At age 25, Josh Sundquist took stock of his dating life. It didn’t look good. Not only was he still a virgin, but in all his years of dating, he’d never had a girlfriend for more than 23 hours.
“We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, A True Story” by Josh Sundquist (Little, Brown)
“People were like, ‘Wait, you’ve never had a girlfriend?’ ” Sundquist said. “You’re a put-together person, a normal person. Why not?”
To find out, Sundquist embarked on a two year “High Fidelity”-esque journey, tracking down and interviewing the 12 women who got away — or, rather, whom he never had in the first place.
Sundquist, who lives in a suburb of DC and makes a living as a motivational speaker, has chronicled his social experiment in his young adult memoir, “We Should Hang Out Sometime.”
At first, Sundquist thought the cause of his dating woes was his disability — he lost his left leg to a rare form of childhood cancer when he was 9.
“Part of me thought or hoped that it was something having to do with my leg. Maybe these girls had a problem with a guy with an obvious physical disability, rather than a problem with me,” he told The Post.
But as the experiment unfolded, he found a more complicated story — one that made him not a victim, but a active cause of his loneliness. Here are three of Sundquist’s “exes” and what they taught him.
The Girl He Dated 1 Day
Sundquist was infatuated with a close family friend, Sarah Stevens, for as long as he can remember. “I always had a crush on her,” he said.
A friendship blossomed and in seventh grade, Sundquist received the instant message of his dreams. Stevens had a crush on him.
Armed with new confidence, Sundquist asked her to be his girlfriend. She agreed — but for only 23 hours.
By the next day, via an instant message from her friend, she alerted him that they should “just be friends” through her friend.
Years later, in his home in Harrisonburg, Va., during Christmas, they reunited when she came home for the holidays from New York City, where she was working as an actress.
Over coffee at the local Starbucks, he jumped right in: “Remember how we dated for, like, a day?”
She burst out laughing. “I remember.” She paused, some more laughs bubbling up. “I mainly remember when you asked me out, I think it was at youth group or something, and you were like, ‘Will you go out with me?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and then you were like, ‘Cool,’ and then you just” — here she laughed some more, the memory reaching its crescendo — “walked away. And I was so freaked out. I’d never had a boyfriend before. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, Josh is never going to talk to me again! Now that we are going out, we aren’t going to be friends anymore!’ ”
“So you were worried we wouldn’t be friends anymore?”
“Well, yeah,” she said. “I mean, you literally walked away immediately after asking me out. It was sooo awkward. I figured we probably wouldn’t talk at all if we were boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“You were probably right,” he admitted.
“So when you walked away like that, I could see that our friendship would be ruined if we dated, so I just — I just — ” She seemed to struggle with the words. “I don’t know —”
He threw her a line. “No, that makes sense,” he said. “I was pretty awkward.”
“We both were,” she said.
Lesson: “It never occurred to me that I could actually be the cause of it,” Sundquist told The Post. “Seeing it from her perspective, I was super awkward.”
The Beauty Queen
Ashley Young, who was Miss North Dakota 2007.
While in graduate school for communications in Los Angeles — still sans girlfriend — Sundquist met the girl of his dreams in North Dakota while giving a talk to middle schoolers at his experience as a Paralympic ski racer. Blond bombshell Ashley Young, a k a Miss North Dakota, was there, too, giving a talk about bullying.
The two hit it off and exchanged digits. Through the motivational-speaking circuit, they crossed paths more times and continued chatting on the phone.
The moment came for Sundquist to make a grand gesture — and he decided to do it on the biggest night of Young’s life. He bought a tux, hopped in his car and road-tripped to Las Vegas to the 2008 Miss America Pageant.
But when he arrived to surprise her, she gave him the cold shoulder.
“It was really awkward,” he said. “At this $2,000-a-plate gala thing, I sort of imagined her being like, ‘This is amazing! Let’s be boyfriend and girlfriend!’ ”
The two never spoke again — until his investigation took him back to North Dakota to face the girl of his dreams once more and ask why:
“I found myself at a booth with Sasha in a sushi place. I was nervous. Our conversation was basically an act of verbal procrastination.
Eventually, she asked, ‘So, you have a girlfriend?’
‘No. Do you have a boyfriend?’
”
She shook her head, smiling like that was a funny question. “No. No boyfriend.”
“Speaking of which . . . Remember when we were — I mean, remember when we used to be — remember . . .” This was not going well so far. “When I came to Las Vegas? To the Miss America pageant?”
“Of course.”
“That was a big deal for me,” he said. “Look, what I want to know is, how come you blew me off that night?”
“What?”
“You blew me off. You barely said a word to me.”
“Josh, I was about to compete in Miss America,” she explained. “The pageant was the biggest day of my life. It was a whirlwind. I barely even talked to my parents.” The waitress arrived with his seaweed salad.
“So how come you never called me afterward?”
“After what?”
“The pageant.”
She frowned. “You mean after I lost?” she said. “You had paid all that money and traveled all that way to see me compete. I wanted you to see me win and wanted you to be my boyfriend. But I lost. And I was ashamed about that. I was embarrassed.”
“You liked me?” he asked.
“Of course I liked you.”
“So why didn’t you call me?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I didn’t call you because you blew me off. I thought you had started dating someone else or something.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“Maybe it’s not too late,” he said.
“No, it is.”
She looked down at the table and kept her gaze fixed. “I followed it down to her hand, where I noticed for the first time a sparkling diamond ring. I blinked a few times.
“I thought you said you don’t have a boyfriend,” he said softly.
“I don’t. I have a fiancé.”
Lesson: Empathy is key to relationships. “I’m now able to get in her shoes and see her perspective. It would be like if someone showed up at the Paralympics right before my ski race. I would have been shocked and focused on the race. So, yeah, it’s totally understandable how she acted.”
The Next Door Neighbor
After the beauty queen, Sundquist recognized “Alexis Goodall” (pseudonym), his attractive neighbor at a local bar in 2010.
He didn’t have the guts to ask her out that night but conjured up the courage to leave her a note with his phone number on her apartment door the next day.
She took the bait and the two went out for two very promising dates—with one ending with a kiss on the cheek. Then she withdrew.
After a brief, but very cold run-in with Alexis, Sundquist decided to call it quits and stopped returning her text messages. “Something was wrong with me, this was for certain. I just didn’t know what it was.”
Years later he e-mailed her to found out. An excerpt of their e-mails follow:
Hey Alexis —
Your boy Josh Sundquist, fellow second floor dweller, here.
How’s life?
Well, I hope.
Really random question for you.
Remember how we hung out several times a few months back? So obviously it didn’t work out. It was not and is not a big deal to me emotionally or anything, but I’ve ever since been kinda curious as to what happened. I’m usually reasonably intuitive, and I had thought we had pretty good chemistry and such.
So I’m just wondering — was I not your type, did you get back together with an ex, etc?
And her response:
So let’s get right to it . . .
I had just ended a very unhealthy relationship prior to meeting you. At the time I thought that at first everyone seemed pretty cool and then inevitably turned psychotic within a few months of dating . . . and so in retrospect I probably wasn’t in the best place, but of course didn’t realize that at the time . . .
The night at Clarendon Grill I was very happy to have met you and very happy when I received your note under my door the next day. I had a great time each time that we hung out . . . I really enjoyed getting to know you. The only thing that I remember concerning me was that I felt like you were a little younger than me and for some reason it seemed like a bigger deal than age had ever been to me in the past . . . I remember thinking that you were going to be totally freaked out when you found out that I am divorced . . . which you are probably just finding out at this very moment . . . SURPRISE!!! . . .
I hope that answers your questions . . . I’m sorry that it took me so long to explain. There really wasn’t anything that you did or didn’t do. If I had to blame it on something, I think that I would blame it on timing and location.
Lesson: Timing and location is everything in romance. And sometimes a bad romance is entirely out of your control. In other words, it’s not always about you, dude.
The Upshot
Sundquist with his fiance Ashley Nolan.
Sundquist met his girlfriend, Ashley Nolan, out dancing at a bar. Though he was too shy to approach her, she came up to him. The two started dating seriously in May 2011 and plan to wed next September. He cites the study as “enabling him to be in a relationship.”
His grand ex tour taught him something a lot of “nice guys” could stand to learn — put yourself in her shoes.
“I think that the ability to empathize and have talks, and here’s what I’m feeling, here’s what you’re feeling, is obviously an ability that I totally lacked before,” he said.
“Through these investigations, I’ve gained an ability to be like, ‘Let’s talk through this instead of freaking out or walking away or assuming something is wrong.’ ”
Monday, December 22, 2014
Sunday, December 21, 2014
DATING: LOWERING YOUR STANDARD?
In the past, I have not had particularly high standards for the woman that I have dated. I had this idea of what I wanted but I pursued it with people who I wasn’t right for and who weren’t right for me. I like to give people chances to prove themselves, chances far beyond what’s reasonable. I’m great at overlooking the negative in favor of the positive. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s when the negative shouldn’t be overlooked that I get myself in trouble. I haven’t been great at distinguishing what’s an acceptable flaw and what isn’t.
I recently went on a few dates with one woman. By the end of the date there were little things that were already starting to drive me crazy. I could already see our future together and in consisted of me being constantly annoyed by her. My first reaction was to try to see past it and to focus on all the things I liked about this woman. We had a lot in common and conversed pretty easily. Yeah well, those are the worst. Reasons. Ever. Do you know how many people are out there who I could say the same about? You probably don’t and it’s because THERE ARE SO MANY. That’s like, the most basic criteria for a relationship ever.
I really do not have to give every single person I meet a chance. There are SO many potential suitors out there. Why in the world would I settle just because we like the same books? Like seriously. Having things in common is definitely a plus but is NOT the be all, end all of a relationship. Not by far. And there I was, considering trying to change who I am in order to accommodate this woman who was more or less still a stranger, who had given me absolutely no reason to do so. Like what is that? Why in the world would I do that?
Given my history, this isn’t surprising in the slightest, but if I don’t learn from my history then I am doomed to repeat it and that is something I don’t particularly want to do at all, thanks.Nope. I mean it’s really not difficult for my standards to be higher than they previously were, but apparently I am now too picky, I really don’t think that’s true, but even if it is, it’s still better than my former approach, so I don’t really mind. I’m not aggressively pursuing anything serious right now anyway, so why would I bother with woman who I’m not attracted to or don’t really interest me? Why should I waste my time on date after date, hoping that things will improve, when I wasn’t that interested in the first place?
After several failed attempts in the whole dating department, I’ve learned what definitely doesn’t work for me and I’ve learned to respect certain aspects of myself that just aren’t going to change. Unfortunately, those are aspects that I don’t exactly like, but try as I might, I’m unable to change, and I think that’s ok. My time is valuable. It’s valuable to me. I see nothing productive coming from investing much of it to giving everyone I meet I already tried that. It didn’t work too well. If it were my dream to befriend every living human on this planet, then I would be all about that. As it is, I find most people to be terrible and I don’t really want to meet them at all. Maybe that’s horrible and self-absorbed of me. I don’t care. I’m trying something new. I’ve gone from one end of the spectrum to the very other and it’s actually working out pretty well so far.
I’ve kind of got an idea of who I am and what I want. I expect a lot from myself and as such, I hold other people to the same standard. I want to surround myself with exceptional people and won’t settle for anything less.
They* tell you you should not worry about having a girlfriend. You should just have fun with your friends, get out and eventually you’ll meet one. Well, don’t believe it. First of all you’ve got to have some friends to do that. Second of all those friends have to have other single friends for you to meet. That’s not my friends and never has been at any time in my life.
The other advice I’ve heard is to *DO* something that gets you near other people that have like interests. The typical examples being things like church, sports, clubs (bowling, chess, tennis, dancing etc.) Where’s the video games club or the internet club or the computer club? Sorry but although it might be fun to bowl, if that’s the only thing we have in common it’s not gonna work. And worse, every time I’ve tried one of those things there’s nobody I’m interested in or that’s even close to a match.
There always seems to be a “but.” with everyone that resond to me. I suddenly wondered, why does there need to be a “but”? Why am I agreeing to spend time with these wpmen who are always “nice, but”; “funny, but”? Right then and there we made a decision. We weren’t going to deal with the models, the uneducated, the boring or the unmotivated woman. We decided that there wasn’t going to be a “but” anymore. The truth is, you get what you think you deserve.
I don’t deserve a “but.” I deserve what I want; I don’t want to lower the bar anymore. I don’t deserve to go on these endless dates and have relationships with women who don’t deserve my time — women whose flaws I don’t want to look past. So, why do we continue to look past the flaws? How we see ourselves is reflected in our relationships. I’ve seen it in every relationship — or semi-relationship — I’ve ever had. I have tried so many times to make something work because I have an idea in my head of what “she” looks like. Wanting to be loved is natural; we all want to be validated and to have someone in our lives who thinks we’re special. We all love love. That’s a fact that many of us try to deny, but it’s really just the truth. I am finding dating exhausting and time consuming when it should be fun and easy. Dating shouldn’t be a chore.I want to find love one day. I want to find my perfect person and have a family and a brood of interesting and independent children.I know now that I’m not going to be happy if I continue lowering my standards and allowing all of these “buts” to come into my life. Little by little, I’ve become stronger and learned to work as hard as I can for everything I have. I’m starting to understand who I am as a person, I am beginning to realize that the person I am should be reflected in the person I want to date. Maybe the first step is really, concretely deciding what I deserve. I deserve a woman who is as kind as I am. Who actually care about me. The me with the unshaved faced. The me that loves movies.. The me who is close to my parents and sisters. That’s the me that the woman I deserve is going to love. She’s going to have to be able to sit on the couch, for hours on end, while we tell incredibly offensive jokes and explicate sexually pervasive stories.And she’s going to have to be okay with it — no, she’s going to have to love it. I’m a wild, complicated, nervous and wonderful person, and the love that I deserve is going to have to deserve me. Because you know what? I’m really f*cking great. I know that I’m going to make a million more mistakes and go on a thousand more dates with woman who aren’t the woman of my dreams. But when that woman does come along, you better believe she’s going to be a woman who deserves me. She is going to deserve me.
I recently went on a few dates with one woman. By the end of the date there were little things that were already starting to drive me crazy. I could already see our future together and in consisted of me being constantly annoyed by her. My first reaction was to try to see past it and to focus on all the things I liked about this woman. We had a lot in common and conversed pretty easily. Yeah well, those are the worst. Reasons. Ever. Do you know how many people are out there who I could say the same about? You probably don’t and it’s because THERE ARE SO MANY. That’s like, the most basic criteria for a relationship ever.
I really do not have to give every single person I meet a chance. There are SO many potential suitors out there. Why in the world would I settle just because we like the same books? Like seriously. Having things in common is definitely a plus but is NOT the be all, end all of a relationship. Not by far. And there I was, considering trying to change who I am in order to accommodate this woman who was more or less still a stranger, who had given me absolutely no reason to do so. Like what is that? Why in the world would I do that?
Given my history, this isn’t surprising in the slightest, but if I don’t learn from my history then I am doomed to repeat it and that is something I don’t particularly want to do at all, thanks.Nope. I mean it’s really not difficult for my standards to be higher than they previously were, but apparently I am now too picky, I really don’t think that’s true, but even if it is, it’s still better than my former approach, so I don’t really mind. I’m not aggressively pursuing anything serious right now anyway, so why would I bother with woman who I’m not attracted to or don’t really interest me? Why should I waste my time on date after date, hoping that things will improve, when I wasn’t that interested in the first place?
After several failed attempts in the whole dating department, I’ve learned what definitely doesn’t work for me and I’ve learned to respect certain aspects of myself that just aren’t going to change. Unfortunately, those are aspects that I don’t exactly like, but try as I might, I’m unable to change, and I think that’s ok. My time is valuable. It’s valuable to me. I see nothing productive coming from investing much of it to giving everyone I meet I already tried that. It didn’t work too well. If it were my dream to befriend every living human on this planet, then I would be all about that. As it is, I find most people to be terrible and I don’t really want to meet them at all. Maybe that’s horrible and self-absorbed of me. I don’t care. I’m trying something new. I’ve gone from one end of the spectrum to the very other and it’s actually working out pretty well so far.
I’ve kind of got an idea of who I am and what I want. I expect a lot from myself and as such, I hold other people to the same standard. I want to surround myself with exceptional people and won’t settle for anything less.
They* tell you you should not worry about having a girlfriend. You should just have fun with your friends, get out and eventually you’ll meet one. Well, don’t believe it. First of all you’ve got to have some friends to do that. Second of all those friends have to have other single friends for you to meet. That’s not my friends and never has been at any time in my life.
The other advice I’ve heard is to *DO* something that gets you near other people that have like interests. The typical examples being things like church, sports, clubs (bowling, chess, tennis, dancing etc.) Where’s the video games club or the internet club or the computer club? Sorry but although it might be fun to bowl, if that’s the only thing we have in common it’s not gonna work. And worse, every time I’ve tried one of those things there’s nobody I’m interested in or that’s even close to a match.
There always seems to be a “but.” with everyone that resond to me. I suddenly wondered, why does there need to be a “but”? Why am I agreeing to spend time with these wpmen who are always “nice, but”; “funny, but”? Right then and there we made a decision. We weren’t going to deal with the models, the uneducated, the boring or the unmotivated woman. We decided that there wasn’t going to be a “but” anymore. The truth is, you get what you think you deserve.
I don’t deserve a “but.” I deserve what I want; I don’t want to lower the bar anymore. I don’t deserve to go on these endless dates and have relationships with women who don’t deserve my time — women whose flaws I don’t want to look past. So, why do we continue to look past the flaws? How we see ourselves is reflected in our relationships. I’ve seen it in every relationship — or semi-relationship — I’ve ever had. I have tried so many times to make something work because I have an idea in my head of what “she” looks like. Wanting to be loved is natural; we all want to be validated and to have someone in our lives who thinks we’re special. We all love love. That’s a fact that many of us try to deny, but it’s really just the truth. I am finding dating exhausting and time consuming when it should be fun and easy. Dating shouldn’t be a chore.I want to find love one day. I want to find my perfect person and have a family and a brood of interesting and independent children.I know now that I’m not going to be happy if I continue lowering my standards and allowing all of these “buts” to come into my life. Little by little, I’ve become stronger and learned to work as hard as I can for everything I have. I’m starting to understand who I am as a person, I am beginning to realize that the person I am should be reflected in the person I want to date. Maybe the first step is really, concretely deciding what I deserve. I deserve a woman who is as kind as I am. Who actually care about me. The me with the unshaved faced. The me that loves movies.. The me who is close to my parents and sisters. That’s the me that the woman I deserve is going to love. She’s going to have to be able to sit on the couch, for hours on end, while we tell incredibly offensive jokes and explicate sexually pervasive stories.And she’s going to have to be okay with it — no, she’s going to have to love it. I’m a wild, complicated, nervous and wonderful person, and the love that I deserve is going to have to deserve me. Because you know what? I’m really f*cking great. I know that I’m going to make a million more mistakes and go on a thousand more dates with woman who aren’t the woman of my dreams. But when that woman does come along, you better believe she’s going to be a woman who deserves me. She is going to deserve me.
DATING: YOU ARE NOT IN THE CIRCLE OF TRUST
Unfortunately we seem to have dropped our standards of what a relationship or someone being interested constitutes. In ‘olden times’ (read: pre text, email, IM, Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc), if someone wasn’t calling you and arranging to see you regularly, plus the relationship wasn’t growing, you knew they weren’t making an effort and that they had limitedinterest. In ‘modern times’, we think that when someone isn’t calling us and possibly not even seeing us that often, but they are using the written word in these modern ways, and enjoying the ‘trappings’ of being a couple such as sex, that they are interested although we may realise on some level that it’s not as much as we would like. For those of us that live in Lala Land and would rather have a semblance of a ‘relationship’ on some terms rather than no terms, all this tippy-tapping of messages convinces us that they’re interested; it’s just that some obstacle is preventing them from getting in touch via traditional means or they’re ‘shy’ or ‘busy’ or that it’s the ‘new’ way of doing relationships.
In our minds, surely someone who isn’t really interested in us, wouldn’t continue to text, email, instant message and give the impression of being interested while sleeping with us, maybe expecting us to listen to their problems and give them an ego stroke? Believe it. We want to be understanding. We don’t want to be too needy. To put the pressure on. To…oooh…have expectations and standards. We want to be easy going and the last thing we want to do is scare them off by attempting to clarify where we stand. Here’s the thing: If you expecting bare basics such as being called and to be able to call on a regular basis, is going to scare them off, you 1) have to recognise that the relationship is doomed and that 2) you could stand to raise your standards somewhat. The fact that someone would ever put you in the position of not knowing when you might hear from them next, or having your calls avoided, or them disappearing and then texting trying to pick up where they left off, or any other completely shady behavior, is indicative of an interaction without basic respect. The reality is this: Relationships require effort, connection, and intimacy as well as love, care, trust, and respect, and so the way of ‘olden times’ is actually exactly as it is now.
If you’re not calling and making genuine, human efforts that involve voice and sight to grow your relationship, and instead are relying on lazy forms of communication, you’re in a lazy ‘arrangement’ with a limited connection that is fostering false intimacy and building sandcastles in the sky. If they’re not calling me regularly or at all, and instead are opting for distanced means of communication, you are not that interested in me – they’re stoking your fire for when they next want your company. If you predominantly want to communicate via text, email etc, you’re passing time with me and keeping me on the fringes of your life, not the ‘inner circle’. As they say in ‘Meet The Parents’ – you’re not in the “circle of trust”.
It’s not because they’re shy. It’s not because they’re The Busiest Person on Earth. It’s not because they’re better at sending texts than talking. It’s not because they’re saving up everything for when they see you.
In our minds, surely someone who isn’t really interested in us, wouldn’t continue to text, email, instant message and give the impression of being interested while sleeping with us, maybe expecting us to listen to their problems and give them an ego stroke? Believe it. We want to be understanding. We don’t want to be too needy. To put the pressure on. To…oooh…have expectations and standards. We want to be easy going and the last thing we want to do is scare them off by attempting to clarify where we stand. Here’s the thing: If you expecting bare basics such as being called and to be able to call on a regular basis, is going to scare them off, you 1) have to recognise that the relationship is doomed and that 2) you could stand to raise your standards somewhat. The fact that someone would ever put you in the position of not knowing when you might hear from them next, or having your calls avoided, or them disappearing and then texting trying to pick up where they left off, or any other completely shady behavior, is indicative of an interaction without basic respect. The reality is this: Relationships require effort, connection, and intimacy as well as love, care, trust, and respect, and so the way of ‘olden times’ is actually exactly as it is now.
If you’re not calling and making genuine, human efforts that involve voice and sight to grow your relationship, and instead are relying on lazy forms of communication, you’re in a lazy ‘arrangement’ with a limited connection that is fostering false intimacy and building sandcastles in the sky. If they’re not calling me regularly or at all, and instead are opting for distanced means of communication, you are not that interested in me – they’re stoking your fire for when they next want your company. If you predominantly want to communicate via text, email etc, you’re passing time with me and keeping me on the fringes of your life, not the ‘inner circle’. As they say in ‘Meet The Parents’ – you’re not in the “circle of trust”.
It’s not because they’re shy. It’s not because they’re The Busiest Person on Earth. It’s not because they’re better at sending texts than talking. It’s not because they’re saving up everything for when they see you.
PERSONAL: I AM PROUD TO ME A NICE GUY
I am a nice guy. There are some women who want the nice guy because they understand that nice means good and not nice means bad. However, most women seem to have the concepts confused. She may believe she wants a nice guy, but in reality, she doesn’t want a nice guy. In her eyes, nice is weak – it’s boring. She wants excitement. She wants mystery, surprise, drama. She wants a bad boy. Until she gets stuck with one, of course. Then all of a sudden logic swarms back into reality and bad, once again, means bad. Understanding why women go for those bad boys isn’t difficult to understand. The essence of a bad boy is isolation, carelessness, self-indulgence, selfishness and attitude. When you put it this way, it’s difficult to understand why it is that women go for these kinds of guys.
Bad boys seem more manly – which is an awful way to think as it teaches guys that being bad is more rewarding than being good. If being a bad boy gets you laid while being a nice guy gets you either ignored or abused, then guess which type most men choose to be. Because women see nice guys as being weaker than those who flaunt their “strength” – if you can call it that – they feel that it’s okay to use them and then leave them hanging. I think every guy who ever started out as a good guy had their ass handed to them. I know that I have. Every guy at one point was silly enough to think that being nice to the woman he has feelings for is a good idea. He would go out of his way to be nice. He would hold doors open for her. He would help her with simple tasks. He would smile and be courteous. If he took her on a date then he might have even bought her flowers, paid for her meal, paid for her drinks, paid for the cab. But only until he realized that the girl had absolutely no interest in him. She liked the free food and drinks, but not the guy who was paying for them.
Not all women are so heartless, but a few are. I believe nearly all women go through their bad boy phase – some earlier on, some much later.What it ends up being is a lesson learned. No woman has ever lived happily ever after with a complete bad boy. Why? Because once bad boys settle down, they are no longer bad boys – they’re nice guys. You need a nice guy to settle down with because that’s the only kind of guy who is willing to actually settle down. So the truth is, ladies, that you don’t want a bad boy. You want to turn a bad boy into a nice guy.You want to change that reckless, untamed man and you want to put a collar on him. You want to tame a beast because it makes you feel strong, makes you feel good about yourself. You did the undoable. Who doesn’t like a challenge, right? Maybe we should take a look at the word challenge… Challenges, by nature, are difficult. If a challenge isn’t challenging, then it isn’t a very good challenge to begin with. By making your relationship a challenge, you are literally making it difficult to be with a person. You are creating space between you and the prize. Weird.
So maybe it’s that the women who go after these bad boys don’t actually want a relationship. They just want to enjoy the thrill of the chase. A pseudo-relationship that is more flashy than anything else. Relationships require a great storyline, with lots of drama and the constant possibility of loss – like in the movies. Maybe we should put the blame on Hollywood. With time, all women come back from the dark side. They learn firsthand that bad guys are bad for them. They realize that being treated as if they were worthless and spending most of their time either alone or feeling alone isn’t part of the relationship they now want to have. All the excitement turned into a migraine. All the drama turned into painful memories. Now she wants a nice guy who will love her, treat her with respect and spend time with her because he wants to. Unfortunately for them, by the time they realize the mistake they’ve made, there are only jerks left.
“Nice guys finish last.” I don’t even know who began the expression but they obviously had some personal vendetta against a seemingly nice person who ended up having sex with their sister on their dining room table, because otherwise I don’t really see it. I prided myself on being a nice guy for many years, long before I started seriously thinking about dating and relationships. I have integrity and a strong sense of justice, and I aim to be the type of person you can trust with your life, your life savings, or your reputation. I’m genuine, and I won’t keep you around if I don’t like you, nor will I pretend to care about you if I don’t, but if you want to talk about your problems anyway, I’ll listen and do my best to be non-judgemental. I am reliable in that when I say I’ll do something, I make a commitment to doing it.I do all of the things that Nice Guys do. I’m polite, hard working, trustworthy, non-confrontational, dependable. I don’t go behind people’s backs. I don’t belittle people. I don’t find humor in the suffering of others.
I know why dating is so hard for me,. It’s because I have interests not often shared by women; it’s because I’m only interested in relationships that have the potential to lead to long-term stability and commitment, and it’s because I believe the only worthwhile monogamous relationships are the ones in which both partners prefer each other, as they are, to all other potential partners.You believe that the nice guys can’t throw you up against a wall or on a shag carpet. You think that the nice guys are the ones that constantly ask you, “What do you want for dinner? I don’t care what we eat, whatever you like.” No. Let me rephrase. N-O. Sorry people, but that isn’t even close to what the Nice Guy is about. The Nice Guy is the closest thing to what women call “A Real Man.” A Nice Guy cares about your options, but knows when to take over the decisions. Why? Cause he knows that sometimes you don’t want to have to figure it all out. A Nice Guy is sometimes gentle, and sometimes aggressive in bed because they understand that doing things in one way is just BORING. A Nice Guy knows when to take charge because they understand that sometimes a woman likes to be taken care of. Nice Guy knows how to fight, but will fight only when they know that there are no other options, and to protect the people that they love. The difference between me and the "take no prisoners" guys, is that to me, my fangs are a last resort, not a first line of fight.And any last resort is the one with the most power behind it. It's a last resort. Keep in mind that we all have lines we’d rather not cross. Some of us just have a higher tolerance to the things that drive lesser men over the edge.
The thing about the modern guy is that the old-school romantics like myself are dying out. We most certainly do not have a culture that endorses us. As shallow as men can be, women are no better.Please stop complaining about how bad guys are. Guys are jerks because the nice guys just give up after a while and choose to be alone rather than get their hearts broken more and more, and you are choosing to just go with the guy who looks good rather than the one who will make you feel good. You make the choice, selling out your standards, and I have no sympathy for you. The nice guys are out there, you just have to work at it. You don’t want to do that, so whenever I hear some woman complain about how romance is dead, I tell her to look into a mirror to see who is killing it.
Not especially uplifting, I know, but I so sick and tired of hearing from women about how bad all guys are. We don’t all have our minds on “one thing.” Some of us want something more, and if you can’t get that, your loss.
Bad boys seem more manly – which is an awful way to think as it teaches guys that being bad is more rewarding than being good. If being a bad boy gets you laid while being a nice guy gets you either ignored or abused, then guess which type most men choose to be. Because women see nice guys as being weaker than those who flaunt their “strength” – if you can call it that – they feel that it’s okay to use them and then leave them hanging. I think every guy who ever started out as a good guy had their ass handed to them. I know that I have. Every guy at one point was silly enough to think that being nice to the woman he has feelings for is a good idea. He would go out of his way to be nice. He would hold doors open for her. He would help her with simple tasks. He would smile and be courteous. If he took her on a date then he might have even bought her flowers, paid for her meal, paid for her drinks, paid for the cab. But only until he realized that the girl had absolutely no interest in him. She liked the free food and drinks, but not the guy who was paying for them.
Not all women are so heartless, but a few are. I believe nearly all women go through their bad boy phase – some earlier on, some much later.What it ends up being is a lesson learned. No woman has ever lived happily ever after with a complete bad boy. Why? Because once bad boys settle down, they are no longer bad boys – they’re nice guys. You need a nice guy to settle down with because that’s the only kind of guy who is willing to actually settle down. So the truth is, ladies, that you don’t want a bad boy. You want to turn a bad boy into a nice guy.You want to change that reckless, untamed man and you want to put a collar on him. You want to tame a beast because it makes you feel strong, makes you feel good about yourself. You did the undoable. Who doesn’t like a challenge, right? Maybe we should take a look at the word challenge… Challenges, by nature, are difficult. If a challenge isn’t challenging, then it isn’t a very good challenge to begin with. By making your relationship a challenge, you are literally making it difficult to be with a person. You are creating space between you and the prize. Weird.
So maybe it’s that the women who go after these bad boys don’t actually want a relationship. They just want to enjoy the thrill of the chase. A pseudo-relationship that is more flashy than anything else. Relationships require a great storyline, with lots of drama and the constant possibility of loss – like in the movies. Maybe we should put the blame on Hollywood. With time, all women come back from the dark side. They learn firsthand that bad guys are bad for them. They realize that being treated as if they were worthless and spending most of their time either alone or feeling alone isn’t part of the relationship they now want to have. All the excitement turned into a migraine. All the drama turned into painful memories. Now she wants a nice guy who will love her, treat her with respect and spend time with her because he wants to. Unfortunately for them, by the time they realize the mistake they’ve made, there are only jerks left.
“Nice guys finish last.” I don’t even know who began the expression but they obviously had some personal vendetta against a seemingly nice person who ended up having sex with their sister on their dining room table, because otherwise I don’t really see it. I prided myself on being a nice guy for many years, long before I started seriously thinking about dating and relationships. I have integrity and a strong sense of justice, and I aim to be the type of person you can trust with your life, your life savings, or your reputation. I’m genuine, and I won’t keep you around if I don’t like you, nor will I pretend to care about you if I don’t, but if you want to talk about your problems anyway, I’ll listen and do my best to be non-judgemental. I am reliable in that when I say I’ll do something, I make a commitment to doing it.I do all of the things that Nice Guys do. I’m polite, hard working, trustworthy, non-confrontational, dependable. I don’t go behind people’s backs. I don’t belittle people. I don’t find humor in the suffering of others.
I know why dating is so hard for me,. It’s because I have interests not often shared by women; it’s because I’m only interested in relationships that have the potential to lead to long-term stability and commitment, and it’s because I believe the only worthwhile monogamous relationships are the ones in which both partners prefer each other, as they are, to all other potential partners.You believe that the nice guys can’t throw you up against a wall or on a shag carpet. You think that the nice guys are the ones that constantly ask you, “What do you want for dinner? I don’t care what we eat, whatever you like.” No. Let me rephrase. N-O. Sorry people, but that isn’t even close to what the Nice Guy is about. The Nice Guy is the closest thing to what women call “A Real Man.” A Nice Guy cares about your options, but knows when to take over the decisions. Why? Cause he knows that sometimes you don’t want to have to figure it all out. A Nice Guy is sometimes gentle, and sometimes aggressive in bed because they understand that doing things in one way is just BORING. A Nice Guy knows when to take charge because they understand that sometimes a woman likes to be taken care of. Nice Guy knows how to fight, but will fight only when they know that there are no other options, and to protect the people that they love. The difference between me and the "take no prisoners" guys, is that to me, my fangs are a last resort, not a first line of fight.And any last resort is the one with the most power behind it. It's a last resort. Keep in mind that we all have lines we’d rather not cross. Some of us just have a higher tolerance to the things that drive lesser men over the edge.
The thing about the modern guy is that the old-school romantics like myself are dying out. We most certainly do not have a culture that endorses us. As shallow as men can be, women are no better.Please stop complaining about how bad guys are. Guys are jerks because the nice guys just give up after a while and choose to be alone rather than get their hearts broken more and more, and you are choosing to just go with the guy who looks good rather than the one who will make you feel good. You make the choice, selling out your standards, and I have no sympathy for you. The nice guys are out there, you just have to work at it. You don’t want to do that, so whenever I hear some woman complain about how romance is dead, I tell her to look into a mirror to see who is killing it.
Not especially uplifting, I know, but I so sick and tired of hearing from women about how bad all guys are. We don’t all have our minds on “one thing.” Some of us want something more, and if you can’t get that, your loss.
PERSONAL: SORRY THAT I AM NOT A JERK
Chances are you have dated me in some sort of capacity or are about to. Let me make this known, I am not what you think I am. I, like many other males, a complete and royal asshole. I never cheated on anyone, it is what I can’t do that seems to be the problem. If I was able to change the world, I would. However, if that was the case, maybe I should change myself. I want to take this time to apologize for being things that I am not.
I am sorry, I am not a musician. I wish I had the ability to scream in a microphone and make 5 dollars a night. Instead, I chose the route of being a doctor and helping people get better.
I am sorry, I am not an asshole. I think that it is said that if you want a woman to stay with you, that you need to be an asshole. Well, I just can’t do that unless it’s in the bedroom. I wish I had the ability to go to a liquor store and down a thirty pack every night. Instead, I will eat an apple a day and ask how your day was. I think that drives people insane. Maybe, I should grow a backbone and just be cold, but that is not who I am. I still open the door for a girl, and how does she take it? That I want in her pants. If they are comfy, that is a possibility. I was raised to be a gentleman, but that is something that is forgotten in today’s times. For all that, I am sorry that I am a nice guy. I could work on that, but it takes way too much effort to be an ass unless it’s in the bedroom.
I am sorry, that I don’t do the bar scene very well. I think it is something that has always been that way. I never really cared for going to bars, unless it’s to sing karaoke. I love music, and will occasionally go to see it live but that doesn’t mean I want to keep going to a bar. I want to have this thing called a conversation. I do not really care about how many shots or beers you had in a 4 hour period. I guess the fact I am not a partier makes me a jerk. I apologize for that. Seeing a movie or just going to a nice dinner was too much to ask for.
I am sorry that I do not live in my past. I wish that I was able to carry around more baggage from my past to damage my life. I really need to realize that not comparing you to my past is a terrible idea. I really should start letting my past dictate more of who I become. I think that if I am going to compare you to one of my past exes, that maybe you would stick around longer than 11 minutes. I am sorry my baggage doesn’t go everywhere with me. I think the airlines have a limit on how much carry-on luggage one can have. I know Amtrak does.
The type of person that I am, is the guy that you can call in the middle of the night and tell me about your horrible day because I am going to want to make you smile. I am the type of guy that loves to buy a girl dinner even if I can’t because I want to see you smile. I am the type of guy that will run around with a dress on, because I want to see you smile. I am guessing that is crime in the world we live in now. We take everything so seriously that we can’t just have a good laugh.
To all that I have dated, I am sorry for being me. I guess being a nice guy really doesn’t work for me. Someday, I guess I will have to lower my standards and try to find someone who likes me for me. But as you can see, nice guy, who doesn’t party, and tells jokes and possibly you will have come to see, is something that not a lot of people want. Just ask family.
I am sorry, I am not a musician. I wish I had the ability to scream in a microphone and make 5 dollars a night. Instead, I chose the route of being a doctor and helping people get better.
I am sorry, I am not an asshole. I think that it is said that if you want a woman to stay with you, that you need to be an asshole. Well, I just can’t do that unless it’s in the bedroom. I wish I had the ability to go to a liquor store and down a thirty pack every night. Instead, I will eat an apple a day and ask how your day was. I think that drives people insane. Maybe, I should grow a backbone and just be cold, but that is not who I am. I still open the door for a girl, and how does she take it? That I want in her pants. If they are comfy, that is a possibility. I was raised to be a gentleman, but that is something that is forgotten in today’s times. For all that, I am sorry that I am a nice guy. I could work on that, but it takes way too much effort to be an ass unless it’s in the bedroom.
I am sorry, that I don’t do the bar scene very well. I think it is something that has always been that way. I never really cared for going to bars, unless it’s to sing karaoke. I love music, and will occasionally go to see it live but that doesn’t mean I want to keep going to a bar. I want to have this thing called a conversation. I do not really care about how many shots or beers you had in a 4 hour period. I guess the fact I am not a partier makes me a jerk. I apologize for that. Seeing a movie or just going to a nice dinner was too much to ask for.
I am sorry that I do not live in my past. I wish that I was able to carry around more baggage from my past to damage my life. I really need to realize that not comparing you to my past is a terrible idea. I really should start letting my past dictate more of who I become. I think that if I am going to compare you to one of my past exes, that maybe you would stick around longer than 11 minutes. I am sorry my baggage doesn’t go everywhere with me. I think the airlines have a limit on how much carry-on luggage one can have. I know Amtrak does.
The type of person that I am, is the guy that you can call in the middle of the night and tell me about your horrible day because I am going to want to make you smile. I am the type of guy that loves to buy a girl dinner even if I can’t because I want to see you smile. I am the type of guy that will run around with a dress on, because I want to see you smile. I am guessing that is crime in the world we live in now. We take everything so seriously that we can’t just have a good laugh.
To all that I have dated, I am sorry for being me. I guess being a nice guy really doesn’t work for me. Someday, I guess I will have to lower my standards and try to find someone who likes me for me. But as you can see, nice guy, who doesn’t party, and tells jokes and possibly you will have come to see, is something that not a lot of people want. Just ask family.
DATING: HOW THE DATING GAMES REALLY IS LIKE
Men do not have such options and virtually no prospects for relationships because there is a scarcity of high-quality women. Women have such ridiculously high and unrealistic standards, and are “independent” enough not to need a man, that they are weeding out several “losers” per week. No matter what a man says or does, he’s never good enough for women. As a result, an astronomical number of men are a dime a dozen in and they stand a better chance of being attacked by a peanut butter-covered Pterodactyl than they do of getting a date. There is simply too much competition in the American dating scene. Too many guyd are competing for too few chicks, so there is an imbalance, a screwed up and unfair ratio of single men to single women. The American dating landscape is like the job market: competitive, cynical, frustrating and harsh. So basically, a man has to bust his ass in school, break his balls working on thatrésumé while searching for work in a competitive job market, put himself on the line daily at that job he worked so hard to get, and when he’s not working, he gets to spend his personal life and free time in “the unemployment line,” competing with other men for the golden fleece. So, in a culture that shames and emasculates men, it’s all work and no reward.
If there is a reward, it is short-lived. What I mean is that if a man is fortunate enough to get a date with an attractive woman with a good personality and even be in a relationship with her, he has not only played enough games and his cards right during a very small window of opportunity, but he has walked a tightrope and passed numerous sh*t tests just to be with her. Or it was by chance and a stroke of luck, meaning the stars aligned perfectly and getting a date is once in a blue moon for him. But there is a high probability that the relationship won’t last because again, with the abundant dating choices women have in the U.S., the man will be treated like he is expendable. Whether or not he walks on eggshells in the relationship, she will most likely become bored for the silliest reasons and leave him, but not before she’s gotten some free dinners
In the more likely scenario that a man lands a date with a marginally attractive or average woman, he has lowered his standards because he has given in to the standard for dating and relationships, or he has become so sexually frustrated, that he has resorted to desperation for the sake of getting laid. He has also lowered his standards because the average woman he is with likely has a weight problem, so he has lost some of his pride because of his chubby chasing, and probably doesn’t have a problem taking her out to and unhealthy dining joint as long as he’s getting supposed companionship and physical satisfaction. Even if she doesn’t have a weight problem, she likely has issues like alcoholism, debt, drug abuse, mental illness and trauma from past relationships gone bad. She’ll be shady and two-faced so that she can conceal these problems at the start of the relationship, and once the man finds out, the relationship he is in is more of a dire situation than he ever anticipated.
Then there are men who have no pride, no standards and no shame, so they will date and screw anything with a pulse. Disturbingly, I have seen more of this over the years. I see seemingly normal men with hideous and obese girlfriends and I think to myself, “What could he possibly see in her?” Have standards plummeted to the point where the amygdala takes over and eliminates inhibitions in the name of chasing tail? I admit that whenever I see such a sight, I have to look away in disgust or laugh so hard, I have a back spasm.
When the aforementioned scenarios do not occur, men are subject to the most nightmarish, Twilight Zone-type dating endeavors and experiences. They find themselves in a kind of dystopia, a conundrum of no-win situations. Perilous paths toward disappointment, frustration, heartache, loneliness and squashed dreams are common. Finger-pointing abounds and fittingly, problems are never solved. One’s sanity and physical well-being are under attack in this maelstrom of fecal matter.
Good women do exist, but they are the exception, not the norm. So, not only are such women extremely rare, but they are always taken. They have always been taken and, judging by the current state of affairs in the dating landscape, they won’t be otherwise anytime soon. Even in the rare case that an attractive woman without baggage is single, strange as that may seem, she is not single for long. Hence, the window of opportunity is very small for merely approaching her and asking her for a phone number.
Even if you’re a man successfully getting a phone number, chances are it will be bogus or she will purposely screen her calls just to play head games or because she subscribes to the fact that you are a creep by association. You’ll still have to treat getting a number like buying a gun; there has to be a waiting period until that first call, because showing too much interest is characteristic of a psychopath in her eyes. If she does manage to answer her phone, there is usually a, “I’ll call you back” which means never, and that she won’t want to speak to you ever again, regardless of how many dates you got with her. If she is not playing these sort of games, she can easily tell you that she’s seeing someone or has a boyfriend just to not have to deal with you any further or she cares enough about your ego not to damage it too much. When that doesn’t happen, she’ll tell you, ‘no’ with a side order of piss off, or she’ll ignore you like you don’t even exist.
To perpetuate this even further, there simply exists this fear of approaching women because of a woman’s demeanor, a shield, a kind of an aura she gives off that indicates she doesn’t want to be approached. If a man ignores this, he is more than likely to get berated in public or, even worse, get a fabricated sexual harassment or false rape claim against him, and sent to jail. The type of venues don’t matter either. If a woman doesn’t have at least two men talking to her at the gym, she wants to work out alone and probably has a big fat rock on her finger. Either that or her steroid-filled, tattooed boyfriend is lurking somewhere close by and will rearrange you beyond belief and repair of you approach her.
That’s another preposterous issue in the dating game; women not wanting anything to do with nice guys, or at the very least, treating them like absolute sh*t. Being kind good-hearted is not valued Remember, things are so ass backwards that good is bad. So keep in mind that being a nice guy will get you nowhere and nothing. The guy in the backwards hat and Kobe jersey with the tattoos has priority over the guy who dresses well, grooms himself well, shows up to work regularly and on time, treats others with respect and takes care of his health.
Being nice also takes a back seat to materialism and superficiality. Far too often and too easily, women fall for a man with a six-figure income, fancy car and a huge house in the suburbs. If she is not chasing that, she is after his chiseled good looks. I’m talking about her standards being so high, the man has to be Calvin Klein model material or from Sparta. Either way, the lack of substance or character that a woman pursues is indicative of her shallowness and distance from reality.
What I’ve learned is that women rationalize such decisions by saying they want a man who will take care of them and who is also healthy. They desire someone who has the financial means to start and support a family, disregarding the fact that the man making all that money might not necessarily be the best husband or father. In the general sense, losers are also desired by women because women want a sense of adventure in such incomplete men. Women see such men as “projects,” seeing some potential behind all the alcoholism, cheating, drug abuse and juvenile behavior, and thinking they can change him. They would rather waste precious time on the worst of the worst and be treated poorly in hopes that he will change for her. More often than not, the change she anticipates doesn’t happen and she ends up breaking up with Mr. Wrong because she says she wants a man, not a boy. Then comes the clamor of, “Where are all the good men?” and “Where are the real men?” She suddenly realizes the mistake she’s made of continually chasing the wrong men and starts scrambling to recover herself in time to locate the nice guy she put in the friend zone. She’ll claim that she was confused, had to find herself or didn’t even see such malicious things coming from the other bozos.
What women don’t realize is that by playing these kind of Mickey Mouse games, they are playing with fire. When it “grows out of control,” that is when any decent man they have chased off has moved on or possibly still waits for her. Women say they want nice men, but that is only partially true. The want a nice guy only after they have been srewed over by their fair share of a**holes. At that point, they have learned their lesson, and whether or not the nice guy wants a used car with high mileage is entirely up to him.
We will now begin our descent into the land of the leftovers. Beware the cesspool of skanks, tanks and single mothers. After their efforts of chasing quality women have failed, this is all men have left to choose from in ‘Murika. This is the clearance aisle in the dating store. These are the consolation prizes for valiant efforts that went unrecognized by good girls. The worst tasting food item on the menu that nobody ever orders.
Unpleasant women, especially fat women, are pissed off that men aren’t approaching them and they will bitch about real men doing their own thing. From a man going to the movies on his own to a guys’ night out, such women are under some illusion that they should be a part of the action. They desire to lock down a man before the cat days arrive, yet they don’t want to make any improvements for themselves, they want men to accept them as is, and thus, offer nothing for a relationship. You would think, after all this nonsense, that there would be some help, some hope or some sort of solution. There would have to be a light at the end of the tunnel. There would have to be some sort of conflict resolution. There is, but you won’t find it from your friends, family, books, magazines, television or around the corner. What ensues is more lies that exacerbates an already precarious situation.
What I’m talking about is being told that, “Oh, it’s not your time,” “You’re not looking hard enough or in the right places” or the classic “You just haven’t met the right one yet!” Notice how those saying such phrases fail to get to the root of the problem, and if there is a problem, it’s with you? Such a mentality may have worked when one reached legal drinking age, but when people still tell you that when you’re in your late 20’s and getting into your 30’s, that’s dangerous drivel. If you keep that mentality, at that rate, you ask, “when?” When you’re on your death bed? I hear that I have to stay positive, keep trying, keep my chin up, hang in there and to keep putting myself out there.
There’s really no strategy or lateral thinking involved in that, is there? It’s just support of the same ol’, same ol’. You know what I’ve found out about people who say things like this? They don’t want others to be happy. So, why listen to them?
I wonder if older generations of Americans are even aware that chivalry is dead . At least half of all marriages in the U.S. nowadays end in divorce. Because of a biased court system, 90% of divorces are initiated by women and 90% of the time, the child custody goes to women. It’s pretty sad that the success of a relationship pretty much depends on the flip of a coin. I’ll bet they’re having a hard time accepting the reality that younger generations are waiting until later in life to get married or are not getting married at all.
An awakening is happening and it is revealing that one’s destiny is determined by choice, not chance. This is definitely true in dating. It is much more logical to play the odds in your favor than wait for Halley’s Comet to fly by and give you the thumbs up. The reward is in the action, not inaction that you take. I, like many other men, just want to be in a happy relationship and I have taken the steps towards that kind of happiness; it's really not too much to ask.
I was told at a very young age that niceness meant something, but that turned out to be a complete lie. I tried being someone I was not, by putting up a front and playing games, but that proved to be awkward and unnatural. If I were to resume dating stateside, I would have to lower my standards.
If there is a reward, it is short-lived. What I mean is that if a man is fortunate enough to get a date with an attractive woman with a good personality and even be in a relationship with her, he has not only played enough games and his cards right during a very small window of opportunity, but he has walked a tightrope and passed numerous sh*t tests just to be with her. Or it was by chance and a stroke of luck, meaning the stars aligned perfectly and getting a date is once in a blue moon for him. But there is a high probability that the relationship won’t last because again, with the abundant dating choices women have in the U.S., the man will be treated like he is expendable. Whether or not he walks on eggshells in the relationship, she will most likely become bored for the silliest reasons and leave him, but not before she’s gotten some free dinners
In the more likely scenario that a man lands a date with a marginally attractive or average woman, he has lowered his standards because he has given in to the standard for dating and relationships, or he has become so sexually frustrated, that he has resorted to desperation for the sake of getting laid. He has also lowered his standards because the average woman he is with likely has a weight problem, so he has lost some of his pride because of his chubby chasing, and probably doesn’t have a problem taking her out to and unhealthy dining joint as long as he’s getting supposed companionship and physical satisfaction. Even if she doesn’t have a weight problem, she likely has issues like alcoholism, debt, drug abuse, mental illness and trauma from past relationships gone bad. She’ll be shady and two-faced so that she can conceal these problems at the start of the relationship, and once the man finds out, the relationship he is in is more of a dire situation than he ever anticipated.
Then there are men who have no pride, no standards and no shame, so they will date and screw anything with a pulse. Disturbingly, I have seen more of this over the years. I see seemingly normal men with hideous and obese girlfriends and I think to myself, “What could he possibly see in her?” Have standards plummeted to the point where the amygdala takes over and eliminates inhibitions in the name of chasing tail? I admit that whenever I see such a sight, I have to look away in disgust or laugh so hard, I have a back spasm.
When the aforementioned scenarios do not occur, men are subject to the most nightmarish, Twilight Zone-type dating endeavors and experiences. They find themselves in a kind of dystopia, a conundrum of no-win situations. Perilous paths toward disappointment, frustration, heartache, loneliness and squashed dreams are common. Finger-pointing abounds and fittingly, problems are never solved. One’s sanity and physical well-being are under attack in this maelstrom of fecal matter.
Good women do exist, but they are the exception, not the norm. So, not only are such women extremely rare, but they are always taken. They have always been taken and, judging by the current state of affairs in the dating landscape, they won’t be otherwise anytime soon. Even in the rare case that an attractive woman without baggage is single, strange as that may seem, she is not single for long. Hence, the window of opportunity is very small for merely approaching her and asking her for a phone number.
Even if you’re a man successfully getting a phone number, chances are it will be bogus or she will purposely screen her calls just to play head games or because she subscribes to the fact that you are a creep by association. You’ll still have to treat getting a number like buying a gun; there has to be a waiting period until that first call, because showing too much interest is characteristic of a psychopath in her eyes. If she does manage to answer her phone, there is usually a, “I’ll call you back” which means never, and that she won’t want to speak to you ever again, regardless of how many dates you got with her. If she is not playing these sort of games, she can easily tell you that she’s seeing someone or has a boyfriend just to not have to deal with you any further or she cares enough about your ego not to damage it too much. When that doesn’t happen, she’ll tell you, ‘no’ with a side order of piss off, or she’ll ignore you like you don’t even exist.
To perpetuate this even further, there simply exists this fear of approaching women because of a woman’s demeanor, a shield, a kind of an aura she gives off that indicates she doesn’t want to be approached. If a man ignores this, he is more than likely to get berated in public or, even worse, get a fabricated sexual harassment or false rape claim against him, and sent to jail. The type of venues don’t matter either. If a woman doesn’t have at least two men talking to her at the gym, she wants to work out alone and probably has a big fat rock on her finger. Either that or her steroid-filled, tattooed boyfriend is lurking somewhere close by and will rearrange you beyond belief and repair of you approach her.
That’s another preposterous issue in the dating game; women not wanting anything to do with nice guys, or at the very least, treating them like absolute sh*t. Being kind good-hearted is not valued Remember, things are so ass backwards that good is bad. So keep in mind that being a nice guy will get you nowhere and nothing. The guy in the backwards hat and Kobe jersey with the tattoos has priority over the guy who dresses well, grooms himself well, shows up to work regularly and on time, treats others with respect and takes care of his health.
Being nice also takes a back seat to materialism and superficiality. Far too often and too easily, women fall for a man with a six-figure income, fancy car and a huge house in the suburbs. If she is not chasing that, she is after his chiseled good looks. I’m talking about her standards being so high, the man has to be Calvin Klein model material or from Sparta. Either way, the lack of substance or character that a woman pursues is indicative of her shallowness and distance from reality.
What I’ve learned is that women rationalize such decisions by saying they want a man who will take care of them and who is also healthy. They desire someone who has the financial means to start and support a family, disregarding the fact that the man making all that money might not necessarily be the best husband or father. In the general sense, losers are also desired by women because women want a sense of adventure in such incomplete men. Women see such men as “projects,” seeing some potential behind all the alcoholism, cheating, drug abuse and juvenile behavior, and thinking they can change him. They would rather waste precious time on the worst of the worst and be treated poorly in hopes that he will change for her. More often than not, the change she anticipates doesn’t happen and she ends up breaking up with Mr. Wrong because she says she wants a man, not a boy. Then comes the clamor of, “Where are all the good men?” and “Where are the real men?” She suddenly realizes the mistake she’s made of continually chasing the wrong men and starts scrambling to recover herself in time to locate the nice guy she put in the friend zone. She’ll claim that she was confused, had to find herself or didn’t even see such malicious things coming from the other bozos.
What women don’t realize is that by playing these kind of Mickey Mouse games, they are playing with fire. When it “grows out of control,” that is when any decent man they have chased off has moved on or possibly still waits for her. Women say they want nice men, but that is only partially true. The want a nice guy only after they have been srewed over by their fair share of a**holes. At that point, they have learned their lesson, and whether or not the nice guy wants a used car with high mileage is entirely up to him.
We will now begin our descent into the land of the leftovers. Beware the cesspool of skanks, tanks and single mothers. After their efforts of chasing quality women have failed, this is all men have left to choose from in ‘Murika. This is the clearance aisle in the dating store. These are the consolation prizes for valiant efforts that went unrecognized by good girls. The worst tasting food item on the menu that nobody ever orders.
Unpleasant women, especially fat women, are pissed off that men aren’t approaching them and they will bitch about real men doing their own thing. From a man going to the movies on his own to a guys’ night out, such women are under some illusion that they should be a part of the action. They desire to lock down a man before the cat days arrive, yet they don’t want to make any improvements for themselves, they want men to accept them as is, and thus, offer nothing for a relationship. You would think, after all this nonsense, that there would be some help, some hope or some sort of solution. There would have to be a light at the end of the tunnel. There would have to be some sort of conflict resolution. There is, but you won’t find it from your friends, family, books, magazines, television or around the corner. What ensues is more lies that exacerbates an already precarious situation.
What I’m talking about is being told that, “Oh, it’s not your time,” “You’re not looking hard enough or in the right places” or the classic “You just haven’t met the right one yet!” Notice how those saying such phrases fail to get to the root of the problem, and if there is a problem, it’s with you? Such a mentality may have worked when one reached legal drinking age, but when people still tell you that when you’re in your late 20’s and getting into your 30’s, that’s dangerous drivel. If you keep that mentality, at that rate, you ask, “when?” When you’re on your death bed? I hear that I have to stay positive, keep trying, keep my chin up, hang in there and to keep putting myself out there.
There’s really no strategy or lateral thinking involved in that, is there? It’s just support of the same ol’, same ol’. You know what I’ve found out about people who say things like this? They don’t want others to be happy. So, why listen to them?
I wonder if older generations of Americans are even aware that chivalry is dead . At least half of all marriages in the U.S. nowadays end in divorce. Because of a biased court system, 90% of divorces are initiated by women and 90% of the time, the child custody goes to women. It’s pretty sad that the success of a relationship pretty much depends on the flip of a coin. I’ll bet they’re having a hard time accepting the reality that younger generations are waiting until later in life to get married or are not getting married at all.
An awakening is happening and it is revealing that one’s destiny is determined by choice, not chance. This is definitely true in dating. It is much more logical to play the odds in your favor than wait for Halley’s Comet to fly by and give you the thumbs up. The reward is in the action, not inaction that you take. I, like many other men, just want to be in a happy relationship and I have taken the steps towards that kind of happiness; it's really not too much to ask.
I was told at a very young age that niceness meant something, but that turned out to be a complete lie. I tried being someone I was not, by putting up a front and playing games, but that proved to be awkward and unnatural. If I were to resume dating stateside, I would have to lower my standards.
DATING: THE UNREALISTIC THINGS THAT WOMAN ARE LOOKING FOR.....I MIGHT BE SINGLE FOREVER
A new store has opened. A Husband Store!? There’s a sign at the entrance:
You may visit the Husband Store only once. There are six floors, and the value of the products increases on each successive floor. The shopper can choose any item from a particular floor, or go up to shop on the next floor, but she cannot go back down except to exit the building.
So, a woman goes into the store. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:
Floor 1: Men Who Have Good Jobs.
“That’s nice,” she thinks, “but I want more.” So she continues upward, where the sign reads:
Floor 2: Men Who Have Good Jobs and Love Kids.
She’s intrigued, but continues to the third floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 3: Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, and Are Extremely Handsome.
“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
Floor 4: Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, and Help Equally with the Housework.
“It can’t get better than this!” she exclaims. But then a voice inside her asks, “Or can it?” She goes up and reads the sign.
Floor 5: Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, Help Equally with the Housework, and Have a Great Sense of Humor.
Having found what she’s looking for, she’s tempted to stay, but something propels her to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 6: You are visitor 42,215,602 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor only exists to prove that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.
PLEASE NOTE:
To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opened a Wife Store right across the street.
The first floor has wives who Love Sex.
The second floor has wives who Love Sex and Are Kind.
The third floor has wives who Love Sex, Are Kind, and Like Sports.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors have never been visited.
Did you know that 99% of the woman on dating sites are adventure travelers? It seems dubious to me too, but let’s continue as if it’s true. The majority of woman on the site go on and on about all of the outdoor adventure activity they do, including mountain climbing, ziplining, white water rafting, bungee jumping, parasailing, sky diving, someone even talked about alligator wrestling. And of course they love traveling and frequent all these crazy places like Iceland and Belize and Egypt and Greece and the rainforests or whatever. They are outdoors all the time, playing every sport that was ever invented, including some you’ve never heard of (sled hockey?), and they work out 5+ times a week.Come on. I live in Long Island, 25 minutes away from the city and 20 minutes away from the beach. These woman say they are ambitious and have pretty good jobs where they are making average salaries. How exactly are they ziplining regularly? And where? And how are they getting time off from work to travel all the time, at age 30s? And with what money? I don’t buy it. Oh and everyone loves their job. But that’s not even what bothers me. The real kicker here is the type of men they are all looking for. Now on my profile, I checked off the box saying that I want someone who wants kids and who’s single (… why I have to specify this troubles me). And I wrote out by hand that I am looking for an easy-going, honest, passionate woman. Are those the type of characteristics these woman are looking for? Not even close.
He has to be beautiful and adventurous and also love adventure sports like ziplining and whatever the hell, and he also has to love to travel. He has to be open to trying anything (I’m assuming this means sexual positions) and be outgoing and extroverted and like to go out but also like to stay in. He has to be a great conversationalist, smart, witty, funny, and “not get embarrassed easily.” (Why are we specifying this? Again, troubled.) He also has to be ambitious, be smart and successful, be educated and have a great job, be family-oriented, be career-driven, want to have (and, unspoken, take care of) kids, knows how to take care of himself (I can only assume this means that he’s must have GQ looks), be outdoorsy, like to be outside all the time (these are apparently two different things), like to camp and hike, be “active” and work out frequently, did I mention handsome?, like all different kinds of foods and be willing to try – AND LIKE, GODDAMNIT – any kind of exotic food, not be pessimistic or complain, be loyal and honest, not be self-conscious about anything (… you’re helping), know who he is and what he wants, and, my ultimate favorite, ACCEPT ME FOR WHO I AM.
Wow you girls. This is a joke, right? Do you sincerely think you can find all of this in one person? Have you considered the fact that you are on these dating site because this is what you’re holding out for?! First of all, these woman check off “tall" as the body type for their match… But you want someone who does these adventure sports and plays sports too and works out every day? Huh? And how are you going to find someone who is career-driven and is family-oriented and is who also has time to play sports as an adult and like hike around all the time and wrestle alligators? What? I do know guys who do that kind of stuff, but believe me most of them do not meet all these other criteria, including having the hot model appearance you desire.
But also, think hard – DO YOU REALLY WANT THIS? I don’t think you want this type of guy, if he even exists, because then he’d be too intimidating and you’d feel like he was overshadowing you and better than you at the things you do, and lord knows that would be a problem.
So I offer this plea to you. Refocus. Look for a guy who doesn’t mind that you (apparently) want to go off ziplining, but who might want to lay in the sunshine and read a book while you do. (To work on that tan you demand, obviously.) Or pick, say, two of the major things you’re looking for. Like, he has to be adventurous and handsome, but it’s okay if he’s a mailman. You know? Be a little more realistic. I’m not saying let go of your dreams. But get a grip. Everyone is not Brad Pit. (Not that you’d be into him, since he’s athletic and toned and probably doesn’t have time for parachuting with all those kids in tow.)
It’s this bad, and I haven’t even been on a date yet. Good lord. Clearly I’m going to be single forever.
You may visit the Husband Store only once. There are six floors, and the value of the products increases on each successive floor. The shopper can choose any item from a particular floor, or go up to shop on the next floor, but she cannot go back down except to exit the building.
So, a woman goes into the store. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:
Floor 1: Men Who Have Good Jobs.
“That’s nice,” she thinks, “but I want more.” So she continues upward, where the sign reads:
Floor 2: Men Who Have Good Jobs and Love Kids.
She’s intrigued, but continues to the third floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 3: Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, and Are Extremely Handsome.
“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
Floor 4: Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, and Help Equally with the Housework.
“It can’t get better than this!” she exclaims. But then a voice inside her asks, “Or can it?” She goes up and reads the sign.
Floor 5: Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, Help Equally with the Housework, and Have a Great Sense of Humor.
Having found what she’s looking for, she’s tempted to stay, but something propels her to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 6: You are visitor 42,215,602 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor only exists to prove that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.
PLEASE NOTE:
To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opened a Wife Store right across the street.
The first floor has wives who Love Sex.
The second floor has wives who Love Sex and Are Kind.
The third floor has wives who Love Sex, Are Kind, and Like Sports.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors have never been visited.
Did you know that 99% of the woman on dating sites are adventure travelers? It seems dubious to me too, but let’s continue as if it’s true. The majority of woman on the site go on and on about all of the outdoor adventure activity they do, including mountain climbing, ziplining, white water rafting, bungee jumping, parasailing, sky diving, someone even talked about alligator wrestling. And of course they love traveling and frequent all these crazy places like Iceland and Belize and Egypt and Greece and the rainforests or whatever. They are outdoors all the time, playing every sport that was ever invented, including some you’ve never heard of (sled hockey?), and they work out 5+ times a week.Come on. I live in Long Island, 25 minutes away from the city and 20 minutes away from the beach. These woman say they are ambitious and have pretty good jobs where they are making average salaries. How exactly are they ziplining regularly? And where? And how are they getting time off from work to travel all the time, at age 30s? And with what money? I don’t buy it. Oh and everyone loves their job. But that’s not even what bothers me. The real kicker here is the type of men they are all looking for. Now on my profile, I checked off the box saying that I want someone who wants kids and who’s single (… why I have to specify this troubles me). And I wrote out by hand that I am looking for an easy-going, honest, passionate woman. Are those the type of characteristics these woman are looking for? Not even close.
He has to be beautiful and adventurous and also love adventure sports like ziplining and whatever the hell, and he also has to love to travel. He has to be open to trying anything (I’m assuming this means sexual positions) and be outgoing and extroverted and like to go out but also like to stay in. He has to be a great conversationalist, smart, witty, funny, and “not get embarrassed easily.” (Why are we specifying this? Again, troubled.) He also has to be ambitious, be smart and successful, be educated and have a great job, be family-oriented, be career-driven, want to have (and, unspoken, take care of) kids, knows how to take care of himself (I can only assume this means that he’s must have GQ looks), be outdoorsy, like to be outside all the time (these are apparently two different things), like to camp and hike, be “active” and work out frequently, did I mention handsome?, like all different kinds of foods and be willing to try – AND LIKE, GODDAMNIT – any kind of exotic food, not be pessimistic or complain, be loyal and honest, not be self-conscious about anything (… you’re helping), know who he is and what he wants, and, my ultimate favorite, ACCEPT ME FOR WHO I AM.
Wow you girls. This is a joke, right? Do you sincerely think you can find all of this in one person? Have you considered the fact that you are on these dating site because this is what you’re holding out for?! First of all, these woman check off “tall" as the body type for their match… But you want someone who does these adventure sports and plays sports too and works out every day? Huh? And how are you going to find someone who is career-driven and is family-oriented and is who also has time to play sports as an adult and like hike around all the time and wrestle alligators? What? I do know guys who do that kind of stuff, but believe me most of them do not meet all these other criteria, including having the hot model appearance you desire.
But also, think hard – DO YOU REALLY WANT THIS? I don’t think you want this type of guy, if he even exists, because then he’d be too intimidating and you’d feel like he was overshadowing you and better than you at the things you do, and lord knows that would be a problem.
So I offer this plea to you. Refocus. Look for a guy who doesn’t mind that you (apparently) want to go off ziplining, but who might want to lay in the sunshine and read a book while you do. (To work on that tan you demand, obviously.) Or pick, say, two of the major things you’re looking for. Like, he has to be adventurous and handsome, but it’s okay if he’s a mailman. You know? Be a little more realistic. I’m not saying let go of your dreams. But get a grip. Everyone is not Brad Pit. (Not that you’d be into him, since he’s athletic and toned and probably doesn’t have time for parachuting with all those kids in tow.)
It’s this bad, and I haven’t even been on a date yet. Good lord. Clearly I’m going to be single forever.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
PERSONAL: HOW TO REALLY GET THE GUY
A lot of the men I work with are awesome, wonderful, intelligent, great, NICE guys. The problem is that a lot of women do not get the chance to know this about them because as soon as they get around women they freeze up
You might actually find this surprisingly difficult! and it may be more work than you’re interested in doing. But the potential payoff is huge, and that’s why I’m here to help.
How you appear to him:
If you’re at least reasonably attractive, reasonably intelligent, and not apparently crazy or shallow, then to him you are: the Hope Diamond, but locked in a 12-digit combination safe at the other end of a tightrope stretched over a pool of alligators. In other words, you are a great and promising treasure, but he fears that to get anywhere with you he needs to do a whole series of things exactly right — one slip-up and his chance is gone.
Why does he think this way? Because of his prior experience. If he’s the socially un-fluent type, then chances are he didn’t do very well in high school; more exactly, he probably tried to make time with some girls, but very often failed; and, even more exactly, not being socially fluent he failed but doesn’t know WHY he failed. Let’s face it, high school girls are not known for telling the truth in plain language, especially when rejecting someone; the boy who can’t read social cues very well is only left to wonder, What did I do wrong? After several disappointing years of this he, quite understandably, comes to see girls as basically flaky and inscrutable — as 12-digit combination safes, where if you don’t do everything exactly right, you’re gone. Keep that image in mind.
If you want to get with this guy in later life — he has a lot of advantages, too, as we will see — then your basic job is to demonstrate convincingly to him that you are not the 12-digit safe, that you will not require him to run a gauntlet of baffling tests and that you will notdump him the first (or second) time he makes a mistake. Remember, coming out of high school that’s his image of how all girls are — you have to actively work to overcome that image if you want to be worth his time.
My primer:
1. Be physical, but not necessarily sexual, early and often.
Your nice guy, even if he’s handsome and fit, probably has hang-ups about his body. As a woman you might be surprised to learn this — you thought only girls had body-image trouble — but it makes sense if you consider his past experience. He’s been treated almost like a leper, basically untouched and untouchable, for years in a row; even if the real source of his problem was elsewhere, he’s probably formed the idea, even subconsciously, that his body is somehow physically repulsive.
You can correct this impression — you want to! — but there are better and worse ways to do so. My advice is, don’t jump his bones in one big go right away (see below); better is to do a lot of small things to show, quietly and continually, that you enjoy his physical contact. You don’t need to grope him or fall all over him; just hold hands, put your arm around his waist, lean against him sometimes when you walk. Continuous, small reminders are what will really be convincing.
2. Don’t command a performance that he can’t (yet) deliver.
Suppose you do indulge the urge to grab his crotch and say “All right, big boy, let’s give it a go!” You might think of this as giving the ultimate compliment, fulfilling every young man’s dream; but the most likely result in your nice guy is panic. Not that he’s rejecting you! Trust me, he appreciates your enthusiasm! But you might not realize that you’ve put him in a tough spot: as he sees it, he now has to deliver a performance that he has little or no experience giving. He’s thinking, what do I do now? Should I feel her up? should I try to take her shirt off? should we just kiss for a while? What’s the right thing to do next? The truth, which is that any of those might be just fine, will not occur to him; instead of just doing whatever comes naturally, he fears that if he does the wrong thing at the wrong time you will change your mind and bail out.
Why should he think this way? Again, most likely because that’s what happened to him before. Imagine a standard high-school-age scene: a girl and a boy are alone together, hot and heavy for the first time; but at their age it’s often the blind leading the blind. She’s expecting him to lead the way, but when she finds out he’s just as inexperienced it’s not uncommon for the girl to call a halt to the proceedings. Different boys react to this in different ways. The self-centered ones, budding misogynists and future players, may blame the girl; while the now and future nice guy will more likely blame himself, able only to wonder What did I do wrong? Thus he builds up the 12-digit safe image: if you don’t know exactly what to do next at every turn, then you might as well not start.
Don’t worry! this doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun sex with a nice guy! It’s just that you’ll be better off if you don’t frame the situation in such a way that he’s giving a high-stakes command performance. Make it absolutely clear that you’re not going to grade and criticize his every move, and that you welcome the spirit of whatever he wants to try. This is probably true, you just have to get it across. And try some stuff yourself! nice guys, unlike alpha jocks, are usually very receptive to women taking the initiative.
The same principle applies in many other, daylight situations. If your guy is not a fluent talker, then a dinner date may be a long and painful experience early in a relationship. You may just want him to relax and talk about whatever he wants to; but he may see it as a command performance, that he has to work to impress you — over and over again, every five minutes for two hours. This is one reason I wouldn’t recommend dinner dates before two people know each other fairly well; a restaurant setting is blank, it doesn’t give you much to work with. Better is an event, a parade, or even a walk around town, where new stuff is always coming into view and gives both of you something to talk about.
The bottom line here is, try to avoid setting up situations in which your guy feels he has to perform something he’s not good at; it will be painful for him, and make him look less attractive to you.
3. Visit him when he’s at his best.
The flip side of the same token is that it’s within your power to make your guy look moreattractive to you. (Isn’t that a fun idea? Having a magic wand that does nothing to you, but instead makes other people prettier for your benefit?) The key here is to spend time with him while he’s doing something he’s good at and that he enjoys. It may be playing a sport, or an instrument, or fixing up a car; almost everyone is good at something. You will appreciate seeing him happy, relaxed and masterful, and he will appreciate the chance to show off for you successfully. Note that this tactic is specific to nice guys: nice guys get a kick out of the idea that they can impress a girl, while alpha jocks consider it beneath them even to try.
4. Feel free to be your best, and don’t even think of bimbo-izing.
This is another, subtler advantage of going with a nice guy: around them, it is to your advantage to show how smart and skilled you really are; they’ll enjoy and appreciate it, where alpha jocks would be bothered and threatened. The reason why has to do with different approaches to ego support.
A quick, common, though unimaginative attempt at ego support is to display yourself as being lesser or weaker than the other person: “Oh, Rocko, you’re so strong, can you open this pickle jar for me?” This is the kind of support that alpha jocks like to get; their security comes from women’s insecurity, from the idea that they have higher value and so women will be drawn to them and afraid to leave them.
A different approach to ego support is, be as good and amazing a person as possible yourself, and then elevate the other person by singling them out for your favor. This is the kind of support that nice guys like to get. Remember, as a reasonably attractive woman you start the relationship with a nice guy in a position of superior power; you don’t build him up by tearing yourself down. Once he’s convinced that you really go for him, then everything good about you — your skills, your culture, your intelligence — reflects back positively on him; he’ll enjoy bragging about how competent and amazing you are. So don’t act like a bimbo, even for a moment! Be your best, it’s all to the good. You may find this difficult to believe, but among nerds (typically a subset of nice guys) it’s actually a high compliment when someone says “Man, your girlfriend is smart!”
5. Don’t ever flake out, or do anything that even faintly smacks of a power game.
As mentioned above, if you’re a reasonably attractive woman then you will start a relationship with an inexperienced nice guy in a position of superior power. Whether it’s true or not, he will likely believe that you can get another guy at the snap of your fingers, while he can’t do the same, which gives you the upper hand. Some girls find this not to their taste; and if so, then they are just advised to stay away from these guys. If you’re willing to live with the upper hand, though, then my advice for you to be happy with your nice guy is simple: never, ever show that hand. If you try some sort of power move, to yank his chain even a little, it won’t end well for you. At best, he’ll be resentful of having his insecurity exposed; at worst he’ll respond by turning himself door-mattish; and you don’t really want either of those if you’re at all a decent person.
The problem is, you may think you don’t want to do anything like this, but everyone does some of it naturally, without thinking. The simplest example is flaking, ie not showing up to an appointment, or showing up very late. Making other people wait is a traditional assertion of power, used by everyone from senators to DMV clerks. You probably do it, along with everyone else, without even realizing it. My point here is, you should be extra-careful not to flake out or otherwise overtly demonstrate power when dealing with an inexperienced nice guy, it’s really just asking for trouble. If you do have to miss a date, be absolutely sure to show explicit contrition later, even if only symbolic (bringing a cupcake is a good start).
You might actually find this surprisingly difficult! and it may be more work than you’re interested in doing. But the potential payoff is huge, and that’s why I’m here to help.
How you appear to him:
If you’re at least reasonably attractive, reasonably intelligent, and not apparently crazy or shallow, then to him you are: the Hope Diamond, but locked in a 12-digit combination safe at the other end of a tightrope stretched over a pool of alligators. In other words, you are a great and promising treasure, but he fears that to get anywhere with you he needs to do a whole series of things exactly right — one slip-up and his chance is gone.
Why does he think this way? Because of his prior experience. If he’s the socially un-fluent type, then chances are he didn’t do very well in high school; more exactly, he probably tried to make time with some girls, but very often failed; and, even more exactly, not being socially fluent he failed but doesn’t know WHY he failed. Let’s face it, high school girls are not known for telling the truth in plain language, especially when rejecting someone; the boy who can’t read social cues very well is only left to wonder, What did I do wrong? After several disappointing years of this he, quite understandably, comes to see girls as basically flaky and inscrutable — as 12-digit combination safes, where if you don’t do everything exactly right, you’re gone. Keep that image in mind.
If you want to get with this guy in later life — he has a lot of advantages, too, as we will see — then your basic job is to demonstrate convincingly to him that you are not the 12-digit safe, that you will not require him to run a gauntlet of baffling tests and that you will notdump him the first (or second) time he makes a mistake. Remember, coming out of high school that’s his image of how all girls are — you have to actively work to overcome that image if you want to be worth his time.
My primer:
1. Be physical, but not necessarily sexual, early and often.
Your nice guy, even if he’s handsome and fit, probably has hang-ups about his body. As a woman you might be surprised to learn this — you thought only girls had body-image trouble — but it makes sense if you consider his past experience. He’s been treated almost like a leper, basically untouched and untouchable, for years in a row; even if the real source of his problem was elsewhere, he’s probably formed the idea, even subconsciously, that his body is somehow physically repulsive.
You can correct this impression — you want to! — but there are better and worse ways to do so. My advice is, don’t jump his bones in one big go right away (see below); better is to do a lot of small things to show, quietly and continually, that you enjoy his physical contact. You don’t need to grope him or fall all over him; just hold hands, put your arm around his waist, lean against him sometimes when you walk. Continuous, small reminders are what will really be convincing.
2. Don’t command a performance that he can’t (yet) deliver.
Suppose you do indulge the urge to grab his crotch and say “All right, big boy, let’s give it a go!” You might think of this as giving the ultimate compliment, fulfilling every young man’s dream; but the most likely result in your nice guy is panic. Not that he’s rejecting you! Trust me, he appreciates your enthusiasm! But you might not realize that you’ve put him in a tough spot: as he sees it, he now has to deliver a performance that he has little or no experience giving. He’s thinking, what do I do now? Should I feel her up? should I try to take her shirt off? should we just kiss for a while? What’s the right thing to do next? The truth, which is that any of those might be just fine, will not occur to him; instead of just doing whatever comes naturally, he fears that if he does the wrong thing at the wrong time you will change your mind and bail out.
Why should he think this way? Again, most likely because that’s what happened to him before. Imagine a standard high-school-age scene: a girl and a boy are alone together, hot and heavy for the first time; but at their age it’s often the blind leading the blind. She’s expecting him to lead the way, but when she finds out he’s just as inexperienced it’s not uncommon for the girl to call a halt to the proceedings. Different boys react to this in different ways. The self-centered ones, budding misogynists and future players, may blame the girl; while the now and future nice guy will more likely blame himself, able only to wonder What did I do wrong? Thus he builds up the 12-digit safe image: if you don’t know exactly what to do next at every turn, then you might as well not start.
Don’t worry! this doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun sex with a nice guy! It’s just that you’ll be better off if you don’t frame the situation in such a way that he’s giving a high-stakes command performance. Make it absolutely clear that you’re not going to grade and criticize his every move, and that you welcome the spirit of whatever he wants to try. This is probably true, you just have to get it across. And try some stuff yourself! nice guys, unlike alpha jocks, are usually very receptive to women taking the initiative.
The same principle applies in many other, daylight situations. If your guy is not a fluent talker, then a dinner date may be a long and painful experience early in a relationship. You may just want him to relax and talk about whatever he wants to; but he may see it as a command performance, that he has to work to impress you — over and over again, every five minutes for two hours. This is one reason I wouldn’t recommend dinner dates before two people know each other fairly well; a restaurant setting is blank, it doesn’t give you much to work with. Better is an event, a parade, or even a walk around town, where new stuff is always coming into view and gives both of you something to talk about.
The bottom line here is, try to avoid setting up situations in which your guy feels he has to perform something he’s not good at; it will be painful for him, and make him look less attractive to you.
3. Visit him when he’s at his best.
The flip side of the same token is that it’s within your power to make your guy look moreattractive to you. (Isn’t that a fun idea? Having a magic wand that does nothing to you, but instead makes other people prettier for your benefit?) The key here is to spend time with him while he’s doing something he’s good at and that he enjoys. It may be playing a sport, or an instrument, or fixing up a car; almost everyone is good at something. You will appreciate seeing him happy, relaxed and masterful, and he will appreciate the chance to show off for you successfully. Note that this tactic is specific to nice guys: nice guys get a kick out of the idea that they can impress a girl, while alpha jocks consider it beneath them even to try.
4. Feel free to be your best, and don’t even think of bimbo-izing.
This is another, subtler advantage of going with a nice guy: around them, it is to your advantage to show how smart and skilled you really are; they’ll enjoy and appreciate it, where alpha jocks would be bothered and threatened. The reason why has to do with different approaches to ego support.
A quick, common, though unimaginative attempt at ego support is to display yourself as being lesser or weaker than the other person: “Oh, Rocko, you’re so strong, can you open this pickle jar for me?” This is the kind of support that alpha jocks like to get; their security comes from women’s insecurity, from the idea that they have higher value and so women will be drawn to them and afraid to leave them.
A different approach to ego support is, be as good and amazing a person as possible yourself, and then elevate the other person by singling them out for your favor. This is the kind of support that nice guys like to get. Remember, as a reasonably attractive woman you start the relationship with a nice guy in a position of superior power; you don’t build him up by tearing yourself down. Once he’s convinced that you really go for him, then everything good about you — your skills, your culture, your intelligence — reflects back positively on him; he’ll enjoy bragging about how competent and amazing you are. So don’t act like a bimbo, even for a moment! Be your best, it’s all to the good. You may find this difficult to believe, but among nerds (typically a subset of nice guys) it’s actually a high compliment when someone says “Man, your girlfriend is smart!”
5. Don’t ever flake out, or do anything that even faintly smacks of a power game.
As mentioned above, if you’re a reasonably attractive woman then you will start a relationship with an inexperienced nice guy in a position of superior power. Whether it’s true or not, he will likely believe that you can get another guy at the snap of your fingers, while he can’t do the same, which gives you the upper hand. Some girls find this not to their taste; and if so, then they are just advised to stay away from these guys. If you’re willing to live with the upper hand, though, then my advice for you to be happy with your nice guy is simple: never, ever show that hand. If you try some sort of power move, to yank his chain even a little, it won’t end well for you. At best, he’ll be resentful of having his insecurity exposed; at worst he’ll respond by turning himself door-mattish; and you don’t really want either of those if you’re at all a decent person.
The problem is, you may think you don’t want to do anything like this, but everyone does some of it naturally, without thinking. The simplest example is flaking, ie not showing up to an appointment, or showing up very late. Making other people wait is a traditional assertion of power, used by everyone from senators to DMV clerks. You probably do it, along with everyone else, without even realizing it. My point here is, you should be extra-careful not to flake out or otherwise overtly demonstrate power when dealing with an inexperienced nice guy, it’s really just asking for trouble. If you do have to miss a date, be absolutely sure to show explicit contrition later, even if only symbolic (bringing a cupcake is a good start).
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
PERSONAL: GETTING SAD THAT I HAVEN'T FOUND MY FUTURE WIFE
Yes, there is so much good in my life, and yet sometimes, every moment aches.It's not that I am another year older… it's not that my life is passing me by without moving forward (my nephews are another year older, stunningly old -- kids now, no longer babies). I tell myself that lives aren't measured only by being married and having children… my life is rich, full of friends and family, a great job, -- fulfilling a life-long dream. I can look back and claim real achievements -- emotional growth, solidified relationships with family, goals met.But, somehow, when new years comes around, all I see is the fact that I am no longer the little boy thrilling to have toys… that I don't have anyone to make special breakfasts for, the way my mom made them for me.
I feel it, and when the yearning occasionally overpowers me -- for an hour sometimes, and sometimes for a day, sometimes longer -- I am sickened with myself. There is so much good in my life, and yet all I see is the lack. There is so much good in my life, and yet, sometimes, every moment aches.
Believe it or not, I have a naturally happy disposition. And, sometimes, when I am taken over with longing for a life other than the one I have -- work, home, work, home, date, doesn't work out, work, home -- I wonder just what it is that men who don't have the incredible blessing of a sunny outlook go through. What do their days look like to them? How do they manage to get themselves out of bed -- to another day that just seems to remind you with every moment that, for whatever reason, you can't have what you think you were created for? Being married and being a father doesn't mean that your life suddenly becomes easy and perfect. If anything, it brings with it a set of enormous challenges that I can fathom only because I've watched so many of my friends struggle with them.
Marriage and especially fatherhood make you utterly beholden to others. A husband must always consider her wife and a father must always, in some ways, give his life over to the needs of his family.Their schedules, their requirements, their moods… There's no more leisurely reading, no more running out at the drop of a hat, no more deciding to go somewhere on a whim. Sleeping through the night becomes a major accomplishment.
And yet, I think, it must all be so utterly worth it when your child opens up his eyes and sees you there in the morning.
I even try to convince myself that dating is fun -- after all, almost all the woman I've ever gone out with are good and kind, if not the woman I should marry -- and that my life has an excitement and variation my married friends somehow envy. After all, they sometimes tell me this.
And I see how hard marriage can sometimes be, and how one is forced to grow, accommodate and bite one's tongue. It's not all wine and roses.
And still I long for the days when I will roll my eyes because my wife, yet again, didn't change the toilet roll, Will I be so beaten down by the weight of all this longing and impatience and yearning and frustration that I won't even recognize her when she finally appears?
On those days, will I remember how I cried at night after another date with someone else who wasn't her, wondering how on earth I am ever going to find the woman with whom I'm going to build my life?
Will I remember the frustration of trying again? Will I even recognize her when she does come, or will I be so beaten down by the weight of all this, of all this longing and impatience and yearning and frustration, that I won't even recognize her when she finally appears?
What I wonder the most is how I can bear all this -- all this whining and kvetching and feeling ridiculously sorry for myself -- and still be a bearable person? People tell me that I am cheery and sunny and funny, There are times when I feel like it's enough. I've grown enough from these challenges. I'm ready to move on to the next set.And when I do, when I am annoyed with my wife and exhausted from the kids, I just hope that I'll be able to remember what I felt now… and be grateful, so grateful, for what I'll have then.
I feel it, and when the yearning occasionally overpowers me -- for an hour sometimes, and sometimes for a day, sometimes longer -- I am sickened with myself. There is so much good in my life, and yet all I see is the lack. There is so much good in my life, and yet, sometimes, every moment aches.
Believe it or not, I have a naturally happy disposition. And, sometimes, when I am taken over with longing for a life other than the one I have -- work, home, work, home, date, doesn't work out, work, home -- I wonder just what it is that men who don't have the incredible blessing of a sunny outlook go through. What do their days look like to them? How do they manage to get themselves out of bed -- to another day that just seems to remind you with every moment that, for whatever reason, you can't have what you think you were created for? Being married and being a father doesn't mean that your life suddenly becomes easy and perfect. If anything, it brings with it a set of enormous challenges that I can fathom only because I've watched so many of my friends struggle with them.
Marriage and especially fatherhood make you utterly beholden to others. A husband must always consider her wife and a father must always, in some ways, give his life over to the needs of his family.Their schedules, their requirements, their moods… There's no more leisurely reading, no more running out at the drop of a hat, no more deciding to go somewhere on a whim. Sleeping through the night becomes a major accomplishment.
And yet, I think, it must all be so utterly worth it when your child opens up his eyes and sees you there in the morning.
I even try to convince myself that dating is fun -- after all, almost all the woman I've ever gone out with are good and kind, if not the woman I should marry -- and that my life has an excitement and variation my married friends somehow envy. After all, they sometimes tell me this.
And I see how hard marriage can sometimes be, and how one is forced to grow, accommodate and bite one's tongue. It's not all wine and roses.
And still I long for the days when I will roll my eyes because my wife, yet again, didn't change the toilet roll, Will I be so beaten down by the weight of all this longing and impatience and yearning and frustration that I won't even recognize her when she finally appears?
On those days, will I remember how I cried at night after another date with someone else who wasn't her, wondering how on earth I am ever going to find the woman with whom I'm going to build my life?
Will I remember the frustration of trying again? Will I even recognize her when she does come, or will I be so beaten down by the weight of all this, of all this longing and impatience and yearning and frustration, that I won't even recognize her when she finally appears?
What I wonder the most is how I can bear all this -- all this whining and kvetching and feeling ridiculously sorry for myself -- and still be a bearable person? People tell me that I am cheery and sunny and funny, There are times when I feel like it's enough. I've grown enough from these challenges. I'm ready to move on to the next set.And when I do, when I am annoyed with my wife and exhausted from the kids, I just hope that I'll be able to remember what I felt now… and be grateful, so grateful, for what I'll have then.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Sunday, December 14, 2014
PERSONAL:BECAUSE YOU OWN MY HEART, SOUL, AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN BETWEEN
I wish my life was a John Grisham novel. His heroes always seem to be one step away from death but come up with a brilliant plan. Unfortunately, real life can’t be wrapped up with a nice little bow. Now I understand all those chick flicks I made fun of. 'Cause now I'm the sappy dork willing to risk it all for the girl.Everyone knows im perfect. My life is perfect. My clothes are perfect. Even my family is perfect. And although its a complete lie, i've worked my butt off to keep up the appearence that i have it all. The truth, if it were to come out, would destroy my entire picture-perfect image I need someone to spend the rest of life with.
There are only so many of us born at a time and we are thrown into the world to find each other, to find the other ones who don't think you're strange, who understand your jokes, your smile, the way you talk.There are only so many of us born at a time and we only have so long to find each other before we die.And then my soul saw you and it kind of went "Oh there you are. I've been looking for you It’s not your face, not yourr smile, not even your eyes. All of that surface stuff made the world see you as beautiful, but it was the deeper stuff that made you different, And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling "This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!"And each day, it's up to you, to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say "No. This is what's important. I’m not scared of never meeting you. I’m scared of having met you, and let you go
I couldn’t convince you that the blue you see is the same blue that I see. But maybe that’s how lovers know they’re meant to love; they see the same blue. And they both know it.That’s what it feels like when you touch me. Like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space between your finger and my skin. Sometimes I forget.There are a million important things to do. But none as important is lying here next to you
You are the one girl that made me risk eveything for a future worth having, I want to know how to make this girl laugh. I want to know what makes her cry. I want to know what it feels like to have her look at me as if I’m her knight in shinning armor. One of the things that makes me who I am is the loyalty I have to people I hold close to my heart. My plan is to meet the girl of my dream here and ask her to marry me in one year and I guarantee you a lifetime of fun, probably one with no lack of fighting, for you are one passionate, but I definitely look forward to some great make-up sessions. What do you think?, you own my soul.The urge to jump into your arms and feel the warmth of them surrounding me is so powerful, I wonder if it's medically possible to be addicted to another human being, Kiss me to see if we still have it. 'Cause you own my heart,soul,and everything else in between
There are only so many of us born at a time and we are thrown into the world to find each other, to find the other ones who don't think you're strange, who understand your jokes, your smile, the way you talk.There are only so many of us born at a time and we only have so long to find each other before we die.And then my soul saw you and it kind of went "Oh there you are. I've been looking for you It’s not your face, not yourr smile, not even your eyes. All of that surface stuff made the world see you as beautiful, but it was the deeper stuff that made you different, And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling "This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!"And each day, it's up to you, to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say "No. This is what's important. I’m not scared of never meeting you. I’m scared of having met you, and let you go
I couldn’t convince you that the blue you see is the same blue that I see. But maybe that’s how lovers know they’re meant to love; they see the same blue. And they both know it.That’s what it feels like when you touch me. Like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space between your finger and my skin. Sometimes I forget.There are a million important things to do. But none as important is lying here next to you
You are the one girl that made me risk eveything for a future worth having, I want to know how to make this girl laugh. I want to know what makes her cry. I want to know what it feels like to have her look at me as if I’m her knight in shinning armor. One of the things that makes me who I am is the loyalty I have to people I hold close to my heart. My plan is to meet the girl of my dream here and ask her to marry me in one year and I guarantee you a lifetime of fun, probably one with no lack of fighting, for you are one passionate, but I definitely look forward to some great make-up sessions. What do you think?, you own my soul.The urge to jump into your arms and feel the warmth of them surrounding me is so powerful, I wonder if it's medically possible to be addicted to another human being, Kiss me to see if we still have it. 'Cause you own my heart,soul,and everything else in between
PERSONAL: WHY YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEM FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON....CHEMISTRY
Look. I don’t know what you’re over there thinking about. It could be simple or sophisticated, mundane or whimsical, practical or creepy. But I’m over here thinking a
Is it my imagination, or are women, generally speaking, much more likely than men to expect some sort of lightning or magic on a first date for them to consider going on a 2nd date? I’m talking about chemistry, which everyone wants some sort of overwhelming emotional response that causes “butterflies,” etc.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women say that they had a nice first date with so and so, but there were no butterflies, no shooting stars, and therefore they have turned down a request for a 2nd date. I find this a bit difficult to comprehend, because I personally never expect to see shooting stars on a first date. And if I do see stars on a first date, I push them aside because experience has taught me that in most cases those stars were just a temporary thing and my first impression of a woman from just one date is always incomplete. I mean, a first date is not the real world, it’s not the way people usually are most of the time. If nothing else, both parties are usually a bit nervous and on their best behavior, so you don’t get to know the real them. (I start feeling butterflies after a few dates, when I get a more complete picture of the woman, and I like the picture that is emerging.)
First-date sparks don’t portend a future relationship.we spend our lives looking for that intense one-of-a-kind chemistry with a partner, it’s actually BAD for your relationship. We are simply not at our best when we’re crazy about someone. We become insecure and weak and needy and yes, somewhat crazy, in the presence of chemistry. What happens when you find yourself incredibly attracted to a someone? Well, there’s the feeling of chemistry and everything that comes along with it – the obsessive highs that come with wanting to be with her, the joy of feeling incredibly connected, and, what you may forget, the willful blindness that allows you to overlook her flaws.That’s one of the most miraculous things about chemistry: it allows you to focus only on the good and ignore all the bad.
If you were an average woman, you’d be able to be with an average man and be content. Since you’re an above average woman – smart, strong, successful – your standards are going to go up accordingly.So if, by your standards, 95% of men are the WRONG men, it makes it that much harder to find ANY guy to date, and makes each new man who does qualify seem all the more important. Once a guy passes through your strong chemistry filter, he’s in.By this point, you’ve forgotten the rule of chemistry: it allows you to focus only on the good and ignore all the bad. Which is why you can have incredible chemistry and end up in a TERRIBLE relationship, where he doesn’t call you, doesn’t compliment you, doesn’t make you feel safe, and doesn’t commit to you.But you stick around because of how strong your rare FEELINGS are. You’ve now discovered the real secret to why you’re in dead end relationships:You don’t attract the wrong men, you accept the wrong men.
I am looking to marry a girl that can lead a quiet life with me. All I do is work and come home
I believe people should be more compatible with each other rather than have a lot of chemistry at first. I know ore females prefer chemistry but people who are compatible can develop good chemistry as time goes on. People who are not compatible who have good chemistry at the start will later find problems in their relationship.
Is it my imagination, or are women, generally speaking, much more likely than men to expect some sort of lightning or magic on a first date for them to consider going on a 2nd date? I’m talking about chemistry, which everyone wants some sort of overwhelming emotional response that causes “butterflies,” etc.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women say that they had a nice first date with so and so, but there were no butterflies, no shooting stars, and therefore they have turned down a request for a 2nd date. I find this a bit difficult to comprehend, because I personally never expect to see shooting stars on a first date. And if I do see stars on a first date, I push them aside because experience has taught me that in most cases those stars were just a temporary thing and my first impression of a woman from just one date is always incomplete. I mean, a first date is not the real world, it’s not the way people usually are most of the time. If nothing else, both parties are usually a bit nervous and on their best behavior, so you don’t get to know the real them. (I start feeling butterflies after a few dates, when I get a more complete picture of the woman, and I like the picture that is emerging.)
First-date sparks don’t portend a future relationship.we spend our lives looking for that intense one-of-a-kind chemistry with a partner, it’s actually BAD for your relationship. We are simply not at our best when we’re crazy about someone. We become insecure and weak and needy and yes, somewhat crazy, in the presence of chemistry. What happens when you find yourself incredibly attracted to a someone? Well, there’s the feeling of chemistry and everything that comes along with it – the obsessive highs that come with wanting to be with her, the joy of feeling incredibly connected, and, what you may forget, the willful blindness that allows you to overlook her flaws.That’s one of the most miraculous things about chemistry: it allows you to focus only on the good and ignore all the bad.
If you were an average woman, you’d be able to be with an average man and be content. Since you’re an above average woman – smart, strong, successful – your standards are going to go up accordingly.So if, by your standards, 95% of men are the WRONG men, it makes it that much harder to find ANY guy to date, and makes each new man who does qualify seem all the more important. Once a guy passes through your strong chemistry filter, he’s in.By this point, you’ve forgotten the rule of chemistry: it allows you to focus only on the good and ignore all the bad. Which is why you can have incredible chemistry and end up in a TERRIBLE relationship, where he doesn’t call you, doesn’t compliment you, doesn’t make you feel safe, and doesn’t commit to you.But you stick around because of how strong your rare FEELINGS are. You’ve now discovered the real secret to why you’re in dead end relationships:You don’t attract the wrong men, you accept the wrong men.
I am looking to marry a girl that can lead a quiet life with me. All I do is work and come home
I believe people should be more compatible with each other rather than have a lot of chemistry at first. I know ore females prefer chemistry but people who are compatible can develop good chemistry as time goes on. People who are not compatible who have good chemistry at the start will later find problems in their relationship.
Friday, December 12, 2014
ARTICLE: Consciousness Creates Reality” – Physicists Admit The Universe Is Immaterial, Mental & Spiritual
“Consciousness creates reality,” a statement that has gained a lot of attention across various alternative media outlets around the world. Make no mistake, consciousness has been (for quite some time) studied by numerous scientists, especially in its relation to quantum physics and how it might be correlated with the nature of our reality.
What is consciousness? Consciousness includes a number of things. It’s how we perceive our world, our thoughts, being aware, our intentions and more.
“Looking for consciousness in the brain is like looking in the radio for the announcer.” – Nasseim Haramein, director of research for the Resonance Project
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulating consciousness.” – Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918
“It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Eugene Wigner, theoretical physicist and mathematician. He received a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963
The statement that “consciousness creates reality” comes with a number of different questions. Does this mean we as individuals (and on a collective level as one human race) can shape and create whatever reality we’d like for ourselves? Does it mean we can manifest a certain lifestyle, and attract certain experiences? Does it happen instantly? Does it take time? How do we do it?
Although we might not be able to answer these questions with absolute scientific certainty, we do know that yes, a correlation between consciousness and our physical material world does indeed exist in some way, shape or form. The extent of that correlation (again from a modern day scientific point of view) is still not well understood, but we know of the correlation, and we know it must have some sort of significance.
“A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.” – R.C. Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University , “The Mental Universe” ; Nature 436:29,2005) (source)
The Science Behind The Statement “Consciousness Creates Reality”
The quantum double slit experiment is a very popular experiment used to examine how consciousness and our physical material world are intertwined. It is a great example that documents how factors associated with consciousness and our physical material world are connected in some way.
One potential revelation of this experience is that “the observer creates the reality.” A paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Physics Essays by Dean Radin, PhD, explains how this experiment has been used multiple times to explore the role of consciousness in shaping the nature of physical reality. (source)
In this experiment, a double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wave-function. The ratio of the interference pattern’s double slit spectral power to its single slit spectral power was predicted to decrease when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it. The study found that factors associated with consciousness “significantly” correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double slit interference pattern. (source)
“Observation not only disturbs what has to be measured, they produce it. We compel the electron to assume a definite position. We ourselves produce the results of the measurement.” (source)
Although this is one of the most popular experiments used to posit the connection between consciousness and physical reality, there are several other studies that clearly show that consciousness, or factors that are associated with consciousness are directly correlated with our reality in some way. A number of experiments in the field of parapsychology have also demonstrated this.
Sure, we might not understand the extent of this connection, and in most cases scientists can’t even explain it. However they are, and have been observed time and time again.
Below is a video demonstration from the film “What The Bleep Do We Know.”
Other examples that we’ve written about are government sponsored psychokinesis experiments, the global consciousness experiment, intelligence agency remote viewing experiments, thoughts and intentions altering the structure of water, the placebo effect, teleportation studies and more. You can find more details about those specific experiments HERE.
Some other related CE articles that relate to this subject are listed below:
Buddhist Monks Bless Tea With Good Intention
Fascinating Study Shows Human Intention Can Help Heal Cancer Patients
How We Can Incorporate This Information Into Our Lives & Use Consciousness To Transform The World
Change requires action, but the place within which that action comes from is most important.
Modern day science, especially quantum physics, has been catching up to ancient mysticism and concepts that are/were so deeply ingrained in various cultures throughout the ancient world. One great example of this is the fact that everything is energy , and nothing is solid. You can read more about that here.
“We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world.” – Gautama Buddha
“Broadly speaking, although there are some differences, I think Buddhist philosophy and Quantum Mechanics can shake hands on their view of the world. We can see in these great examples the fruits of human thinking. Regardless of the admiration we feel for these great thinkers, we should not lose sight of the fact that they were human beings just as we are.” – Dalai Lama (source)
A great example of quantum physics meeting ancient wisdom is seen in the fact that Nikola Tesla was influenced by Vedic philosophy when pondering his ideas of zero point energy. You can read more about that here.
So why is this relevant? It’s relevant because new physics, as mentioned above, is pointing to the fact that the observer shapes the reality. The way we think and perceive could be responsible and play a vital role in the physical construct we see in front of us.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” - Unknown
If we look at the world and examine it on a collective level, what do we see? How do we perceive it? Right now, the masses perceive it as being born, going to school, paying bills, raising a family and finding a “job” within the current paradigm to support yourself. No judgement here, but many people on the planet are not resonating with this experience. They want change. We’ve been repeating and perceiving our reality this way for a very long time, with very little information about what is really happening on and to our planet. It’s almost like we are robotic drones that are trained and brainwashed to accept things the way they are. To not question what is happening in our world and to continue on with the status quo, only caring for ourselves and our own lives. As Noam Chomsky would say, our consent has been manufactured. If we continue down this path and continue to perceive and view reality as “this is just the way it is,” we will, in essence, prolong that type of existence and experience for the human race without ever changing it.
In order to create and manifest a new reality for ourselves, our thought patters and the way we perceive reality must change. What changes the way we perceive reality? Information does. When new information emerges it changes the way we look at things and as a result, our reality changes, and we begin to manifest a new experience and open our minds to a broader view of reality. Not to say that we can’t manifest a new physical form in the blink of an eye, and that we are not capable of doing that, but it appears to be something that takes time, something gradual, something we don’t quite understand yet.
What’s also important about teachings from new physics is that, if factors of consciousness are associated with the creation of our reality, that means change starts within. It starts with the way in which we are observing the outer world from our inner world. This touches on the earlier point of how we perceive our reality. Our perception of the external world might very well be a reflection of our inner world, our inner state of being. So ask yourself, are you happy? Are you observing, perceiving and acting from a place of love? From a place of hate or anger? From a place of peace? All of these factors are associated with our consciousness, with our observation, the one (or the many) who are doing the “observing” might play a large role in what type of physical world the human race manifests for itself, what do you think?
We are indeed the observers, can we create change and break patterns to open up new possibilities, change our direction, all through the way in which we observe ourselves, others and the world around us.
I believe that the human race is in the process of waking up to a number of different things, simultaneously. As a result, the way we perceive and “observe” the world around us (on a mass scale) is starting to drastically change. So if you want to help change the world, change the way you look at things, and the things you look at will change.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” This statement (worldview statement) was by Lord Kelvin in 1900, which was shattered only five years later when Einstein published his paper on special relativity. The new theories proposed by Einstein challenged the current (at that time) framework of understanding. This forced the scientific community to open up to an alternate view of the true nature of our reality. A great example of how things that once were regarded as truth have changed.
“Lord Kelvins statements bares with it the voice of paradigms past…We knew that the Earth was flat, we knew that we were the center of the universe, and we knew that a manmade heavier than air piece of machinery could not take flight. Through all stages of human history, intellectual authorities have pronounced their supremacy by ridiculing or suppressing elements of reality that simply didn’t fit within the framework of accepted knowledge. Are we really any different today? Have we really changed our acceptance towards things that won’t fit the frame? Maybe there are concepts of our reality we have yet to understand, and if we open our eyes maybe we will see that something significant has been overlooked.” – Terje Toftenes (source)
What is consciousness? Consciousness includes a number of things. It’s how we perceive our world, our thoughts, being aware, our intentions and more.
“Looking for consciousness in the brain is like looking in the radio for the announcer.” – Nasseim Haramein, director of research for the Resonance Project
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulating consciousness.” – Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918
“It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Eugene Wigner, theoretical physicist and mathematician. He received a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963
The statement that “consciousness creates reality” comes with a number of different questions. Does this mean we as individuals (and on a collective level as one human race) can shape and create whatever reality we’d like for ourselves? Does it mean we can manifest a certain lifestyle, and attract certain experiences? Does it happen instantly? Does it take time? How do we do it?
Although we might not be able to answer these questions with absolute scientific certainty, we do know that yes, a correlation between consciousness and our physical material world does indeed exist in some way, shape or form. The extent of that correlation (again from a modern day scientific point of view) is still not well understood, but we know of the correlation, and we know it must have some sort of significance.
“A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.” – R.C. Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University , “The Mental Universe” ; Nature 436:29,2005) (source)
The Science Behind The Statement “Consciousness Creates Reality”
The quantum double slit experiment is a very popular experiment used to examine how consciousness and our physical material world are intertwined. It is a great example that documents how factors associated with consciousness and our physical material world are connected in some way.
One potential revelation of this experience is that “the observer creates the reality.” A paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Physics Essays by Dean Radin, PhD, explains how this experiment has been used multiple times to explore the role of consciousness in shaping the nature of physical reality. (source)
In this experiment, a double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wave-function. The ratio of the interference pattern’s double slit spectral power to its single slit spectral power was predicted to decrease when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it. The study found that factors associated with consciousness “significantly” correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double slit interference pattern. (source)
“Observation not only disturbs what has to be measured, they produce it. We compel the electron to assume a definite position. We ourselves produce the results of the measurement.” (source)
Although this is one of the most popular experiments used to posit the connection between consciousness and physical reality, there are several other studies that clearly show that consciousness, or factors that are associated with consciousness are directly correlated with our reality in some way. A number of experiments in the field of parapsychology have also demonstrated this.
Sure, we might not understand the extent of this connection, and in most cases scientists can’t even explain it. However they are, and have been observed time and time again.
Below is a video demonstration from the film “What The Bleep Do We Know.”
Other examples that we’ve written about are government sponsored psychokinesis experiments, the global consciousness experiment, intelligence agency remote viewing experiments, thoughts and intentions altering the structure of water, the placebo effect, teleportation studies and more. You can find more details about those specific experiments HERE.
Some other related CE articles that relate to this subject are listed below:
Buddhist Monks Bless Tea With Good Intention
Fascinating Study Shows Human Intention Can Help Heal Cancer Patients
How We Can Incorporate This Information Into Our Lives & Use Consciousness To Transform The World
Change requires action, but the place within which that action comes from is most important.
Modern day science, especially quantum physics, has been catching up to ancient mysticism and concepts that are/were so deeply ingrained in various cultures throughout the ancient world. One great example of this is the fact that everything is energy , and nothing is solid. You can read more about that here.
“We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world.” – Gautama Buddha
“Broadly speaking, although there are some differences, I think Buddhist philosophy and Quantum Mechanics can shake hands on their view of the world. We can see in these great examples the fruits of human thinking. Regardless of the admiration we feel for these great thinkers, we should not lose sight of the fact that they were human beings just as we are.” – Dalai Lama (source)
A great example of quantum physics meeting ancient wisdom is seen in the fact that Nikola Tesla was influenced by Vedic philosophy when pondering his ideas of zero point energy. You can read more about that here.
So why is this relevant? It’s relevant because new physics, as mentioned above, is pointing to the fact that the observer shapes the reality. The way we think and perceive could be responsible and play a vital role in the physical construct we see in front of us.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” - Unknown
If we look at the world and examine it on a collective level, what do we see? How do we perceive it? Right now, the masses perceive it as being born, going to school, paying bills, raising a family and finding a “job” within the current paradigm to support yourself. No judgement here, but many people on the planet are not resonating with this experience. They want change. We’ve been repeating and perceiving our reality this way for a very long time, with very little information about what is really happening on and to our planet. It’s almost like we are robotic drones that are trained and brainwashed to accept things the way they are. To not question what is happening in our world and to continue on with the status quo, only caring for ourselves and our own lives. As Noam Chomsky would say, our consent has been manufactured. If we continue down this path and continue to perceive and view reality as “this is just the way it is,” we will, in essence, prolong that type of existence and experience for the human race without ever changing it.
In order to create and manifest a new reality for ourselves, our thought patters and the way we perceive reality must change. What changes the way we perceive reality? Information does. When new information emerges it changes the way we look at things and as a result, our reality changes, and we begin to manifest a new experience and open our minds to a broader view of reality. Not to say that we can’t manifest a new physical form in the blink of an eye, and that we are not capable of doing that, but it appears to be something that takes time, something gradual, something we don’t quite understand yet.
What’s also important about teachings from new physics is that, if factors of consciousness are associated with the creation of our reality, that means change starts within. It starts with the way in which we are observing the outer world from our inner world. This touches on the earlier point of how we perceive our reality. Our perception of the external world might very well be a reflection of our inner world, our inner state of being. So ask yourself, are you happy? Are you observing, perceiving and acting from a place of love? From a place of hate or anger? From a place of peace? All of these factors are associated with our consciousness, with our observation, the one (or the many) who are doing the “observing” might play a large role in what type of physical world the human race manifests for itself, what do you think?
We are indeed the observers, can we create change and break patterns to open up new possibilities, change our direction, all through the way in which we observe ourselves, others and the world around us.
I believe that the human race is in the process of waking up to a number of different things, simultaneously. As a result, the way we perceive and “observe” the world around us (on a mass scale) is starting to drastically change. So if you want to help change the world, change the way you look at things, and the things you look at will change.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” This statement (worldview statement) was by Lord Kelvin in 1900, which was shattered only five years later when Einstein published his paper on special relativity. The new theories proposed by Einstein challenged the current (at that time) framework of understanding. This forced the scientific community to open up to an alternate view of the true nature of our reality. A great example of how things that once were regarded as truth have changed.
“Lord Kelvins statements bares with it the voice of paradigms past…We knew that the Earth was flat, we knew that we were the center of the universe, and we knew that a manmade heavier than air piece of machinery could not take flight. Through all stages of human history, intellectual authorities have pronounced their supremacy by ridiculing or suppressing elements of reality that simply didn’t fit within the framework of accepted knowledge. Are we really any different today? Have we really changed our acceptance towards things that won’t fit the frame? Maybe there are concepts of our reality we have yet to understand, and if we open our eyes maybe we will see that something significant has been overlooked.” – Terje Toftenes (source)
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