What people complain about

I read an article in a british web site (dailymail.co.uk article ), that listed what women complained about in their boyfriend.  From what I can tell, most of it (with slight cultural shifts) applies to women as well as men.

First, note these are things they complained about but they have NOT left their boyfriend.  So they are 'acceptable', but undesirable traits.

Many of them had to do with chores/hygiene/messiness (toilet seat up, nail clippings left out, not helping with the cooking).   No need to list them all - be neat and helpful.

There were two that I found funny (or at least hypocritical):

9. Driving like a boy racer

15. Criticizing her driving

Then there was some silly things like not multi-tasking, watching too much sports, bad dancing and snoring.

Everything above is annoying, and I would avoid them (particularly the hygiene) when you are tryin to get a date.  But they are not game killers, in part because they often say as much about the complainer as they do about the complain-ee.
 
But there were a five  significant issues: 

1. Failing to be friendly with their friends and family
2. Not getting along well with children
3. Not liking dogs
4. Being a "mommy's boy"
5. Being grumpy.

All of these traits are annoying and cause problems.  Best to avoid them.  Be friendly and make a real effort with your date's family, friends and ANY children you see.   Same goes for dogs.   Avoid being too 'wimpy' - this goes for women as well as men.  Men like a woman that can stand up and deal with the world.   Finally try to be pleasant to be around.  When you complain, people dislike you.


That said, let's take a page from British aircraft designers in WWII (they examined returning planes for bullet holes and added extra armor where no bullet holes were found - as clearly the planes that got shot in those areas did not make it back while planes that landed did not need extra armor).


Notice no mention of cheating.  If you cheat women don't put up with it as a flaw, they say goodbye.  Same for unemployment.  Those are the major ones.

Don't envy the intelligent (much)

Don't you just hate it when wealthy people complain about their problems?    They whine about how horrible it is to have all that money.  The problem is of course that it is rather easy to get rid of money.   Charity, tax,  luxury items, not to mention con men, are all perfectly happy to take your money.

While it is a bit harder to dumb yourself down than it is get rid of your money, I do not pretend that being stupid is better than intelligent.  Only an idiot would want to be stupid.  :)

That said, being intelligent is not quite as great as it sounds.   Consider that someone with an IQ of 65 is considered "defective intelligence" (source).   That's 35 points below the average and "normal" IQ of 100.   Now suppose you have an IQ 135.   The average person is that same 35 minutes below your intelligence.   They just don't understand things that are obvious to you.  Effectively you are surrounded by idiots.  (Note I would rather be called an idiot than defective. )

Ever been in traffic and had some idiot cut you off then return to his original lane?   Ever watch some fool try and fail to use a vending machine?   You know that guy at meetings that just does NOT understand anything - no matter how many times you explain it? The customer service guy that clearly knows less than you do?   The cashier that thinks a $2 bill must be counterfeit because they never saw one before? Those are just some obvious examples.  Think about having things like that going on ALL the time. 

Now, I don't want to be stupider than I am.  But being smart is not all it's cracked up to be.   Would you marry an idiot?  (See, this post does have to do with dating.)   Being smart has a lot of advantages.  You tend to earn more money, fall for less stupid tricks, and in general make slightly better decisions.  But stupider people seem to have more fun (or are at least more easily amused), and have an easier time finding someone to love.

Dating makes this issue much more obvious.   If you are only willing to date people whose IQ is over 125, you only have 6% of the population to select from.  For those of us that are very intelligent, we have a significant disadvantage.  Worse, people don't paste their IQ on their far head.  You can't even make a reliable guess based on clothing.   You have to talk to them - usually for more than 10 minutes - to figure out if they qualify.

I think that's why intelligent people do so much better at college dating than in high school dating.  Everyone around you usually has intelligence similar to yours.   This makes certain things a lot simpler.

You can't even use advanced degrees as a shortcut for intelligence.  School requires hard work more than intelligence.  I know people with (estimated) IQ's of 110 that have a doctorate, and lazy geniuses with (estimated) IQ's of over 130 that barely finished college.  Which school they went to is more important than how far they got.  People accepted into Harvard Undergraduate program are smarter than people that finish Touro Law school

Now, some people do prefer a partner that is smarter than them.   At the same time, other people prefer someone less intelligent than them.   I don't see a general trend making intelligent people either more or less desirable.  But we do have a smaller section of the population to choose from.

First Dates

Getting the date is almost 100% shallow stuff.  How do they look.  What do they say in five minutes.  What clothing they wear.   If you have ever rejected someone that asked you out you have been shallow.  That's OK ladies, the same goes for every guy that has asked out a woman.  We pick who to ask out for based on almost the exact same methodology that you use to reject us.  So if you have ever asked out a woman based on how she looks, that was being shallow.

First dates are only a little bit better.   We are talking 80-90% shallow, depending on the people.  Oh, you go a little bit beyond the basics (job, how you spend your time), but from my experience, the gorgeous people (thin women with a nice face and hair, wealthy tall men) are always the people saying no to the second date, not the ones being rejected. 

The movie/TV myth of the bad date being a total jerk is just that - a myth.   Nine out of ten times, we reject people for not liking our favorite movie/music/pet, not because they asked the waiter out in front of you.

It took me a while to figure this out.   First by recognizing it within myself, then by seeing the same stuff happen with other people.   You see, I try to not be shallow.  I date less attractive women.  But I notice that I put up a lot with attractive women - things I would dump a less attracive women for in a minute.  I try to make excuses for still liking them, but they are excuses.  It's not just me, I see it with other guys and can easily see it with women dating men.  


Part of the problem is that we put our best foot forward.  We tell white lies and deceive out dates.  Did they forget to say they 4 kids?  Did they forget to mention they live with their parents?  Did they forget to say they are unemployed? 

Not to mention a whole bunch of stuff we don't know about ourselves.  Bossy people don't think they are bossy, they think everyone else is disobedient.  As such, they can't warn you they are bossy even if they were honest enough to admit it.

Even the second dates tends to be mostly shallow stuff.   Say 60-70% of dumped on the second date are on things that your mom/dad/sister would not think worth it.

It is not till the third date that we start getting into the real core reasons not to date someone.

Now, I don't think shallow = evil.  Everyone is entitled to being shallow.  But in general, we can all try to be a little bit less shallow.  In the long run, we will be happier.

So, before you dump a guy/gal on the first (or even second) date - ask yourself - if they had a ton of other good qualities would you still date them?  What if they were rich?  What if they were thinner?   If your answer is yes, then consider going on one more date and seeing if perhaps they do have a ton of good qualities you haven't learned about yet.

What we can learn from the villains.

How is it that good men and women have such a hard time finding someone while the bad men and women have it so easy.  The bad folk have several advantages that the good ones don't. 

1. Bad folk lie.
2. Bad folk don't care about a lot of the things that the good ones do (job, pets, possible future, etc.).  They are willing to do a one night stand and never see the other person again.  If you look nice, that's enough for them, and they can see your likes right away.
3. Bad folk are willing to take more chances.   They are not as afraid of being hurt, they just go for it.

 The first one can't really steal from them.   In many ways, this is their defining characteristic.  If we lie, we become the bad folk.

The second is less black-and-white.   While we don't want to start having one night stands, one of our issues is that we get too picky.   It is possible to overlook certain negative traits that we reject perfectly good people for.  Unemployed?  So we live on less money.  Allergic to their pet?  Get shots.  Plans to move?  Cancel the move or move with them.  But these are major issues, not little ones.   We still need to find out if we are a match, but we can be a bit more generous.   Look, every single person is single for a reason.   The person without any flaws is either married, incredibly unlucky, or lying through their teeth.   Because perfect people get picked first and get married early - BEFORE they perfect their perfection.  (That is, handsome, nice, doctors get married in medical school, before they become wealthy).

The last trait however is something we can really do.   No pain, no gain.  You want a big reward, you need to take a big chance.  All of us need to take our cue from the bad guys and be willing to take a few more chances with our hearts.   Put our selves out their and talk to more people, meet more people and give more people a chance.

Double Standard

There are double standards when it comes to dating.   When we view those standards "in reverse", we get some interesting affects.

Most men don't try to be attractive.  No make up.   Our hair is never styled.   We have no beauty regime at all.  We make no effort with regards to buying or selecting clothing - and the clothing they do buy is cheap.   Don't even get me started on shoes.

Oh and we guys are FAT.   We men are tremendously overweight by the standard society expects of women.  The best looking men I know have a higher body fat percent then the pretty young women.

And most of us are clueless .  We don't pick up the many social clues women give to tell us what to do.  We don't notice who is interested in us, who hates us, or anything else.


Of course, turn about is fair play.  If men are ugly, fat, and clueless,  women are cheap, rude and shy.   Why, women sometimes don't even take a wallet on their dates.  If a guy did that, not only won't he get a second date, but the girl would tell tales of him as the worst date ever.   Which brings us to my next point...

By men's standards, women rude.   It's fine to be rude to rude men.   But the majority of men are not rude - while the majority of women are very rude.   The reason is simple - guys can't be rude until after we are rejected because we get punished directly by women refusing to date us.  The women on the other hand have no negative consequences for being rude to men they don't want to date.   They take full advantage of this freedom and men are expected to "man up" and take it.

Lastly, women are clinically shy when it comes to dating.  If a man was that shy, he would have severe psychological issues requiring professional help.  They don't ask men out, they don't email, they don't approach men without alcohol.  

The double standards are not bad, nor are they good.  They just are.      By their own standards, men are reasonably concerned with how they look, are not significantly more overweight, and pay attention to women.  Women are generous, polite and assertive.


So before you judge the opposite gender, consider how you personally would be judged using the same standard.

Raising children.

Our culture has a serious timing problem.

It is designed so that the best time to start having children is in our 40s.   By then we have a home, know what we want to do with our life, have some money saved up and in general are ready to have children.  Mentally, we are prepared for anything.

This did not used to be the case.  There is a reason why Alexander the Great left Aristotle at the age of 16 and went to work.  Even a hundred years ago, we could start our working career at the age of 16.    Now, we need High School, College, and often Graduate School.  Twenty four is the new sixteen, it takes us 50% longer to get anywhere.  Most of us want to be 'established' before we try to raise children.  That used to be the age of about Twenty six.  Using the 50% longer method, that becomes 39.

Too bad our bodies are way past the prime by the time we hit 39.   Honestly, we evolved to raise a family in our late teens/twenties.   Men and women are most fertile - with the healthiest sperm and eggs back then.   During that time, we have more physical strength and better health.  Twenty years later, when our minds and bank accounts may be ready, but we have lost our physical edge.

Grandparents can only help so much - with both cash and advice.  What we really need is solid health extension, as opposed to life extension.    A good way to offer people in their 40s the solid health and vitality of their age.   Failing that, we fall back on an old strategy.

This is one of the main reasons why men marry younger woman.   If you want children, it makes a lot of sense.  She provides the health and physical stamina, he provide the money, wisdom, and basic security obtained when you are established.  No, it's not just old goats trying to screw pretty women.

I myself am grappling with the fact that I may be just too short and not wealthy enough to attract a woman still in her prime child bearing years.  I may have to give up on the idea of having children myself.   This is a hard decision.  Unlike many men, I have always wanted a child - or two.   I still want to get married, even if I won't have children, but a daughter or son is one of my biggest regrets.

I know, I have given other people the advice of adoption before.   It is illogical, but part of me is egotistical.  I routinely test in the top 1% for most intellectual tests.  I think I am superior to most people and  I want a child of my own genes.

The worst part is I know that any mental advantages I have are countered by clear physical disadvantages.   Even aside from height, I know my body is not the best in the world.  


This next part is very hard for me to admit.  In addition to mere ego, I have some  selfish reasons to have a child of my own genes.  There is a 50/50 chance that in 20 years, I will need a kidney transplant.   I am OK now - I am not on dialysis or anything like that.   I just take some blood pressure medication.   But I may very well be in need of a kidney in the future.  I have family members  - with children - that have said they will offer me a kidney.  But you can't predict the future and things happen.  Part of me thinks it is a good idea to raise a kid myself to increase my odds that someone will be compatible with my genes.

And the rest of me is horrified by the very idea.  To raise a kid to harvest his kidney for your own use?  What kind of person does that. I sound like a monster.  

Before you think I am a monster, keep in mind that I probably could just go find a woman looking for a man to father a child and pay her child support.   There are people out there like that.  I have refused to do it, I think all in all, I have better reasons for wanting a child and will only father one if I think his mother and I can do a good job raising him/her together.

Being a good person does not mean never having evil desires - it means having them and overcoming them.   Nor does being a good person mean never benefiting from your choices.   You are allowed to enjoy life, and accept biological gifts.    It does mean that your choices are based on something more than just your personal needs.  

It's OK to spend your money on nice things as opposed to just giving it all to charity. Similarly, it is OK to prefer fathering a child of my own genes because someday - if I raise them right - they might want to offer me a kidney - assuming we can't grow our own in a petri dish by then.  (Yes, that fanciful daydream is part of why I am taking a Synthetic Biology class - not that I have high expectations of actually doing this).

Why I am still single in 2011

There is no single reason why I am single.  If there was, I could fix that problem and move on.   Instead there are a multiple of things that are holding me back.  Most likely, that is the case with other people.

In no particular order, they are:

• I am picky.  I like smart, thinner women, and that limits my pool of potential dates.   I have rejected women for both weight and intelligence, some of whom I probably could have had good relationships with.    I can accept smart, moderately overweight woman, or average intelligence, thin women, but even they are relatively rare. 
• I still want children.  This means I focus on younger woman.  I don't exclude woman older than me, but I take it into consideration.
• I don't drink.   This is a big one, it interferes with the major activity used as a back ground for dating, and means I come off as more inhibited than the people drinking alcohol.  In addition, other may think I am boring, or worse, the reason why they aren't having fun if they don't drink.
• I am assertive and short.  Women that like assertive men tend to want taller men.  Some women like short men, many women like assertive men, but few want both assertive AND short. 
• I am not thin.  I wish I was in better shape, but I am not.  I could lose 10 pounds and look better.  I do go to the gym 4x a week, but as of yet I have just turned some fat into muscle, and increased my stamina without losing weight.   
• Thick feet and neck.  Not tot he point of disfigured, but enough to make clothing difficult.  Doctor have tested me for thyroid problems, (no I don't have any.)  This means that if I button a dress shirt, it is uncomfortably tight.  So no ties.  Thick feet means I have similar problems with dress shoes - they hurt my feet.  More so than wearing high heels hurts most women.  Net result suiting up makes me very uncomfortable.
• Nerdy.  I like weird, sciency stuff, and dislike sports.  Some women find this a turn off.   Never quite understood why.   But that's kind of the definition of a nerd, isn't it ?  (What a nerdy thing to say!) 
• I have a reasonable good job.  But in Manhattan, the standards are higher.   Here, the smart, pretty woman are looking for a man to support them with at least $150k/year, preferably over $200k. 
• I am allergic to cats.  Way too many single women have multiple cats.  Studies show 15-30% of people are allergic to them.  There is a reason why the stereotype of people with multiple cats is of an old maid.

So, how do I plan on fixing this.   I won't start drinking.  I can't change height, feet, or neck.  I won't change my personality (assertive/nerdy).  While a vaccine for cat allergies is in the works, it is not yet available.

That leaves:

• Forget about having children.
• Be less picky
• Lose weight
• Get a raise/better job.

Less picky is the easiest thing to do.  If I lower my standards, I can probably get myself an overweight, smart girlfriend.  Particularly if I forget about being a father and go after older woman.

I am working hard at losing weight.  I try to go to the gym three-four hours a week, plus tango dancing.

Getting a better job is more difficult.  I am at the high end of the salary range for my current position, I would need to shift jobs to do significantly better.  Right now, I am not actively looking, but it may come to that.  Honestly, if I do meet someone that wants me only if I make over $150k/year, I am not sure I want them.

Which is in fact the real question - how much am I willing to compromise on the things I want? 

No, that is NOT lowering your standards.  It is about a reasonable amount of personal growth.  I am trying to be less shallow about what I want, but I also have to be willing to attract someone that is a bit more shallow than I would wish.

Reasonable amounts of personal growth are also needed to maintain a relationship.   Relationships are not about finding someone that will love all of your idiosyncrasies, anymore than it is about removing all of them.  It is about making the hard choices about which ones you will fix for your lover and which ones your lover will forgive.   Both of you have to do this - accept some idiosyncrasies and fix others.

The Friend Zone

The Friend Zone is a horrible place where singles get tortured.  For whatever reason, one of you likes the other, but doesn't want a relationship.   I used to think that no man has ever created a "Friend Zone".   If we like you, are attracted to you and both of us are single, we want to make love to you.   Men don't say "I like you, but only as a friend."  If we like you, we like you.  

But I realized that while we would always want a fling with someone we like, we don't always want to marry you.  The guy version of the "Friend Zone" is called "The Friends With Benefits Zone".  In this zone,  a guy likes a woman, enjoys sex with her, but has zero desire to move beyond it.   I suspect that just as many women get caught in the "Friends With Benefits Zone", as men get caught in the "The Friend Zone".

Sometimes they are mistresses waiting for their lover to leave his wife (if he hasn't filed legal papers, he never will.  Trust me, no guy has ever mad a woman wait more than a month to start the divorce).  Sometimes the women are dating Mr. Wrong and think he is Mr. Right.  Usually because he has a bunch of shallow advantages, which blind them to his lack of depth.

But whether you are a nice, wimpy guy caught in the Friend Zone, or a nice, gullible woman caught in the Friends With Benefits Zone, the trap is always due to immaturity on the part of the "Friend-er". 

The male "Friends With Benefits Zone" is the dream of a teenage boy who wants what he thinks is the fun stuff without the responsibility.  By locking that in, he forgoes all the benefits that come with that responsibility: the immense amount of support (emotional, financial, chore sharing) and best of all - a child that grows up with that support.   Maybe he doesn't think he needs that kind of stuff.  Maybe he gets it from his family and guy friends.  If he makes enough money, while his career is going strong, he doesn't need the extra financial support and can even pay an assistant for the chore sharing.  But as he ages he may miss the absence of a legacy.  A kid to carry on and someone to look out for him as he ages. 
 
In the female "Friend Zone" she is looking for the classic "head over heals" love.   She wants to feel that sense of awe, - the mystery of the unknown with the potential for a movie-like 'swept off her feet' life moment.  Once you knows you won't give her that, she loses interest.  Like a love-obsessed teenager, she forgets that Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, not a love story.  In her search for a awe-inspiring love story for the ages, she ignores the real life love staring her in her face, simply because it doesn't look the way she thinks a love story looks.   The truth is, she pays too much attention to the movies, and not enough attention to old married couples.   Real love is about support, not hormones.

If you are a man, trust me, you won't stay young and rich forever.   The younger you look for a wife, the higher quality you will find.   If you area  woman, trust me, marry a friend, not a fantasy.   The fantasy never, ever lasts.  Happily ever after always ends in death, at least for mortals.

The Mean Kids

First, let me state that most people are not mean.   In fact quite a few of the 'mean kids' from high school eventually mature into nice people.  I bet that less than 5% of the population is mean.  Of course, the problem is figuring out who they are.

Every teenage girl knows who the mean girls are in High School.   Every teenage boy knows who the bullies are in High School.   They disappear after High School for one reason:  We are no longer forced to hang out with them in a state mandated class schedule.

Some of them mature before college.  Quite a few of the mean kids don't get into college.  Those that do, tend to go to larger schools, where it is easier to avoid them.    But even if you end up in a small school with still-mean kids, they no longer get the tactic support from adults they need to maintain their mean-ness.  College kids pick their own classes and where they sit, and what non-scholarly activities they do.  This lets people avoid the mean kids. 

But the mean kids don't go away entirely.  Some people never mature.  Worse they are unhappy with the lack of opportunities to be mean.

Until they figure out dating.

In High School, most mean kids pick on kids their own gender.  If a boy physically hits a girl, she is allowed to cry without being laughed at.  Other adults rush to her defense.  Similarly, boys don't care as much about the tactics mean girls use - nasty rumors and insults.   If a girl tries to be too mean to a boy, he might very well hit her.  Sure, he will get in trouble, but she doesn't want to get hit.  It's easier and safer to stick with your own gender.  Net net, mean girls pick on other girls and mean boys pick on other boys -  in high school.

But after High School, it is much harder to be mean to people of your own gender and dating lets you be very mean to people of the other gender. 

Pretty mean girl (and they usually are) still get picked up by men.  They don't know she is mean until after they get to know her - and in our society people are encouraged to date people you don't know rather than those you do know (Yeah, I know, when I say it like that it sounds stupid but no one wants to mess up a friendship/work relationship/etc.)

So every one of those mean girls you remember from High School, is out there making unsuspecting men miserable.  It's actually better when they reject us with a cruel, carefully crafted insult.  At least then we bought them dinner and courted them before they reveal their true colors

We all know what happens to the mean boys - they abuse women - physically, emotionally, and sexually.   They spend their time in bars, deceiving women, and in general acting like they are on a reality TV show.

But women, let me ask you a simple question:   Think back to how the mean girls treated you in high school.  Do you think you got off easy as compared to the boys?  That is, did the boys get bullied more than you did?

I bet you will say no. 

Those same girls that were so horrible to you are the ones that are horrible to us men in the dating world.  I assure you that for every guy that abuses you physically, emotionally, or sexually, there are mean girls that abuse us emotionally, financially and sexually.

We are taking all the crap you used to take - and more.  The worst part is we get told to stop complaining and take it like a man.  Being a guy trying to pick up women is not easy.  For every guy out that doing bad things to women, there are women out there doing bad things to men.  It hurts just as much, but we don't have a legal system to help us out after the pain.

I'm not saying we have it worse than you.  Just saying that you don't know we have it just as bad as you do.  

Stereotypes and You.

Every once in a while, someone makes a list of stereotypical girlfriend/boyfriends. I did so myself.  But this is not about the stereotypes, but about you.

You see, when you think someone is athletic, you really mean more athletic than you are.  Chances are pretty good that they know people more athletic than themselves and they think they are just 'normal'.   Worse, that person usually knows someone more athletic than they are.  This keeps going till you hit professional sports.

So when someone makes  a list of stereotypes, what we are actually saying are things we are not.

The list I looked at most recently had:

• athletic date
• dumb date
• party date
• geeky date
• conservative with a secret kinky side date
• superior date (who will dump you)

This says more about what the average single person thinks about themselves than about the people we date.  In general, we think we are less athletic, fairly smart, not a party animal, not geeky, less kinky and less outwardly conservative, and finally has a bit of an inferiority complex.

More importantly, we are ourselves sometimes get those stereotypes.  I have had women think I am the athletic date (trapeze), the party date (tango dancing every night), the geeky date, and even the conservative guy with a secret kinky side.  I don't think anyone has ever thought me the dumb guy or the 'better than you date


But that's not the whole story.  Consider the reverse stereotypes:

• couch potato
• genius
• workaholic
• anti-geek  (we really need a word meaning the opposite of geek) 
• liberal with a secret conservative side
• inferior date.

But note how hard it was for me to come up with appropriate words for many of these categories.  I don't really mean couch potato - or lazy for example.  Instead I mean someone that does not like to do sports but does do normal amounts of work.   The anti-geek is the worst one.   There are people out there that are very anti-geek and we need a word for them.  You know the type - the girl that won't date a guy because he is a professional magic the gathering player   (source)

The words I used, with the exception of superior/inferior and dumb/genius are not really opposites.  Because we think of the qualities I am attempting to describe as 'normal', and therefore not worth giving a different label.

I think that is a problem.  Normal is not what most of us wants.  If it were, we could find it.    We want exceptional.   We want extraordinary.  We want more than just normal.  Often what we want more of is not the classic stereotype.  Those tend to be things we laugh at/dislike- that is how they became stereotypes. 

Matches that Work

Not all relationships have to end in eternal love with a side of lovely children.   There are a lot of good matches that work really well without children.  Here are a few.  Note, these are good relationships - even if from the outside they look dysfunctional, the people are getting what they want and enjoying life.

But they do have hidden weaknesses that can kill the relationship.   If the participants 'mature' and no longer want the life they original desired, that will always kill the relationship.  In particular, as people get older, sometimes they decided they really do want children, which can kill a relationship based on no children.

1. Young woman that likes the good life + older, wealthy man.  He wants her beauty, she wants his money.   Warning: If she loses here looks, or if he loses his cash, it will kill the relationship.     
2. Ambitious man + ambitious woman.   When they aren't working, they are spending cash like crazy.  They are both willing to put up with each others late hours and business trips.    They don't have time to look for a better mate, they do enjoy the massive amounts of spending cash the double income provides.  Warning:  if either of them decided to stop working so hard, it will kill the relationship.
3. Young, pretty woman that likes the good life and doesn't care if her husband cheats + young, wealthy, fit, sexually active man.   This is a bit of intentional blindness here.  You both are shallow and don't care.  Neither is looking for a 'deeper' relationship, neither wants to improve their own character.  Warning:  If she doesn't know he cheats and finds out, relationship ends.
4. Smart, desirable woman + not-as-smart- desirable man.   This works because he never realizes how she is using him.  She runs his life and he thinks he is lucky to have her, not realizing how desirable he is.  Perhaps he has a good job and is trustworthy, or is simply tall.   For whatever reason, he is very much in demand but does not know it.  Warning:  If she takes him for granted too much, or if he another woman clues him in to how desirable he is, he will leave her.
5.  Any two kinky folk with matching perfectly perversions.  Exhibitionist + voyeur, dominant + submissive, sadist + masochist (yes D/s is not the same as S/M), two foot fetishists, etc. etc.  Warning:  Some people like the fantasy more than the reality.  If they live out all their fantasies, the kink can fade.

Now, I am not making value judgments here.  Some might use words like workaholic, gold digger, cradle robber, player, pervert etc. -  but those are just ways to insult people for doing what they enjoy.   Complaining about that is like complaining that men like pretty women.  It's natural and as long as both parties know what is going on, there's nothing wrong with that.

Where problems occur, is if people don't recognize what they are doing.   Particularly if, as most people are, you are less introspective but very critical of potential mates.  The classic is the young, shallow woman, dating a man for his money, who gets upset when she finds out he is cheating on her.  She realizes he is a player, but never realizes she is a gold digger.  The traditional end if of the story has her dumping him for another rich man that also cheats on her.

But there are MANY many women that know what they are, know what they want, and overlook the cheating.  It is not a sign of weakness - it is in fact a sign of strength.  She is not ignorant, she knows what is goign on, and has decided she likes her life enough to put up with the downsides.  Money makes life a lot easier and all lives have downsides.  Just ask Princess Di's children.  

Not the Destination

I recently heard some one say that every relationship ends and that the absolute best you can hope for is death.

My response is "Do you ask for your money back when you realize that the Carnival cruise you went on brings you back to the same place you started with?"  No.    It's the journey, not the destination.

Which is why "I'll change/teach/fix/help/cure him/her" is such a bad idea.   Even if you succeed,  chances are pretty high that some one else will get the benefit - you fix them but they leave you for someone else because instead of having fun in the relationship, you turned it into school.   You need to enter a relationship that is good at the beginning.  Often relationships get worse, not better because many people are addicted to the hormonal rush of a new relationship.  That feels wonderful, but it fades away.  If you are one of those people, you may suddenly find yourself in a slow race to death.

The trick is to find someone that can deepen the relationship after the fun, but distracting hormonal rush is over.  Someone that as you get to know them, you can trust, depend on, and enjoy spending time with.  It doesn't have to be 100% of your time - but you need to miss them when you are away.

A large part of trusting them is that you can not feel they are the enemy - or the parent you must hide stuff from.   You need to want to make them feel better - not be looking for their mistakes.  And they need to know that.  If they are hiding things from you - even if it is just the fact that they like cartoons.   Because there happiness will directly affect yours.  

This works best if both people are using the same technique.  If both are focused on their partner's happiness, then both see results quickly.  But it works even if you are dating someone that doesn't make your happiness their focus.

You see everyone has faults.  It is NOT your job to fix your mate.  If you can't live with them that way, tell them and get them to work on fixing it.  Or leave them if you can't stand it.  Or insist on some kind of fix - such as hiring a maid if they are too messy for you and you won't clean up after them.   But do not expect them to become the maid.

Crazy dates

Anyone with experience in the dating world has at some point dated a crazy person.  There are a lot of them out there.   In fact, according to psychiatrists, there are about 7 billion crazy people out there.

That's the favorite joke of a psychiatrist friend of mine.  At heart, doctors think everyone's just a little bit crazy.   We all have issues.  Maybe you were picked on as a child.  Maybe you had an obsessive parent.  Maybe you were raped.  The point is as we live our lives, bad things happen.  Even if nothing bad ever happened to you - that would definitely make your crazy - you would never understand how other people could be affected by bad things.

The point is that every one has their issues.   Finding out that someone has an issue should not be a deal-breaker.  Even if you find it early.  Finding out about an issue early may simply mean you are dealing with an honest person - someone that puts themselves out there, truthfully.

But that doesn't mean you should go out dating crazy people.  Instead, when you discover an issue that someone has you have to think about that particular issue.  Is it going to bother you when they clean everything obsessively - and yell at your for not doing the same?  Is it going to bother you if they are jealous?  If they call all the time?  If they don't respond to calls in a reasonable amount of time? 

Keep in mind that you ALSO have your own issues.   Figure them out.   Look for people that won't be bothered by or interact badly with your issues.  I have a thing about fairness and authority.  There are lots of people that won't work well with me.

Things you should NEVER do.

Here is a list of things you should never ever do while dating (or even in a relationship):

1. Repeatedly call/Email/Text someone that you think has not responded to your last message.   You get one original contact and at best are allowed one follow up with a different method to ensure that their phone/pc was working, but that's it.   There is one exception.  If you are a woman and are sending naked pictures, than that is OK. (Note, don't do this if you are under 18 - it is illegal, you will get caught, and you will regret it.)  Men and women do this.  Men when the relationship doesn't exist, women during it.
2. A guy should never send naked pictures to a woman unless she has literally said "send me a picture of your cock."  Even then, she is probably going to laugh at it (unless she has already sent you nude pictures of herself).   I don't care if you are a mix of Tom Cruise and Robert Redford.  It doesn't matter if your penis is a thing of beauty that all women bow down to and praise.   I don't even care if she sent you naked pictures first (and did not request them back).  If she didn't ask for them, don't send them.  If the guy sending the photo is under 18, be assured those pictures will end up on homosexual wank sites.  There is a good chance it will even if he is over 18.
3. Date while drunk.  Getting drunk is what you do to survive not dating.  Dating while 'buzzed' is OK, but not while drunk.  But only if you are there in person.
4. Make any call to anyone you want to date after you have had a few drinks.  This is another movie stereotype bad move.
5. Be upset when your guy/gal is attracted someone besides you.   There is a word for men that don't enjoy looking at pretty women:  gay.  Same thing goes for women (and similarly, if your lesbian girl friend doesn't look at other women, then she is straight.)   Actually I left out the word "Asexual" which also may apply in any of the cases.   Basically, if you want someone that is attracted to you, then they will be attracted to other people.  Grow up and deal with it.
6. Similarly, if you want to date an attractive person, then other people will be attracted to them. Don't complain when other people hit on your very attractive date.  If you don't like it, date a less attractive person.  Note, this is one of the reasons why pretty women will sometimes date ugly men - but it doesn't work unless the men are short.  Women don't care as much about beauty, but do care about height - and that goes for other women as well as you.
7. As a guy, never give a girl your phone number/card and expect her to call.  Always get hers.  She will not call you no matter how much she likes you.  Women want to be pursued, they don't want to pursue you.  Actually, there are a very few men so incredibly in demand that this rule does not apply.  Think Wilt Chamberlain. But if you are one of them, then you have no problems getting dates, won't be reading this website, and married or/and (note the "and" their ladies), having so much sex with so many different women that you should be taking anti-HIV medication every day to prevent  getting AIDS rather than to treat the disease.
8. Expect your date to figure out something.  If you want them to know, tell them.  Otherwise, don't complain.  When people say 'communication is key to a relationship', that is what they mean.  

Good Reasons To Dump a Good Date

Much of the time I try to convince people to be less shallow.  Mainly because I see so much of it.  But sometimes people have good reasons to dump good dates.  So lets talk about that situation.

Not everyone is right for everyone else.   There are lots of people that I know are great people, but not great for me.  Moreover, as incredibly fantastic (and modest too!) as I am, there are some great women out there that just won't like me.

These are not flaws, but instead are incompatibilities.  What makes a relationship with them hard for you might make it easier for someone else.  

So here is a partial list of good reasons to dump a good date.   

• Children.   This is a killer.  If you want children, then you need to find someone that WANTS children.  If you don't want children, then you need to find someone that doesn't want children.   The fact that some women have to force men to pay child support means they had no business marrying the guy in the first place.  They should have gotten divorced before she got pregnant, not after.Geographical incompatibility.   Long distance relationships are hard.   
• Assertiveness incompatibility.  Some people want their date to be more assertive, others want them to be less. 
• Work Ethic.   More work means more money - but less time to spend with you.   Pick which one you want and stick to it.
• Attitude.  Some people disagree about things too strongly to get along.  Whether we are talking about politics, religion, prejudice,  or something else, if you end up yelling at them, it won't work.  Figure out what they care about and see if can accept it.
• Clean vs. Casual.   Different people have different levels of acceptable dirt.  If you are the 'cleaner' guy/gal, then you better be willing to do more of the cleaning than the 'casual' guy/gal

 These are things you need to be talk about early in the relationship.  Before you become too intimate and the hormones take over.

The Secret to a Happy Marriage

The secret to a happy marriage:  (You can exchange genders if you are looking for a wife).

First, you must find a man that is employed and makes good money.
Second, you must find a man that makes you laugh and knows how to have a good time.
Third you must find a man that knows how to cook and clean and keep a good house.
Fourth you must find a man that is wonderful in bed, bringing you to the heights of ecstasy.

Fifth, and most important... these men must never meet.


I always liked that joke.  Among other things it points out the main problem - we look for everything in one person, when it is hard enough to find just one set of good qualities in a person.

By the way, the joke's requirements are not for everyone.  The definition of 'good money' varies for everyone, different people have different sense of humor, some people don't care as much about cooking/cleaning.   There are even some people that don't care about sex.

But the basic concept of having multiple criteria exist for everyone.  If you look for the best in one criteria, that person will almost certainly NOT be the best in the other criteria.  So you need to rank and you need to have a minimum as well as a target for most of the criteria.

Otherwise you may be looking for a gorgeous billionaires and reject two Mr. Rights, one of whom is gorgeous, "10" millionaire and the other a handsome "8" billionaire.

Who decides

Recently I heard someone say that while it is the girl that decides if they will have sex, it is the guy that decides if there is going to be a relationship.

Lets start with the first question - does the girl decide if sex is going to happen?   Not if she is unattractive.  Sorry, but men are shallow - just like women.   Like most men, I have turned down women.  Yes, I have been turned down much much more often, but I have turned down women.

However female beauty is most closely tied to age.  So the far majority of women have experienced a time in their life when they were attractive - and therefore controlled the sex decision - even if they are not as attractive now.

It's not that all men want to have sex with all women.  Instead it is that men rarely date women they don't lust after - and being visual, we can instantly tell who we lust after.  Occasionally men date a woman they hope they will grow to lust after, but not often.  Women, being less visual, often do not find out if lust after a man until they get to know him better.

But the other side of that is attractive/unattractive is relative.   There is a solid 5% of men that are attractive enough to get sex whenever they want it.   These are tall men, in good shape, with high paying jobs, and lots of hair.  They may not be able to have sex with any woman they want, but they can hit on 10 women in a bar and one of them will put out.  Throw in then next 5% or so that can find a "friend with benefits" and that's a lot of men.

 Those men (and the less attractive women) are the exceptions that prove the rule.  So on average, it is the woman that decides if sex is going to happen.

Pretty much the same thing happens with men and relationships.  While there are a some women not looking for a relationship, the far majority want one.  In addition, women that just want sex can usually find a man who wants the same thing without any mis-communication.   But sometimes women use sex as bait for a relationship and sometimes men pretend to be looking for a relationship when all they want is sex.  Not commenting on the ethics of either action, just saying they occur.

Finally, if the woman wants a relationship but not with that particular guy, she usually ends the relationship before sex.    End result, when a women has sex and wants more, after the sex she ends up waiting for the guy to make a decision.  So the man decides - but only after the woman has decided.  Which is just like the sex decision - the woman decides but only after the man already decided.

But wait, there's more.   That 'decision' is actually just a reveal.  The woman may wait till the third date (or maybe just after dinner), but most of the time she made the decision to have sex within 5 minutes of meeting you.  Same thing with the guy - the woman may not know until after the sex whether that is all he wanted - but he made that decision in the same 5 minutes.

The truth is that no, the gal doesn't decide about sex and the guy doesn't decide about the relationship.  We both decide pretty close to the same time - it's just we delay expressing those decisions. 

It's not about who decides - it's about who communicates.

Perfection

One reason some people are lonely is that their dates don't live up to their standards.    So lets talk about perfection.


Is anything perfect?  Is everything perfect?   Consider the best hammer in the world.  It is ideally crafted to push any nail into a piece of wood, plastic, or even concrete.   With the slightest effort it can insert (or remove with the claw head) the smallest nail or the biggest one.


Now I give you a screw.  Is your tool perfect?  Or rather crappy?

When you say an item is 'perfect' you are actually defining it's purpose, or at least claiming to define it.   By stating it is perfect you are stating you know what the item or person's purpose is.

I look out my window and see a very gray, cloudy day.  Is the sky perfect?   Yes, if god wanted to provide shade on this summer day. Yesterday it was blue without a cloud in the sky.  That also could be perfect.

So, when talking about a potential date,  if you call them perfect, you really mean they are perfect for you.    But certain qualities are on almost EVERYONE'S  list.  Tall/thin, wealth/beauty, are good examples.  That means Mr. Perfect-for-you is also Mr. Almost-Perfect for most other people.  Chances are Ms. Competitor has already snapped up your Mr. Perfect and is willing to live with the one thing he does that she doesn't like (even if you wouldn't care.)   Why did Ms. Comeptitor do that?  Well, in a world of 7 billion people, she gave up looking for Mr. Perfect and decided to go with Mr. Right.  
The real question is, why do we obsess about looking for Mr./Ms. Perfect instead of looking for Mr./Ms. Right?

Part of the reason is we are cynical. We have been burned before - often by people who seemed really nice.   In fact they seemed too good to be true, but turned out to be Mr./Ms. Wrong.   So we don't just accept everyone at face value, instead we discount everyone.   But instead of distrusting people that seem too good to be true, this encourages us to look for someone that appears BETTER than Mr./Ms. Wrong seemed to be.  That way, even it turns out they lied, their lie will still be 'acceptable'.

Another reason why we prefer looking for Mr./Ms. Perfect instead of Mr./Ms. Right, is our culture.  We grow up with stories of True Love.  Worse, we pay more attention to the Princess Bride, then we do to Romeo & Juliet.   That is, we like stories with happy endings and for a romantic story, that is usually a wedding.   But a wedding is a beginning, not an ending.       Our fiction leads us to look for Mr./Ms. Perfect, instead of Mr./Ms. Right.


It's not just fiction either.  People usually hide the problems in their relationships, presenting a happy front to all.  So when we look around we see all these happy couples - until those happy couples suddenly break up because they never were happy in the first place.

We need to stop looking for Mr./Ms. Perfect and look for Mr./Mrs. Right.  They will have flaws, things we don't want in them.   But that's OK, because honestly, so do we.

The trick is making sure the flaws ARE something we can live with.   That decision is far more important than whether they are tall enough, pretty enough, rich, enough, etc.    Don't try to marry the Perfects, but don't accept the Wrongs either.  Look fro Mr./Mrs. Right.

I never learned my lesson

Many years ago I met a woman dancing.   Her name was Jennifer and she was just starting out, while I had been dancing for a year or two already.   I spent about a month dancing with her, enjoying myself.  I got her phone number and called her a few times.  It may have been too much, I am not sure - it's been a while.    Then suddenly she stopped dancing with me.  She never said why, she never even said she was stopping.  She just stopped accepting my offers to dance.

I stopped calling her,  as she wasn't calling me back.   For a month I kept asking her to dance every time I saw her.  I slowly began to ask her less often.  Once a week instead of every time, then once a month, and eventually I just stopped asking her to dance.  A couple years went by and I stopped even seeing her.  Perhaps we went to different places to dance, maybe she stopped dancing, I don't know.

Then about four years after I first met her,  I saw Jennifer again.  Someone mentioned that she was leaving New York, so I asked her to dance once more time.  She said:

"Yeah, it's been long enough, I guess you learned your lesson."

If this was a TV show or a movie, I would have instantly processed the situation and either rejected her or at least asked her what lesson she foolishly thought I had learned.  Instead I went with the socially acceptable answer and danced a tanda with her.  (Tandas are a set of about 3 songs, it is considered polite to dance the full set with someone.)

I had not learned anything.  I could not possibly have learned something because she never told me what I had done wrong.  I am sure in her mind I knew - or should have known.   Most woman fantasize about a telepathic man, but they don't exist.   In order for us to know what we did to piss you off, you have to tell us.

Now, I am going to be the first to say that I have stopped dancing with people without telling them why.  One woman, lets call her April, had this horrible perfume.  If I had truly enjoyed dancing with her, it might have been different, but April was only OK..  So I stopped dancing with her without explaining why.  But I never thought they were being punished or that she might "learn a lesson".   I knew she would remain forever clue-less as to why I stopped dancing with her.

I honestly don't know if I actually did anything wrong with Jennifer.  Perhaps she heard some false rumor, or misunderstood something I said.   Or maybe I really did do something wrong.  Perhaps I stepped on her toes, or my hands slipped and touched something inappropriately.   Maybe I asked her frien-emy to dance and not her.   I don't know and never will. 

I wish I had the presence of mind to have asked Jennifer why she was upset with me.   But most of all, I wish she had the brains and courage to actually TELL me the first time, instead of just ignoring me.

Look ladies, maybe us guys are clueless.  Maybe we need extreme remedial listening classes.  But you know that.  If you want a relationship with us half-deaf creatures, it becomes your responsibility to make up for our poor communication skills.  Similarly, it is not acceptable for men to use passive-aggressive "pretend agreement" just because we want to avoid a fight.   When we disagree with you, we have to actually say it ( I have seen too many men agree to things they don't believe in just because they don't want to argue - then find ways to get around it/lie to the women. - but that is another story)

And just maybe it is not us.  Maybe the reason we don't read you as well as your girlfriends do is that you don't talk to us like you talk to them.   You keep things bottled up inside and expect us to pry things loose.    You don't have the courage to say "If you step on my feet one more time I will grind my stiletto into your insole."


Because if you actually tell us what is wrong, then there is chance we might learn our lesson.   If you don't, we never will.

Bravery

Bravery and Confidence are very similar characteristics.   They both involve the capability of doing what others are psychologically unwilling to do.  The main difference is that bravery involves overcoming a more dangerous task.

Women are attracted to Bravery as much, if not more so, than they think they are attracted to Confidence.   But they are actually pretty good at detecting Bravery.  Mainly because faking Bravery is harder.   If you ask a pretty girl out and are visibly nervous, most women won't realize how confident you are.  This is despite the fact that your nervousness clearly meant you had MORE confidence than the smooth guy.   If you rescue a baby from a burning car, people will know how brave you are - even if you are weeping and screaming in terror while you do it.   Even if you act like a complete nincompoop, repeating "Am I on fire?  Is my pants on fire, are my shoes burning?  Check my hair!".  They will still realize you rushed into the burning fire and know how brave you are.   If a calm fireman is right next to you, they understand that his calm came from experience, not from greater bravery.


Many little boys figure this out rather early - or have it evolutionary built into their genes.  Hence the daring-do on skateboards/mountain bikes, the climbing, extreme sports, etc.

Advice for men:

If you participate in rock climbing or extreme sports, they are good topics to bring up when picking up a woman.  It is NOT a good idea to lie about them.  You will get caught in that lie.    When it comes to bravery women are less concerned with the surface and more about the facts.  So give parachuting a try and talk about how scared you were the first time you jumped.  Parachuting is a good choice mainly because everyone knows how scary it is, so you don't have to explain it.

It doesn't have to be sports.   Many of us have had at least one close call with death and talking about it can be better than an extreme sport.  An incident where you displayed courage/bravery is a very good topic for an early communication.    Again, it is a good idea to talk UP how scared you were.  Without you talking about how scared you were, the women may not know how dangerous the situation really was.    Lying about this kind of thing is very likely to backfire.  Stick to the truth - or take a parachuting class to get some truth.

Advice for Women:

If you like brave men, then try some brave sports.   You are very likely to meet a brave man taking the right kind of sports class.  You don't have to take the advanced, levels, the beginner one works too.   Rock Climbing is one of the better choices.  It has clear levels, so you can start off easy and work your way up to the harder stuff.  If you have issues with heights (and are not brave enough to overcome them), then you might try Scuba Diving.   It is more expensive and is much more restrictive about where you can do it, but you will meet some brave men.

The Numbers Game

There is a myth that dating is just a numbers game - ask out enough people and you will get a yes.

I disagree with that myth.   It works very well for attractive people who can ask out 5 people and get one yes.  It works reasonably well for the average person, asking out 10 people to get one yes.  But if you are asking out 20 people to get one yes, that is a problem.  19 'no's in a row can hurt your self-esteem.  Would you tell an overweight woman that before she can get weight loss medication she must be told she is fat by 19 different doctors?  No.  It is cruel and unusual punishment.

Yes, you have to ask a lot of people out/get asked out a lot, but saying it's all about the numbers is bad advice.   It ignores a lot of other issues.

One thing that people asking others out (men are generally the "Askers") have to do is ask out a range of people.  You can't just ask out the people that you think you can get.  Nor can you just ask out people that are 'out of your league'.  Nor should you just ask out people that you think should be "easy yes's".    As a man, you need to ask out some of each.  

This is very different from someone being asked out (women are generally the "Askies"), that has the luxury of setting a constant standard and only dating above that standard.   Askers have to ask out a wide range of people, from the "I WANT!" to the "If I am drunk enough".

There are several reasons for this:

1. Askers have a limited number of people they can ask out.  Time, ego, courage, (and sometimes money) all get used up while frustration rises.
2. Askers don't know who would accept or reject them without making the attempt - and each crowd may be different.  So they have to make a wide range of attempts.
3. Asker's "Maybe" (as in they get the phone number but may not call) takes as much effort as a yes.
4. Askies gain ego and courage for each rejection (and possibly drinks), but their frustration also rises.
5. Askies can put themselves out and consider all those that ask them.  They don't have to 'expand' their potential pool.
6. Askie does not have to say yes/not.  They can always use a "Maybe" without losing any effort.

A guy has to ask out the overweight, homely girl sitting in the corner.  She might have more Buffy the Vampire memorabilia than he does.  OK, he might have to ignore the Twilight vampire books, but she can forgive his obsession with Leela and Amy Futurama figurine dolls.

He also has to ask out the hottie dancing with all the men.  She might be an SCA princess that teachs old English country dances.

You can exchange out my Sci-Fi references for whatever your hobby is, whether it be sports, extended game shows (whoops they prefer to be called 'reality' tv shows) , money, politics, or what have you.  The point is that you can't really judge a book by it's cover.

Which reminds me, ladies - you can't judge a book by it's cover.  

As an Askie, it is very tempting to simply take the best of the lot that asked you out any particular day.  The problem with that is chances are you did not spend more than 5 minutes with the guy.   That means you are judging based on fairly shallow characteristics.   You may have the luxury of setting a high 'shallow' standard, but it is not always a good idea.

My best advice is to stop being an Askie and do the asking.  Men are far less likely to reject you than you are to reject us, and you get what you want, rather than what wants you.

But most of you don't have the courage to be an Asker and that's OK.   I still have some advice if you have to be the Askie.

The simplest advice I can give you is to admit the problem with selecting men based on just what you know in the first 5 minutes.  That means if a guy is tall/rich/handsome, use a stricter set of rules for personality before you give out your phone number - he should be VERY interesting before you date him.   If a guy is not that tall/stylish/wealthy accept a date if he is only a little bit interesting.

Yes, you will date some less attractive people.   But you might be pleasantly surprised when you find out what they were doing instead of going to the gym.    They might be serving food to the homeless, or into extreme skiing/biking/scuba diving even if they are overweight (those are three sports where the overweight can still be very good.)

How we lie

People lie.  Not just to others, but to themselves.

Everyone knows that men lie about sex.  Recently I heard an updated version of an old joke.  The version I heard was:  "To figure out how many women a guy actually slept with, ask him, cut that number in half, then subtract 3."  I wondered what happens when a guy says an odd number (9 people = 1.5).  How do you sleep with half a girl?  Are we talking Necrophiliac, or maybe he just got a BJ?

The real problem is that some men are actually honest.  In fact, the lower the number, the more likely it is to be true.   The number of women I have slept with be counted on one hand - assuming you are using Bill Clinton's definition of sex.   Even if you use a prosecutor's definition, that number is less than half my age.   When asked, I usually say 5, as in my mind, the strictest definition is more in keeping with my character.   

The entire myth of men bragging about sex comes from a relatively small subset of men.   There are lots of honest men out there.   If you want one but can't find one, then your personal standard for dating needs to be upgraded.

Usually when men lie about their sexual conquests, the only people they fool is themselves    There is a incredibly silly scene in Cocaine Cowboys II, where drug dealer Charles Cosby claims to have slept with a legal assistant who was prosecuting him.  When you find out later the legal assistant blew a big case because of sexting with someone ELSE, you realize why this idiot thought he could get away with such an obvious lie.   I doubt anyone except Charles Cosby was stupid enough to believe his tale of being seduced.



Men claim to have sex with women that wouldn't touch them.  But women claim that they are not shallow and don't care about appearances. 

There is a web site called OK Cupid, and they track what their members do.  It found among other things (Source), that women rated 80% of men as 'below average' attractiveness.   Keep in mind that they were rating attractiveness based on a picture, without easy access to height or job information.   Men on the other hand gave the expected bell curve, with about 50% being below average and 50% being above average.

This is because most women do not understand what makes a man attractive.   They know what they personally like, and lie to themselves, saying they don't care about appearances.  At heart, women still think that the general societal view of male attractiveness is "Male Model".  But the typical Male Model is "Pretty", not Handsome.   They are chosen not to appeal to women, but to appeal to gay men.  So the women rated the men on how close their face was to "male model pretty", and found that 80% of men were less than average 'male model pretty',  and they did not care that much about 'male model pretty' when it comes to who they email.   Male "below average" were in fact more likely to get mail than "average", using the women's score of attractiveness.

It reminds me of a scene in "How I Met Your Mother" (HIMYM).  They are discussing how in every relationship there is always a more attractive person and the other person is 'reaching'.  Marshall (Jason Segel) asks Lilly (Alyson Hannigan) and eventually gets her to admit she thinks she is more attractive.

First of all, let me state that I am a big fan of Alyson Hannigan.  In my personal opinion, she is a 9 (10 if she dresses up as Vamp Willow - but that's just my inner kinky geek).  But in HIMYM, they downplay her attractiveness to make Robyn (Cobie Smulders - a 10 who does not actually need the help) look better.    So while Alyson deserves at least a 9 for attractiveness, Lilly earns an 8.

But Marshall Eriksen is just about a perfect 10 when it comes to the average girl's first impression.  He is 6'4",  corporate lawyer that is not stuffy, has hair, and is in good shape. 

Marshall is clearly the 'more attractive partner', at least from the shallow perspective, but Lilly doesn't know it.  Why?  Because she (like most women) thinks that attractiveness is found in the face of male models, and Marshall does not look like that.

Note, it should also be noted that in HIMYM, it is demonstrated that Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) that we know sleeps with a lot women - lies about sleeping with women.   Women lie about not being shallow, men lie about sex.   It is a very realistic show. 

The average woman does not like male models, they like: tall, successful, men with a full head of hair and more muscle than fat (but not body-builders).   The average man does not sleep with very men women.  Unless of course you are in good shape and are either very famous or very  rich.

So women claim they are not as shallow as men.   Simultaneously, men claim they can get laid as easily as a woman can.  Neither claim is true. 

Chemistry

Chemistry is short hand for "I'm attracted to you".

When someone says they don't want to date you because there was no chemistry, they mean "I can't imagine having sex with you without a lot of alcohol", but are being polite.

Politeness is a huge mercy, so don't get upset with them.  But if this happens a lot, you may need to lower your expectations of physical beauty, and raise them for deeper things.  That is, stop trying to hit on the hottie with the body but no brain, and look for someone smart enough to want to get into your pants/dress/kilt/mumu, etc.

On the other hand if you keep going on dates where you are the one feeling  'no chemistry', then you may need to start asking out the smoking hot guy/gal.   This goes for women too.  I assure you, any man worth dating will be happy if you make the first move.  But remember that guys that get 8 rejections out of 10 tries are doing pretty good, so don't get discouraged when you are turned down.  Guys are easy, so chances are you will probably only get turned down one out of two tries, not 8 out of 10 - as long as you are asking out people that are 'in your league'.

Anger Management

Anger is natural.  It pumps you up and gets you going to do something physical.    If you are facing an invading army, it is the perfect emotion to feel.    If you are facing a loved, liked, or even tolerated one, anger is the worst thing that can happen to you.   Anger makes you want to hurt your target.  This works fine if your goal is death.  Not so much if you don't want to actually kill them.

Anger makes people win the battle but lose the war.    The mechanism is fairly simple.  Anger gets you to over-commit your resources.  If you spend too much on one battle, you won't have enough to win others later on.

This works for relationships as well as wars.

When dealing with something that makes you angry, my advice is to first go some place and calm down.  Then start thinking about how to achieve your goals WITHOUT hurting anyone you care about. 

It is not a good idea to convince your husband to give up Sunday Football and go shopping with you if he will resent you for it.   Even if he hides the resentment.     It is not a good idea to convince your wife to try a threesome if she doesn't want one.  Even if she orgasms. 

It is better that neither person gets what they want if it means the other is resentful.  You need to find ways to compromise so that BOTH sides end up happy.  Part of that is accepting that your partner may get happy from things that you don't like.  Even things you hate.     To quote Dan Savage "If cake play is what a man needs, his wife should give it to him; if she can’t bring herself to, then maybe she should allow him a chocolate-frosted excursion with another woman." (This was in response to a man who simply wanted his girlfriend to slam a chocolate cake into his face - cake play meant playing with cake, not a euphemism.)

Sometimes you will be in a situation where someone is going to end up resentful no matter what.   One person has family in California and wants to stay there, the other gets a great job offer in Texas.  The trick there is for one person to bribe the other till they think it is worth it.

Maybe offer to use a lot of that extra money to buy a Motorcycle for the one that wants to stay in California (even though the Texas bound person thinks they are too generous).

Note, these techniques also work well in other types of relationships.  Amazing what simply staying calm when talking to an airline can sometimes do.   Of course it requires that both people be reasonable, not always the case.

How many phone numbers should a single person get/give?

One of the things that shy people do is focus on one single possible date.  They pick out the best person and only concentrate on her/him.  Unless you are Gisele Bundchen /  Jude Law, this is obviously a bad idea.

Note, I am not talking about being a player and sleeping around.  If you want to do that, it's another topic entirely.   Instead I am talking about when you are between relationships, not sleeping with anyone yet.

I try to have 3-4 potential dates lined up at any one time.  In my personal experience, about 2/3 of them will not work out.  They won't call you (or call you back), they will flake out and cancel, etc. etc.   Often they thought about dating you, but found someone (or thing to do) they thought was better.  You were their "safety" pick.  It took me a while to understand this, as I don't make safety picks and rarely if ever cancel.   If I say I will call you, I generally do.  But I am an exception.   Other times real life gets in the way - they get sick, work gets busy, etc.  In either case, sometimes they are rude and don't call/call back, other times they have the courtesy to tell you on the phone.


The remaining third are not always winners.  They may show up for the date, but it turns out to be a bad date.   Recently I dated someone who, despite repeated attempts at my part to explain the difference, thought Salsa and Tango were the same thing.  At this point I realized that perhaps she was not the girl for me.

So when I am on the prowl, I try to get about 3 new phone numbers each week.  I expect one to use voice mail to ignore me, another to cancel (perhaps with a reschedule - but not always).  That leaves one person to go on an actual date.

In a successful week, I have a second date and a first date planned.   I don't stop asking additional women out until a relationship has progressed to sex.  Once that happens, I stop dating other people till I see if the relationship works out.

But sometimes a date progresses faster than you realize.   Which of course leads to the situation of what do you do if you had another date planned already/promised to call someone but you just had sex.   As a guy I like to keep the other dates.  So far, every time this has happened the other dates have not impressed me enough to give up the existing relationship and I don't ask them out again.  I call this "dating without intent".

But I am a guy who usually pays for dinner - even on second dates.  That means that when I "date without intent" ,  I am buying a women dinner "under false pretenses".  Buying a dinner is very different than accepting dinner 'under false pretense'.    I don't really know what I would do as a woman.   That might be why I get many more cancellations than I give out - but I myself would never do that.

My advice to women that are in this situation is to call up the new guy and tell him you would go on a date with him again if he let you buy him dinner.    If he refused, explain that you are getting serious with another man and don't expect him change your mind.  Worst case scenario call and cancel.  

Never leave a guy hanging  - he might be keeping date night free in case you call him back.  Yeah, this is kind of sad - but don't kick a guy that is already down.

Honesty vs. Deception.

Everyone complains about liars, but no one admits they lie.  Most people lie, at least a little bit.  The problem is that there is no clear line between truth, big lies or small lies.  It is a spectrum, with some lies being a lot worse than others. Hence the expression "white lie".

At one end of the spectrum is the person that thinks makeup is a lie because it makes you look better than you really look.  Thank god, I have never met anyone that rigidly honest.  I doubt I would like them.  On the other end of the spectrum is a guy (or gal)  that claims to be single because their spouse is not physically in the same room.   I have met people like this and I know I don't like them.

In between you have people that think it is OK to leave out information that you did not ask.  It starts at "You never asked if I had actually owned the car, or rented it for the weekend." and ends at "You never asked if I had a sexually transmitted disease."  Other people lie about their weight, height, age, job, etc.   There are white lies about liking your significant other's new clothing or hair style.  There are the gray-er lies about liking the same food, music,  movies, sports, past times, etc as a new date does.  We've all seen the movie/TV joke where someone says they have skill in a sport/hobby/game and then ends up having to prove it.

To make matters worse, people often lie to themselves about the things they lie to others.   If you ask a woman how much she weighs, unless she weighed herself that morning, most likely she will think back to the last 5 times she weighed herself and pick the lowest number, not the most recent.  Similarly, guys tend to remember their maximum height - with shoes on, in the morning, at age 20 (shoes can easily add a centimeter, you lose some height during the day -and regain it at night,  and in worst case scenarios you can lose a centimeter of height in a decade).   

There is a whole spectrum of honesty to deception.


I am pretty honest.   If anything, I tell a bit too much about myself too early in the relationship.   But I am not perfect, I lie.  I don't correct my father when he says the Battle of the Bulge happened in WWI (it was WWII).  I pretend to believe in Santa Claus when little kids are around.   I do my best to look taller, richer, and in general more attractive to women.  If I were a woman, I would use make-up.  In my opinion all of these things are perfectly acceptable, normal behavior. 

Then there is the "my lie is not as bad as yours" crowd.  Men think that lying about height is not as bad as lying about your age.  We talk about rare cases when men go to jail because a 17 year old girl claimed she was 18, and the guy was 22.   Women think that lying about their age is not as bad, because they look young.   Then they talk about how if they give their real age they get hit on by men much older than them.

Here are a list of unacceptable (to me) lies.  People should never lie or even imply a falsehood about:

1. Sexually transmitted diseases
2. Pregnancy
3. Being in a relationship/marriage
4. Age if you are under 18. 

Those lies are beyond the pale.  

In general, you should also not lie about:

1. Debt
2. Employment
3. Children
4. Past relationships
5. Legal issues

No one likes it when people lie about the following, but it is so common that a little wiggle room is not a big deal:

1. Weight (5-10 lbs wiggle room)
2. Age (1-2 years wiggle room)  - as long as you don't claim to be 18+ when you are younger
3. Height (1-3 centimeters = 1 inch wiggle room)

People tend to forgive lies about liking clothing, food, games, etc.    While they are still lies, no reasonable person will dump you if you lied about liking/not liking Lady Gaga. 

Another issue is that people usually over-estimate how good they are at detecting lies.   No one thinks they can be fooled, but somehow liars always seem to prosper.    It is very hard to tell how honest someone is. Liars lie about how honest they are - to themselves as well as to others.  Worse, sex is one of those things that inspire most lies.

My big problem is that honest daters are competing with liars   The liars are pretty convincing - they have lots of experience.  So the 'lie hearers' tend to discount things a bit.  He says 6', they expect 5'11.   She says 35, they expect 37.

Lets say you tell the truth and admit that the doctor measured you yesterday at 4 PM, in your bare feet and you are 5'5 and a 1/2".    There will be women that reject you but who will still date a 5'5" that said he was 5'7".  No, she can't tell because guess what, he used lifts or wore cowboy boots (both of which can add 2 inches to a guy's height).   He gets to keep the girl.  Similarly, the women that says her weight is 140, when she is really 160, can show up in a full corset and pull it off.    She gets to keep the guy.  Yes, eventually they have to show the truth, but by then they have emotional hooks into their 'victim'.

This effectively punishes those of us that are actually honest.   When people (both women and men) say they hate liars, they usually mean they hate BAD liars.  They generally dislike truth tellers more than effective liars. When a women complains about men lying about their height, she almost always rejects short men before she rejects a liar.  It's why men lie about their height online.  Most woman that will reject us for lying about our height would have never given us a chance if we told the truth.  

More importantly, unattractive people hope that attractive people would date us if they got to know us.   At heart it is an inherent belief in romance - that beauty will fall for the beast.  Only the truly cynical never hoped for the fairy-tale ending. 
 
My favourite are the women that say "I need someone tall enough to wear high heels with?"  Did someone pass a law that says you can't wear high heels if you date a short man?  No.  Would she refuse to walk down the street next to a short male friend?  No.   She is admitting she is so shallow that she won't even date someone that LOOKS like they are shorter than her, even if they are actually taller than her.  These same women give lie to the claim that "there are plenty of women willing to date short men."  No, there are not.

Similarly, there are not plenty of men willing to date overweight women, nor are there plenty of men willing to date older women.   Strangely, we do seem to be better at hiding our shallowness than women.  In my age group, there are guys that say "I want a woman under 35 in order to have children."  It's a much better excuse than the high heels crap.  If they really want children (I want children and used to use this excuse), at least it presents them as an honourable family man, rather than someone bending to peer-pressure.   But science can now get a 68 year old woman pregnant.   If a woman wants children, age is not an insurmountable obstacle.   In truth, the 40+ men that require a wife 35- are being just as shallow as the women requiring a tall man.  Note, preferring is not shallow, but requiring is. Also, as a reminder, it's OK to be shallow - as long as you admit that is what you are doing.

Here is a simple test.  Think of something that people tend to lie about.  Now assume that they lied the REVERSE way, in order to deceive you.   That is, the tall guy claimed to be short, the 30 year old woman claimed to 35, or the faithful spouse claimed they cheated on you.  How would you react?  Now you can really tell if you care more about the lie or the thing being lied about.  If you would not care, about the reverse lie, then you don't really care about being lied to.

In general, for the things I don't want a date to lie to me about, I don't care which way they lies.   If she claims to be broke when she is rich, I would be just as upset as the other way around.  If she claimed to have cheated on me as a 'test' to see if I loved her, I would dump her (fidelity is very important to me - but honesty beats fidelity).   If she claimed to be average weight when she was anorexic, I would not date her.


I don't think that is the case for most people - I value honesty more than most.  As such, I expect more honesty from myself and demand it from others.

That said, age has tempered my honesty.  For years I proudly listed my height (at least the height I thought I was - which was measured shoes on, at 20, in the morning).   Now, I prefer to leave my height blank on dating websites.   I even own a pair of cowboy boots.  They add about two inches to my height and  I usually wear the boots on the first date.

Am I a liar?   Perhaps I am, just a little bit - but not more than a woman wearing a corset.

---------------
P.S.  If you are dating me, please wear high heels even if you are taller than me.  Particularly if I take you dancing.  I guarantee you will have more fun dancing tango with me than with most tall men.

Daddy Issues

When a women engages in sexual activities that others object to, she is very likely to be labeled as having "daddy issues".  It is a very common slang applied to everyone from loose women to prostitutes.  The idea comes from Freud, a doctor who, while still praised for introducing science to what was the art of psychology, has had almost all of his theories thoroughly discredited. 

I am firmly against the idea of "Daddy Issues".   I feel the entire concept is insulting to women.   Women make up their own mind, they are not slaves to their childhood.  They are responsible for their own choices when it comes to sex, not a bad up-bringing.


There is no reliable scientific evidence showing that an absent or bad father creates a sexual daughter.   More importantly, most young ladies (and grown women) are closer to their mother and are far more likely to discuss sex or seek advice from their mother than their father.  Yes, fathers are important - to both sons and daughters.  Yes, a good father can make a difference.  He can help keep her off drugs, out of crime, and raise her self-esteem.   But a daughter (or son) with daddy issues is no more likely to be more sexual than someone else.  If anything, someone with low self-esteem is likely to be shy and retiring, not overtly sexual.   Moreover, poor self-esteem is NOT the reason why women turn to sex.   Strippers usually have a very highly developed self esteem.  They are if anything, arrogant (or so I have heard, my experience here is rather limited).  Some use their money to support a kid, others to support an education, and others to support a high end lifestyle.

Sex is usually fairly easy for women, particularly thin women.  Think about how many men would sell sex to women for money if they knew they could make money doing it.   I know male  doctors that would quit their job and turn "Pro".   Not to mention certain politicians I know that would do it in a second.

The question is not why some women sell sex but why so many don't.  Most women are respectable (thank you, from those of us looking for a wife, not just a good time). The money and attention can be remarkably high for a tiny amount of effort.   The reasons not to are rather limited:  1. age limits on effectiveness, 2. the effect on serious relationship, 3.  bad reputation.

This means that women that are (at least by societies standards) overly sexual do so not because of 'daddy issues' but instead because:

1. They have a "Live in the Moment" philosophy
2. They enjoy being single and don't want a relationship
3. They don't care what others think of them.

This matches what I know of strippers, kids on "Girls Gone Wild", and other such people.    These are not what Freud or common wisdom considers "Daddy Issues".   They do not have low self-esteem, they simply are not planing on being a respectable, traditional mother.  At least not 'now'.

To my mind, we need to stop using pop psychology to label and ignore sexuality.  There is no such thing as "Daddy Issues".

Why I still dance

There are a lot of good reasons to dance.  Dance is good exercise, social and beautiful. But I have been dancing tango for well over a decade, and those are not the reasons why I keep coming back for more.

When you are single, every once in a while you become discouraged.   You worry you will never meet the right women/man.  That you are not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, young enough, or whatever other insecurity that lives in your soul.     Worse, sometimes you will see beautiful people that you know would never date you - even if they wanted to dance with you. Sometimes that alone is enough to discourage you.  Luckily that doesn't happen all the time.  This post is about a much nicer experience on the dance floor.

There are three ways I generally lead a tango.  I can dance for the audience, making every step look elegant, but sometimes feeling awkward.  I can dance for myself and my partner - perhaps being less visually striking, but feeling fantastic.  Or I can dance for romance.  This is not an attempt to win romance, but instead to feel it.  Note, it helps that I am a pretty good dancer, but this worked even when I was a novice.  On my very first tango lesson, Paul Pellicoro inspired a tiny version of this feeling, which got me hooked on tango. He did it without even touching me - using just the sight of his feet, the meaning of his words and the sound of tango in the background.

When I dance for romance, for the length of that song, there is a woman that loves me.  She loves me as much as any woman has ever loved a man.  Her every step, every movement she does to please me, knowing that my every step, every movement I do to please her.   We are not just the focus of each others attention, but the entirety of it.   Our every thought is of each other, our hearts beat as one, we feel each others breath, and we support each other.

For the length of that song, I know I am worthy of any woman.  While the music plays, I know I can win someone's love, I just have to find her.   Even after the song has ended, I know that if I can feel that way once, I can feel it again - and be worthy of her when I find her.

And that is why I dance.