In this episode of The Self-Confidence Project, host Kimberly delves into why some single men elevate women above themselves in dating scenarios and explores the detrimental effects this can have on both their dating experiences and relationships. Kimberly provides insights into the underlying reasons behind this behaviour, including fear of rejection and social conditioning. She also offers practical advice on how men can shift their mindset to create healthier, more equal relationships. Tune in for valuable perspectives on improving self-esteem and dating dynamics.
If you found this episode helpful or informative please leave a review and share ❤️
Check out my audio masterclass on talking to women here.
Ready to book a call and chat with Kimberly? Do it here.
With love, Kimberly
Here’s the transcript
Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of the self-confidence project. I’m your host, Kimberly and excited to dive into today’s podcast. And today’s podcast video about men that are single and out there dating and are a little bit guilty of putting women up on a pedestal. So in today’s show, I’m going to talk about firstly, what does that even mean?
To put someone up on a pedestal? Um, you know, some of the reasonings behind why single men dating or even single women dating, we’ll do this. Um, the implications that it’s going to have on your dating experience and relationships. And of course, maybe some ideas on what you can do to start shifting. This experience, if you’re a little bit guilty of being one of those guys that kind of raises these women op op on a pedestal.
So if this is the first time you’re listening, watching this podcast, firstly, welcome. I’m super excited to have your, you hear if you’ve been a supporter for a while. Thank you very much for coming back. Don’t forget to drop comments along the way. As you’re watching this and listening to this. And of course, if you like my show and you want to support me, then I really love a rating and review, it really helps to get those podcasts out to more people that, you know, want another perspective on dating and relationships.
And that’s what I am here to provide you guys. So before I dive into, um, you know, why guys and what it means to put women up on a pedestal. If you don’t know, I am a dating and relationship coach for men, and I’ve been doing this for about five years now and really, you know, the bread and butter of my business is working with men that want to, uh, improve their dating experiences, have a heck of a lot more fun and attract great quality women into their lives.
And then go on to actually have long-term deeply loving, passionate relationships with those women. So I work with good-hearted men, um, that are maybe struggling in certain areas of their self-esteem or confidence. In dating, um, that are just finding, they have these relationship patterns with women that they just really want to break. Or just navigating the complexities of modern day dating and online dating and ghosting and how to approach women and all those nuances.
So if, if you’re looking for support in that area, that I do invite you to book a complimentary consultation with me, where we’re going to kind of understand where you’re at, where you want to head and see if I’m the right fit for you. Um, and so don’t be shy. Go ahead and book that call. If you are interested in working with me now, Um, why guys put women on a pedestal and firstly, what does this even mean?
Well, the whole idea of putting someone on a pedestal or a woman on a pedestal means that you’re elevating her status. She’s higher than you. The analogy is that she’s up on this pedestal. She’s. Essentially above you. And maybe you think she’s above you because she’s super attractive. Maybe you think she’s above you? Because, you know, this is the first woman that you’ve really like had feelings for, or you’re really super interested in or attracted to.
And what happens when you put this woman up on a pedestal is essentially, you’re saying I value her. More than I value myself. And so you get into this, um, pattern or these behaviors where you can kind of idolize this woman. You think like she’s perfect for me. Like this is the one that I need to have.
And. She has no flaws or no fault, which is wildly untrue, right? And then you place more value on obtaining this particular woman. And when you do that, when you place more value on her than you do yourself, you are going to start doing things. Unhealthy things. And I’m going to talk about in a moment. To obtain this person and to idolize this person. And this creates unhealthy power dynamics in a cording pursuing dating. Um, experience as well as if you end up in a relationship with this woman, you now have this unhealthy dynamic where you’ve placed her status above your own.
So that’s my definition of what it means to kind of place this woman up on a pedestal. Now. Why do you guys do that? You might not even be consciously aware that you’re doing this, or maybe you are consciously aware that you were doing this, but there is. There’s one reason that I’m going to talk about, and I’m gonna share a couple of, uh, other reasons after that.
But one main reason why guys kind of put these women up on a pedestal is because it was born from this. Deep fear of rejection. If you can idolize her, treat her perfectly and do all of the right things, then you will not be rejected. And rejection is painful and rejection equals death. In some instances, it’s like this awful, awful feeling when you put yourself out there and that is not reciprocated.
So if you have a deep fear of rejection, that it’s likely the way you are going to behave in dating experiences in relationships is not going to be the way that you know, Uh, Eric quote, you should be behaving. So you might be, um, dropping some of your values for this person. You might be crossing some of your own boundaries for this person. Um, you might need doing things to win their affection, that you wouldn’t even imagine that you’d be doing.
Let’s say you’re spending more money on dinners or you’re sending them gifts or you’re texting them more often, or you’re complimenting them more often because you think these are the things you need to do to win this woman’s affection. Who’s up here on this pedestal. And so sometimes the motivation for putting women up up here is because I’m actually trying to avoid the pain of being rejected.
So I feel I need to do all these particular things to. Make sure this goes as smoothly and as perfectly as possible. And that means you’re trying to control the situation. And any of you guys know that are out there dating is that it’s really impossible to control your dating experiences. So you don’t want to get into this on healthy pattern now. Some men do this because of their conditioning, their upbringing.
Some men have been raised to believe that they need to treat women with a certain level of respect. Now, of course, we need to treat humans with level of respect, but if you’ve been conditioned that. Uh, you can never let a woman down or never hurt her feelings, um, that, you know, you’re, you’ve been raised to believe that you need to tweet, treat women as Queens or princesses, and maybe you’ve actually been a little bit conditioned to go above and beyond for women and nothing wrong with. You know, doing nice gestures and being a really giving, loving person when you’re getting to know a woman or being a Garrett in a relationship with them, but what you don’t want to do. Is be sacrificing yourself for this person or sacrificing your own self-worth and self-love for this person, because you’ve been conditioned or believe that that’s what you need to do to get a beautiful woman or to be in a healthy relationship with a woman. So sometimes it just happens to be your upbringing and conditioning. Men that have been raised in fatherless homes or with moms, moms are going to teach you to be very respectful of women that, you know, women like certain things being done for them.
So maybe you’re raised believing that, um, there are very specific things that need to be done in order to win women’s affections, because that was representative of what you needed to do to have your mother’s love. Uh, as an example, so we can look into. The history of attachment styles to maybe understand why you might end up in this position yourself.
But sometimes men also do this because, you know, they put women up on a pedestal because when you do that, you, you might be getting more validation from women in this instance. So if you’re, you’re doing all these lavish things to women and the dating and courting process, um, you might be doing that because you’ve learned that when you do that, you get some of the validation and love that you’re really seeking.
And this becomes this transaction. Actional experience where you’re giving. Just to get something back. And giving shouldn’t be like that, giving us something we do, um, without expectation or return of something. And so sometimes men are doing this because, Hey, like you really like the validation that you get back from women when you elevate their status. And so sometimes that is going to be the motivation. Um, now sometimes men are going to put women up on a pedestal because you think. Well, I’ve been dating for a while and I really haven’t connected with many women or any women at all.
And now I am connecting with one and you’re thinking, holy. S H I T I better not lose this person because you have this scarcity mindset that. If it doesn’t work with her, it won’t work with anybody. Or if it doesn’t work with her, you were running out of time. And if you get into this scarcity mindset, you are going to start behaving. In a way that is all about preventing loss. It’s a fear-based mindset.
Now I have to be perfect so that I don’t lose this person. And nobody’s perfect. And there is no way for you to operate in this world perfectly and never lose somebody or never upset a woman. Take it from me. You know, women don’t want to be upset, neither do men, but it’s going to happen from time to time in the dating process and in your relationship.
So it’s learning how to actually deal with that. There’s a much more healthy approach. So those are some of the motivations on why men end up putting women up on a pedestal. Um, and what this does is it has really negative implications. Now here’s the tricky thing. Sometimes in the beginning of dating or courting when you’re being overly accommodating or really, really, really sweet because you put women up here. Um, she might be really overjoyed by that.
Initially she might think, wow, this guy is super kind. He’s super nice. He’s doing all these things for me. He cancelled his plans to spend time with me. I feel so loved and you’re going, wow. This is really working. The strategy is working. What happens is if that woman. If that woman sticks around long enough, eventually she’s going to lose respect for you. Because you are losing respect for yourself in order to please her it’s means that you’re, you know, Dropping your values for her. It means that like safer zero as a practical example, let’s say you want to make her happy.
So you cancel. Plans with your guy friends last minute so that you can spend time with her. Right. You’re just ditching your buddies for her, or you really want to make her happy. So you spend more money than you really have to make her happy, taking her out for dinner, or you buy her more gifts and presents.
And you’re really capable of doing financially, just because you want to make her happy. So you end up. Crossing your own boundaries. You ended up getting into people, pleasing behaviors. And you can actually sometimes overwhelm the relationship. And what happens is a woman who is switched on enough is going to start losing respect for you. Because ultimately you’re you don’t have this. Strength of self to say. No. You don’t value yourself enough to know that if you can’t meet her, every women desire all of the time that you’re still a worthwhile partner that you still deserve love and are capable of having a love. What happens is you get into a dynamic where everything you’re doing is to get the love and validation from this person because they’re elevated above you.
And that creates really unhealthy relationship dynamics. It will overwhelm the crap out of you and your partner. Um, and you get into love. That’s very transactional. I am giving to get, I am doing these things because I’m wanting the law. I’m doing these things because I want to be with this really beautiful woman, because that makes me feel like I have an elevated status, or it makes me feel like I’ve achieved something because I I’ve been able to bag this beautiful woman.
But at what cost, what cost to your health, your emotional health, your finances, your community, your friendship, your gym routine, your self-care routine. What are the things that you have had to give up? Up in order to keep this person around because that’s not what love is. Love is not one person endlessly sacrificing themselves just to keep that other person there.
And in that relationship, So this happens more often than we think. So.
What are some things that you guys can do if you recognize? Okay. Shoot. I’m a little bit guilty of this. And, and maybe it’s cause like I kind of thought that this is what I had to do, or this is how modern dating was or had been conditioned to, to treat women this way. Well, The first thing of course is going to be to. You know, analyze and dissect your own beliefs.
What do you believe about dating and women and what’s appropriate and not appropriate? So it was analyzing your own beliefs around woman, women and dating, which is certainly not an overnight process is something that takes careful time and consideration to understand the messages that you received.
Uh, as a child growing up, some of the belief structures you’ve developed around this part of your life and around women and ultimately how. That is impacting your behaviors and decisions when you’re out there dating. So changing your mindset is not an overnight process. It takes real self examination.
Um, And, uh, self-analyzing um, usually through a coaching or therapy or a lot of analysis and journaling. So you can really understand. You know why you’re showing up the way you’re showing off and how you might want to change that so you can have better, healthier, different experiences. So it’s very much about understanding how you view female, attention and validation.
What’s actually most important to you in a relationship. Um, and how you, uh, value certain aspects of dating and relationships. And it also is going to change when you learn to validate yourself with love and community and care. And you get to a point where you realize that while you want to have a deeply loving relationship with a great woman, that it’s never going to be at the expense of your love for yourself or your self worth.
And this is not narcissistic. This isn’t. Like I now think I’m the best person in the world and everyone can grovel to me. This is not about going to extremes. This is about you saying I am a great guy who deserves love, and while I will do nice things for my partner and I will do kind things. When I’m dating to get to know a woman, I’m not going to ignore my health and fitness and soul and boundaries and friends and routines just to win her over. It’s not a good strategy.
It’s not a longterm strategy and it’s not a healthy strategy. So you need to be asking yourself throughout the dating process. What is the reason why you’re doing this nice thing that you’re doing? Is it because you want to, and that you’re not worried. If, if you receive anything back or you giving something. In order to get something. It’s a good question to ask yourself. Um, So, of course we want to learn to, you know, you want to treat women with respect.
Um, But I will remind you that when you. Drop any of your core values for a woman? It is one of the most unattractive things that a guy can do. And you may not realize it in the beginning, but if she has enough wits about her, she will start to recognize that you are sacrificing things for her. And there is a small subset of women that. Maybe they like that.
Maybe they like men that just their worlds revolve around them, but healthy women. Don’t want that. They want a guy who loves his own life, who has his own passions and who isn’t just going to. Do anything for her at the drop of a hat. And while some women will moan and complain that they don’t get their way.
And that sucks. And that moment when she’s having her emotional reaction, what you get in the long term is a woman that respects you. And when you have a woman that respects you. And you respect her and you each respect yourselves, you then create a foundation for a deeply loving relationship. One that has got the right foundations to last a long time.
So guys, if you’re listening to this today, watching this today and you’re going. Okay, maybe I’m doing too much too early, then figure out how to dial it back to a reasonable amount so that while you give parts of yourself and you’re vulnerable in the dating process, and people can get to know you that you are not. Over indulging. And over-giving. Because you think that that’s what you need to do to get a woman that you’ve placed value on up here.
This is how you should view the dating field on an equal playing ground. That you are just as valuable as everyone you meet and get to know, and that the two of you, if you find enough synergy and common ground and, and joy between the two of you, that you can, co-create a healthy, loving relationship.
So thank you guys for tuning in and listening to today’s show hope this has been insightful and helpful, and just giving you pause. Paula. So maybe think about how you approach the initial phases of dating or even how you are. Behaving in those loving relationships that you have or relationships that you have, and maybe just giving you a little food for thought and something to think about.
Thank you so much for tuning in excited to bring you another episode next week. Let me know what you think of this video. Let me know what you think of this. A podcast. And if you want more content like this and look forward to chatting to you guys all again, next week. Bye.
