Women With Emotional Mastery Do These 6 Things to Ward Off Narcissists in Dating
From my 2024 copyrighted article.
Women, men, and people of any gender can be narcissistic or toxic. However, women encounter specific and unique risks in modern dating and hookup culture that disempower them. When a woman has emotional mastery, she has a certain level of control over her ability to harness her emotions productively into maintaining high standards, living an enriching life, and setting healthy boundaries in her relationships.
Here are six things women with emotional mastery learn to never tolerate in dating or relationships. A version of this article was first published in 2024 on other websites.
Written by Shahida Arabi, MA
Disrespect. In response to disrespect, self-respecting women learn to never overexplain their feelings. They take aligned actions to enforce their boundaries instead.
These are not the women who are writing long paragraphs in their notes app, drafting a dissertation to send their dating or relationship partner how much they’ve hurt them, and outlining exactly how to fix it, begging and pleading for respect from a man. They know from experience that certain types of toxic men thrive on that kind of attention in the dating world, and they don’t have the time to explain to a grown adult how and why their actions are wrong or instruct them on how to come correctly, only for those men to learn from them and effectively cosplay maturity for the next woman. They don’t outsource their emotional fulfillment to a toxic person engaging in hot and cold behavior. Instead, they walk away and detach before they become too invested in someone who cannot meet their needs. They express themselves primarily through their behavior and withdrawal of attention, rather than their words, and it speaks volumes.
Low effort. Women who develop emotional mastery stop wasting their emotional energy trying to change dating partners who don’t meet their standards.
Energy is currency, and women with emotional mastery know how to best harness that energy to benefit them. The time you spend ruminating over and chasing a dating partner is time you could be spending chasing your goals, dreams, your career, money, and better dating options. Women with emotional mastery know this on a deep level, which is why they’re not willing to spend massive amounts of energy on an unsuitable suitor. They are self-focused and grounded in what they know they deserve. If a man suggests a low-effort date they’re not into, they won’t engage with them further. If he tries to negotiate her standards or tell her she is too picky or high-maintenance, she knows there will be another man around the corner who won’t ever have her starving and malnourished begging for the bare minimum. If she wants to be “well-maintained,” she certainly can be, and she’s not willing to settle for toxicity in the meantime.
Being married just for the sake of being married or having children with the wrong man. They don’t settle for less just to say they settled down.
Women who have developed emotional mastery don’t pursue marriage and children with just anyone just in order to say they’re married and a mother. They’re not desperate for commitment, because their strongest commitment and loyalty are to themselves. When a man knows you desperately crave something, he has ultimate power over you and can hold it over you. High-quality women genuinely aren’t impressed by the thought of marriage because they know that on average, it actually benefits men, not women. They know marriage and childrearing are serious business, and they take it very seriously.
For them, being with the wrong partner is a liability, not an automatic benefit.
They assess and vet their dating and relationship partners very carefully for compatibility when it comes to attraction, personality traits, financial stability, emotional stability, and emotional maturity. This is why these women tend to end up with great partners, or at the very least, do not settle for toxic ones, and live thriving lives.
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Rewarding bad behavior. Self-respecting, empowered women with emotional mastery learn not to reward bad behavior with more attention or people-pleasing. They issue appropriate consequences and engage in “productive” revenge that lasts a lifetime by moving forward into success.
There are certain types of toxic men that will expect you to reward their bad behavior with more attention or people-pleasing, because they’re accustomed to pick-me women who want to maintain relationships at any cost. The woman with emotional mastery is different: she believes in consequences and holding people accountable through her actions. If she finds out a man has betrayed her in some way or is mistreating her, she will ghost him without a word rather than rewarding him with crying spells and “How could you?” drawn-out speeches. Again, negative attention is still attention. You’ll likely spot this type of woman on vacation in another country with a much hotter man shortly after such an incident. This is the type of woman who quietly moves on to have the most massive glow-up of her life after a break-up, becoming the most successful, beautiful, richest, and most vibrant version of herself – she makes her exes weep, not the other way around. These are the types of women who are often underestimated because they don’t rage and pine for a man outwardly – they harness all that emotional energy into themselves and catapult themselves into a lifestyle their toxic exes couldn’t even afford. Now that is true emotional mastery, and high-quality women know that the best revenge is success.