I’m watching “Marrying The Game” on VH1. Judge me. A friend of the fiancé just said “You’re expecting Jayceon to love you the way you want to be loved versus accepting that he’s loving you the way he knows how.” The fiancé replied, “He thinks providing is loving.” The friend responded, “Most men do.”

The friend is absolutely right. I’ve had a similar conversation with my own girlfriends but from a slightly different perspective. I believe that all men need to be needed. The disconnect between men and women comes when women fail to realize that men don’t view needs the same way we do. Most men view being needed in financial terms. If they are providing for you financially, they believe they’re doing everything they need to do to maintain a healthy relationship. Conversely, they feel completely inadequate if they can’t provide financial support. What many men fail to realize is that a lot of us don’t need our bills paid. We need someone to slay the dragons!.

Another disconnect: men aren’t the best communicators. To compound that issue, women often talk a lot but say a bunch of nothing. Neither of these traits are conducive to effective communication or problem solving. So men never get the point that “yeah, the money is nice, but I have other needs too.” And women never clearly distinguish the real needs from the noise.

Maybe men really are from Mars and women really are from Venus.