Try QuoteGPT
Chat naturally about what you need. Each answer links back to real quotes with citations.
It is generally assumed that men are damaged in their capacity for closeness and intimacy. If intimacy is defined as a loving closeness with another … - Herb Goldberg
" "It is generally assumed that men are damaged in their capacity for closeness and intimacy. If intimacy is defined as a loving closeness with another person, then it is usually true that the early conditioning of men to be performers and competitors in the impersonal competitive world limits their intimacy capacity. Women are assumed to have a greater capacity for intimacy than men because they express caring emotions and allow themselves to be dependent and close in relationships more easily. Yet, a closer look will provide a different perspective. True intimacy is love and closeness based on knowledge of the inner reality and inner experience of the other. However, in romantic relationships, closeness ends or is put into crisis when men describe honestly their inner experiences to women. Women assail the relationship behavior of men and men acknowledge what they are told. Rarely is the opposite true. Men accept the reality of women more than women accept the reality of men. The fact that a woman's priority is placed on personal needs bears no relationship to a genuine capacity for intimacy. To be loved and known, and to be fully comfortable expressing one's personal self, are two major components of intimacy. There are few men who have received that from a woman. The opposite holds true. A woman's love for a man is contingent on his participating in her romantic fantasy of what he and the relationship should be. Few men risk challenging or undermining that fantasy. Instead, they play by the rules of romance even when it feels uncomfortable, knowing that being loved by her is fragile and easily broken once he reveals his resistances and unromantic feelings.
English
Collect this quote
About Herb Goldberg
Herb Goldberg (born July 14, 1937) was a professor emeritus of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles and a practicing psychologist in Los Angeles.
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Herb Goldberg
The growing singles world gives us another vantage point from which to see how sexual desire and excitement are a matter of distance elements. A couple goes to bed, perhaps on the first or second date, with seemingly great sexual appetite and desire for each other. The sex was "great," but the man, who believed he really wanted "great sex," never comes back for more; or the woman, who seemed to have been so "turned on" and sexually responsive, is not interested in a repeat performance. There is an often expressed "singles lament": "The ones I'm really turned on to don't seem to want me; while the people who want me, I can't get excited over." Then, finally, the disturbing conclusion: "The good ones are all taken, only the undesirable or 'sick' ones are left."
It is my interpretation that on the deepest archetypal level the feminist movement is partially fueled by an intuitive sensing of the decay and demise of the male. Women are rushing in to take men's places, as much for survival's sake as for any sociological or philosophical reasons. He has become a hyperactive, hyper-cerebral, hyper-mechanical, rigid, self-destructive machine out of control.
Try QuoteGPT
Chat naturally about what you need. Each answer links back to real quotes with citations.
I'm not sure I ever 'got it' when it comes to how to live my life in a way that was original and free," reflected Steven Salt, a retired businessman. "Of course, like most men, I always believed I had the answers and that I was not going to live my life the stupid way other men do. I was going to be unique and avoid their mistakes, but instead I'm just another male stereotype. I started off thinking that being an achiever and a 'winner' would be the key to real freedom. So all my energy went that way and I faked everything else when it came to caring about other people. Then I thought I'd marry the 'perfect' woman and be the 'perfect' dad and husband, not like the other married men. I'd be different. But no matter how I tried I was forcing it and probably fooling no one but myself. My wife finally left and I barely know who my kids really are. When we talk it's mainly 'business.' I fell into all the traps. Now that I'm in my seventies, I'm becoming just like all those guys I felt sorry for when I was younger—guys with no real friends and with no patience for anyone else's ideas or opinions. I can barely stand to talk to anyone and yet I'm still looking to fulfill myself by meeting the 'perfect' woman. I've become a macho cliché. It's taken me this long to realize that even if she existed I really wouldn't know how to be with her and make it feel good anyway.
Loading...