Guys who actually like relationships and are interested in having a girlfriend find it very frustrating and baffling when women balk at early commitment.

It’s a recurring theme among the guy readers here, and in a recent comment thread reader HanSolo explained it with a metaphor:

To 80% accuracy women are like cats. Cats are not like dogs. Cats do not want to mate with dogs. So, you need to show a little more catlike behavior at first to get that pussy (-cat) interested in you. Remember how cats come up and sit on the lap of the person who ignores it and only once it’s decided it wants you does it want to be petted and start receiving the more “doglike” affection.

Not all women are more catlike but to men who tend to go overboard with too much affection too soon (that act too much like affectionate dogs that run up to their master when she gets home and bury her with attention), keeping that exaggerated metaphor in mind will help them to treat them in a less smothering and more balanced way.

HanSolo doesn’t like it that women do not appreciate eager, unconditional affection from the start, and he doesn’t quite understand why this should be so, but he does accept it:

I have developed a more catlike nature. The dog in me is always longing to get out with the right woman though and cover her with affection.

I have so much love waiting for the right woman.

I feel like I have built a dam to hold it back but the rains keep falling and the reservoir is always brimming to the top.

I want to find the woman who wants my love. That thirsts for it. Whose heart is a desert. Who will open the spillways and let me love her fully. Who will love me back. Completely, fully, with abandon.

Until then, I “DO IT” with the occasional “woman” and wait.

Women fantasize about finding that kind of love with a man, as the Romance Literature industry attests. However, it should be noted that in female fantasy, this level of commitment and devotion from a man is hard won, not a thing to be given away lightly. Women understand this instinctively – we can be extremely interested in a guy, pinching ourselves over our good fortune in attracting this gorgeous man, only to find him unappealing and yes, creepy, within a date or two. His eagerness to be immediately and deeply in love sounds alarm bells.