Steve Harvey: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

© 2009

I've made a living for more than twenty years making people laugh about themselves, about each other, about family, and friends, and, most certainly, about love, sex, and relationships. My humor is always rooted in truth and full of wisdom the kind that comes from living, watching, learning, and knowing. I'm told my jokes strike chords with people be cause they can relate to them, especially the ones that explore the dynamics of relationships between men and women. It never ceases to amaze me how much people talk about relationships, think about them, read about them, ask about them even get in them without a clue how to move them forward. For sure, if there's anything I've discovered during my journey here on God's earth, it's this: (a) too many women are clueless about men, (b) men get away with a whole lot of stuff in relationships because women have never understood how men think, and (c) I've got some valuable information to change all of that.

I discovered this when my career transitioned to radio with the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Back when my show was based in Los Angeles, I created a segment called Ask Steve, during which women could call in and ask anything they wanted to about relationships. Anything. At the very least, I thought Ask Steve would lead to some good comedy, and at.rst, that's pretty much what it was all about for me getting to the jokes. But it didn't take me long to realize that what my listeners, mostly women, were going through wasn't really a laughing matter. They had dozens of categories of needs and concerns in their lives that they were trying to get a handle on dating, commitment, security, family baggage, hopes for tomorrow, spirituality, in-law drama, body image, aging, friendships, children, work/home balance, education. You name the topic, somebody asked me about it. And heading up the list of topics women wanted to talk about was you guessed it men.

My female listeners really wanted answers to how to get out of a relationship what they're putting into it. On those Ask Steve segments, and later, through the Strawberry Letters segment I do on the current incarnation of the Steve Harvey Morning Show, women have made clear that they want an even exchange with men: they want their love to be reciprocated in the same way they give it; they want their romantic lives to be as rewarding as they make them for their potential mates; they want the emotions that they turn on full blast to be met with the same intensity; and they expect the premium that they put on commitment to be equally adhered to, valued, and respected. The problem for all too many women who call in to my radio show, though, is that they just can't get that reciprocation from men, and women then end up feeling disappointed, disenfranchised, and disillusioned by their failed relationships.

When I step back from the jokes, and the microphone gets turned off and the lights in the studio go down, and I think about what women ask me every morning on my show, I get incredibly perplexed perplexed because even though my callers have all presumably had some experience with men (whether they are friends, boyfriends, lovers, husband, fathers, brothers, or co-workers), these women still genuinely want to know how to get the love they want, need, and deserve. I've concluded that the truths they seek are never as obvious to them as they are to us men. Try as they might, women just don't get us.

With this in mind, I stopped joking around and got very real with my audience. Through my answers, I started imparting wisdom about men wisdom gathered from working more than half a century on one concept: how to be a man. I also spent countless hours talking to my friends, all of whom are men. They are athletes, movie and television stars, insurance brokers and bankers, guys who drive trucks, guys who coach basketball teams, ministers and deacons, Boy Scout leaders, store manager, ex-cons, inmates, and yes, even hustlers. And one simple thing is true about each of us: we are very simple people and all basically think in a similar way.

When I.lter my answers through that lens of how men view relationships, the women in my audience start to understand why the complexities and nuances they drag into each of their relationships with the opposite sex really serve them no justice. I teach them very quickly that expecting a man to respond to them the way a woman would is never going to work. They then realize that a clear-eyed, knowing approach to dealing with men on their terms, on their turf, in their way, can, in turn, get women exactly what they want.

Indeed, my advice for the folks who called in on the Ask Steve segment of the Steve Harvey Morning Show became so popular that fans women and men started asking me when I was going to write a relationship book something to help the women who genuinely want to be in a solid, committed relationship.gure out how to get one, and help the men ready for those relationships to be recognized for what they can and are willing to bring to the table. I have to admit: I didn't really see the value of writing a relationship book at.rst. What, after all, did I have to add to the conversation beyond the answers I give to an audience of millions every morning? Even bigger than that, how could I be taken seriously? Hell, I'm not a writer.

But then I started thinking about the relationships that I've had in my lifetime, talked to some of my male friends and some of my female co-workers and associates, and put together a few informal focus groups. I considered the impact that relationships have on each of us, and especially the impact they've had on me. My father? He was married to my mother for sixty-four years. My mother was invaluable to him. And she was invaluable to me the most in.uential person in my life. Equally valuable to me are my wife and my children. In fact, my girls and my concern for their future inspire me here as well. They will all grow up and reach for the same dream most women do: The husband. Some kids. A house. A happy life. True love. And I want desperately for my children to avoid being misguided and misled by the games men have created just to perpetrate the greed and sel.shness we tend to show the world until we become the men God wants us to be. I know because of my mother, my wife, my daughters, and the millions of women who listen to my show every morning that women need a voice, someone to help get them through and decipher the muck, so they can get what they're truly after. I.gured I could be that guy to wave across the fence and say, I'm going to tell you the secrets the real deal about men, the things we wish you knew about us, but that we really don't want you to know, lest we lose the game.

In essence, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man is a playbook of sorts. You remember how a few years back, the New England Patriots got accused of one of the biggest cheating scandals in NFL history? NFL investigators found out that the team had been secretly videotaping practices and reading mouths to.gure out the plays of their opposing teams a practice that gave them a distinct advantage over their rivals. For sure, the Patriots' dirty ways were almost as advantageous to the New England team as if they were reading the opposition's playbook. With the advantage, the Patriots were able to win games.

This is what I wish for the women who read Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. I want every woman who truly wants a solid relationship but just can't.gure out how to get one, and those who are already in a relationship and trying to.