Women offer other women an incredible amount of uninformed advice, misinformation and mythology about what motivates men whether they’re single, married, or in a long-term relationship. This was the impetus behind StraightMaleFriend.com. With all due respect, women simply don’t know as much about men as they think they do. And of course us poor guys know zilch about women.

Truth be told, I actually reached out to a handful of guys to guest write for SMF and the general response was, “What? Hell no! I’m not gonna be the one givin’ up the secrets!” So you see? Your SMF’s are risking permanent expulsion from the “Man Club” by giving up the goods here. But we’ve got a job to do!

 To that end, we decided to tackle some fairly persistent man-myths. Now certainly there are exceptions to every rule. And, of course, you’ll have either experienced or have heard anecdotal stories that run contrary to your SMF’s perspectives. That said, here are:

The Top 5 Myths Women STILL Believe About Men

1.He won’t respect you if you have sex on the first date. Truth is, it doesn’t matter if you do the bedroom boogie on date number one or one-hundred. Sex (or the act of withholding it) doesn’t equate to respect. Don’t fool yourself. Each situation is different and each person is different. If you’re making such a personal decision based on not what YOU want, but on what you believe the other person will think, you could be setting yourself up for a major disappointment.

 2. Men love the chase. Guys just loooove working up the courage to approach a stranger and ask them out, risking rejection or humiliation. What’s not to enjoy about basically having to qualify for the opportunity to take someone out ? Doesn’t sound stressful at all.

Uhhhh…no.

 WOMEN love the chase. And why not? To be in a position where you can basically field offers from potential suitors. On that particular point, guys would switch places any day. It’s not that we love the chase…it’s that we have to chase.

 3. A man can’t be friends with a woman without wanting to have sex with her. This one is always hotly debated among the fellas. But the consensus here is that the idea that men and women can’t be friends without sexual tension is pure hogwash. We certainly won’t pretend as if people can’t or don’t possibly find each other attractive, but that’s a far cry from wanting to get all coital. And listen, I surely have friends who I definitely wouldn’t mind taking out for a sexual test drive. On the other hand, I’ve got very close female friends with whom I couldn’t imagine being intimate in that way. So to say what comedian-turned-relationship-guru Steve Harvey said-- that, “The only reason men are just friends with women is because that’s all she’ll allow” is just ignorant and short-sighted.

4.  Guys Prefer Something Left to the imagination. Says who? Ok, do we love the way you look in that low cut top or those form fitting jeans? Yes. Do we love seeing you looking your sexy best as you step out of the shower wrapped in nothing but a towel? You know it. Do we get turned on seeing you get dolled up before a night on the town or maybe seeing you in your sexiest Vicki Secret? Hell yeah, you know we do. You know what we love MORE than that though?

Taking all of that stuff off of you.

 Yeah, we like to IMAGINE you in your birthday suit, but we’d PREFER to SEE you in your birthday suit. I mean, come on….why has this ever even been in question?

  5.  Guys are intimidated by independent women. Lots of guys are. But a lot of guys aren’t. This is another electric debate, but we say that this is generally not true; particularly for guys under the age of 40. Under 40 guys are more used to seeing, meeting, knowing, socializing with, and yes even dating powerful, independent women. Many guys wouldn’t have it any other way. Now listen, no worthwhile guy doesn’t care about carrying his own weight or being his own man. And men want to be seen as good “providers.” But that’s a societal “guy thing” and it has less to do with actually feeling intimidated and more to do with feeling the angst of having other people judge them. A self-confident guy feels empowered and proud of his strong, independent partner not emasculated. So for us to buy into the “guys are afraid of independent women” myth, we’d have to buy that most guys lack self-confidence…and we don’t at all agree with that.