I often hear it pointed out that women have many advantages over men when it comes to relationships. Things like ‘women have the power to accept or reject men, so they really determine the dating pool’; ‘women control access to sex’; ‘women have far greater advantages over men when it comes to custody rights’, and so on.

I don’t dispute any of this, at least not in Western society. It’s all true (though depending on which country you’re in, the degree of advantages can differ).

But before I do, I should point out that this article is not relevant to online dating, in which the rules are uncertain and unfixed, and in which everyone is openly expressing their interest to date by simply being on the platform

However, there is one area in which men have all the power – only I get the sense that many men either don’t realise, or downplay, how crucial and valuable this power is.

Now as mulheres taiwanГЄs muito quentes I flagged, this might not immediately strike you as a particularly important or compelling power – but it is. You could even say that, before any relationship begins, men have ALL the power (and at certain points during the relationship, too).

Well, allow me to explain. It would be kind of like the real-life equivalent of walking around wearing a sandwich board which reads, ‘I’m open to dating’, making the subtleties we’re about to discuss non-existent.

My options as a dating woman are completely dependent on being asked out by men. Yes, I can accept or reject whom I please, but my power to do so rests entirely on men making a move in the first place. Until the question comes, I am basically powerless to do anything to change my position as a single woman.

Men are not. Yes, of course it is also dependent on the woman to accept the man’s offer to date, his offer to marry and so on, but when it comes to making any decisions whatsoever, men take the lead. Continue reading « Relationships: the secret advantage all men possess »