SelfhelpMagazine

by Edward A. Dreyfus, Ph.D.

Many people deal with this same problem, and there are several things you can do to help yourself. Realizing that you are obsessed with men and looking to understand yourself are a perfect start.

The next thing to do is focus on yourself and ask yourself these two questions:

1. Are you really as independent as you believe you are?
2. Do you define yourself as a woman by the way you look and whether men respond to you sexually?

This issue seems to be common among women. Our society tends to define women in terms of their attractiveness to men and whether men are interested in them sexually. Yet, women often complain when men just see them as sexual objects.

When men do not respond, many women often question their own attractiveness and sexuality. Women seem to have internalized the male perception of women and evaluate themselves by male standards.

Rather than defining themselves by their character, values, goals, accomplishments and personality, they tend to evaluate themselves according to whether men are interested in them.

You might want to ask yourself why need male attention and responsiveness as much as you do. How did men gain so much power over your self-concept?

A telephone call or lack thereof can change your feelings about yourself. How did a man become the center of your life?

Improve self-esteem instead of worrying about Will He Call?

You might want to do a personal inventory as to your own value as a woman. You may want to read about the issue of self-esteem and women and then make up your own list of what you like about yourself.

Include such things as:

• What else in life do you have going for you other than pursuit of male attention?
• Is your life filled with excitement, friendships, stimulating activities?
• Are you interesting to be with or just flirtatious?
• Do you enjoy the pleasure of your own company as well as the company of other women?
• What are your personal goals? 
• What have you accomplished that makes you feel good about you?
• What values do you aspire to embody (e.g. honesty, kindness, generosity, compassion,).
• When you are on your deathbed, how do you imagine you want to be remembered?

Once you have asked and answered these questions, take a look at that paper and decide if you have shortcomings you want to rectify. Then set time lines for yourself to meet toward those goals.

Remember, one of the surest ways to improve your self esteem is to keep the promises you make to yourself. The easiest way to keep promises you make to yourself is to have those promises be about little things, like, "I'm going to take 5 minutes before going to sleep every night to remember all the good things I do every day."

Another good self-esteem building goal is to take 5 minutes every Sunday morning and decide ahead of time which personal value you plan to embody that week. If you want to be known as a generous person, plant that goal in your mind early in the day and promise yourself that you will look for ways to be generous as much as possible in the coming week.

Then, the next Sunday morning, make a list of the generous things you did that week. If you get a "self-esteem buddy" and call that buddy to discuss your progress every week, you'll find that your chances of really following through on these kinds of goals is greatly increased.

You can find buddies you don't know much the same way when you go to the free online communities, like the one we have right here in SelfhelpMagazine.

If you find that you are not making as much progress as you'd like, or moving as quickly as you'd like toward feeling less desperate about men, look up the names of psychologists in your area, call 10 of them and listen to their mailbox messages.

Then call back the ones whose voice you liked best, who sounded like you'd be comfortable with, and ask three of them to call you back. After talking with all three of them, pick one and go visit.

A good therapist can help you make sense of your obsessions and help you build your self-esteem. He or she can assist you in not only in your search for a man, but also in the search for your "self", who seems to have faded at the moment. When they call, ask them the same 4-5 questions about them.

For more ideas about how to interview potential therapists, look once again, in the SelfhelpMagazine Community Forums. People like you have discussed this issue for years now and there's a great body of knowledge built up in those forums. Run a search on "good psychotherapist" and see what you find.

Whatever you do to strengthen yourself and your skills, the journey may be well worth it. You'll be living, rather than thinking, "Will he call?"

About the Author:

Dr. Edward A. Dreyfus is a Clinical Psychologist, Marriage, Family, Child Therapist, and Sex Therapist. Dr. Dreyfus has been providing psychological services in the Los Angeles-Santa Monica area for over 30 years. He offers individual psychotherapy to adolescents and adults, divorce mediation, couples counseling, group therapy, and career and vocational counseling and assessment. Dr. Dreyfus can be reached at: (310) 208-5700.