women want most of the time chatting and socially active strong men able to carry a conversation, manly enough to create a home and have a decent amount of money but delicate enough to be romantic.

That is also what I thought. And I was mostly wrong.

Everyone is unique. Stereotypes usually exist for reasons, but exceptions are much more common than I realized.

I am, genuinely, several of those things, at least a small fraction of the time.

But that’s not my secret.

I’ll share my key attributes that really worked:

• My current partner lived in a shitty situation. Physically shitty. I fixed a bunch of gaps in the walls with a can a “great stuff”. We were just friends at the time, and I wasn’t looking for anything. It’s just something I knew how to do, and my friend’s friend (now my long term partner) needed it done. I was fucking clueless how much this meant to them, at the time.

Presently, how I maintain my relationship:

• I’m sometimes really deeply shitty at talking to people, so I usually use few words and choose them carefully. My (valid) fear of fucking up is a kind of super power for avoiding dumb partner fights.
• I still fix stuff. I’m not afraid of getting dirty, and YouTube academy has been very good to me.
• I ask questions during any kind of physical interaction. Mainly “do you want to be touched there?” and “How does that feel?”
• I still follow a strict budget, even though I now make good money. I’ve heard money fights are a big thing, but making and mostly sticking to a written budget has let me dodge that bullet.