@melyse thank you so much! It means a lot! :D

Your blog is very well said. I truly believe communication is one of the most important aspects to every successful relationship weather romantic or not. Thank you for your prospective of it 🥰

@ukniecy  you're very welcome, thank you for reading!

@unita thank you! And I'm glad you enjoyed the read :)

Love the GGG callout.  I agree with your general point wholeheartedly, but there's a wrinkle here that should be acknowledged, which is that in general (so no nitpicking corner cases, please), men are turned on my much more simple and accessible things than women.  Yes, women are strongly acculturated to put men's pleasure and needs before their own, and sure every person appreciates something or another that's simple enough.  But decades of research show that (again, in general) most men are aroused by stuff like... boobies!  Or nylons, or bob haircuts.  While women are aroused by things that you can't just expose or don and doff, like particular situations like being spoiled or public risk taking, or skills such as dirty talk, or evidence of qualities like confidence or empathy.  That doesn't let men, who are mostly in our culture egregiously selfish sexually and romantically, off the hook.  But it does complicate the idea that equitable effort is easy to even recognize much less practice.  Generally I think you avoid a lot of these problems if each partner can always be aiming to give 70% in the relationship.

Oh, and a more simple direct answer:  I try.  God it's sad to know how few men even do that.  In the last 20 years or so I've asked each partner I've been with more than a handful of times what they might like.  It's usually not much: Dance with me.  Keep the beard short.  Don't shave your head.  Do shave your balls.  All easy enough.  My current GF has a couple requests that I'm trying to bend my ego around. 1. More colorful underwear.  We're meeting in the middle as some things she thinks are "fun" I think are cheesy and tacky.  I wouldn't ask her to wear something she hates, but I'm happy to try out more color and pattern than my standard solids.  She found a company that has a cut we both love on me so I'm slowly replacing the whole drawer.  2. I'm never comfortable in shorts because I'm very long in the torso and they make me look even stubbier.  But she really likes my legs, so I wear shorts now sometimes.  When I can stand it.  Ha!  If she said wear this silky bodystocking for me in the bedroom, I wouldn't bat an eye.  But shorts in public are a struggle!

@fullfeeling LOL! And good for you for making the effort at least, and compromising! Honestly, I think most of our partners would be happy if we just listened more and tried to meet them somewhere approximately in the middle (like you said, very rarely is a relationship 50/50)