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e were doing the Steve Harvey Morning Show live by remote in Detroit, and a woman came up to the podium to say hello to me and the crew—a really
attractive girl, nicely dressed, with beautiful dark skin, pretty white teeth, gorgeous body, really put together all around. And when she started talking, she really threw me because I could hear in her voice that she was mature, but she just didn’t look like she sounded. So I asked the lady how old she was; she said she was forty-two. Blew me away. I didn’t think she was a day older than thirty. Then I asked her how many kids she had. “Five,” she said, smiling from ear to ear. “I’ve got three of my own, and I adopted two.”
Now I’m sitting here thinking, wow—that’s really slick. She’s over age forty, she’s taking care of not only the kids she gave birth to, but two more she took in out of the kindness and generosity of her heart, and she looks years younger than she really is—she’s really got it going on. Be clear: I wasn’t about to do anything with this information because guess what? I’m a happily married man—emphasis on happily. But some years ago, that conversation would have gone down a wholly different way, and it would not have involved me asking her anything about her kids, where she works, how she’s living—none of that.
But a guy who was all in her space while we continued doing our show—that’s another story. He clearly had plans for this lady. You could tell just by the way he was leaning into her, hanging on her every word. Oh, he was talking to her like there weren’t hundreds of people surrounding them—like my cohost and I weren’t in the middle of a show. I knew what he was trying to get to. But clearly, she had no clue.
In front of everyone during a commercial break, I asked her, “What does he want?”
She laughed and gave me a confused look. “Nothing,” she giggled. “We’re just making small talk.” Mind you, the guy trying to talk to her isn’t saying a word. He knows that I know. And after a few more commercial breaks, and a lot more of his obvious moves, I finally told her he was looking for much more than a simple conversation.
Now the crowd, full of mostly women, is goading me on. “Here’s the deal,” I said. “Turn around right now, look in his face, and do not take your eyes off his eyes. Now tell him how many kids you got and watch his reaction.”“He wants something from you,” I said. “I can prove it to you.”
The man seemed calm until she got to the word five. He reeled back like a spooked horse; his whole facial structure changed, and even though he covered his mouth, he couldn’t keep his surprised, “Ooh,” from escaping his lips.
He couldn’t get away from her fast enough. The next break, he was down on the other end of the venue—fifty feet away, in some other woman’s face. See, he wanted something from her, but that something didn’t include five kids. He had a good job, he appeared intelligent. He had told me he was making good money; clearly, however, he couldn’t foresee his money split those many ways. When he was flirting with this woman, all he envisioned was he and her getting down to it, no strings attached.
My cohost just laughed and laughed and asked me how I knew all of this. It’s easy: when a man approaches you, he has a plan. And the main plan is to sleep with you, or to find out what it takes to sleep with you.
Here’s a generalization but in my experience, it’s true. Women love to sit and talk for no apparent reason but to talk, but we men, we’re just not cut out to chitchat for the sake of
That’s his mission in the club.
chitchat—we don’t have time for it. We men are very simple people: if we like what we see, we’re coming over there. If we don’t want anything from you, we’re not coming over there. Period. Please highlight this part right here so you can always remind yourself the next time a man steps to you: a man always wants something. Always. And when it comes to women, that plan is always to find out two things: (1) if you’re willing to sleep with him, and (2) if you are, how much it will cost to get you to sleep with him.
That’s his charge in the lunchroom at the office.
That’s what he’s up to when he skips past all those seats at the church and sits down in the pew right next to you.
If a man sees you and asks you how you’re doing, what do you think he came over there for? He didn’t come over to learn anything from you, to find out about your interests and likes and wants. That’s what women do when they’re interested in getting to know someone. For a man, it’s really less complicated: he liked what he saw from across the room and now he’s going to go over there and get it. He doesn’t care anything about your personality or what you do for a living; your friends mean nothing to him, and whether you know Jesus is irrelevant. He just wants to know if he might be able to sleep with you, and he’s talking to you to determine exactly how much he has to invest to get what he wants.
When I say, “invest,” I’m not talking solely about monetary
This is useful information to you because now you know when a man approaches you, you can cut through the riffraff, lay down your requirements (which I’ll talk about later), and determine right away whether he’s willing to pay for what it is he’s looking for. Okay, so ladies: it’s no secret now—and you can act accordingly. When you’re not aware that all men have plans, you’re not placing requirements on him, and if you’re not setting any ground rules, then you’re essentially telling him that you’re open for hisrules. You’ve established that you don’t care how often he calls, when he comes by, how often you all talk, and whether he opens your door; this means that he’ll call you .values; I’m talking about your values—your requirements. He’s trying to see if your “price” is too high, if it’s affordable, if he can get it on credit, whether he can get it tonight. If you don’t lay out any requirements, then you’re free—game on. He knows he can get you to the bed with minimal effort. But if you tell him up front you have requirements—that you need his time, his respect, his attention—then he knows you’re expensive, that he’s going to need to put in work to get the cookie. For some men, that cost may be too high—they’re just looking for a good time and have no interest in “investing” time and respect and a commitment. One man may assess right away, “Man, I got to go by there two or three times a week, gas is five dollars a gallon, I got this other woman I’m hollering at, I’m going to have to call her and all of that. No, that price is out of my range.” For another man, your sticker price may be affordable.
This is precisely what was on my father-in-law’s mind when one of my daughters brought home her alleged “boyfriend” to the house for a family dinner. You should know that my fatherin-law is one of the smartest men I ever met in my life— he’s a man I look up to, and I look up to very few men. The things that come out of his mouth are usually, if not always, on point and make me think. The same was true this particular evening when he lined up this boy on the living room couch and asked him plain as day, “So, what’s your plan with my granddaughter?”
when he gets ready, he won’t be opening any of your doors, and even though you asked him to be there at seven, he won’t show up until eight—all because you didn’t (a) acknowledge that a man always has a plan and (b) act accordingly.
The young man, about thirty, asked very simply, “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean just what I asked,” my father-in-law said. “What is your plan?”
“I don’t have no plan,” he said.
“Then what are you doing?” my father-in-law asked.
“I’m just trying to get to know her,” he insisted.
“But what’s your plan? Where is this going?” my father-inlaw snapped back.
Finally, under the pressure of the questioning, the squared shoulders, and two straight-faced black men making it clear we know the game, the boy finally broke down and said those four
fateful words: “We’re just kicking it.” “Let’s share that with her, that you’re just ‘kicking it.’ Let’s see how she feels being the kicked one. Let’s take that back to her.”My father-in-law sat there and stared at him for a minute, satisfied, finally, that he’d gotten to the bottom of it. He tasted blood. “Okay, then—cool,” my father-in-law said quietly.
She looked so crazy when, a few minutes later, we let her know about her man’s plans—that they’re just “kicking it.” Because she knows from our constant talks and updates and sessions about men that when it comes to relationships, you’re either being kicked or you’re potential long-term material. It can’t be both. Clearly, he had a plan that was different from what she wanted.
Luckily my daughter had her granddad and me to help her decipher her man’s plan. But not every woman has a father figure around to hip her to the game. Now, when that man comes smiling all up in your face and talking like he’s really into you, act like you know. Because now, you do: he wants to sleep with you.
What’s your price?
If you let him know up front, he will let you know up front if it’s too high a price for him to pay. And then you can move on.