15 Things I Wish I Knew About Men in My 20s

In this episode, I’m sharing the hard truths and healing lessons I wish someone had told me in my twenties. From understanding male psychology to breaking trauma bonds and reclaiming my power, these are the mindset shifts that changed the way I date, love, and value myself.

We’re talking love vs. attachment, why men bond through investment (not emotion), how boundaries create desire, and what it really means to be the prize. If you’ve ever lost yourself in a situationship, tolerated breadcrumbs, or confused chaos for chemistry—this one’s for you.

This episode is raw, honest, and straight from the heart. I hope it gives you clarity, comfort, and the courage to stop settling. Because the version of you who knows better deserves a love that reflects her worth.

✨ Share this with a friend who needs to hear it.

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Transcript

Madeline: 0:00

Welcome to Becoming Sunshine. For those of you that know me, you know that Sunshine has been an alias of mine for almost a decade now, and sunshine also is me becoming my highest self, and that's what this podcast is about. I'm here to help you understand yourself better and maybe learn some more about myself along the way. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm excited.

0:27

hi friends. Welcome back to Becoming Sunshine. So today's a little bit different. I know you guys love my episodes where I talk about relationships and things that I've learned, and I feel like there's so many things that I've learned, especially recently. And I just feel like the way I move now when it comes to dating and dealing with men in general is completely different than the way that I used to. I think a big part of that is from taking a break from dating and from men in general for like literally almost a year now. I think it's been so healing. And so these are 15 things that I wish I knew about men and dating in my twenties that I know now. So number one is men bond to us emotionally by investing in us. So investing their time, energy, and most importantly, their resources. If a man invests in you financially, he's gonna feel responsible for you and attached to you. I made this mistake before in relationships where I didn't wanna accept gifts or whatever, didn't want guys to take me shopping. So I was like, oh no, I don't need that. I love you, like blah, blah, blah, blah. I felt bad for whatever reason, why? Be open to receiving, the gift isn't about you, it's about him. It's about him investing in you and wanting to invest in you. That's why men stay in relationships. That's why men stay married, because they've made an investment in the relationship, in the woman. Men and women work differently and they bond differently to each other, and that's how men bond. So if he wants to take you shopping, if he wants to buy you a gift, let him. That's him bonding to you. That's him investing in you. Think of it like a tangible way to gauge the security of your relationship honestly. Number two, men respond to disrespect. Men feel the need to prove themselves. Boundaries and scarcity create value. Think of luxury brands, exclusive clubs. They all have barriers of entry, and it gives them their status and their value. I talked about this on my last podcast episode, but when my ex went to go buy a Lambo and he was made to feel like he wasn't good enough to buy it or he wasn't serious or whatever, and he had to prove himself like best believe he bought it that day. Men love feeling like they have to prove themselves. So honestly, it sounds kind of weird and backwards, but disrespecting a man a little bit, like properly and kind of like putting him down a little bit, that makes him wanna prove himself even more, and men love that. They love a challenge. They love feeling like they've had to prove themselves and like they've won. Like that's why men play video games. That's why men compete against each other. That's why they love sports, like they want to prove themselves. Number three, men like to be told what to do, now hear me out. Okay? They have to be in charge all day at work and you know, especially if they're responsible for their own company or a bunch of people or whatever, and they want someone who's in charge or makes the rules. I feel like this goes back to the whole good boy yes daddy theory that I talked about in my last episode. And it's so true. Why do men like to go to the strip club? Like yeah, there's multiple reasons, but a big one is they're not in charge. They don't make the rules. Maybe at home they do, maybe at work they do, but there the girls make the rules. They tell them the price, they tell them the boundaries. They tell them what's okay, what's not okay. Men love coming to the strip club and being like tell me what to do. They love it. They love not being in charge. They love being submissive. They really, really do. Even the most alpha, the most Sigma, they wanna turn their brain off for a second. They want to feel, I wouldn't necessarily use the word dominated, but yeah kind of, this is why I was saying in my last episode that so many relationships are actually low key fendom relationships. Because men have to be in charge and have to be, you know, alpha or dominant all the time, they need that time to be submissive. They love it. They crave it honestly. Okay. Number four, men learn with silence. Reward them with attention, and have a big emotional reaction to something when they do something that you like, and then remove energy when they do something you don't like, that's all they understand. I can't even tell you how many times I've crashed out on men in the past, like old me, where you know, I've sent them voice notes or paragraphs, I've written them letters, like everything, and it's like bro, even if they read it, even if they listen to it, that's doesn't compute. That's not how men operate. All they're gonna see and all they're gonna hear is, I love you. I love you, I love you so much. When you're going off on them, even if you're telling them they're the biggest piece of shit, all they're going to hear is that. You're giving them energy, you're giving them attention and that you love them and you're obsessed with them. When you pull back your energy and you're no longer entertaining them or whatever they're doing, then they're like oh shit. She doesn't love me anymore. She doesn't want me anymore. There's memes about this. It's like you know you really lost a woman when she doesn't give you her energy anymore, she's not crashing out on you. She doesn't care anymore, and that's when they change. Number five, the man you meet in the beginning of a relationship is their representative. After three months, you see who they truly are. So if you're waiting for the version of them that you met in the beginning to come back, you'll be waiting forever. I've learned this so many times the hard way. That's the man they wish that they were, who they wanted you to believe that they were, but it's not who they are. Who they are three months in, six months in a year in, that's who they actually are. Number six, men run a simple algorithm. They'll do whatever is necessary, nothing more. This is why women shouldn't sleep with men right away. If they want something serious or they want a certain standard in the relationship, men will put in whatever level of effort is necessary to get what they want. Yes. That includes sleeping with you. If they needed to put in a certain level of energy and effort to get you in the beginning, that's the level of effort that they'll continue to show up for the rest of the relationship. So if they wanted to sleep with you and you know they just had to buy you a drink, that's the standard. They're not gonna start planning dates after that. They're not gonna shower you with trips and gifts and give you princess treatment or, show up for you and be super emotionally accommodating and reliable. If in the beginning they didn't have to put in a lot of energy effort. They had a conversation with you. They took you to dinner maybe, they bought you a drink, they spent the day with you. That was it, that's the algorithm. You set the standard, you set the algorithm. So if they had to court you for a couple months, take you to dinner, take you on trips. Meet your family, meet your friends, and then they finally got to sleep with you. That's the level of effort they're gonna show up with. They'll be like, okay, this is what it takes to get this girl. This is the level I'm gonna continue to show up with. When you decide to sleep with them, just think of it as you're freezing the relationship. You're putting the pause on the level of care, the standard of the relationship. So if you're happy with what he's providing and what he's doing and how he's showing up for you, then yeah, proceed, like sleep with him, date him, whatever. But if you're not happy with what he's giving you, what he's providing, what he's offering, don't sleep with him because he's going to continue to try and keep working until he gets what he wants. And then once he does, he's not gonna do more than that. That's the standard. That's what it took to get you. In his brain, that's what he's gonna understand that's what it takes. So think about that. It's not about like being easy or you know, judging women who sleep with men right away. It's just for your own sake, it's for your own sanity. It's like the algorithm. It's just the way that men operate in general. I'm not saying they're not gonna respect you, I'm just saying they're not gonna put in any more effort than they've already put in. Number seven, always prioritize yourself and your schedule. You are the prize and he needs to be the one to accommodate you. If you shift this dynamic he'll start to view himself as the prize and start taking you for granted. I used to do this all the time in relationships. Once I fall in love with a guy, I wanna accommodate him and be there for him and you know, change my schedule around'cause I love him. Even if I already had plans, I had to get my nails done or whatever, but he wants to hang out. Like, oh my gosh, I love him. Of course I wanna hang out, I can reschedule. No, no you can't. It doesn't matter what it is, even if it's the most boring plans ever, you start making these little micro decisions that prioritize him, he's gonna start feeling it. You're gonna start feeling it. And once he doesn't see you as the prize anymore, that spot opens up either for another woman, for himself, for whoever. You're not the prize someone else is gonna be. It's not gonna be you, so think about it like that. Once they start to view you differently and take you off the pedestal. Someone else needs to be put on the pedestal baby girl, and it's either gonna be another woman who may or may not be better than you. She probably isn't. She probably just isn't giving him the time of day and is just prioritizing herself, and he sees that as higher value in his brain, or he's gonna see himself as the prize and he's now looking down at you and starting to take you for granted and thinking in his head, wow I thought she was so high value and she was such a prize, but now I'm the prize, so I need to go find someone better, even though you're probably the best we'll ever get, but again, just male psychology. Number nine, who you attract at a low point will bring you even lower if you give them a chance. They weren't your saving grace. They're going to be a karmic lesson. This is why I really don't think people should date or try to date if they're not in a good place, like spiritually, emotionally, whatever. Because if you're in a bad place, if you're in a low place, if you're vibrating at a low frequency, like attracts like, you're not gonna attract the best person for you when you're spiraling. That's why when you're working on yourself and you're in a good place, you just end up manifesting your person, you end up getting into this amazing relationship with this amazing person that compliments you so well because you're both vibrating at the same frequency. I'm speaking from personal experience with my last relationship. I was in a really dark place when I met my ex. I had just been assaulted and I lost like 80% of all my best friends that I had been friends with for the past six years. It was a long time coming, we weren't really aligned anymore. That's a story for another day. But then this man came into my life, which seemed to be so kismet at the time. he seems like the perfect guy, says all the right things. Seems to be everything that I want, everything I could have dreamed. If you're in a bad place, if you're not in a good place, if you're spiraling, if you're not your best self. If you're in a low place, I promise you, he's not a godsend. He's a lesson. He is a karmic lesson. If you already think you're in a low place and you give someone a chance during this point in your life, I promise you the only place they'll take you is lower. You think you're at rock bottom. Just wait. Just wait baby girl. Just wait. No one's gonna save you but yourself. If you do end up giving someone a chance, when you're at a low point, what's gonna happen is you're gonna end up trauma bonding to this person and misplacing love for attachment and for comfort. I remember I had this analogy, you feel like you're drowning in the middle of the ocean and someone throws you a life preserver, right? And you're drowning. So you're like, oh my God, thank God. You know, you think that it is sent from God, it's sent from above. This is your saving grace, right? And then you start to realize that the life preserver is full of holes. But you're drowning in the ocean. You know this is all you have, and you think that you need this life preserver to survive. So even though you know that it's full of holes and you see that it's full of holes and the more you look at it, the more it seems to be just more and more holes everywhere. You are frantic to patch up the holes as opposed to just getting rid of the life preserver and just trying to swim to shore because you think that you need this to survive. And I feel like that's how people get into really toxic relationships. They feel like they're drowning and that they were set a lifeline and no matter how obvious it is that this is not the lifeline and this is not what's gonna save you. This is not what's gonna even help you and you're gonna spend all your energy that you could have used just swimming to shore, and you'll probably end up drowning a lot faster trying to patch up this life preserver full of holes than you would've just ditching it and trying to save yourself. So yeah, that's my little sad girl analogy. But honestly, that's how it feels getting into a toxic relationship when you're already in a really low point. So yeah, don't do it. Wait until you're in a good place, a healed place before you start dating. I know that people say that being in relationships can help them heal a lot, and I think that that's true a healthy relationship can help you heal a lot of wounds. But I also think that it's really great to get into a relationship when you've already done a lot of the work on yourself and you've already healed as much as you think you can on your own. It's also just respectful to yourself and to your partner. People always think of their dream person or the person that they want to attract. But if you think of that person, who do they wanna attract? You know, who's worthy of them? Do you align with that person? Is that someone that hasn't done work on themselves? Is that someone who's at a low point in their life? Probably not. I think working on yourself and getting to the healthiest place you can be on your own is the best thing you can do for yourself and for your future partner. Just food for thought. Number 10, an insecure man will punish you and try to make you small. He's jealous of you and you're a mirror showing him everything he's not. When you're too good for him, he'll try to make you feel like you're not good enough for him. I know this from personal experience. You can never win with an insecure man. There's nothing you can do to make them feel validated, to make them feel secure. If they're insecure, that is between them and God. That's something that they need to heal and figure out on their own, and all they're gonna do is punish you and make you feel bad about yourself and make you feel unworthy. They probably know that you're too good for them and that they're not enough for you, or they can't be the man or the woman that you deserve or that you need, and instead of facing that, they're just gonna try to make you feel small. This is such a weird thing to think about, but if you're too good for a man, he's gonna make you feel like you are the worst person he's ever dated. You're the least attractive, the least talented, the least whatever. He's gonna try to make you feel small so that he can feel bigger and better about himself. Relationships are mirrors and the worst thing for a man especially, is being shown everything he's not, because again, men are so competitive and they don't wanna be shown everything they're not. They'd rather just be delusional, and if you make them feel inferior, they're gonna punish you for it. Number 11 if a man does more or a lot for the woman after you, it's more about proving to himself that he's a good man than it has anything to do with her or their relationship. Don't ever take it personal if you're dating a guy and he didn't do something for you or didn't do all these things for you, and then he goes and does it all for the next girl. It has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with her. He probably doesn't like her more than you. He probably doesn't value her more, it's more about proving to himself that he's a good person and he's a good man and that the mistakes he made in the previous relationship were not a reflection of him. And if they were, he's gonna try to do things better this time. It really has nothing to do with you, I promise and it really probably has nothing to do with her either. Men are about their image and their ego and their status, and they lead with that. Number 12 red flags in the beginning are what end up being amplified in the end. Trust your intuition. If you saw something you didn't like in the beginning, let him go. The ones that hurt you the most are always the ones you lowered your standards for. If there's things early in a relationship that I don't like and I have to convince myself to give this guy a chance, it usually doesn't end up working out, and then I usually end up getting attached to a guy that my intuition knew wasn't right for me and knew was not up to my standard. Your gut and your intuition is trying to guide you. Women have this gift, our intuition, it's been passed down for generations. This is what make women so magical and feminine energy so magical and why men covet this feminine energy so much and so valuable. There's so many things that I would never put up with from men, and then when I decide to let it go or rationalize it or make excuses for it, it only gets worse. It doesn't get better. Never have I ever made excuses for a man or lowered my standard for a man where he ended up meeting that standard later or surpassing that standard later, that never happens. Life is too short and we don't need to be lowering our standards for anyone and when you do that, they start to devalue you in their brains. When you lower your standards for them, you think oh let me give this guy a chance. You know, he's gonna value me more because I'm outta his league or I'm giving him a chance and giving a shot. No. Men aren't stupid. They also know their behavior and what you're putting up with and if you start to let them get away with this stuff, you're not the prize anymore. They don't value you the same. So when you lower your standard to meet them, that doesn't make them value you more. That doesn't make them grateful. That makes you lose your value in their mind, and that makes them lower You. You can never lift a man up to your level. They can only bring you down to theirs. Remember that. Number 13 inconsistencies mean they're seeing or talking to another woman. They're not too busy with work or their life. They're busy with someone else. everything they do is for women and their attention and their favor. So if he's busy with work or his career or whatever, that might be true, but he's never too busy for the woman that he loves or adores, or the woman that he wants. Men move mountains for the woman that they want. So if he's confused or inconsistent, he's not busy with something else, he's busy with someone else. That's how men operate. Men are simple. So if he's inconsistent, it's because he has someone else. Just know that. Number 14, love can't change a man. Only consequences do. So Barbara, the builder over here, I used to think that I could fix a man. Change a man. I could love him enough into wanting to grow into himself and change. No, men don't change because you love them or whatever. Men change because of consequences. That's the only way men change. Loving someone and giving them more chances and letting someone get away with disrespect, the only thing you get from letting someone disrespect you is more disrespect. That's it. Giving someone a second chance doesn't make them change. They're not gonna do better. People know what they're doing, especially men and men love to push the boundaries and they're gonna keep pushing until they know where that boundary is. So giving them more chances, or having weaker boundaries doesn't make them love you more. It doesn't make them change, it makes them devalue you. If you don't like something that a man is doing, pull back your attention. Go silent, go cold. If he is going cold, you go colder. Match your effort with the man's actions, not with their words. Don't give them more chances. You don't give them more of your energy. You don't give them an explanation. You don't try to tell a man how they're making you feel, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you want a man to change. Let him go. He'll either change or he won't. But either way, it's not gonna be your headache anymore. And I promise you, there's someone so much better that's gonna listen the first time. Number 15, last but not least, they didn't go for someone better. They went for someone who validated who they are now. Again, men don't change with love, they change with consequences, and if they don't wanna change. They're comfortable with where they're at. They're gonna choose someone that validates who they are. Now, this other girl probably is not better than you, probably the opposite, but she's validating who he is now and she's accepting the standard of what he can provide now. Maybe he is showering her with gifts, but he hasn't changed who he is fundamentally. He's still the same insecure, broken, lost boy.'Cause if she's tolerating the bad behavior, but she's getting a chanel bag, cool enjoy the bag, you're still with a clown. Don't ever feel bad that they moved on to someone else. That person is just validating who they are now and their behavior and toxicity, and they're saying they're okay with it. Just be happy that it's not you.'cause there's gonna be someone so much better out there for you. Sometimes pieces of shit deserve other pieces of shit. You're not a piece of shit, and they probably were, and so they're with another piece of shit. Like attracts like. Anyways, these are so many things that took me way too long to learn. I think sometimes we have to learn these lessons the hard way or there has to be real karmic lessons in order for us to change our behaviors. Hopefully you guys can learn from me so you don't also have to learn a lot of these the hard way because if I had learned these back in my twenties and moved differently back then. I could have saved myself so much heartache and so much confusion. But alas I'm just grateful that I finally have figured these out now. So if you like this, please share it with your friends, like subscribe, and I will talk to you guys next time. Bye.