First date tips for dudes.

A male reader wrote me to describe a recent date that he went on.  He thought it went great and noted the various IOIs she sent out, but when (four days later) he asked her to go out again, she shut him down with the “we didn’t click” excuse.  I have a feeling he’s not the only dude out there who’s experienced this very scenario, so here are my (expanded-upon) thoughts that I sent him about common first date dealbreakers that men often unknowingly fall prey to – especially when they are trying to apply game and maintain alpha frame.

Before I get into these things, men should keep in mind that while all women are the “same” in that they all have a certain set of emotional needs and desires, not all women are going to respond to the same strength of tactics.  Women who are used to attracting a lot of male attention (whether they’re beautiful or just kind of slutty) need harder game run on them than women who are shy, conservative, and/or don’t go on very many dates.  Bar kittens and unadventurous, dutiful church girls are a chasm apart in terms of what will get a positive response out of them.  Bar kittens usually need to be taken down a peg, whereas church girls need to be reassured that you have honorable intentions (well, unless you assume the role of supplicating beta).  They both want male leadership and confidence, but the way in which those qualities should manifest themselves is going to be different depending on the girl.  Also, a certain amount of what works on any girl is going to depend on the girl herself.  This is where having some social intuition comes in.  Just as there’s no one approach that works on every single girl, not every single church girl is going to respond to exactly the same game, either.

Okay, with that out of the way – here are some basics.  Yes, I know, NAWALT, so there will always be some exceptions to what I’m about to say.  You may have bumped up against one.  But by and large, especially when dealing with “good church girls,” the following hold true.

(1) Always pay. If she was the one who asked you out, offer to pay anyway.  It may sound petty, but not paying on the first date, unless the woman insisted on going dutch beforehand, is a dealbreaker.  (Even then, you should still offer to pay.)  If the woman liked you a lot and you didn’t pay, her friends will still tell her that you’re a loser for not paying, so no matter what, the well will be poisoned against you.  So just suck it up that you’ll have to pay.

Note:  EVEN IF THE WOMAN OFFERS TO PAY, YOU MUST STILL INSIST ON PAYING. In your head you may think, “Oh, she’s being fair and modern,” but ten bucks says that a church girl (and pretty much every other girl with a drop of femininity in her) will secretly be offended that you permitted her to pay and did not put up genuine resistance.  (However, if she keeps fighting you on it, let her.  But then cheekily tease her about being a feminist if she does pay.)

(2) At the end of the night, say you had a good time – IF you genuinely had a good time. Otherwise, just thank her for the chance to meet her, get to know her, and spend some time with her.  I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to tell her that you’ll call or that you should hang out again sometime – it’s too easy for men to say that and then not call or not ask for another date, which exasperates women.**  It’s better not to create expectations that can easily be dashed.  (But if you really do want to see her again, it’s fine to say that you should go out again.  If the girl isn’t interested, she’ll probably give a nebulous response like “Yeah, maybe sometime.”) Also, I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask for another date immediately at the end of the first date.  I’ve had this happen before, and it really puts the woman on the spot if she’s not sure if she’s attracted to you.  (**Roissy-style players can use exasperation to their advantage, because if you stiff her on a phone call, she will definitely have you on her Ish List and will be more likely to respond when you do finally call.  But that only works if you generated enough attraction in the first place.)

(3) It’s important to be respectfully playful. Gentle teasing works well on most women. Strength of any teasing/negs must be in proportion to how much romantic male attention the woman is used to getting.  Also, the teasing needs to be OBVIOUS.  Sometimes guys play teasing too deadpan, and the girl can’t tell if he actually means it or not and may feel insulted.  (Of course, sometimes it’s just that the girl has no sense of humor, which is something that’s outside of your control.)  A little bit of playfulness can go a long way in reassuring the woman that you’re safe to be with, have a good sense of humor, and aren’t overly invested in the success of the date.  Too often men fall into the trap of treating a date like a job interview, where she’s the boss they’re trying to impress, and they start trying to be walking encyclopedias about every topic they discuss.  It’s too business-like, doesn’t focus on the woman enough, and can even be alienating if the woman doesn’t have any interest in the topic.  So injecting a little playfulness into the date can alleviate a lot of the seriousness that sometimes occurs when men are trying hard to impress.

(4) Sometimes there just isn’t any chemistry. You can both be nice people but just have nothing to say to each other.  It’s not a failure on either part when that happens.  Don’t feel bad that you couldn’t squeeze blood from a stone.

NCEG follow-up.

I previously shared a reader’s dilemma with a nerdy engineer who asked her via email for hot chocolate “next week.”  Reader emailed back a “yes” qualified by many mentions of friends and doing things as a group.  Commenters duked it out with competing advice.

All of those with any investment in Reader’s boy problems will be happy to know that said email did not destroy NCEG and that he seems to have gotten the message.  Reader wrote me:

I saw the “NCEG” with a few people last night, and he did not appear hurt, but nor did he mention hot chocolate again or really speak to me one-on-one (as he has in the past)!  I feel like he may have still been looking at me admiringly though–I can’t be sure!  And he offered to drive me home, which is in the opposite direction of where he lives.  At first I said no, but then someone else decided to get a ride with him, so I went along. Hm.  I’m hoping the right message has been sent!

“Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no'”?  Is NCEG still smitten and plotting future email invitations for hot chocolate?  You decide.

Reader mail: help a sista out!

From a 20something female reader:

I am trying to figure out what to do about a male friend who emailed me today asking me if I’d like to go for hot chocolate with him next week!  (To be clear, I am not interested in him!)

My roommate and I have just had a discussion on whether this is a date, and what I should say in response.  This is especially tricky, because this particular guy is not actually a Christian and set foot in a church for the first time a couple of months ago–where I met him and invited him to our Bible study.  So now I am wondering if I was too friendly…but also don’t want to be rude…

My brother’s advice: This is a date, and since I am not interested, I must clearly reject him.
My roommate’s advice: There’s no way of telling whether it’s a date or if he just wants to be friends, so I should either 1) go for hot chocolate briefly and say I have to go somewhere else soon afterwards
or 2) go, but bring a couple of other people from Bible study along (even though she admitted that another man we both know says girls should never do this!)

I wrote her back, saying that I agreed with her brother and referring to her to some previous posts on the topic.  She responded with more details about the situation:

I actually agree with you and think my brother is right (my roommate–yes, female–would debate both of you, though!)  1) I had a little suspicion he was interested in me and 2) He and I are sort of friends, but more just because I was the first person to get to know him at church. He’s a nerdy engineering type who apparently graduated at the top of his class, but socially he acts younger than he is/doesn’t have very good verbal communication skills.  I do like him as a person, but I don’t think we even communicate well enough to be actual friends!  And he’s not asking me to “hang out” as a friend or do any specific activity–he’s asking me to go for hot chocolate?!  It just sounds too date-like.

So yeah, my problem is not really that a friend is asking me to hang out and then acting like it’s a date.  It’s more that someone I’m friendly with/spend a lot of time with in group settings is asking me to do something that sounds like a date (but especially over email, I can’t be 100% sure.  Or so says my roommate. I’m personally about 95% sure!).  And while I want to keep being his “friend” and definitely want him to keep coming out to group social things, I don’t want to encourage any romantic interest if it’s there.

Anyway, I replied to his email with something to the effect of, sure, maybe he and I and some other people from small group could go for hot chocolate sometime.  And I had references to “friends” and “group” in there about three times.  I’m embarrassed now because I feel like I was almost too obvious.  Gahh, I’m not good at this stuff! :(

Maybe your male commenters will have some sage advice.

Hear that, readers?  Someone thinks you have sage advice!

Anyhow, to recap:  Reader is a 20something Christian female who was nice to a socially unattractive non-Christian engineering nerd.  As fate typically has it, said nerd now has a crush on her and asked her out for “next week” via email.  Reader consulted her brother, who gave good advice, and her female roommate, who gave FREAKINGLY AWFUL advice.  Reader did not want to crush NCEG’s ego, so she tried to give hints that she is not interested by agreeing to see him…WITH A GROUP.  SOMETIME.  (Who wants to take bets that NCEG will not get the message?)

As obvious as the situation is, in practice it’s very difficult to hurt someone’s feelings when you don’t want to (i.e., when the person has put you in a difficult position where the only truthful option is to cause pain).  I probably would have reacted similarly to Reader despite knowing that I needed to shoot down NCEG.  Alas, we are trained by society to kill any impulse of bluntness, and it is a hard habit to shake, especially in a church setting, and even more so when dealing with a non-believer.

So, I’m opening the floor to the readership.  (Men, your egos may now swell.)  One, what should Reader have done, if you think she responded wrongly?  Two, what should Reader do from here on out?  Three, I’m not above taking predictions for NCEG’s next move.  Pride points to the winners.

*******

On a side note:  As hopeless as NCEG’s case is, I must give him props for at least taking a step, as beta-ish (OVER EMAIL?**  NEBULOUS TIME FRAME?) as it was.  Your typical Christian guy would probably have waited another six months, hoping that he could friend his way into her heart.

**+1 for not using Facebook.  Email is a bad way to try to get dates, but Facebook is even worse.

Oh, and P.S. to Reader:  YES, IT’S A DATE.  He wants to spend one-on-one time with you drinking a beverage.  Would you prefer a singing telegram deliver the news?  Or are such outings not typically recognized as dates in your neck of the woods?

Boundless still doesn’t get it.

A trip to Boundless is always good for getting me all het up with semi-righteous fury.  Though their advice reeks of sincerity, it tends to coddle women, castigate men, and completely ignore the biological imperatives of both sexes.  I feel like in Boundlessworld, if you just pray and believe enough, people will stop acting like…people.  Christian belief does not rewrite the biological code; it merely submits it to self-restraint.  If Christian beliefs truly overrode biology, then hot Christian men would be marrying fat and merry Christian women by the truckload, and average-looking Christian women would be dying to marry sincere but impoverished and shy Christian men.  I’m pretty sure a planet of such persons does not exist in the Milky Way.

And because Boundless does not address the harsh realities of biology, we end up with sad single Christians such as this young woman, who wrote to Candice Watters:

I am a 25-year-old Christian. I would like to have a family, and I always thought I would have met my future husband by now. Not surprisingly (as our timing is not always God’s), I haven’t. The possibility of meeting a man at all is very scarce. My church, which I love and am invested in, is very small. The young-adult scene is dominated by women, and only two of the six or so men are beyond age 20.

At first, I was praying pretty intensely for a husband, keeping a journal for him (at my friend’s suggestion), and (separately) writing to God about the characteristics I wanted my future husband to have. I did enjoy keeping the journal; I thought of it as a way to share the parts of my life I’d live before meeting him. I was doing this for several months when it hit me that my future husband may not come for another 10 years, and there are a lot of other things I could be doing and praying for in the meantime.

What I would like to know is:  WHO IS THE FRIEND WHO THOUGHT KEEPING A JOURNAL FOR HER HUSBAND WAS A BRILLIANT IDEA?  Has any man ever expressed sadness and regret that he was not privy to his wife’s most intimate thoughts prior to their meeting?  How many men have any desire to read a journalful of their wife’s every thought about, well, anything?  (Cue NAMALT chorus.)  Here is a classic case of female projection.  Like, to the nth power.  Not that Mrs. Watters addresses this aspect.  Instead, she very gently suggests to the reader that keeping a journal to her husband will send her off into a fantasy world that will prevent her from meeting actual men.  (But, wait…isn’t that what Twilight is for?)

Then there was this poor Christian beta who wrote to John Thomas:

I’ve done my best to play by the rules in terms of intentionality and avoiding passivity. My question is what to do when the woman doesn’t do likewise.

I was pursuing a young woman from my fellowship group earlier this year. I was very up-front and intentional with her from the start, making sure she never had to “guess” or “assume” what my feelings were. It was crystal clear that I was asking her on a date and not merely to hang out as friends. She agreed to the date, and it went well. Conversation was never lacking, and we got along great.

As time went on, things continued in — what I thought — was a positive direction. Our conversations were meaningful; her body language was affirming, and she even left encouraging messages on my Facebook wall (for what that’s worth).

After all this, I’ve recently discovered through a friend that this woman is not romantically interested in me and, in fact, does not even enjoy my company. This came as a surprise to me, and I gave her the benefit of the doubt. But after talking to her about it, it turns out that this is true.

I am certainly not angry that the girl isn’t interested in me, because I understand that not everybody is God’s match for me. But I do find myself a little frustrated that it went on so long without any negative indications of her interest. I was very straightforward, honest and intentional with her. I don’t know why she couldn’t have done the same.

What should I do in the future to make sure we’re both on the same page and avoid this from happening again? Or is it just one of the unavoidable risks of being a man?

Now, on the one hand, I do feel for this guy, because finding out that the girl you are dating doesn’t even like being around you is cold.  But on the other hand, what does “her body language was affirming” even mean?!?!  That doesn’t sound like flirty touching or kissing.  This dude sounds like he was completely de facto LJBFed by a girl who wanted the ego massage of his attention.  And this guy isn’t even angry at her over her behavior?  MESSAGE TO DUDE:  THAT IS WHY SHE DIDN’T LIKE YOU AND WILL NEVER LIKE YOU.

Not surprisingly, Boundless can’t come up with a good answer for why this girl strung this guy along while not actually liking him.  John Thomas responds:

I can’t explain why she acted the way she acted. I am just as surprised as you are at the outcome. There isn’t anything you could have done to change the decisions she made. For all we know, in His sovereignty, God could have protected you from something He saw, but you didn’t. Maybe time will shed more light on it, but whatever the case, you can absolutely trust His good for you and for her.

So women just remain an ephemeral mystery to all of Christendom.  It might have been God.  You just can’t know.

But not men.  No, men and their wicked motives are transparent in Boundlessworld.  Carolyn McCulley recently got yet more cyberspace to remind men that they need to work harder to live up to women’s standards.  In “Gentlemen in a Digital Age,” she invokes Jane Austen as the height of a more civilized time and casts contemporary men in the role of sneaky Petes who are out to scam women on the internet.  She advises:

Be willing to become known. Yeah, it’s risky. Yeah, it can come off weird. But it doesn’t have to. You can be charming, low-key and reassuring in offering this information. Tell her why you are making the connection (“I have heard a lot about you from our mutual friends, and then I saw your profile on Facebook”). Tell her why you want to be in contact (“You sound like a lot of fun, so I’d like to get to know you a little better”). Offer information that will make you legitimate in a cesspool of spambots and viruses (“I’m sure you’d like to check me out, and that’s cool. Here’s the contact info of some people we know in common/my pastor/my family, etc. Or if you prefer I first talk to someone you know, I’d be glad to do that. Whatever makes you comfortable”).

My knee-jerk reaction to this advice was CREEPY CHRISTIAN ROBOT BEHAVIOR THAT WILL SCARE OFF WOMEN.  It’s all too much, too soon, tries way too hard, and takes ANY mystery out of the equation.  It also completely ignores the reality that women judge strangers by their looks.  If you’re not reasonably attractive, and you send a message like McCulley’s to a single Christian woman, she will not want to get to know you better, or think YOU sound like a lot of fun, or have much belief that any action you take will make her feel comfortable.

McCulley’s final paragraph is a passive-aggressive kick in the teeth to men, too:

The fine folks of Jane Austen’s world might strike us today as being a bit rigid in their manners. But they demanded character and accountability even among the limited relationships of a small town. How much wiser would we be to honor the same practices in a world without boundaries.

Translation:  You should emulate Mr. Darcy, you spineless, greedy perv.

 

Every woman is the star of her own melodrama.

Roissy has discussed at some length women’s need for emotional drama, and why it is important for men in relationships to keep a push-pull dynamic of varying degrees of emotional instability going in order to maintain her interest and attraction.  (I think he typically refers to it as “installing dread.”)  In the context of Roissy’s blog, it would be easy for many men to dismiss this advice as applying to the kind of women that Roissy and his ilk typically go for.  “I like nice girls,” they declare, “not slutty drama queens WHO WILL CHEAT ON ME AND MAKE ME PAY FOR SOME ALPHA JERK’S OFFSPRING IF I SUCCUMB TO MARRIAGE 2.0 WITH HER!”

But EVERY woman wants some emotional drama.  Why do women watch Grey’s Anatomy?  (Well, aside from the fact that the men on that show are exceptionally good-looking.  And are all surgeons.  And the titular character is a just-pretty-enough plain jane who snagged the best-looking guy, who is ranked above her, and who was formerly married but separated but the hot, sexy, also-a-top-surgeon wife came back and tried to get him back, but his desire for Dr. Plain Jane won the day.  And they are now “married” on the basis of a Post-It note!  Every woman’s dream!)  Why do women read romance novels?  Why do women love to hear about the trials and travails of their friends (assuming their friends are not emotional vampires)?  It’s because women are programmed with a need for emotional turbulence.  Every woman is programmed with a need for emotional turbulence.  It doesn’t have to be her own personal drama.  That is what separates drama queens from the typical woman:  a drama queen’s drama must revolve around herself.

I realized this was true of every woman, not just young women or stupid women or cheap women, when I was talking to my mom recently, and she mentioned that she had had an interaction with a friend and thought she had “made the friend mad.”  I realized that at least half the time when my mom is talking about interacting with friends, she thinks she has “made the friend mad.”

Now, an objective observer would be able to point out right away that my mom has not “made her friends mad.”  She hasn’t burned any bridges with these women, and is still being spoken to and invited to activities and isn’t being shunned in any measurable way.  But I’ve realized over the years that my mom is very invested in keeping all of her friends happy with her, and so it is a thing of some concern when she suspects that the friend was made “mad.”  It was only recently that I connected this with a woman’s need for emotional drama and realized that this is how my mom gets her own little emotional drama fix.  Does she ever confront these women?  No.  Does she ever ask them if she has offended them in any way?  No.  The mere existence of some emotional uncertainty is what she’s really after.  As she is a woman in a decades-long marriage of great stability and comfort, a woman who shuns tabloids and trash TV, and a woman who takes her faith very seriously, where else is she going to get her drama fix?  (You can only read about David and Bathsheba so many times before familiarity breeds contempt.)  So she finds it in the tiniest amounts of less-than-total-happiness with her friends.

I think the bottom line, at least for men, is that all women crave some drama, and they will find it somewhere.  Yes, even the most upstanding, drama-free, moral pillar of civility wants drama.  The question a man, particularly if he is a husband, should ask himself is, “Do I want her to get her fix from me, or from somewhere else?”  Because she will find it somewhere.

She likes someone else’s boyfriend.

Today in my internet surfings I came across a thread at one of my regular haunts that I knew I had to share with my dearest of readers.  It is a capsule of Roissy validation, i.e., it is a real-life, real-time dramatic incarnation of most of the principles of female nature he discusses.  Social message boards for women are some of the most instructive reads for insight into female nature; the nature of the medium does not alter the substance of interaction.

So, here’s what happened:  OP, in a thread titled “I like someone else’s boyfriend.“, goes attention-whoring by posting the following:

Lol, it sucks. But yes, I am smart enough not to ever do anything about it. He’s so awesome and we are so alike. I like him as in yes, I wish I could have him, but I just honestly like him as a person. Oh wellllll.

Right off the bat, we know we are dealing with a young woman, probably early to mid-20s, who craves attention and drama and is set on getting it by denying the very thing everyone with half a brain can tell she wants, even as she herself wants to believe that she really doesn’t want to steal this guy away from his girlfriend.  When the first reply suggests to simply enjoy the friendship since the guy does like his girlfriend, OP says:

Yes, he does. Should I add the story that I am 100% sure he would cheat on her with me. But, I just can’t. I would feel so bad no matter how much I like him. It’s not like a I’m liking him from afar thing. We talk all the time.

The East German judge gives OP’s hamster a 10.0 AND strikes a deal under the table with the Soviet judge to give OP a 10.0 also.  Anyone who believes this girl would “feel so bad” if she had sex with this guy needs to go pick up his White Knight suit with the Honors Beta badge from the dry cleaners.

With this additional piece of information, the dogpile begins.  Admonitions – rightfully so – that the guy is “shady” and that OP should “be careful” start up.  This attention prompts OP to reveal even MORE salacious details so her inner narcissism monster can be fed:

Because he’s mentioned it. We live in a SMALL town, and everyone knows everything, so that sucks. He apparently saw me leaving yesterday night and asked where I was going. So I told him out to the bar in another town. So he text me all night telling me to come over after I was done. And text me some dirty messages that I won’t even type here. I was like “aren’t you with your girlfriend?” He said yeah, but she will be gone later.

Now, that being said, I DO like him. So much. But I’m smart enough not to do anything. Because it is shady, and yeah, not cool. I know that I need to stop having contact with him, and it just sucks because I like him. I don’t know why I like him so much. He is willing to cheat on his girl. I think it’s because like I said, we have SO much in common, and I never meet people like me.

This is CLASSIC attention-whoring in the tried-and-true junior high girl tradition.  “I’ve got a SECRET!!!!!!…but I can’t tell,” “I’m in so much emotional suffering,” and “I don’t deserve this” techniques are all deployed here.  The only other biggie she left out was “I’m SUCH a ditz, tee-hee!”.

In a bid for even more attention, OP also starts denying that anything will happen between herself and Shade:

Whatever makes me feel better? I’ve already mentioned I won’t do anything about it. And I am serious about that.

In my experience, if you have to assure someone that you won’t do something, then you’ve already thought about doing it and are looking for someone to tell you that it’s okay to do it.  (Exceptions:  when your mom makes you promise that you WON’T DO SOMETHING despite the fact that you never discussed the topic with her EVER and never even thought about it seriously until she brought it up.)

Now that Shade’s douchebaggery is out in the open for everyone to see, the shaming tough love begins:

Wow, he sounds like a real prize and I can’t believe you’d like a guy like that. He obviously just wants you for a booty call and otherwise has no respect for you or his girlfriend.

//

Yeah, I think you should try to see his infidelity for the turn-off that it is. Maybe it will make it easier not to mess with him.

//

Ew he sounds like trash.

This is where things get interesting.  Are these other girls correct that Shade is a super d-bag?  Of course.  Any guy with a girlfriend who is sending dirty texts to another girl and talking to her all the time is prime d-bag material.  But are these girls correct that his douchebaggery is a turn-off?  No, they’re not.

The only reason that these girls can be objective about the situation is that they themselves are not attracted to Shade.  It’s pretty clear from the discussion that no matter how low-rent Shade is (and if he works at any place more prestigious than, say, Best Buy as one of the incompetent louts who can’t tell you anything about any of their products, I will be shocked), he has enough game to get OP to throw ethics to the wind and soak up his attention AND go seeking even more attention by telling strangers on the internet about the situation.

So, no matter how much these girls tell OP to stay away from Shade, to delete him from her phone, to tell him to…go jump in a lake (they use some more, um, forceful language), OP won’t.  OP already likes Shade, so nothing will be able to trip up her hamster.  OP will tell herself until she’s blue in the face – as she has done and continues to do in this thread, and until, I imagine, she is in the very act of having sex with Shade – that nothing will ever happen between her and Shade and that she has no desire to steal him away from his girlfriend.  And she will honestly believe herself.  And when it DOES happen, she will not be able to understand how it happened, and she’s not that kind of girl, and she feels SO bad (except she doesn’t).

And the thing is, all women are like this.  I’ve felt these seeds in myself at times and wondered why I was doing things that I would hate myself for if I weren’t the one doing them.  Even feminists are like this – maybe even more so, because I think that the more feminist a woman is, the more deeply and idealistically romantic she is.  A friend of mine who is a self-described “pinko commie” feminist fell for a roadie for her favorite band.  Roadie had a girlfriend, and would ignore my friend whenever the girlfriend came to a show, but it did not matter to my friend:  she and Roadie shared something special that was beyond the ken of the average person.  I tried to explain to her that Roadie was a loser, that she had no future with him, and that I did not understand why she was accepting second-best treatment and outright disrespect, especially when she was supposedly such a feminist and trying to be a role model for young women who have no better sense than to read Twilight.  Nothing I said made any impact.  Even when I pointed out that as a woman, why would she try to undermine another woman, all my friend did was shrug and pawn it off as not her problem.  She was in heaven when near Roadie, in angst when the girlfriend, known as Bitch, was around.  I finally told her not to talk to me about him ever again.

So what is the Christian spin on all of this?  The first is that you need to develop discipline NOW when you don’t have this kind of temptation in your life.  You also need to develop discernment so you will be able to pick good friends, and humility so you will listen to your friends and trust that their judgments are good.  If you find yourself saying about a guy, “Well, they don’t know him the way I know him, so they must be wrong!”, you most likely should stop and chiggity check yourself before you wreck yourself.  (I mean, think about it:  the way you described him to your friends was enough to raise red flags in their minds.  That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement for his character.)  And you need to develop character so you won’t become a common attention whore, chronicling your narcissism on the internet for everybody in the entire world with an internet connection both now and in the future to read.

As a companion piece, I recommend Ricky’s latest blog post, “Raw Concepts: Double Messages.”  It addresses the narcissism angle that OP so robustly demonstrates.

ETA:  OP is also constructing a scenario for plausible deniability in her actions with Shade.  She is giving him signals that she’s DTF but won’t jump him herself.  Being a man, eventually he is going to feel like experiencing someone else’s vagina, and being an alpha, he is going to be able to get it from an easy target, a.k.a. OP.  Then OP can say that it wasn’t her fault, “Shade just came after me when I was vulnerable and one thing led to another.  He’s the bad one.”

Holding bags and leading the way.

To quote drunken Ted Mosby from one of my favorite episodes of How I Met Your Mother, I’M BACK, BABY DOLLS!  I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year’s and got at least one gift that truly pleased them.  (For those following my new TV saga, I pulled the trigger last night and ordered a 46″ Samsung 1080p/120Hz LED.)

While I was home, I got to see the sad state of Midwestern male fashion, which seems to consist of fat guys wearing Bears sweatshirts and baggy stonewashed jeans.  Hipsters don’t really exist in the Midwest, probably because very few adult men in the Midwest are actually thin enough to fit into any hipster clothes.  (Exceptions include youth pastor types trying to stay ~relevant~ to the kids**, and college grads who live in Chicago.)  When I mentioned the sartorial downfalls of men in the area, my mom immediately turned on me and said that women have a duty to look good, too.  Thanks, Mom!  I know I keep beating the fashion drum here, but seriously, men, dressing well, especially in an area where all the men look dumpy, will make you stand out to women.  You will seem better-looking, more interesting, and more intelligent, and women will be more interested in talking to you.  (**But if you look like a member of MercyMe or a guy from Rascal Flatts, then you have probably failed in that endeavor.)

Also while I was home, I gleaned more manly insight from my dad, who complained about men who hold their wives’ bags while shopping and men who let their wives lead the way in the movie theater.  Recalling that this is a topic that has come up more than once in the manosphere, I formulated some guidelines and decided that there is only one scenario where it is appropriate for a man to hold his lady’s shopping bags:  where he takes the bag from her in a display of manly authority.  By this I mean that he does it because he wants to as a show of courtesy and caring, not because she expects him to be her bag carrier.  This is akin to the ’60s stereotype of carrying a girl’s books to class.  If a woman just hands you her bags so she can be free to go buy more stuff, then she thinks of you as her personal manservant, not a man she respects and admires, though she may tell you otherwise.  As for men letting their wives lead the way in the movie theater (or anywhere else), the same principle applies.  If the man, out of courtesy and generosity, lets his wife or girlfriend pick their seats, that’s fine.  But if she naturally charges ahead and decides where the two of you are sitting because she’s the decider and you’re the follower, then there’s a problem.

Yesterday my eHarmony-using friend picked me up from the shuttle center and told me about two dates she’d been on with two different matches.  One acted like he was God’s gift and couldn’t be bothered to make conversation or show any signs of courtesy that a man would normally show on a date.  This is probably why he is still single at age 40.  The other was very, very nice and gentlemanly, but he is suffering from extreme oneitis for his ex-girlfriend, who left him after seven years for a thug who beats her.  (Insert Roissy post about nice guys and thugs here.)  Lessons learned:  (1) There is a difference between being alpha and being rude.  DON’T BE RUDE.  No one likes to feel like their time is being wasted, and no one likes to feel like they are dirt on the bottom of someone’s shoe.  (2)  Don’t be a nice guy to show her you love her.  Be a man.

Steve Harvey says that men and women can’t be just friends.

While promoting his new book, comedian/author Steve Harvey tells CNN’s Frederica Whitfield that men and women can’t be just friends because, a la When Harry Met Sally, men want to have sex with their female friends and are only “friends” because the woman has LJBFed them yet they are still hopeful that there will be a chink in her LJBF armor at some point.

For the most part, I think this is true, but then how do you explain men with chubby female friends?  Is this implicit confirmation that men like chubby girls, despite all the manosphere screeching to the contrary, or do men just like to keep a “safety” handy in case of sexless emergency?  Maybe what we really need is definitions of “chubby” and “friend” that everybody agrees on.  There’s just too much wiggle room for those terms.  Also, is a woman who doesn’t really have any male friends yet is not getting asked on dates de facto unattractive to men (the logic being that if she is attractive, men will try to be her friend if they’re too scared to ask her out)?

Other questions that women might have about this topic that the men here can answer:

• You have a male friend who considers himself progressive, straightforward, and Unlike Other Men.  He insists that you and he are, and will only be, Just Friends.  Is he lying?
• You have a male friend who insists that you are a wonderful woman with many amazing qualities, but he needs to Pursue Jesus right now.  Is he lying?
• You have a male friend who likes to have long, deep, one-on-one conversations with you, but he never asks you for a date.  Is he attracted to you?

HT to ONTD.  For good times and, um, ~insight~ into the mindset of single, college-age, non-religious, liberal millennials on this topic, read the comments.

Do you have a type?

In the last post’s comments, the subject of “having a ‘type'” came up, with the dual assertions that (a) men don’t stick to “types” because they find many types of women attractive, and (b) women DO stick to “types” and refuse to date anyone outside of the parameters of the favored type.  Of course, these assertions were from men.

Based on my observation, I think men are more likely to marry their type, but women are more likely to date their type.  This is because men can grow a woman’s interest, whereas women are pretty much stuck with the yay-or-nay of a man’s first impression.  So, while a woman will hold out during her dating years for her ideal, a non-ideal man could slip in and start flirting with her until she decides he’s cute enough to marry.  Men, on the other hand, will only target the women who interest them, and for many men – NOT ALL; do you hear me, INLTs? – this means a type.  (See:  Bruce Willis – his current wife is a total Demi clone.  Or Rod Stewart’s wives:  all interchangeable blonde models.  Or the Sister Wives guy:  his wives are all, um, plump Caucasians.  Okay, I’m sure there’s a better example out there….)

Before the comments get rolling, I think it’s worth defining what a “type” is.  I have always thought of it as more of a suite of physical characteristics along with some personality traits, e.g., “tall, smart, athletic.”  I’ve gotten the impression, though, that men in the manosphere define “type” as the woman’s 463-bullet point checklist, which includes job, salary, car make and model, hairstylist, and feelings about soy.  Most women are not that picky.  If you’re running into this kind of woman, who will advertise this list to all those around her, you’re probably in a bar or on a college campus, and the woman is either quite young or divorced and bitter against her ex-husband.

It’s also worth repeating that “type” is an ideal and often is just what knee-jerks attraction, not what sustains it.  I prefer men with full heads of hair, for example, but a full head of hair is not what’s going to love me when I’m old and shriveled.

Reasons women don’t approach.

Whenever I bring up the topic of meeting members of the opposite sex, the male commenters here inevitably strike up the “OMG WOMEN MAKE IT SO HARD I WON’T APPROACH ANY WOMAN WHO DOESN’T HAVE A GREEN LIGHT WITH MY NAME ON IT PASTED TO HER FOREHEAD” song and dance.  Their position is understandable, but women are instinctively programmed to put the man through the paces in order to get to her.  This is because (a) women know that men want the most bang for the least buck, and (b) women want to be worth more than a buck.  Women who make themselves extremely available to men have very little way of telling if the man liked them specifically, or if the man was merely taking advantage of convenience.  Making a man work for it is a way of differentiating the warm body seekers from the specifically me seekers.

This is the general reason that women don’t approach men.  Most of the other reasons are situational and personality-centric, as I discuss below:

• She’s shy. Some women are terrified of talking to anyone they don’t know.  Clearly this leads to glowing results when women who are petrified of strangers and men who are petrified of women mix.
• She’s intimidated. This is a little different from shyness.  Shyness is more of an inner timidity, whereas intimidation is externally based.  A woman who is not usually shy may become intimidated depending on the situation, such as:
  • She feels he’s out of her league. Contrary to what the majority of the manosphere thinks – that all women are entitled landbeasts who wear XXL “head bitch in charge” T-shirts over their industrial strength bras and blast men for not being able to “handle them” – many women will balk at initiating interaction with a man they feel is markedly superior to them in looks, popularity, intelligence, socioeconomic status, etc.  A woman will think to herself, “A man like that could have any woman he wants, so why me?” and as a result, either outright ignore the man or only give furtive little glances when she hopes he’s not looking.  (Exception:  women who attend fan conventions and pay for pictures with their objects of affection.  The exchange of money and experience of waiting in a line make it okay to approach, giggle, praise, and sometimes sneak a grope.)
  • He’s surrounded by bros. Much like men grouse that women can never be found alone, women also find men surrounded by a posse intimidating.  Little Susie Sweetheart, pounding heart in her dry throat, will be much less likely to approach Hal Hotness if Hal is surrounded by five bros who are all slapping each other on the back while grunting about the manliness of Tom Brady’s hair football.  Same goes for Susie approaching Tom Tron and his five engineering buddies who are discussing their latest Halo 3 strategies.  Too many bros, especially if one of the bros is a class clown type who is loud and attracts a lot of high-energy attraction, says to a woman that the man doesn’t want to be bothered.
  • He’s surrounded by attractive women. While some women will be motivated by preselection competition, most women are not self-confident enough to cold approach a man who is constantly surrounded by other women, especially if the other women are good-looking, or at least popular (the good-looking vs. popular Venn diagram doesn’t always have the greatest overlap), or THINNER.  Susie won’t want to deal with the competitive shunning by the women, and she will also ask herself why Cory Cubicle would talk to her when he’s already got his hands full with some nice stuff.
  • He has never shown any previous signs of acknowledging her existence. A hurried “thanks for holding the door” at the elevator at work, followed by pushing the button and zero conversation, doesn’t count.  Non-communicative inertia just begets more non-communicative inertia.  There’s little more humiliating than attempting conversation with someone six months after seeing the person every day, and having that person look at you like they’ve never seen you before.
• She’s a creature of habit. Some women (and men, too, for that matter) settle into a rut of existence and find it immensely difficult to break out of the daily grind.  I don’t know if it’s that they find it too energetically taxing to vary their routines, or what, but there are just some people who habitually refuse to stray from the path every once in a while, even if it’s at the cost of meeting new people.  This means that if you’re not currently on the schedule, you might never be.
• She’s not interested. Yes, sometimes this is the reason women don’t initiate contact.  It usually means that the man hasn’t done anything to make himself stand out as someone to consider.  He hasn’t demonstrated any personality, any leadership or expertise, any sense of humor, any smidgen of fashion sense, any physical fitness, any special talents.  If you are the definition of drab, you’re stacking the deck against yourself.

I’d say that intimidation and interest are the most easily solvable issues.  So if you’re a man and you’re frustrated that women aren’t cold approaching you, understand that just as, if not more, difficult for women to do than men, and then check and see if you’re doing things that make it even harder.