Woman's Greatest Temptation

[Kelpten]

I'm trying to write a short story, and I want to know each sex's greatest temptation. Since I'm a guy, I found the male's side easier, eventually deciding on loss of self-control (whether to lust or anger or whatever). But the woman's I'm having trouble with. I imagine it would be something more subtle than the man's, but no less insidious. The closest I could think of is Dostoyevsky's obsession with woman's pride. What do you people think? (I'd mostly like to here the women's opinion here).

[Terastas]

In my own experiences, what women seem to want the most are peace of mind and a sense of fulfillment.

The problem is that both are intangible and in the eye of the beholder, but it's a rare woman indeed, I have found, that understands that. Guys can usually settle for partial fulfillment or fulfillment at the moment with their work or a hobby, whereas women in their idle time tend to (and I mean no offense by this) dwell on the fact that they don't feel fulfilled and brainstorm possible ideas as to what they might be missing.

So while it varies from person to person, I think the harder to obtain something is, the more a woman will yearn for it, therefore a woman's darkest desire would be for something that seems virtually impossible to obtain.

Hope I didn't offend anyone with my two cents. That's been my experience with women anyway, but hey, I live in a lame old-money town, so my experience in general hasn't been pleasant to say the least.

[MoonKit]

So while it varies from person to person, I think the harder to obtain something is, the more a woman will yearn for it, therefore a woman's darkest desire would be for something that seems virtually impossible to obtain.

Unfortunately that would describe my life perfectly right now so I guess I'll agree with Terastas.

[ShadowFang]

In my own experiences, what women seem to want the most are peace of mind and a sense of fulfillment.

The problem is that both are intangible and in the eye of the beholder, but it's a rare woman indeed, I have found, that understands that. Guys can usually settle for partial fulfillment or fulfillment at the moment with their work or a hobby, whereas women in their idle time tend to (and I mean no offense by this) dwell on the fact that they don't feel fulfilled and brainstorm possible ideas as to what they might be missing.

So while it varies from person to person, I think the harder to obtain something is, the more a woman will yearn for it, therefore a woman's darkest desire would be for something that seems virtually impossible to obtain.

Hope I didn't offend anyone with my two cents. That's been my experience with women anyway, but hey, I live in a lame old-money town, so my experience in general hasn't been pleasant to say the least.

Wow, I'm impressed. That's a fairly accurate representation of how the (American) female physique works. I have to agree with you, Terastas.

It's true, women want what they can't have. Most can't stand being ignored due to the fact that they're by nature attention whores.

[Sioux]

So while it varies from person to person, I think the harder to obtain something is, the more a woman will yearn for it, therefore a woman's darkest desire would be for something that seems virtually impossible to obtain.

Well, then my darkest desire is getting into USC's film school. However, I don't yearn for it because, right now, it's unobtainable. I yearn for it because it's the only school that will guarantee me a successful career in film - if I do well there of coarse. I've never been the kind of person to yearn more for something that I couldn't have. If I wanted it, then I just saved up the money to buy it. Simple as that. Although, the hard work I put into earning the money, made me want the "whatever" even more. But, it's just like you said, it varies from person to person. I'm just using myself as an example.

It's true, women want what they can't have.

That can be true for men as well. I'm sure every person on this earth has, at some point or another, wanted something they couldn't have. Ex: A new car, a jet ski, that floating trampoline, cute guy, cute girl, lots of money. You can't just apply that to women.

Most can't stand being ignored due to the fact that they're by nature attention whores.

I think people in general don't like being ignored; doesn't matter if you're a female or male.

Ex: This boy at school had the biggest crush on me and therefore followed me around like a retreiver. He thought his feelings justified the act. However, he did not appeal to me even the slightest so, I simply avoided and ignored him. Needless to say, my actions crushed him. He did not like being ignored and it bothered him a great deal.

Also, if I were an attention w****, I wouldn't be on this forum. I'd be a social butterfly out trying to obtain as much attention from everybody as I possibly could.

[Terastas]

Guys have wants and dreams too, but they have a different way of dealing with things. A guy can cope with his anger, stress or feelings of insignificance by momentarily tuning out and losing himself momentarily in a cold beer or a game on TV. In my own experience, guys also typically have only one object of their obsession which they will celebrate, show off and/or make full use of once they have it (Figarou's home theater system, for example). Guys are conditioned as they grow up to not cry and be dramatic, so when they have problems, they ration that their emotional problems are not unique unto themselves, that nobody wants to hear them mope about it, and either shrug them off or keep them to themselves.

If anything, the pattern I've noticed with men is the opposite problem: when dreams actually do come true for them, more often than not they don't know how to handle it. Really, how many times have you seen some massive lottery winner go on the news and insist that "this isn't going to change anything" or "I'm not going to quit my job as [insert crappy job here]." Or that idiot Ken Jennings that won over two million dollars playing Jeopardy only to give most of his to his freaking church and go back to his [bleep!] life. Guys can content themselves with the way they live straight to the point that the idea of living better can be uncomfortable to consider.

Women, on the other hand, tend not to rationalize away their feelings and generally assume that they feel that way because something is "wrong" in their lives. The pattern I've noticed in all my personal experiences is that women who are in financial trouble dream of being able to afford nice things (a house, a car, a retirement plan, etc), women who can afford nice things dream of being able to afford excessive things (second homes, monthly trips to Europe, etc) and rich [expletives] yearn only for things that cannot be bought period (fame, achievement, a loving family, etc.).

And the more unrealistic something seems, the more determined it makes them. Guys play the lottery just like women do, but while men typically play never expecting to win, a woman can play and expect to win, either by "increasing her chances" with lucky charms and novenas or by just plain insisting that she's overdue to win.

There are, of course, always exceptions, both for men and women, but that's the pattern I've noticed.

[Were Dono]

This, of course, would be a generalization of men and women. To say that every man and woman feel exactly like this and think exactly like this...would be a bit much, don't you think?

I won't say that a few of the things hit close to home to me, but I'd be lying if I said all of them matched perfecting. But, it's still an interesting read.

[Kelpten]

Thanks for the imput guys, it really helped.