Dating : Just Say No: 5 Low- Quality Behaviors Never to Tolerate in an Adult Man

The thing that separates the boys from the men is how they behave, especially when it comes to their relationships with women. I, like plenty of other women, have had my fair share of little boys inside a grown man’s body. Eventually, I got to a place where I decided to stop blaming these men for being the way they were being and start looking at how I was contributing to the problem. I realized that, with my own behavior, I was giving these guys the ok to be that way by allowing them to stay in my life. I also realized that I was allowing such low-quality behavior in my life because lacked a strong sense of self-worth and knowledge about men.

To give a little background, my story is the stereotypical one for a black, American woman. My dad was not around (he married and started a new family with another woman and seemed to forget about his first family), and my mom was a poor role model for high self-esteem. I am also the eldest child, which means I was the one giving the guidance, not receiving it. When I did experience my first boyfriend, my mom was so busy trying to stop me from having a boyfriend rather than educating me about relationships.

The bottom line is that I went through a lot of pain and heartbreak to learn the difference between a boy and a man and I want to save other women the pain and heartache I went through. Here are 5 low-quality behaviors NEVER, and I mean NEVER to tolerate in an adult man.

1. Irresponsibility. A man who is irresponsible does not care about himself or you. He does not think about the future. He does not think about the consequences of his actions. He is all about living in the moment. If you ask him where he sees himself in 5 years, he will say that he tries not to worry about that kind of stuff and just enjoy living his life day-to-day. If you ask him where your relationship is headed, he will tell you that he doesn’t know what he wants or get upset and try to make you feel guilty by claiming you are “no fun” because you don’t live in the moment with him. Irresponsible men lead women on in relationships because they are only thinking about one thing: right now. They cause a lot of heartache and pain because they have not developed the capacity to think beyond what is immediate. They make short-term decisions that have long-term consequences and then play dumb because they think playing dumb excuses them of any and all responsibility. Irresponsible men bring nothing but foolishness into your life. If you find yourself behaving more like his mother than his equal, he is probably irresponsible. You are not his mother, or his caretaker so you don’t have to put up with his irresponsible behavior.

2. Emotional Immaturity. Emotional immaturity in a man looks like getting upset when he is told no, yelling at you when you don’t agree with something he does or says, or retaliating by name-calling or any other type of emotionally dismissing behavior when you express criticism about his behaviors. Emotionally immature men cannot handle rejection, criticism, or other people’s point of view. They think the world revolves around them and that women owe them time, attention, sex, or anything else they want just because they have a penis, or were being nice, or because they are good looking, etc. Three days after I met my ex-boyfriend Kelly, I could feel there was something off about him. Instead of cutting it off immediately, I expressed my concerns letting him know that while I liked him, I worried that he may not have been at the emotional level to have the kind of relationship I wanted to have. He yelled at me through the phone, affirming my suspicions that he might be a little immature. I hung up the phone and he called back 2 minutes later to apologize and asked me not to hang up on him again. Instead of listening to my feelings, I allowed him to stay in my life and, sure enough, he was not at the level of emotional maturity necessary to have an adult relationship with me. We argued every other day and every time I expressed concern or criticism he would retaliate by bringing up past hurts of mine that I’d talked with him about or telling me that he wanted to break up. At the end of every argument, he never knew if he wanted to be with me anymore. I wasted three years, off and on, with Kelly. Please don’t be like I was. The minute you suspect a man is emotionally immature, GET OUT!

3. Attention seeking. Attention seeking in men looks like the guy who is driving down the street with his music blaring or the guy who is standing on the corner calling out to any and every woman who walks past. The primary goal of attention seeking men is to get as much attention from women as he can. Whether he is the kind of man that a woman might be interested in never crosses his mind. The kind of man that he is overall never crosses his mind. I was taking the bus home from class one night and was very engaged with the article I was reading on my phone, but I could see out of my peripheral view the boy next to me. I kept my eyes on my article, but I could see him continue to look my way. He took his wallet out of his pocket and started counting his money in a way as to draw attention to the money in his hand. I still kept my eyes on my article. When that didn’t work, he started tapping on his biceps with the palm of his hand and when I didn’t look, he tapped louder. Unfortunately, we were going the exact same route, and both got off the first bus at the same stop and boarded the second bus together. As the second bus was approaching he asked me, “is that the bus?” In my mind I was saying “you see that’s the f**king bus,” but I didn’t answer him. The bus was not even a foot away before he said again “excuse me, is that the bus? Excuse me.” I still didn’t answer him and let the opening doors of the bus speak for itself. When all of that didn’t work, he sat in the seat adjacent to mine and pulled out a book, but he wasn’t actually reading the book because he never turned the page. I could see him through the reflection in the window and he just kept looking up to see if I was looking at him reading a book. It was really hard not to laugh. Attention seeking men usually don’t have the confidence to approach a woman directly, so they use whatever they have to try to get her attention. Don’t fall for it. Ignore his ass and have a great laugh while you do it. You want a man who is direct, not a boy who doesn’t have the balls.

4. Disrespectfulness. Respect means thoughtfulness and consideration of the thoughts, feelings, wishes, rights, and traditions of others. I’m even going to go so far as to add perspective to this definition. Disrespectful men often display contempt for a woman when she is expressing herself. One of my ex-boyfriends would purposely yawn whenever I expressed my feelings. Another one would say “Aw Lord, not this sh*t again,” whenever I spoke up for myself. The last guy straight out told me that he had no respect for me, my thoughts, my feelings, or my point of view, and when Kelly and I split for the final time, I asked him why he lied to me if he didn’t want to be with me? His exact words: “BECAUSE I WANTED SOME P*SSY!” What I realized was that I was standing up for myself in the way that I thought was best, which was saying something about it. I thought that if I spoke up, then he would listen to what I was saying and care enough about me to change his behavior and stop being disrespectful towards me. I was very proud of myself for speaking up, but his behavior didn’t change much. It hurt to realize that I was allowing disrespect into my life, but it taught me a very valuable lesson about men and how they think. Men speak through actions, not feelings and the way to handle a disrespectful man is to leave his disrespectful ass right where he sits. If you tell him once and he doesn’t make the effort to change his behavior, leave. Don’t keep telling him as I did. This is definitely one I am not proud to admit, but hey, every failure is a lesson learned.

5. Low-Self Worth. Men with low self-worth usually talk down about themselves and others. They judge and criticize other people for no reason other than they are miserable with themselves. They base their worth on things outside of themselves like how much money they earn, the kind of car they drive or how many women they sleep with. They buy luxury cars and expensive clothes to impress other people, women especially. They find their male identity and value in what they have rather than who they are, and when they can’t or don’t achieve that standard of manhood, their self-esteem takes a major hit. Men with low self-esteem also don’t handle success or failure very well. The success goes to their heads and makes them very arrogant, and failure reminds them of how worthless and useless they believe they are. They act in self-defeating ways, sabotaging themselves, their jobs, careers, finances, relationships, friendships, you name it. The underlying belief of these men is that they are worthless. I understand low self-esteem, and with my B.S. in Psychology, I thought it was my responsibility to fix other people’s psychological problems. I allowed a few men with low self-esteem to stay in my life because I didn’t want to feel like an asshole for turning away someone with low self- esteem. Needless to say, I regretted it every time. I spent a lot of my mental and emotional resources trying to “help” someone who didn’t actually want to be helped, he just wanted a boost to his ego by way of my vagina and good looks. If you are like me, you are probably compassionate and have a heart for helping others. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being compassionate, in fact, compassion is one of the qualities of high-value men and women, but understand this, in romance, you are looking for a man, not a project. So many women have been taught that we have to “build a man up” who may be down on himself. I say that’s a myth. A man’s confidence and sense of self-worth is his responsibility, not a woman’s and it is OK, in fact, it is wise to say no to a man who has not taken responsibility for his mental and emotional well-being. What he needs is a therapist, not a relationship.

Women have been conditioned to accept low- quality behavior from men for a very long time, but I want you to know that there are some high-quality guys out there who are respectful, mature, confident, responsible, and generous, you just have to weed through the bad ones first. Hopefully, this article helps you navigate the path, so you don’t end up in the same ditches that I did.

As always, thank you for reading!