The Attention Crisis — Why Do Men Stare At Other Women?

A Rant On Why Women Don’t Need To Be The Ones To Understand (As Always)

Picture this..

It’s your first date.

You are wearing your new lilac dress, sitting in a quaint cafe, ordering that chicken pasta, and laughing at his witty one-liners. You take a deep breath, the conversation seems to be going really well. Maybe there is a potential.

And it happens..

You notice your date’s attention break from you for more than a comfortable duration. His eyes are roving over the girl who just walked in. Up and down.

Boom!

And the next one and then the next one , so much you start playing a secret game in your head — Ah, he is definitely going to stare at her .Woah, easy there fella!

If you are like me, old wounds open up — starting with your ex from 2000s and your mind starts racing with excuses to walk out.

And another part tries to chide you with — Stop overreacting, Men will me men. Who is perfect these days?

Nothing works.

The cafe looks dull and the chicken pasta suddenly tastes like burnt rubber.

Not again!

Dear men, I can assure you this — It hurts.

Firstly let's do a deep dive into two common reactions to this scene:

You are insecure!

That we are.

Especially in a hyper-sexualised culture that fills our sights with stunningly gorgeous models to sell anything from cars, and laptops to cayenne pepper.

Instagram influencers ( who somehow look the same kind of flawless hot, is there a template?) setting impossible beauty standards (while talking about embracing flaws!).

It’s a daily struggle in not to break our confidence.

At home & school we are compared to our sisters, cousins, and classmates and reminded time and again who is the better (looking) one and WHY.

Then there is always the culture that age-shames us from the day we hit 25, and has a laugh at our flawed complexions while making billions out of our insecurities.

Oh, let’s not even talk about our changing bodies that everyone from my aunt to the stand up comedians seem to have a strong opinion of.

And despite all — we are addressing the constant war we are in with our bodies, practicing loving ourselves, cutting the noise, meditating, traveling, feeding our minds, buying that Epsom salt to float in our darkest moments and be ready for whatever comes next.

We are trying.

In matters of dating & relationships or even friendships, for (most of ) us undivided attention and your time are all that we need.

The rest we are figuring it out ourselves.

And how difficult is it to give someone your fullest attention?

We Have The Hunter Brains, We Just Can’t Help It

Or maybe you get a free pass here too!

We can’t help wondering if evolutional biology is patriarchial like the professor in our college who declared girls don’t need a job because they can marry rich and stay home?

When a society itself is designed from the male-gaze then how far can the statistics on men’s brains vs women’s hold true?

If all of us as humans can channel and hold our sexual urges, hunger, nature calls, our anger because we live in a civilised society, then how difficult is it to bring some subtlety (not even avoid) in looking at beautiful women?

Yes women gaze too, a handsome man walking in gives us the warm feel behind our ears, we do notice two other men staring at us but the space we share with you takes priority over everything.

We are just making a choice!

And most importantly there have been amazing men in our pasts and presently in our lives as friends, as mentors , as our past lovers who have prioritised us , the space and the conversations over gawking at that pretty thing

They have set the standards for basic decency.

So much so that we didn’t even notice it.

So next time please blame them for our expectations instead of ripping off a few lines off evolutionary biology.

Here are the few thoughts that goes in our minds:

• Is he going to cheat on me?
• Am I not attractive enough?
• Why do I feel so ugly.
• She isn’t even that good-looking (yes, we think this)
• Why do I keep attracting men like this?
• What on earth is wrong with me, am I boring?
• He never used to be like this, oh why do I miss him now?
• Okay, I am never seeing him again — like ever!

Not to play a victim, but insecure or not it’s not easy for us to laugh it off because we are taught to take the blame on us . The hurt find a place in our memory and we channelise it in a different form of anger or indifference. Sometimes similar to what Carrie Bradshaw did.

But there is one question I want to conclude with:

Why is it always women who need to do the fixing?

When I looked up online on this topics , I came across articles that gave a good foundation but ended up suggesting to work on our confidence and our overall physical appearance.

Another article also asks women to ignore, look at other men to level up the power play and yes because men are visual and genetically programmed to mate.

Or in summary — Be the attractive, confident, classy, sassy woman that your man likes to look at and can laugh it off when he still can’t help gawking at other women, and even better if you ignore it for good.

You are adding yet another to-do to our already crowded “you-are-not-enough” list.

Honestly, these findings are disrespectful to men as they are to women.

But here’s the thing. It’s not a women’s problem to solve.

And not all men and not all women fit these narratives.

And for a lot of us healing from past traumas, it’s a huge red flag.

If we a basing our arguments on science & genes then women’s reaction to it, feeling of insecurity, anger and choosing to walk away is also science, not overreaction or weakness.

All we ask is you is to make a choice based on how much you value the person before you when you see your reactions hurting them.

We can’t do it alone.

Let’s understand that.

And dear evolutionary biologists, any useful insights on how women can evade this attention crisis lately?