{"id":12941,"date":"2012-05-02T03:05:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T03:05:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T13:40:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:40:15","slug":"to-be-loved-be-lovable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=12941","title":{"rendered":"To Be Loved, Be Lovable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Most women want to be loved. How to achieve that? Step one, be lovable.<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nI read recently an article about nine types of arguments [\u201cfights\u201c] a woman should have with the man in her life. An underlying theme: getting her fair share of whatever. Not lovable.<\/p>\n<p>I know of a couple who negotiated their pre-nuptial agreement to the point where each got most of what each sought. Love was destroyed. Not lovable.<\/p>\n<p>The Boy Scouts take an oath that has a nice list of admirable attributes. <strong>A Scout is \u201ctrustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.\u201d<\/strong> My beloved wife, Tina Su Cooper, tells me that her Girl Scout oath was much the same. To be lovable, adopt these\u2026at least.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notice that \u201cassertive\u201d is not on this list. Do men really want an assertive partner? Not lovable. It may help you succeed at work, but do not bring it home.<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>You can drop \u201cobedient,\u201d too.<\/strong> Neither partner in a marriage need \u201cobey\u201d the other, though each should be sensitive to the wants and needs of the other.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I don\u2019t see \u201csexy\u201d there, either.<\/strong> Admittedly, one would not be pushing \u201csexy\u201d for kids, but even between adults, sexy does not equate to lovable. Many a girl who dressed and acted provocatively ended up wanting to be loved rather than loving to be wanted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let\u2019s hear it for \u201ccheerful&#8221;!<\/strong> Hard to love a depressed and depressing person. Someone who values life and approaches it optimistically is a real asset. A sense of humor often reflects a sense of proportion about oneself and about life\u2019s ups and downs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You can\u2019t go wrong with \u201ckind.\u201d<\/strong> Even when you disagree, the kind person will present that disagreement in as non-hurtful a manner as possible. Sometimes, being kind means saying less than you might otherwise.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Men and women admire bravery.<\/strong> One of my favorite movie characters is the plucky teenage girl in John Wayne\u2019s <em>True Grit<\/em>. Kim Darby was the actress and her character was Mattie Ross, dedicated to avenging her father\u2019s murder, regardless. I found her quite lovable, though probably not everyone\u2019s cup of tea. Our Tina\u2019s father, the late Prof. G.J. Su, encouraged his little girl to \u201cbe a brave soldier,\u201d and as an adult she has endured her crippling multiple sclerosis with a bravery admired by all who know her.<\/p>\n<p>Within reasonable limits, <strong>thrift is a plus.<\/strong> When I dated my dear Tina in college, I had very little money. She was an inexpensive date, a girl who once insisted on walking a couple of miles back to her dorm with me in a light rain rather than calling an \u201cexpensive\u201d taxi. As a wife, she has been very careful with our money, too. Her health problems as we got older have been made more manageable by our considerable savings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How about \u201creverent\u201c?<\/strong> Sharing the same religion, if possible, is a plus. Acknowledging the existence and importance of a Higher Power or of higher ideals can produce better behavior and lovable humility.<\/p>\n<p>Being attractive physically helps. Keep in shape. Dress appropriately. Emphasize your best features and minimize the others. I am not telling you anything new in this regard. <\/p>\n<p><strong>St. Augustine wrote<\/strong> that morality could be summarized in a few words, <strong>\u201cLove God, and do as you please.\u201d<\/strong> As a corollary, if you two love each other, you will be good to each other and good for each other. <\/p>\n<p><strong>To be loved: step one, be lovable; step two, be loving.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., is a freelance writer, writing coach, and retired physicist, author of <strong><em>Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage, and Devotion,<\/em><\/strong> available from Outskirts Press, amazon.com, bn.com, or from the web site, tingandi.com. His email is douglas@tingandi.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most women want to be loved. How to achieve that? Step one, be lovable. I read recently an article about<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2663,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sex-and-health"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"michaelly","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/957a72dc0c08f14979f0d258f5a5d70644519bea0e589bfbc83999b24053b763?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"2","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Most women want to be loved. How to achieve that? Step one, be lovable. I read recently an article about","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News","Sex &amp; Health"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":143,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":4,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"michaelly","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=2663"},"magazine_blocks_comment":2,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/957a72dc0c08f14979f0d258f5a5d70644519bea0e589bfbc83999b24053b763?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a> <a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-2111\">Sex &amp; Health<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}