understanding the male mind

Understanding the male mind from a woman's perspective.
I'm not sure the male mind can ever be fully understood from a woman's point of view, but I know that we can try. In order to do so we need to take a good long look at ourselves and how we function, and then realize that none of that applies to men.
Men compartmentalize their lives. Picture a tackle box. Each area of a man's life and each separate type of feeling he owns is put into separate compartments inside of that box. Often, we as women want the whole enchilada, sauce, cheese, rice beans, all put together on one plate. This is a virtual impossibility when it comes to men. You get one or the other, but not all of it at once. Bits and pieces.
Men like to be looked at as strong. They want to be reassured that they are in charge and important. We as women often do not do a very good job of reinforcing these qualities in our men. Men command respect and the position of authority, and yet they continue to ask the smallest of unimportant questions that make them seem all the less important and authoritative.
It is oddly funny that a man holds himself as a pillar of strength and yet is always seeking the approval of his mate. It is such a contradiction in itself that men think they have all the answers and yet the answers they have are the one's they receive from their wives. The simplest of decisions as where to go for dinner or what to do on date night. So often men do not make those choices and yet they are the MAN.
I think the only way to truly understand the male mind is to have the knowledge that the male mind needs to be fed. The male mind needs to be told how great he is, how needed he is and how much we cannot do without him. The male mind lives under the perception that he is great, strong, powerful and needed. Yet he consistently needs to be reassured of those values in order for them to be real.
The only way to understand the male mind is to know that they truly need women in their lives. Men need women to reassure them of all the things they think they are. They need women to help them balance out their machismo with reality.
Although they need women, we women need to understand that they do need reassurance and respect.
Women function with comfort, men function with reassurance.
In order to make relationships work between the two, the woman must be the one to understand her role in the relationship. It does not matter how much you love your man, how much sex you have, if you do not show him respect and continually reassure him of his manhood, the relationship will fail.
Simplistic... the male mind needs to be reassured.