Steve Harvey - Straight Talk, No Chaser - How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man

Men do this because we think that if we release this information too early, we won’t get the catch-you. You have to remember that at the base of it, we’re no different from, say, a peacock with a plume of colorful feathers, or a lion with a huge, bushy, fiery orange mane: just like a male peacock spreading those feathers or a male lion standing tall among his pride to attract their female counterparts, men flash things like their money, their cars, their clothes, their watches, and their job titles to impress women. The presentation is critical to us-it’s all part of the bait we throw in the water to capture the fish; we just want you to bite on the hook. A man knows he’s not hooking any woman with stories about how broke he is or how he doesn’t have any power at his job or how his ex-wife comes around the house every Thursday to scrawl “He’s completely unreliable” in red chalk across the garage doors. He’s wrapping himself in all the pretty packaging so you’ll buy into him.

Come on, admit it: women tend to ask men two questions, tops, before they make the decision about whether a man might just be the one for them. Knowing this, we’ll answer the first question in a way that’ll make us come out smelling like a rose. Ask a follow-up question for a little clarification, and we’ll find an even slicker way to tell you what you want to hear. And once a man tells you what makes him sound the best, you hear what you want to hear and, instead of asking more questions and getting to the truth of the matter, you form your own truth. You get so enamored by his buzzwords-I want to be committed, I love kids, I’m a hard worker, I love to cook, I’m into the arts-that you skip asking more questions and immediately start saying to yourself, “It’s him! It’s him! Oh, thank you Lord, I found him!” You take the good parts-the answers to the first two levels of questioning-bundle up those words and internalize them, then use them to justify falling in love with who you think is the “ideal” man, never considering-often, until it’s too late-that had you probed a little deeper you would have gotten closer to who he really is.

You don’t dig deeper because you’re scared that if the questions run too deep, he will run off and you will lose out on a good one. He doesn’t tell the whole truth because he’s scared he might not appeal to you. Everybody is just scared now. Scared and avoiding the whole truth.

Don’t buy into the fairy tale. Sure, men would serve themselves well if they provided the relevant information up front; not only would it clear men from ever being accused of lying-a charge that adds a lot more tollbooths on the road to solid relationships-but certainly it would give the women we truly want to build relationships with more insight into who we really are. All too often, we men prevent the relationship from growing because we create an element of distrust early on, by withholding vital information that gives women that which they need to make sound decisions for themselves. When a woman gets blindsided with information she thinks should have been disclosed up front, she questions everything-no matter a man’s intentions.

So should men offer all the information up front? Of course we should. It’s only fair. But we won’t volunteer it because telling the whole truth not only makes us look lesser in your eyes, but it also takes the “chase and capture” out of our hands and puts the future of the relationship squarely into yours. A man’s candidness early on gives you the chance to truly understand how, for example, past relationships might affect your future together; the opportunity to process the information; and the ability to decide for yourself if you can handle the baggage that comes with all the good he’s already told you about. Sure, there are some men who will lay out all the dirty laundry up front for you to see. But this is rare. Very rare. So the onus of getting down to the truth is, unfortunately, on you.

And you get to the truth by digging deeper.

Aren’t you tired of being the victim? Tired of getting played? Tired of thinking you got somebody and then finding out he’s not all he made himself out to be? Stop giving up the cookie before you have all the information, and instead get the information and then decide if it’s in your best interest to share yourself with him.

Doing this will take no more than three questions, I promise you. It hardly ever changes with us:

Question No. 1

will get you the answer that makes us look best.

Question No. 2

will get you the answer that we think you want to hear.

Question No. 3

will introduce you to the truth.

We have no other choice but to tell the truth after that; our liar bench isn’t deep enough to go up against your intuition, especially when you start probing us in that slick way only women can pull off. Witness:

QUESTION NO. 1: Why did your last relationship break up?

The Answer That Makes Him Look Best:

Well, I was trying to be all I could be-I was working hard, trying to provide for her, and she didn’t understand my work ethic and she just couldn’t take it anymore.

The Breakdown:

This answer makes him seem like he’s a hard worker, committed to building toward the future. It also plays into a woman’s natural instincts to be nurturing-makes you say to yourself, “I would never leave a man who’s trying his best-I’d focus on supporting him.”

QUESTION NO. 2: If she were more supportive, would you have stayed in the relationship?

The Answer That You Want to Hear:

Absolutely. I want to be committed. I want to be with somebody who understands me and wants to be with me and understands what I’m about. I’m looking for that type of woman who wants to be committed and supportive of her man.

The Breakdown:

He’s telling you what you want to hear-that he’s a man who is committed and looking for a long-term relationship and willing to do what is necessary to take care of you. He knows those are all the buzzwords that get you hooked, and now he’ll sit back and let you fill in all the blanks-imagine him walking out of the house in the morning, briefcase in hand, going to work hard for you and the family, then coming home and holding and caressing you in his strong arms until you fall asleep. Of course, he didn’t say any of that other stuff; he just said what you wanted to hear. Don’t fall for the okey-doke. Get to the bottom of it with this…

QUESTION NO. 3: Well, if you were supportive, you were looking for loyalty, and you’re a hard worker and a good provider, how could the relationship break up? What happened that she said, “I can’t do this anymore”?

The Truth:

Well, I was looking for that support because I couldn’t find it at home, and I met someone who was more supportive and loyal.

The Breakdown:

The only thing left for him to do was to admit that it was infidelity, rather than a nonsupportive woman, that led to his breakup. Of course, there are nuances to why he ended up cheating, but the fact is that the relationship ultimately ended because he was being unfaithful-he broke the cardinal rule. Now you know he’s a hardworking guy who requires support and loyalty to be in a relationship, but you also know that he’s capable of cheating if he feels like he’s not getting what he needs out of the relationship.

Here’s another example.

I coached a listener on my radio show, the Steve Harvey Morning Show , to dig deeper into her questions with her man when she wrote that she suspected he wasn’t quite the father he made himself out to be. “He says he’s a great father,” she wrote, “and speaks highly of both his son and his daughter…”