On second thoughts, this turned out to be a much shallower article than I’d originally thought.. so I’m redoing it. Till then.. you’re free to keep giving gaalis.
Been thinking, if I could meaningfully apply Herzberg’s two factor theory to human relationships! Just seemed like an interesting quest to figure out what helps keep a relationship going – and what could make it blissful and what could possibly be screwing it up without realizing it.
Maybe, there are a bunch of things he can do, that would make a lot of difference to her – and he wouldn’t even mind. Only if he knew that is.
According to Wikipedia, Motivators give positive satisfaction, while dissatisfaction results from the absence of Hygiene factors.
So how does a relationship work -one could easily put together a large wishlist of things that one expects to have in their partner – a lot inspired by theoritical premises than by a deep understanding of ones own needs. Obviously, men will be men.. and women will be what they are!
The absence of these would break it up for the guy :
Shared Interests : Having enough to do together – we’d never get bored of talking to each other/ hanging out / chilling.
Easygoing Nature : OOPS! if she’s a control freak! She’s a paranoid. She’s so stubborn, nitpicking – it gets painful.
Freedom and Space : Bummer! if she persistently forces me to do things her way / she’s always clinging to me. I just can’t go anywhere without her. she doesn’t have a life of her own!
Family Approval: WTF!! she and mom are in a constant cold war!
And what would a guy be delighted by
Shared Dreams : we share what we want from life
Social Approval : I’m proud of her / I can show her off. She gets along well with my friends!
Body / Looks – As long as they’re average or above.
Homemaking skills – cooking / keeping the house in order.
Special treatment - all the attention when I need it.
The Friend – she’s the friend when I need her to be – no questions, no demands.
The third head is a set of things that don’t belong to either sets. We don’t care about them enough to let them impact the relationship. In significantly good way or bad.
- She’s got a great sense of fashion or style – has the best shoes / bags in town.
-
And Girls?
Will make her pine away to not have this!
Acceptance and Security – she doesn’t want to be compared, she wants to know you’ll be around no matter what. She needs to know you approve of her.
Attention: If you’re seen to be ignoring her interests / preferences / her itself – repeatedly.. she’s likely to know and wouldn’t like it even a bit.
Appreciation and Respect : You don’t respect her, you don’t acknowledge / appreciate her presence in your life.
Delight them?
Attention / Indulgence / Compliments : Call me frequently / give surprises / gifts / plan holidays /appreciates my taste / cooking / looks..
Involvement : He helps me out with all my things.
Smaller things in life : make tea / breakfast, get flowers without occasion, help me with the chores.
Bordering on Irrelevance – doesn’t matter too much
- The mundane : routine odd jobs of life.
I’m sure there’s a bigger list – each of us would have our own, though we may not have classified it this way.
If you’ re being put off daily, it could ruin the relationship step by step.. and if instead delighted once a day, it could take the relationship places. Most of us live mixed up lives. If she’s delighting me one moment, she’s likely putting me off the next. We can’t fit each others needs like pieces of a jigsaw.
So what happens then? The Battles! You’ll keep putting me off and hate me if I don’t do stuff that delights you. You’ll shout at me daily for leaving my socks on the sofa- while you maintain that it’s not such a big deal for you.
It would be awesome to have some more hygiene versus motivator versus irrelevant – breakups – lists – and how they differ across people and across guys and girls.
Nice try.. I ;d love to add more to your list. May be you should pitch to make a sequel of What women want with What we want!!
Disagree!!!For me “Delight them?” and “bordering on irrelevance” shud be interchanged!!.. And for putting me off all he needs to is to keep noticing my dressing and superficial manners and talks too much abt it!!.Trust me I’ll kick him off if he does!!Thankfully ankit dznt!!..In fact i’d luv if he makes plans for the weekend..though ankit luvs stayn back wid a beer and a book..that mite bear a possibility of pissing me off
this man has no clue about women
clearly! Would you care to say more?
@CB if only there was a “like” option to your comment
So yeah! read the post again.. and if it had to do with bashing you i dont know why am i 3 in the line!;) anyways I guess you have somewhat got confused or are ignorant about the hygiene and the motivation wrt the girls.With the Attention/calling/smsing going down to not being too relevant and so does indulgence – Its only a bonus!! I don’t think any of them are game changers… actually all! You should rewrite the “delight them” section!
@cb, @Sonali, @Nidhi: May be one (or all) of you could write your own ‘Delight them’ section and post here. Might be enlightening.
@ankur: Though I would not say that I have too much idea about what you wrote in girl’s section, I must say that the guy’s section does make sense.