WHEN A MAN DOES TOO MUCH

 

Have you ever listened to a girlfriend tell you about her latest beau and all the great things he does for her? At first, you’re envious of the great places he’s squired her to. As you listen to her count off the extravagant gifts, flowers, cards, romantic texts, etc. you begin to wonder if it is too much, especially  since they’ve only been dating less than two weeks. What is wrong with this picture? Pretty much everything.

When a man or woman does too much coming out of the gate it should send up warning flags. It indicates several things, but the first is that your affections can be bought. Some people’s affections can be bought for a time. Why does he need to buy your affections you might ask? The answer is a simple one. He really has nothing else to offer, or so he thinks.  He could be covering up a major personality flaw, an addiction, even a wife with this lavish display of gifts and events. He hopes to win the girl over before the truth leaks out. Many men who practice the art of “too much” hope to marry the girl before she uncovers the real man.

Being flamboyant with gifts and dates is often a way a man temporarily satisfies a date without allowing her emotional closeness. Think about your friend’s big spender boyfriend. Does he ever talk about his childhood? Do you know anything about his current life, his hopes, and dreams? Probably not, because he doesn’t want intimacy; he may want companionship on his own terms. At best, it is a non-relationship.

The man may flit in and out of your life as he pleases, but feels like he can drop in whenever he pleases because he has invested so much money. Basically, the woman is a plaything. She needs to be there when he wants her to be. He really thought he guaranteed this with his flurry of romantic gestures. When a woman doesn’t respond in the way he thinks she should, he can be argumentative, even combative, and ultimately stalker-ish. Keep in mind, he believes he owns you.  Items you own don’t have a mind and do what they want so you shouldn’t either,

If you fall in with this type of a fellow, try not to fall hard. He may drop you as quickly as he picked you up. You may want to discard him once you see past all the extravagance. You may find that you are one of many. If your relationship should progress you may find you don’t really care for the man without the expensive trimmings. Many a young girl has married an older man after being successfully wooed with material goods. She might imagine a life filled with servants and exotic trips. It could happen, but usually doesn’t.

Your life may turn out to be rather like the Tyler Perry movie, A FAMILY THAT PREYS. In the movie, a beautiful girl marries an attractive, wealthy man who showers her with gifts. She gets to live in a fancy house, hang with famous people, and get the crap beaten out of her on daily basis due to her husband’s jealousy. The movie sisters inform her she made the deal, and it isn’t that bad. The man acts the way he does because he feels like he bought his wife.

What it all boils down to is when a guy does too much from calling you all the time or giving you extravagant gifts, it is because he believes he is not enough. He knows from past experience that females tend to dump him when he’s himself. I am not saying they were right to do it, but that’s his experience. It also alludes to the fact that he regards people superficially. He is attracted to the woman because of how she looks or what she represents. This is not a man who is capable of having a deep relationship, nor does he want one.

In the end, by doing too much at first he sets the bar too high for the rest of the relationship. Maybe he is a nice guy with not enough self-esteem and too much money. He attracts women who want everything he can shower on them, but when he stops showering them they’re gone. After a while, what would be special to almost any other woman is not special to his because she has had too much, too soon, and too long. It is old hat to her. In the end, she almost always leaves him for a different guy. Not because the new guy is better, or will do more things for her, but only because he’s new and that makes him special.

In my life, the extravagant gestures always covered up a mentally unstable man unable to develop a meaningful relationship. Guys worth knowing take more work. They don’t throw it out there all at once. Call it timing, but they leave you wanting more. When I met my beloved he traveled for work a great deal, which left me longing for his company, and not having it. I discovered the real him through email and phone calls that I may not have been able to if he played the extravagant gestures game. Later on when he indulged in a romantic endeavor it meant more because I knew who he was, and the depth of his feeling.

 So all in all, this is a cautionary tale for both men and women. Guys that do too much are either trying to buy you or cover up perceived inadequacies. (Usually we just refer to that as being too needy.) A woman who takes all a man has to give and just demands more will leave eventually. A normal woman might even ask a fellow to scale back on extravagant gestures, and work on doing average things. This is not a criticism, but a simple request. Believe it or not, women do like ordinary too, as opposed to too much.