Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting loves to "feel like a housewife," and isn't ashamed to show it.
In a new interview with Redbook magazine, the 29-year-old The Big Bang Theory star dishes on her dynamic with her husband of almost a year, tennis player Ryan Sweeting. When asked if sheconsiders herself a feminist, Kaley says that it is "not something [she] thinks about."
"I was never that feminist girl demanding equality, but maybe that’s because I've never really faced inequality," she says. "I cook for Ryan five nights a week: It makes me feel like a housewife; I love that. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I like the idea of women taking care of their men. I'm so in control of my work that I like coming home and serving him. My mom was like that, so I think it kind of rubbed off."
Kaley is certainly not feeling any discrimination when it comes to her salary on her hit CBS show. The actress made headlines when she signed a contract for another three years of The Big Bang Theory at $1 million per episode, becoming one of television's highest-paid actresses.
"All I think about is what it means for my family … and knowing there is security for all of us," she says about her huge payday. "My parents spent 16 years hauling my butt to LA for audition after audition. Every day they were helping me learn my lines, dropping me off, waiting for me, picking me up, giving me pep talks when I didn't get the jobs, taking me to tennis and horseback riding lessons. I remember always hoping I could help take care of them because they took such good care of me. Knowing I'll be able to just brings tears to my eyes."
And though it's been nine months since she dropped the bombshell to Cosmopolitan magazine that she got breast implants when she turned 18, the actress is still answering questions about her decision to go under the knife.
Clearly, her stance on the subject hasn't changed.
"I had no boobs! And it really was the best thing ever!" she stresses. "I always felt ill-proportioned. My implants made me feel more confident in my body. It wasn’t about trying to be a porn star or wanting to look hot and sexy."
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Friday, December 26, 2014
ARTICLE: Let’s all screw the 1 percent: The simple move Obama could make to strengthen the rest of us BY PAUL ROSENBERG
“The economy” in the abstract is doing relatively well, with strong job growth, a booming stock market, and rising GDP. But the American people aren’t feeling it—and Democrats have paid a serious political price as a result—simply because the concrete, individual experience is quite different. Raising the minimum wage is one way to get at the problem—but for a problem that big, it’s a limited line of attack. There are millions of Americans making well more than the minimum wage, yet still doing much worse than their similarly situated parents did a generation ago.
“So what’s changed since the 1960s and ’70s?” progressive billionare venture capitalistNick Hanauer asked in Politico back in November. “Overtime pay, in part,” he answered: “Your parents got a lot of it, and you don’t. And it turns out that fair overtime standards are to the middle class what the minimum wage is to low-income workers: not everything, but an indispensable labor protection that is absolutely essential to creating a broad and thriving middle class.”
Although the details are a bit complicated, the bottom line is not: there’s a wage level below which everyone qualifies for mandatory time-and-a-half overtime, even if they’re on a salary, and that level has only been raised once since 1975, with the result that only 11 percent of salaried Americans are covered today, compared to over 65 percent of them in 1975. If you make less than $23,660 a year as a salaried worker, you qualify for mandatory overtime—if not, you’re out of luck. Only those hanging on to the lowest levels of the middle class have those protections anymore. Just adjusting the wage level for inflation since 1975—an act of restoration, not revolution—would be as significant an income increase for millions of middle-class Americans as a $10.10 or even $15 minimum wage is for low-wage workers. It would cover an additional 6.1 million salaried workers (by one account) up to $970 per week, about $50,440 annually—the vast majority of those it was originally designed to protect, but who have slowly lost their protections since the 1970s. Hanauer proposes a slightly greater increase, intended to cover roughly all the workforce that was covered in 1975. That would raise the threshold to $69,000 annually, and would cover an added 10.4 million workers.
________________________________
________________________________
“Salaried Americans now report working an average of 47 hours a week—18 percent report working more than 60 hours per week,” Hanauer wrote in a follow-up piece for the Hill in December. “If it feels like you’re working more hours for less money than your parents did a generation ago, it’s probably because you are.” But the solution, as indicated, is simple and the best part is that Congress has absolutely no say in the matter. It’s purely an executive branch decision whether to raise the eligibility level.
Oh, sure, conservatives are bound to yell, “Socialism!” But the original rationale behind the overtime regulations—enshrined in the Fair Labor Standards Act during the Great Depression, along with the minimum wage—comes right out of Adam Smith. Here’s a description from a March 2014 report on the subject from the Economic Policy Institute by Ross Eisenbrey and Jared Bernstein:
The fundamental idea behind overtime coverage, and the minimum wage, is to maintain a basic norm within our labor market. Under certain market conditions, for example when unemployment is high or workers hold especially low levels of bargaining power, employers might be able to require employees to labor long hours without receiving additional compensation. This was, in fact, the case prior to the passage of the FLSA. Congress decided that this was a market failure based on the asymmetrical bargaining positions of affected workers and employers, and thus enacted the OT rules to create a financial disincentive to subject employees to excessive work hours.
And here’s Adam Smith on precisely that same sort of power imbalance and market failure:
In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.
As for how that translates into policy, Smith was equally blunt:
Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.
And this is exactly how the history of overtime pay regulations has worked out, in large part simply by doing nothing, and allowing inflation to erode away all the protections for tens of millions of Americans.
The fact that Adam Smith would be sympathetic is not the only sign that the logic involved ought to appeal to honest, principled conservatives, if any such unicorns actually existed. First, as already indicated, one purpose of the law is to shape social norms—a purpose that conservatives have repeatedly endorsed in a wide array of policy areas. Laws cannot make people good, they may say, but they can express society’s approval and disapproval, they can encourage and support virtuous behavior, and that behavior itself can, in turn, change people’s hearts over time. In the meantime, vice should not be rewarded.
OK, fair enough, you might say. But why would conservatives see overtime pay as good? Because of family values, of course, as Heidi Shierholz noted in an August 2014 EPI report, “Increasing the Overtime Salary Threshold Is Family-Friendly Policy”:
To ensure the basic, family-friendly right to a limited workweek, the Fair Labor Standards Act requires that workers covered by FLSA overtime provisions must be paid at least “time-and-a-half,” or 1.5 times their regular pay rate, for each hour of work per week beyond 40 hours.
Supporting strong families is a social good, which benefits from limiting the work week. If parents are asked to sacrifice family time, they should be paid extra for it. And the need today is greater than ever before, as Bernstein and Eisenbrey noted:
Preserving this right is just as important today as it was 75 years ago, and, when it comes to child-rearing, might be even more important. Between 1968 and 2008, the share of children living in households in which all parents work full time doubled from 24.6 percent to 48.3 percent.
Of course, I don’t expect any movement conservative activists, media figures or politicians to make such an argument—or any other argument in favor of higher wages for ordinary Americans. But it does square rather well with what they at least once pretended to believe, and what legions of their sometimes followers still believe, which is part of why it would be very popular for Obama to expand the scope of overtime coverage—which, again, he doesn’t need anyone else to sign off on.
The rationale for bold action from Obama is clear, as Hanauer noted back in mid-November:
Since the Republican Party’s takeover of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, all the talk in Washington has been about what won’t get done because of gridlock between the White House and Capitol Hill. And Obama has talked of moving things forward by making unilateral changes to immigration law and climate protections.
But what about the most basic need of all—jump-starting the real economy by giving more middle-class Americans a fair shake? You would think that for a Democratic administration, raising the threshold back to where it once was would be a no-brainer….
However, Hanauer notes, with evident dismay, that the Obama administration seems to once again be going wobbly, to say the least. Administration officials “are likely to raise the threshold only partly,” he wrote, “ and the Obama administration has not yet grappled with the broader question of how moves such as this are critical to helping to restore America’s middle class.” And he’s not just guessing. He’s been in contact with those on the inside:
It is my sense, based on my conversations with government officials, that the administration is buying the line from corporate lobbyists who are arguing that such rule changes would devastate their bottom lines, forcing them to lay off workers. You know, the old trickle-down gambit—if workers earn more money, it would be bad for business, the economy and workers. The Obama team, in other words, is buying into the same discredited theories that were used to erode the threshold in the first place. Officials will very likely raise the overtime threshold just enough to say they’re doing something, without actually doing much of anything for the middle class or our demand-starved economy at all.
This is the sad truth about Obama’s economic policy—it’s still stuck in Ronald Reagan’s first term, when trickle-down was still a wild, untested theory, rather than one that had been thoroughly discredited by 30+ years of evidence, showing that supply-side economics is inferior in producing investment growth, productivity growth, GDP growth,faster job creation, growth in median income or wages while also causing the national debt to increase substantially. Obama doesn’t just say nice things about Ronald Reagan from time to time, he thinks like Ronald Reagan, deep down in his bones, and—like Reagan—no amount of pesky facts are going to change his mind. But groundswells of public pressure got Reagan to change his tune several times—in making Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday, for example. So a similar groundswell of pressure on Obama to restore overtime protections to what they were in 1975 sure couldn’t hurt—and it could even help shape the direction of the next presidency, provided that the Democrats win, as now still seems overwhelmingly likely.
The opportunity that Obama and the Democrats have is clear, as Hanauer wrote for the Hill:
Just think about it: With the stroke of his pen, President Obama could force your employer to pay you time-and-a-half for every hour you work over 40 hours a week. And if corporate America didn’t want to pay you time-and-a-half, they would need to hire hundreds of thousands of additional workers to pick up the slack—slashing the unemployment rate and forcing up wages. That’s 10.4 million middle-class Americans with more money in your pocket or more time to spend with your friends and family.
That’s money that would not just make those workers better off, it’s money that would fuel the rest of the economy as well, in sharp contrast to money in the hands of the 1 percent or higher, who spend far less of what they earn, and invest far more in speculative ventures, rather than solid productive enterprises. That’s how the basic logic of Keynesian economics works, and despite decades of propaganda to the contrary—much of it coming from economists who should know better—that’s exactly what America’s economic history confirms. Doing what Hanauer advises—and firing the supply-siders in his own administration—would be the smartest thing President Obama could do right now, to ensure that the economy keeps on growing, regardless of what congressional Republicans try to do in the next two years.
One final thought. In her report, the source of the 6.1 million figure mentioned above, Heidi Shierholz summarizes her main findings as follows:
6.1 million workers would be newly covered by an increase in the salary threshold from $455 per week to $984 per week.
The newly covered workers would be those at the low end of the salary scale who have limited individual bargaining power and would therefore benefit from the overtime protections of the FLSA.
The increase would disproportionately help women, blacks, Hispanics, workers under age 35, and workers with lower levels of education because these workers are more likely than other subgroups to have lower salaries that put them below the proposed new threshold
It’s not really a surprise that the proposed changes would have such an effect. It’s no surprise, since those left behind by the erosion of protections in place 40 years ago are disproportionally female, black, Hispanic, young and less educated. These are precisely the groups who were largely excluded from the salaried job marketplace “When Affirmative Action Was White,” as the the title of Ira Katznelson’s book puts it. And they are precisely the groups who have formed Obama’s electoral base. Older white males—the conservative beneficiaries of America’s welfare state in its most robust form—will no doubt scream bloody murder when this is pointed out to them, by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or some other blowhard, who of course “doesn’t see race” anywhere. And that should be the surest sign of all to Obama that it’s exactly the right thing for him to do.
“So what’s changed since the 1960s and ’70s?” progressive billionare venture capitalistNick Hanauer asked in Politico back in November. “Overtime pay, in part,” he answered: “Your parents got a lot of it, and you don’t. And it turns out that fair overtime standards are to the middle class what the minimum wage is to low-income workers: not everything, but an indispensable labor protection that is absolutely essential to creating a broad and thriving middle class.”
Although the details are a bit complicated, the bottom line is not: there’s a wage level below which everyone qualifies for mandatory time-and-a-half overtime, even if they’re on a salary, and that level has only been raised once since 1975, with the result that only 11 percent of salaried Americans are covered today, compared to over 65 percent of them in 1975. If you make less than $23,660 a year as a salaried worker, you qualify for mandatory overtime—if not, you’re out of luck. Only those hanging on to the lowest levels of the middle class have those protections anymore. Just adjusting the wage level for inflation since 1975—an act of restoration, not revolution—would be as significant an income increase for millions of middle-class Americans as a $10.10 or even $15 minimum wage is for low-wage workers. It would cover an additional 6.1 million salaried workers (by one account) up to $970 per week, about $50,440 annually—the vast majority of those it was originally designed to protect, but who have slowly lost their protections since the 1970s. Hanauer proposes a slightly greater increase, intended to cover roughly all the workforce that was covered in 1975. That would raise the threshold to $69,000 annually, and would cover an added 10.4 million workers.
________________________________
________________________________
“Salaried Americans now report working an average of 47 hours a week—18 percent report working more than 60 hours per week,” Hanauer wrote in a follow-up piece for the Hill in December. “If it feels like you’re working more hours for less money than your parents did a generation ago, it’s probably because you are.” But the solution, as indicated, is simple and the best part is that Congress has absolutely no say in the matter. It’s purely an executive branch decision whether to raise the eligibility level.
Oh, sure, conservatives are bound to yell, “Socialism!” But the original rationale behind the overtime regulations—enshrined in the Fair Labor Standards Act during the Great Depression, along with the minimum wage—comes right out of Adam Smith. Here’s a description from a March 2014 report on the subject from the Economic Policy Institute by Ross Eisenbrey and Jared Bernstein:
The fundamental idea behind overtime coverage, and the minimum wage, is to maintain a basic norm within our labor market. Under certain market conditions, for example when unemployment is high or workers hold especially low levels of bargaining power, employers might be able to require employees to labor long hours without receiving additional compensation. This was, in fact, the case prior to the passage of the FLSA. Congress decided that this was a market failure based on the asymmetrical bargaining positions of affected workers and employers, and thus enacted the OT rules to create a financial disincentive to subject employees to excessive work hours.
And here’s Adam Smith on precisely that same sort of power imbalance and market failure:
In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.
As for how that translates into policy, Smith was equally blunt:
Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.
And this is exactly how the history of overtime pay regulations has worked out, in large part simply by doing nothing, and allowing inflation to erode away all the protections for tens of millions of Americans.
The fact that Adam Smith would be sympathetic is not the only sign that the logic involved ought to appeal to honest, principled conservatives, if any such unicorns actually existed. First, as already indicated, one purpose of the law is to shape social norms—a purpose that conservatives have repeatedly endorsed in a wide array of policy areas. Laws cannot make people good, they may say, but they can express society’s approval and disapproval, they can encourage and support virtuous behavior, and that behavior itself can, in turn, change people’s hearts over time. In the meantime, vice should not be rewarded.
OK, fair enough, you might say. But why would conservatives see overtime pay as good? Because of family values, of course, as Heidi Shierholz noted in an August 2014 EPI report, “Increasing the Overtime Salary Threshold Is Family-Friendly Policy”:
To ensure the basic, family-friendly right to a limited workweek, the Fair Labor Standards Act requires that workers covered by FLSA overtime provisions must be paid at least “time-and-a-half,” or 1.5 times their regular pay rate, for each hour of work per week beyond 40 hours.
Supporting strong families is a social good, which benefits from limiting the work week. If parents are asked to sacrifice family time, they should be paid extra for it. And the need today is greater than ever before, as Bernstein and Eisenbrey noted:
Preserving this right is just as important today as it was 75 years ago, and, when it comes to child-rearing, might be even more important. Between 1968 and 2008, the share of children living in households in which all parents work full time doubled from 24.6 percent to 48.3 percent.
Of course, I don’t expect any movement conservative activists, media figures or politicians to make such an argument—or any other argument in favor of higher wages for ordinary Americans. But it does square rather well with what they at least once pretended to believe, and what legions of their sometimes followers still believe, which is part of why it would be very popular for Obama to expand the scope of overtime coverage—which, again, he doesn’t need anyone else to sign off on.
The rationale for bold action from Obama is clear, as Hanauer noted back in mid-November:
Since the Republican Party’s takeover of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, all the talk in Washington has been about what won’t get done because of gridlock between the White House and Capitol Hill. And Obama has talked of moving things forward by making unilateral changes to immigration law and climate protections.
But what about the most basic need of all—jump-starting the real economy by giving more middle-class Americans a fair shake? You would think that for a Democratic administration, raising the threshold back to where it once was would be a no-brainer….
However, Hanauer notes, with evident dismay, that the Obama administration seems to once again be going wobbly, to say the least. Administration officials “are likely to raise the threshold only partly,” he wrote, “ and the Obama administration has not yet grappled with the broader question of how moves such as this are critical to helping to restore America’s middle class.” And he’s not just guessing. He’s been in contact with those on the inside:
It is my sense, based on my conversations with government officials, that the administration is buying the line from corporate lobbyists who are arguing that such rule changes would devastate their bottom lines, forcing them to lay off workers. You know, the old trickle-down gambit—if workers earn more money, it would be bad for business, the economy and workers. The Obama team, in other words, is buying into the same discredited theories that were used to erode the threshold in the first place. Officials will very likely raise the overtime threshold just enough to say they’re doing something, without actually doing much of anything for the middle class or our demand-starved economy at all.
This is the sad truth about Obama’s economic policy—it’s still stuck in Ronald Reagan’s first term, when trickle-down was still a wild, untested theory, rather than one that had been thoroughly discredited by 30+ years of evidence, showing that supply-side economics is inferior in producing investment growth, productivity growth, GDP growth,faster job creation, growth in median income or wages while also causing the national debt to increase substantially. Obama doesn’t just say nice things about Ronald Reagan from time to time, he thinks like Ronald Reagan, deep down in his bones, and—like Reagan—no amount of pesky facts are going to change his mind. But groundswells of public pressure got Reagan to change his tune several times—in making Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday, for example. So a similar groundswell of pressure on Obama to restore overtime protections to what they were in 1975 sure couldn’t hurt—and it could even help shape the direction of the next presidency, provided that the Democrats win, as now still seems overwhelmingly likely.
The opportunity that Obama and the Democrats have is clear, as Hanauer wrote for the Hill:
Just think about it: With the stroke of his pen, President Obama could force your employer to pay you time-and-a-half for every hour you work over 40 hours a week. And if corporate America didn’t want to pay you time-and-a-half, they would need to hire hundreds of thousands of additional workers to pick up the slack—slashing the unemployment rate and forcing up wages. That’s 10.4 million middle-class Americans with more money in your pocket or more time to spend with your friends and family.
That’s money that would not just make those workers better off, it’s money that would fuel the rest of the economy as well, in sharp contrast to money in the hands of the 1 percent or higher, who spend far less of what they earn, and invest far more in speculative ventures, rather than solid productive enterprises. That’s how the basic logic of Keynesian economics works, and despite decades of propaganda to the contrary—much of it coming from economists who should know better—that’s exactly what America’s economic history confirms. Doing what Hanauer advises—and firing the supply-siders in his own administration—would be the smartest thing President Obama could do right now, to ensure that the economy keeps on growing, regardless of what congressional Republicans try to do in the next two years.
One final thought. In her report, the source of the 6.1 million figure mentioned above, Heidi Shierholz summarizes her main findings as follows:
6.1 million workers would be newly covered by an increase in the salary threshold from $455 per week to $984 per week.
The newly covered workers would be those at the low end of the salary scale who have limited individual bargaining power and would therefore benefit from the overtime protections of the FLSA.
The increase would disproportionately help women, blacks, Hispanics, workers under age 35, and workers with lower levels of education because these workers are more likely than other subgroups to have lower salaries that put them below the proposed new threshold
It’s not really a surprise that the proposed changes would have such an effect. It’s no surprise, since those left behind by the erosion of protections in place 40 years ago are disproportionally female, black, Hispanic, young and less educated. These are precisely the groups who were largely excluded from the salaried job marketplace “When Affirmative Action Was White,” as the the title of Ira Katznelson’s book puts it. And they are precisely the groups who have formed Obama’s electoral base. Older white males—the conservative beneficiaries of America’s welfare state in its most robust form—will no doubt scream bloody murder when this is pointed out to them, by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or some other blowhard, who of course “doesn’t see race” anywhere. And that should be the surest sign of all to Obama that it’s exactly the right thing for him to do.
Thursday, December 25, 2014
JOURNAL: I AM NOT ENOUGH....
When you have low self-esteem, when you follow the path of your choices and actions and your thinking and beliefs behind it and get right down to the starting point, it likely says ‘I don’t believe I’m good enough’.
In feeling this way, you just can’t believe that you’re a person of value, that you’re worthy of a better relationship, that you deserve to have your boundaries respected or to be able to vocalise your concerns or opinions.
When you don’t have good self-esteem it’s because in having conditional love for yourself, you try to get people (and sometimes objects and substances) to create feelings in you that you don’t feel yourself. You make external sources the solution to your internal problems, after all, if you don’t like and love you, why would you believe that you could entrust yourself with the responsibility of you?
If the only thing you’ve ever known is to not feel good enough, it’s hard to imagine even an entire day where you can genuinely like and love you. You’d be subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to drop.
You’re seeing other people’s actions (or lack there of) and your experiences as being directly linked to your worth.
Low self-esteem is like a special language and in your mental translation book, when you look up what certain things mean, you keep getting back the same meaning:
Not interested in me = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Won’t leave their partner = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Won’t change into the person I want = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Wants to do things differently to me = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Won’t develop empathy = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Does something that annoys me (and possibly others) = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Relationship didn’t work out = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Can only get it up to porn = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Has different values = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
You get the idea.
And maybe that’s the crux of the matter: When you have low self-esteem, you see your experiences and the world around you as an extension of how you feel about you.People do what they do, not because they’re independent individual entities, but because of something in you that brings about their actions and thinking, and life happens, shit happens even, not because there are a gazillion other reasons or factors that could have brought it about, but because of something in you.
I’m fundamentally the same person and while I have good self-esteem, I still have to actively work on managing the little boy within me
In feeling this way, you just can’t believe that you’re a person of value, that you’re worthy of a better relationship, that you deserve to have your boundaries respected or to be able to vocalise your concerns or opinions.
When you don’t have good self-esteem it’s because in having conditional love for yourself, you try to get people (and sometimes objects and substances) to create feelings in you that you don’t feel yourself. You make external sources the solution to your internal problems, after all, if you don’t like and love you, why would you believe that you could entrust yourself with the responsibility of you?
If the only thing you’ve ever known is to not feel good enough, it’s hard to imagine even an entire day where you can genuinely like and love you. You’d be subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to drop.
You’re seeing other people’s actions (or lack there of) and your experiences as being directly linked to your worth.
Low self-esteem is like a special language and in your mental translation book, when you look up what certain things mean, you keep getting back the same meaning:
Not interested in me = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Won’t leave their partner = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Won’t change into the person I want = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Wants to do things differently to me = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Won’t develop empathy = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Does something that annoys me (and possibly others) = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Relationship didn’t work out = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Can only get it up to porn = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
Has different values = Something wrong with me = I’m not good enough
You get the idea.
And maybe that’s the crux of the matter: When you have low self-esteem, you see your experiences and the world around you as an extension of how you feel about you.People do what they do, not because they’re independent individual entities, but because of something in you that brings about their actions and thinking, and life happens, shit happens even, not because there are a gazillion other reasons or factors that could have brought it about, but because of something in you.
I’m fundamentally the same person and while I have good self-esteem, I still have to actively work on managing the little boy within me
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
PERSONAL: LET'S BE EACH OTHER CHRISTMAS' S GIFT
To the one who is meant for me:
I have no idea what you look like. I have no idea if you’re a blonde or a brunette, tall or short, have blue eyes or brown, or if you’re Catholic or Jewish. As of right now, I know nothing about you other than the fact you’re going to make me the happiest man in the world. I just haven’t met you yet.
I could have already seen you, but right now I would have no idea it’s you. I could see you every week or bump into you around town every now and then and I still would have no idea that it’s you. If I have seen you, seeing you how I do now compared to seeing you when I realize that you’re the one will be like two completely separate images. When the day comes that I truly see you, it will change my life. Even if we know each other now, I don’t know you as the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. So, in that regard, I just haven’t met you yet.
You could be the blonde-haired, bright-eyed beauty that always seem to catch my eye. You could be the dark-haired, brown-eyed girl that I always seem to actually date. For all I know, you could have red hair, with freckles all along your body, and I wouldn’t know any different right now. I just haven’t met you yet.
You could be on the taller side, so that when I’m looking straight ahead at you, I see you staring back at me. You could be on the shorter side, so that when you go to kiss me you have to rise up on your toes, ever so slightly. I just haven’t met you yet. You could be the uber-athletic kind of chick that shares the same competitive fire I have. You could also be the most uncoordinated human being I’ve ever seen, but you will look so cute trying. I just haven’t met you yet. But for all of the things I don’t know about you right now, which are a lot, there are plenty of things that I already do know about you — even if I have never laid eyes on you in my life; even if I haven’t met you yet.
You love to cuddle. Whether it’s because it helps you fall asleep, or because you’re cold, or because you just like being in my arms. You’ll probably like sleeping on the left side of the bed, too, and you’re definitely going to be a blanket hog. You sing in the car… and in the shower… and to yourself… and especially whenever you think I’m not around. And I love it. You may be embarrassed by it, whether you’re talented or tone-deaf, or you may own it, whether you’re talented or tone-deaf, but I think you’re adorable, regardless.
You love a good night in. Not because we’re “boring,” or because we’re part of “that generation,” but because you understand that a night in — whatever that entails — is much more common (and often better) than a lavish night out. We enjoy each other’s company, so if we want to de-stress and unwind together, we do it. You love to dance. Whether it’s enjoying a slow dance whenever the mood strikes you, or if it’s attempting to flail your body in the form of something that looks like dance moves (i.e. Exactly what I do on the dance floor), you love to dance — whatever that definition may be.
My family will adore you. I don’t bring many girls around my family — partially because there haven’t many situations serious enough to bring them around, and partially because of my fear that they will scare the hell out of them — but I will want you to meet them; they will want to meet you; and they will love you just as much as I do.
You will be an incredible mother. And we will be incredible parents. Whether our child(ren) sleep(s) through the night or goes through three-hour napping intervals, we will be each other’s teammates to get through it. We will worry on the first day of school; we will cheer on the sidelines at sporting events; we will study with them; we will watch them grow and give them a better life than we had, even if the ones we had were pretty good.
You will never have me questioning my love for you. Even if I still have the shortness of breath and excitement in me whenever I see you, I will never wonder what you’re thinking about because you know you can — and do — talk to me. I will never have to worry about you meeting someone else because I know you’ll want only me. You will never have to worry about me meeting someone else because you’ll know I only want you.
I may not have met you yet, but I know an awful lot about you. I know you’re out there and I know I’ll love you. I don’t know when I’m going to meet you, but I know it will be worth the wait. If it’s tomorrow, I would have waited so long, and you’d be worth every hour of the wait; if I don’t meet you until years from now, I will continue to go through every day waiting for it to be the one when I meet you.
I am the worst person at waiting for things, especially things that I’m looking forward to; time always seems to pass like each grain of sand is moseying through the funnel of an hourglass. When I was a kid, I couldn’t sleep on Christmas Eve because every second felt like an hour and it never felt like the sun would actually rise and that it would be Christmas Day. But I’ve gotten through many Christmas Eves and I’ve experienced many Christmas Days.I know you’re out there; I know you’re worth the wait; and I know that you’re probably looking for me to. I know I love you, I just haven’t met you yet
Seeing as how I don’t know who you are yet still plan to make you my wife, I thought I’d give you a heads up and list some of my wants and desires. Some of these are literal while others are merely products of wishing I knew who (and where) you are.
I want our meeting to come from the story books and lovers’ films—your smile melting my world and holding my breath hostage. That day will be the day my life can begin.
I want to hold your hand softly and squeeze it ever so slightly as we walk among the falling leaves, our common infatuation growing with each step we take.
I want my heart to be filled for you—each moment I share with you being a moment I could never live without. Those moments will be the ones we smile and reminisce over when we’re old and gray.
I want to show you that a man can treat you the way you deserve, lifting and supporting you in reverence and respect as you should’ve been your entire life.
I want to surprise you by bending to one knee in the fresh snow; my hands lightly grasping a shining diamond perfectly fitted for your lovely little finger. And while the words may falter and catch in my throat, you’ll see the look in my eyes that tells you I want you to be mine forever.
I want to write you the loveliest vows, hold your hand and kiss your lips as the minister blesses our union. That day will be the day my life forever gains a purpose.
I want to gently wake you up on Saturday mornings and make love to you as the sun’s rays try their best to sneak into our bedroom. We won’t be bothered with notions of disturbance but rather become lost within our pleasure, within our satisfactions, within our love.
I want us to be equals and partners, leaning against one another when times are rough and making decisions as one instead of one reigning over the other. In life, in love we will be side by side.
I want to disappear with you into a foreign land once a year, our taste for adventure and roaming the globe satisfied within the company of each other as we experience new cultures together.
I want to cook for you when you’ve had to work late and are worn to the bone. We’ll sit in the soft light and I’ll listen as you share the frustrations of your day with me.
I want to watch over when you when you get sick, preparing your medicines and massaging away your aches and pains.
I want to show you off to all my friends and have them grow green with envy as they realize they’ll never have a woman like mine. With you on my arm, I could never lose.
I want to ravish you on a warm spring night, our fevered looks and flirting touches no longer able to restrain our deep desire for one another. On these nights, our sweat will mingle and our breaths will quicken but in each other, we will have found the fleeting beauty of love.
I want to be the father you’ve always dreamed of for our children—strong and firm yet smiling, loving and accepting.
I want look at you after many years of marriage and still know that you’re all I’ll ever want or need and that you and you alone, fulfill me in all the ways a wife can satisfy a husband.
I want to grow old with you, our skin softening and our eyes fading. We’ll hold hands and take that same leave laced walk we took in the beginning, our hands still clasped together, the love between us as vital as ever.
I want to love you a day past forever. When our existence has expired and we are but a memory to the children and grandchildren we’ve left behind, I’ll still love you.
I want you—and I want you for forever.
I have no idea what you look like. I have no idea if you’re a blonde or a brunette, tall or short, have blue eyes or brown, or if you’re Catholic or Jewish. As of right now, I know nothing about you other than the fact you’re going to make me the happiest man in the world. I just haven’t met you yet.
I could have already seen you, but right now I would have no idea it’s you. I could see you every week or bump into you around town every now and then and I still would have no idea that it’s you. If I have seen you, seeing you how I do now compared to seeing you when I realize that you’re the one will be like two completely separate images. When the day comes that I truly see you, it will change my life. Even if we know each other now, I don’t know you as the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. So, in that regard, I just haven’t met you yet.
You could be the blonde-haired, bright-eyed beauty that always seem to catch my eye. You could be the dark-haired, brown-eyed girl that I always seem to actually date. For all I know, you could have red hair, with freckles all along your body, and I wouldn’t know any different right now. I just haven’t met you yet.
You could be on the taller side, so that when I’m looking straight ahead at you, I see you staring back at me. You could be on the shorter side, so that when you go to kiss me you have to rise up on your toes, ever so slightly. I just haven’t met you yet. You could be the uber-athletic kind of chick that shares the same competitive fire I have. You could also be the most uncoordinated human being I’ve ever seen, but you will look so cute trying. I just haven’t met you yet. But for all of the things I don’t know about you right now, which are a lot, there are plenty of things that I already do know about you — even if I have never laid eyes on you in my life; even if I haven’t met you yet.
You love to cuddle. Whether it’s because it helps you fall asleep, or because you’re cold, or because you just like being in my arms. You’ll probably like sleeping on the left side of the bed, too, and you’re definitely going to be a blanket hog. You sing in the car… and in the shower… and to yourself… and especially whenever you think I’m not around. And I love it. You may be embarrassed by it, whether you’re talented or tone-deaf, or you may own it, whether you’re talented or tone-deaf, but I think you’re adorable, regardless.
You love a good night in. Not because we’re “boring,” or because we’re part of “that generation,” but because you understand that a night in — whatever that entails — is much more common (and often better) than a lavish night out. We enjoy each other’s company, so if we want to de-stress and unwind together, we do it. You love to dance. Whether it’s enjoying a slow dance whenever the mood strikes you, or if it’s attempting to flail your body in the form of something that looks like dance moves (i.e. Exactly what I do on the dance floor), you love to dance — whatever that definition may be.
My family will adore you. I don’t bring many girls around my family — partially because there haven’t many situations serious enough to bring them around, and partially because of my fear that they will scare the hell out of them — but I will want you to meet them; they will want to meet you; and they will love you just as much as I do.
You will be an incredible mother. And we will be incredible parents. Whether our child(ren) sleep(s) through the night or goes through three-hour napping intervals, we will be each other’s teammates to get through it. We will worry on the first day of school; we will cheer on the sidelines at sporting events; we will study with them; we will watch them grow and give them a better life than we had, even if the ones we had were pretty good.
You will never have me questioning my love for you. Even if I still have the shortness of breath and excitement in me whenever I see you, I will never wonder what you’re thinking about because you know you can — and do — talk to me. I will never have to worry about you meeting someone else because I know you’ll want only me. You will never have to worry about me meeting someone else because you’ll know I only want you.
I may not have met you yet, but I know an awful lot about you. I know you’re out there and I know I’ll love you. I don’t know when I’m going to meet you, but I know it will be worth the wait. If it’s tomorrow, I would have waited so long, and you’d be worth every hour of the wait; if I don’t meet you until years from now, I will continue to go through every day waiting for it to be the one when I meet you.
I am the worst person at waiting for things, especially things that I’m looking forward to; time always seems to pass like each grain of sand is moseying through the funnel of an hourglass. When I was a kid, I couldn’t sleep on Christmas Eve because every second felt like an hour and it never felt like the sun would actually rise and that it would be Christmas Day. But I’ve gotten through many Christmas Eves and I’ve experienced many Christmas Days.I know you’re out there; I know you’re worth the wait; and I know that you’re probably looking for me to. I know I love you, I just haven’t met you yet
Seeing as how I don’t know who you are yet still plan to make you my wife, I thought I’d give you a heads up and list some of my wants and desires. Some of these are literal while others are merely products of wishing I knew who (and where) you are.
I want our meeting to come from the story books and lovers’ films—your smile melting my world and holding my breath hostage. That day will be the day my life can begin.
I want to hold your hand softly and squeeze it ever so slightly as we walk among the falling leaves, our common infatuation growing with each step we take.
I want my heart to be filled for you—each moment I share with you being a moment I could never live without. Those moments will be the ones we smile and reminisce over when we’re old and gray.
I want to show you that a man can treat you the way you deserve, lifting and supporting you in reverence and respect as you should’ve been your entire life.
I want to surprise you by bending to one knee in the fresh snow; my hands lightly grasping a shining diamond perfectly fitted for your lovely little finger. And while the words may falter and catch in my throat, you’ll see the look in my eyes that tells you I want you to be mine forever.
I want to write you the loveliest vows, hold your hand and kiss your lips as the minister blesses our union. That day will be the day my life forever gains a purpose.
I want to gently wake you up on Saturday mornings and make love to you as the sun’s rays try their best to sneak into our bedroom. We won’t be bothered with notions of disturbance but rather become lost within our pleasure, within our satisfactions, within our love.
I want us to be equals and partners, leaning against one another when times are rough and making decisions as one instead of one reigning over the other. In life, in love we will be side by side.
I want to disappear with you into a foreign land once a year, our taste for adventure and roaming the globe satisfied within the company of each other as we experience new cultures together.
I want to cook for you when you’ve had to work late and are worn to the bone. We’ll sit in the soft light and I’ll listen as you share the frustrations of your day with me.
I want to watch over when you when you get sick, preparing your medicines and massaging away your aches and pains.
I want to show you off to all my friends and have them grow green with envy as they realize they’ll never have a woman like mine. With you on my arm, I could never lose.
I want to ravish you on a warm spring night, our fevered looks and flirting touches no longer able to restrain our deep desire for one another. On these nights, our sweat will mingle and our breaths will quicken but in each other, we will have found the fleeting beauty of love.
I want to be the father you’ve always dreamed of for our children—strong and firm yet smiling, loving and accepting.
I want look at you after many years of marriage and still know that you’re all I’ll ever want or need and that you and you alone, fulfill me in all the ways a wife can satisfy a husband.
I want to grow old with you, our skin softening and our eyes fading. We’ll hold hands and take that same leave laced walk we took in the beginning, our hands still clasped together, the love between us as vital as ever.
I want to love you a day past forever. When our existence has expired and we are but a memory to the children and grandchildren we’ve left behind, I’ll still love you.
I want you—and I want you for forever.
THOUGHTS: OUR SOULS ARE CONNECTED
As I look back on my life, I began to see my life as some kind of play or movie. Of course, I thought of myself as the central character but I also decided which other people would be main characters right now. I looked at supporting characters, which right now would be extended family, People who were once a big part of my life but now aren’t or those people who I have never met in person but either inspired or horrified me by the things they did or said. I thought of how certain musicians, authors and historical figures have had a huge impact on my thoughts, beliefs and values. As I kept thinking, I almost felt like the idea was getting too big for my head to hold. The sheer number of lives that have touched mine is amazing. I know I have impacted many of them as well – both for good and bad (but hopefully more good than bad). I even thought about how many people I may have greatly influenced without even realizing it.
So here I would like to take a moment to say thank you to EVERYONE who has had a part in my life. You have helped make me who I am and as imperfect as I still am, I like the person I’m growing into. I miss many of you who I don’t see or speak to regularly anymore. Never think I quit loving or caring about you. Some of you I hope to grow to know better, because I feel that there is something in my soul that recognizes something in yours. Some I have walked away from intentionally, but that doesn’t mean our relationship wasn’t important to me, just that for one reason or another I needed to grow elsewhere for a while. In the end, I like to think that even over distance and time, our memories and souls keep us connected.
So here I would like to take a moment to say thank you to EVERYONE who has had a part in my life. You have helped make me who I am and as imperfect as I still am, I like the person I’m growing into. I miss many of you who I don’t see or speak to regularly anymore. Never think I quit loving or caring about you. Some of you I hope to grow to know better, because I feel that there is something in my soul that recognizes something in yours. Some I have walked away from intentionally, but that doesn’t mean our relationship wasn’t important to me, just that for one reason or another I needed to grow elsewhere for a while. In the end, I like to think that even over distance and time, our memories and souls keep us connected.
LOVE; LET ME KISS YOU
What was a kiss, really? At that moment, there was nothing else I would rather have been doing. A kiss was more than just brushing lips with another. I hadn't accounted for the way she filled my personal space, bringing a feeling of intimacy from the utter rarity that I would let anyone so close, and not just to my mouth. We weren't touching, but I could feel her as an almost tangible presence from my shoulders all the way down to my shins. I hadn't expected that I would feel her warm breath sliding gently across my skin, that in breathing we would be sharing our air.
My lips became suddenly sensitized. They didn't respond in any remarkable way when I ate, drank, brushed my teeth, but now, now they felt the kiss before it even came. Actual contact was just that much more. They were just lips, but I became acutely aware of the person behind them. We no longer shared breath, but everything we had between us, powerful enough that it left no room for air. Our parted mouths lingered in quiet, innocent communion before her puckered closed, bringing mine with his to the accompaniment of a soft, moist sound that struck some deep, instinctive chord within me. Cool, empty air once again intruded between us. My lips parted again immediately thereafter as if to rewind, the abandonment creating a sudden vacuum I was pulled forth to fill, but alas, my kiss had technically come to an end.
It didn't feel like it. As bereft as I felt with the loss of her lips against mine, I still felt her. Though that decreased the sensation, it took its sweet time in fading away completely. It was like a string stretching between us, growing thinner as the distance grew until it finally lost its cohesive tension despite all its efforts.
My timesense told me only a few seconds had passed. How was that possible? There was a lot more to this whole kissing thing than I'd thought if it had even the power of time dilation. I'd already been proven wrong in finding that it was more than just a brushing of lips; it was a full body affair.
My lips became suddenly sensitized. They didn't respond in any remarkable way when I ate, drank, brushed my teeth, but now, now they felt the kiss before it even came. Actual contact was just that much more. They were just lips, but I became acutely aware of the person behind them. We no longer shared breath, but everything we had between us, powerful enough that it left no room for air. Our parted mouths lingered in quiet, innocent communion before her puckered closed, bringing mine with his to the accompaniment of a soft, moist sound that struck some deep, instinctive chord within me. Cool, empty air once again intruded between us. My lips parted again immediately thereafter as if to rewind, the abandonment creating a sudden vacuum I was pulled forth to fill, but alas, my kiss had technically come to an end.
It didn't feel like it. As bereft as I felt with the loss of her lips against mine, I still felt her. Though that decreased the sensation, it took its sweet time in fading away completely. It was like a string stretching between us, growing thinner as the distance grew until it finally lost its cohesive tension despite all its efforts.
My timesense told me only a few seconds had passed. How was that possible? There was a lot more to this whole kissing thing than I'd thought if it had even the power of time dilation. I'd already been proven wrong in finding that it was more than just a brushing of lips; it was a full body affair.
Monday, December 22, 2014
ARTICLE: 25-year-old virgin on why he’s never had a real girlfriend By Susannah Cahalan NYPOST
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.’ ”
“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.’ ”
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.
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