a moment to unstuck this guy, to flush out his emotions. And let me be clear, most men when they're together with other men in the locker room, if you will, they don't share their fears and insecurities. Let's think about this for a moment. When we're most vulnerable, when we're really vulnerable is when we share a fear or insecurity. And most men don't do that. Women have a propensity of being able to easily share their fears and insecurities amongst themselves and even within men. I think a lot of women don't have a fear around expressing their fears and insecurities. Although, well, let me backtrack. Most of you women have a fear of expressing your insecurity that a guy might abandon you. So what you oftentimes do is abandon your own truth in relationship, truly how you feel about them, that you feel about the person, how you fear that they might abandon you. So you'll stuff those feelings in, but you'll talk to your girlfriends about it, but not the partner or the person that you're in a romantic relationship with. Men struggle with this. And let me just say this, we won't learn how to open up or we don't learn how to open up from our male friends, from our father figures. It's very rare that a man will learn from another man how to emote his feelings learning it through a man. It's only through a woman. I shouldn't say only, that makes it an absolute. Most likely, the way to a man's heart is going to come from a woman. And what I mean from his heart is being able to express himself. I know for me personally, many of you revere me as a person that has a capacity to emote his feelings. I have the capacity to be vulnerable, authentic and transparent, for the most part. I'm not saying I'm the stellar person, but I do recognize that within myself. Why am I sharing this? Because it is because of women, partially my professional capacity, but few select women in my life that were able to extract it from me, that capacity to tear down that wall of fear by being loving and supporting. And they did this one thing to start. They led by example. They set an example of what openness looks like without compromising their boundaries. So ladies, I'm gonna share with you. I know many men who have reached their heart because of the women that they've been in relationship with, and they've been with women who express their feelings without it being a vomiting of their feelings, without compromising their boundaries, without being a doormat, they simply express how they feel about the person they're with, about things in their life, and even their fears from a very calm, rational place. A calm, rational place. See, most men, I'm gonna, again, I'm trying not to be absolute, but occasionally I do. Most men fear that vomiting of feelings, that overreacting experience many women have, and it overwhelms us. It's just too much information to come in. It's like taking your sunglasses off and go, oh, the sun is bright. By the way, you never wanna look directly into the sun, but any light that you're looking at, if you took your sunglasses off, it's too much. So first, learn to express yourself from a calm, cool, collected place, and most importantly, as I talk about in my book, what the heck is self-love anyway, a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work, link below to get a copy of my book. Chapter one is speak your truth. Just do it in a kind, loving, compassionate, logical way. Now, I know you might be thinking feelings and logic don't go hand in hand, but in a very calm, graceful way. Not in an accusatory way. See, oftentimes women share their feelings of, you're not doing this to make me feel happy. It's accusatory. Just share that you're not feeling happy in this dynamic for whatever reason. You know, and it could be simply, you know what, it would feel really good if we were able to connect with each other before we go to bed, you know, via text message or a telephone call or a FaceTime. It would feel really good. That's just a simple way to get the ball rolling as an example. Number two, don't force the relationship. I'm here to say, I want you to think of a relationship like a ping pong game. You're mutually making effort to one another. You're driving down a two-lane street side by side. It's not you pulling him along. If you have to pull a man along, in other words, if you have to constantly send text message to say, hey, I'm here, you know, then it's probably not the right relationship for you. It's probably not the right man for you if you have to force or push the relationship along. It should be a nice gradual giving and receiving. I'm a big proponent for women, you know, very early on the dating processes to invite the man out on a date, pay for that date, make a plan, and then if he does the next one and then you do one after that, it's like a mutual investment. It doesn't feel one-sided. I know you're indoctrinated in this belief that men are supposed to do, do, do, and you just sit back and you're divine feminine. I'm gonna tell you something with midlife men, they appreciate effort. They appreciate effort. And when it's mutual effort, you build these roots or it's like sewing fabric together. When it's mutual effort, it doesn't work when it's once, or it can work when it's one-sided, but when it's mutual effort has greater strength to the fabric, if you will, or the tapestry. Number three, ask questions using feeling statements or ask questions that evoke feelings. You know, most dating today is like that Seinfeld joke. How's your day going? Did you have a good day? I hope you had a good day. I'm thinking of you today. I want you to try the following. Anything special happened to you today. Anything unique happened to you today. Anything interesting happened to you today. I want you to think of the word special, unique, interesting. It evokes emotions to anything special and you think about that word special, anything special. And maybe the person might struggle expressing it. Use words that evoke feelings. I want you to think about feelings. Happy, sad, frustrated. I'm struggling here. I mean, I have a list of feelings over there. Disgust, anguish, melancholy, joyful, exuberant. These are all feelings. See, if you want to get a man to open up then start to use words that evoke feelings, special, interesting, unique. Those evoke feelings and have conversations about that. And you know, ladies, I'm here to say, I know many of you are caught up into cyber relationships. You spend more time text messaging. But Jonathan, we're in this long distance relationship. We can't be face to face. I get it. I get that's the dynamic you chose, but let me just say this. It is through social activities, hobbies, mutual interest and what I'm about to share next, where you can build these deeper roots of trust within the relationship, because trust isn't just about fidelity. Trust is, does this person have my best interest at heart? Like trust is, I have your best interest. Your best interests are my best interest. And trust is built through the experiences and a variety of different circumstances. And one really good one is, while driving in a car, create an opportunity where you're gonna spend an hour together in a car. This is a very intimate space to practice those words of special, unique, interesting. How about even asking what frust, anything frustrate you today? That might be an interesting way to create a conversation. I know it comes across as negative, but it evokes emotion and within that emotion, you can unpack, you can unpack what's going on behind that. So spend time in a car. You've got this captivating audience when you're together in a car. But Jonathan, we're in long distance. I get it, but guess what folks? Long distance relationships are even a gazillion times harder to nurture than those that when you live 10 minutes from each other. Now the fifth thing I want you to consider is you have to take his personality into this equation. So now I'm gonna stereotype a little bit here. Forgive me, I'm gonna stereotype here for a second. Engineers and nerds and people that are in a protective capacity. Policemen, firemen, that sort of thing. Oftentimes they are in their head. A lot of men professionally are in their head. Engineers, nerds, even the fact. Now the firemen are actually, no, let me retract that. Firemen are in their body, but they're in this protective mode. They almost, a policeman are in this protective cocoon. So they might be in their body physically, but they're in a protective cocoon. Engineers are in that protective cocoon of their head. You have to take into account who they are, their personality, when it comes to exploiting their emotions. And I use the word exploit, I just simply mean to flush it out. And a great way to do this with people that are in their heads or they're protective in their body is through humor. I think going to a comedy club is actually piggybacks on the next thing. Do things that are different. I remember once I was on a second date, the woman I was with wanted to go to Disneyland. And while we're in Disneyland, and folks that you need to understand something about my personality, coming back to personality, is I really detest lines. I am an impatient human being. It's something I'm working on, but I have struggled with patience. And what was interesting is we spent hours in lines versus the actual ride. And in those lines, she just flushed out a lot of conversation that engage the two of us together. And when you're in this cocoon or container of lines, it's an opportunity to create more conversation to get to know another human being. So take into account their personality and create opportunities to flush out who they are. And you have to give a man room for practice. You have to give a man room for practice. I invite all of you to read the book, Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters. I highly recommend reading this so you can get an understanding of what emotional intimacy is all about. Many of you think, again, because you have a capacity to vomit your feelings to your girlfriends, that that's intimacy. Now, intimacy means into me you see, into me you see. Look into a person. If you wanna get a man to open up, first understand the mechanics of emotional intimacy. And this book is just, I mean, it has just got a plethora of information to help you the next time you find yourself with that guy who's a little bit constipated. What is constipation? It's just there's something stuck in his bowels, okay? And you will find, just like what happened for me, you will find that when you begin to demonstrate emotional IQ to a man, if he has the capacity, he will follow suit. If he has the capacity. This is why I'm such a big, by the way, there's a link right here to schedule a discovery call with me. One of my areas of expertise is vetting for emotional maturity and relationship skills. Remember I said earlier, you know, our current dating process is just this strung out version of friends with benefits is because men emotionally, when their testosterone is up, they'll drive, they drive, they're driven by the desire to be physically intimate with you. And what doesn't happen is building and nurturing those other aspects of a relationship because guess what, ladies? This is on you, whether you like it or not, I know you'd like to meet a man who's fully trained, but guess what? If you train a guy right, you're going to have the best of both worlds. And that's my invitation for you. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know. I'd like to hear your thoughts. You might disagree with me on things, but post a comment below. I'd like to hear your thoughts. I do my best to read them all. If you find value in this, hey, for those in my group called Midlife Love Mastery, send your friends to my website, jonathanasley.com. Have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group and have direct access to me on a regular basis through our Facebook group and our once a month webinars and Q and A calls. All right, I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do first off, give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrett of self love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm going to ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear pillow and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.