Tips for improving conversational skills.

In addition to appearance, I think that one other area where a lot of singles miss the boat in being attractive to others is in their personalities.

By “personality,” I don’t mean being the life of the party, or the person who gets all the parties started, or basically being the social hub of your network.  I just mean having a personality that people are attracted to – being a good conversationalist, being interesting, and having some social savvy about what to (and not to) say.  For women, this usually translates as some degree of charm.  For men, it’s more about having an attitude that puts others at ease – it CAN be charm, but it doesn’t have to be.  For both sexes, graciousness will take you a long way.  What you DON’T have to be is the Smartest Person or Most Knowledgeable Person.  Oftentimes, Smartest People are really irritating, because they have to be the Final Word on everything, or they price themselves out of social acceptance by operating at some level that’s beyond what everyone else is operating at.

But, you say, I HAVE a good personality!  My mom, my grandma, and all of my closest female friends assure me of this all the time!  I just have to meet a man who’s willing to look through my fat put aside media brainwashing and value me for my inner beauty!  And those men are hard to find!

OK, fair enough (anyone who’s read this blog for a length of time knows that its author hasn’t exactly been hitting home runs in the secure-a-date department) but – speaking anecdotally – there are a lot of singles out there who are pitiful conversationalists.  They’re timid, they have nothing interesting to talk about, they have no awareness of what’s going on in the world, they have no opinions about anything, they don’t know how to tease or joke, they don’t have a sense of humor, and, possibly worst of all, they depend on the other person to provide all of the conversation topics and/or depend on the other person to be the entertainment.  If you laugh a lot when you’re talking to someone, but that person never laughs, then you’re probably depending on that person to be the entertainment.  Conversation is a give-and-take.  Make sure you’re not just a taker.

If you want to become a better conversationalist, the best advice I can give you is to fake it ’til you make it.  Dig up some irrational confidence and act like you believe that other people should want to talk to you because DARN IT, you’re interesting and charming, and if people don’t want to talk to you, don’t take it personally.  It’s their loss, and besides, you’re not going to have chemistry with everyone you talk to.  Just move on and find someone else to try out your irrational confidence on.

Here are some other tips for improving your ability to converse in average social situations.

Read Something That’s Not a Novel.  Sure, it’s good to be able to talk about classic literature or opine on the latest pop-cult bestseller, but those won’t give you enough conversational breadth.  Read some news blogs, read some pop culture/entertainment blogs, read some blogs that incorporate history.  Just read things that make you more aware of the world, both now and in the past.

Listen to Stuff.  What’s on the radio?  Which acts are in heavy rotation?  Who’s got a talk radio show?  What annoying commercial is being played at every break?  Have you been to any talks or seminars lately?

Go On an Adventure.  You don’t have to be Bilbo Baggins, but when did you last go somewhere interesting?  What did you do?  What happened to you?  Did you meet anyone interesting or unusual?

Notice Things That Happen in Your Normal Life.  Humorous stuff happens all the time if you’re watching for it.  Look for the things that reveal people’s humanity.  How did you last stick your foot in your mouth?  When did you last wish the earth would swallow you up?  Who stood out to you when you were people-watching on a bench?

Learn How to Tell a Story.  People LOVE stories, so if you know how to tell one, people will gravitate toward you (or at least not act bored while you’re talking).  Always look for the shared human experience when you’re telling a story – that “oh, that totally happened to me once!/I know EXACTLY how you felt!” aspect.  (If you’re with the right crowd, bad public bathroom stories are almost always a hit.  This is because poop is a universal experience.)

Other conversational tips:

DON’T BE BITTER.  A dash of sarcasm is okay, but if you’re bitter, dour, or have a biting comeback to everything anyone says, you’re going to chase everyone away.

Look for the opening.  No one likes talking to someone who has to be in charge of the conversation at all times, but no one likes talking to someone who never contributes when given the chance, either.  Usually in conversation, the current talker will eventually make a statement designed to elicit a response, such as “Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, I couldn’t believe it!”  That last bit is the opening, and it is now your chance to affirm and then build on the statement with either your own experience (I know, that totally happened to me once!  I was…) or by throwing the ball back to the original speaker in the form of a question (Hahaha, what happened next?).

Give Time to Everyone in a Group/Be Interested in Everyone.  If you’re in a group, try to include everyone.  Sometimes you’ll be in a situation where everyone is content to listen to the main talker talk, but other times, people get really irritated if it looks like two people start having a private conversation in a group of five.  It’s better to give people the option of being listeners than to just force it on them because you and Cute Guy are turning it into the You + Cute Guy Show.  (If you find the latter scenario happening, come up with a reason for the two of you to exit so you can continue to talk by yourselves.  Don’t wait for everyone else to get bored with you and leave.)

Don’t Get Emotional.  Be the duck – let everything roll off your back.  If someone says something that irritates or upsets you, play it cool.  Don’t be vindictive or passive-aggressive.  Don’t openly challenge someone.  And don’t be a clinger, either.

Don’t Linger in Bad Conversations.  Bad conversations suck the life out of everybody.  Learn to bow out gracefully.

Use Observations About the Other Person to Open Conversations.  This is my preferred method of opening a conversation – remarking about some aspect of the other person.  “I like your sweater.  Where did you get it?”  “Nice shoes.”  “In a hurry?”  When I flew home for Christmas, I struck up a conversation with my neighbor because I noticed he was wearing a blazer.  I asked if he was going somewhere because of the blazer, he said he was wearing the blazer because they’re hard to pack, and the conversation was off and running.

Applying the above to the Christian singles community – if the only thing you have to talk about is church and your involvement in it, you need to expand your horizons.  Yes, it’s wonderfully spiritual to talk about how much you love the praise band and how you feel the Spirit flow through you when you’ve all got your hands raised in the air or whatever…but you also poop sometimes, you know?  Fun conversationalists can transition from heavenly to mundane and back without breaking a sweat.  Don’t forget that part of life includes stubbing your toe.

The above is by no means an exhaustive list, just things that sprang to mind first.  If you have anything to add, put it in the comments.

P.S.  Happy 2013, everyone!

Make every day a hot day.

I don’t know if I’m just getting punchy before the holidays or what, but lately I’ve been feeling really irritated at how frumpy so many women are.  Frumpy clothes, frumpy hair – and then they wonder why no guys are paying attention to them, or they’re only getting attention from the guys they don’t want.

It’s not just frumpiness of style, either; it’s also plain old being plain.  Timid.  Unimaginative.  If you look like the personification of beige yet remain stumped as to why a guy can’t see the beautiful personality that your mom, grandma, and all of your female friends see, wellllll.

Sometimes you got to help a brother out.  Men are visual creatures.  Make it easy for him, not harder.

In other words, make every day a hot day.  Don’t wait for an occasion to look hot; make looking hot your regular look.  If you wait for a perfect occasion for looking hot, chances are it’ll never happen.  Stop looking for excuses, and just do it.  You feel a little fat today?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.  Got a zit?  Doesn’t matter, make it a  hot day.  You’re tired?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.  You’re not going anywhere special?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.  You don’t think you’re pretty?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.

Just to clarify – a hot day doesn’t mean dressing like you’re going to the club.  It means looking attractive, on top of things, classy, intelligent, and interesting.  Aim for smart-sexy, not club-trampy.

Do you need a style revamp?  Consider your answers to the following questions:

Do people regularly compliment your outfits?

If you are not getting regular compliments on what you wear, then you probably need to step it up a notch or two.

Has anyone complimented your haircut when you’ve just gotten it cut?

If no one has told you that your hair looks good after a haircut, then you’ve been paying someone who doesn’t deserve your money.  Find someone new to cut your hair, and keep going to someone new until you start getting compliments.

Do you read any fashion magazines or blogs?

If you don’t, I recommend People Stylewatch.  Its specialty is accessible (read:  normal person) fashion, not couture, and showcases clothes at a variety of price points.  I also recommend the TLC show What Not to Wear.  Stacy and Clinton tend to style everyone the same, but it’s good for middle-America office-worker fashion and tips on how to put together outfits, and most of the people they make over are average-looking.

If you don’t have anyone in your life whose opinion your trust about your appearance, feel free to send me some pictures for a critique.  I will give you an honest assessment and won’t share your photos with anyone.

P.S.  This is most likely my final blog post of 2012, as I am leaving for my hometown on Friday and won’t be back until the new year.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.  Thanks for reading!

Angles of the side hug.

I have been meaning to write about side hugs since practically the inception of this blog, but I never found quite the right angle to write from.  However, a recent side hug experience gave me (literally!) a good angle, so here goes.

First, let’s define the side hug.  If a regular hug is a full embrace, then the side hug is a half-embrace.  It involves one arm and one shoulder of each participant.  However, just as regular hugging has gradations of intimacy, I have found that the side hug does as well.

Second, side hugs are pertinent to discussion because they run quite rampant in Christian communities.  Average self-respecting (beta) church guys usually face the dilemma of not wanting to be seen as the pervy creeper (or borderline gay) who hugs all the girls in a big embrace, but also wanting to be seen as a friendly and encouraging guy (who also gets to touch women).  A regular hug is often too much, especially with jittery 20-something women.  This is where the side hug comes in:  a method for touching and conveying camaraderie and care, but not in a creepy way!

There are basically three different levels of side hugging.  Below I have listed the types and the associated romantic prognosis for each.

180-degree side hug:  In the 180-degree side hug, your shoulders and the hugger’s form a straight line.

Romantic prognosis:  Never going to happen.

Obtuse angle side hug:  The obtuse angle side hug shows a little more rapport between hugger and huggee.  This is the category into which a lot of church side hugs fall.

Romantic prognosis:  Getting warmer, but either the girl is putting on the brakes, or the guy is still too big of a beta.  Alternatively, the girl wants the guy, but she’s too chubby/frumpy/hasn’t otherwise passed the boner test…but he does think she’s a nice person.

Acute angle side hug:  The acute angle side hug is more or less just a second arm away from being an embrace.

Romantic prognosis:  Her hamster will go crazy wondering WHAT IT MEANS.  If you’re a guy who goes around giving acute angle side hugs to women, you probably have options.  Also, you could probably flip the acute angle side hug into a regular hug, and the woman would not object.  Works best if preceded by kino.

I hope this breakdown is beneficial to the readership.

ETA:  Have a good or bad side hug story?  Share it in the comments.  It’s almost Christmas, we can be a little social. :)

Church guys who lack alpha AND beta.

The manosphere usually talks about alpha and beta as an inversely proportional continuum, meaning that if a guy doesn’t have a lot of alpha, he must have a lot of beta, and vice versa.  For most practical intents and purposes, this model works.  Most guys need to tone down the beta traits and up the alpha, and then there are some who need to tone down the alpha in order to reassure their women that they do, in fact, care for them.

But one type of man not commonly talked about is the man who lacks both alpha AND beta.  He’s neither dominant with his wife, but he’s not sweet and cuddly with her, either.  He’s just sort of…there.  Doing his thing.  And being neither romantic nor sexy doing it.

My latest idea is that this alpha-less, beta-less man is the one that a lot of Christian relationship books are written for.  These are usually the books that encourage men to “love” their wives more by doing more and more beta things for them, and the reason for this encouragement of beta is that the authors mistakenly think that being a distant, cold husband is “alpha.”  So they instruct their readers to pour on the beta, and then the advice fails because beta in the absence of alpha isn’t attractive.

What a woman with that kind of man wants is not more flowers and more acts of service, it’s a man who will flirt with her and make her feel attractive.  THEN, once that has been established, he can do the sweet things.  But jumping right into the sweet stuff is NOT the way to go about rectifying a marriage that lacks both alpha and beta.

 

Best of Boundless: “Man Enough to Love a Real Woman.”

This is quite possibly the greatest article Boundless has ever published.

In this article, author Joshua Rogers describes how he gave up aspirations to have an attractive, non-needy, intelligent, and spiritually mature wife who was also fun to be around, and instead learned how to love a “real woman.”***

I really wanted to quote basically the whole thing, but I’ve listed the money quotes below.  In the article, they appear beneath the sub-headline Are You Man Enough?.

To those single guys out there who are trying to find the ideal woman, do the world a favor and give up. You’re not the ideal man — not anywhere close. And you would never get married if women held you to the same standard you apply to them.

But maybe you insist that you’re not going to settle for a woman who’s not everything you’re hoping for in a wife. Settle? Whatever the circumstances, believe me, she will be the one who settles for you and all your deficits. And until you realize this — through humbling circumstances or otherwise — maybe you should take a break from dating for a while and spend some time asking God to make you man enough to love a real woman.

This is the Boundless mentality in a nutshell:  (a) that men are the misguided ones, clinging to unrealistic standards and depriving worthy women everywhere of husbands, (b) that men will never equal women in moral worth because men are just too stupid, and (c) that having high standards is a spiritual failing and men must seek reprogramming from God to make them be attracted to the women around them.

Meanwhile, women are Daughters of the King who deserve to be loved for who they are, not what dress size they wear (or whatever other measuring stick is being held up to them).

It’s a good thing women are so gracious as to marry men!

***Not that Rogers ultimately deigned to marry a woman who failed to meet his standards for beauty, intelligence, and spiritual maturity.  In another article (which reads like a clinic in how to remain an involuntary bachelor for life, complete with kissing dating goodbye, beta orbiting, and scaring a girl off by talking about marriage on the first date), he describes his then-future bride thusly:

She was bright, attractive, fiercely devoted to Christ, and – in light of my recent failings – I thought she was far too good of a woman to be spending time with me.

Standards for me, but not for thee!

Guy gets strongarmed into proposing to girlfriend of nine years; no one blames the girlfriend for sticking with him so long.

In a current Boundless discussion thread, Amir Larijani talks about how he and a bunch of other guys from his church staged an intervention with a peer, basically forcing him to propose to his girlfriend of nine years after she finally gave him an ultimatum.  I think we’re supposed to cheer that the men strongarmed this guy into fessing up to his commitment fears and volunteering  for lifelong financial servitude becoming the man God wants him to be, but the girlfriend is totally off the hook for sticking with a guy for NINE YEARS when he clearly had no intentions of proposing?  Did she think she had NO OTHER OPTIONS?  Was he THAT much better than everybody else?  (Or were they having sex the entire time and so she had hamstered herself into thinking he was ~the one~?  Because if they weren’t having sex, a nine-year celibate romantic relationship is just weird.)

No dating relationship should last nine years, unless you’re both widowed senior citizens who need someone to go to dinner at 4:30 with.  Especially for Christians, it sounds completely unhealthy.  Either you’re having sex, which is sinning, or you’re having almost-not-quite-sort-of sex, which is also sinning, or you’re not having sex at all, which is highly unnatural in the long term for two people who presumably are looking to have a future together where they WILL be having sex.  I can see a Christian couple putting off sex for a year or two – but nine years?

I think I’m just having a knee-jerk reaction of mortification at the thought of marrying someone who more or less had to be pinned down and forced to say “uncle.”  Sure, the woman in this sort of situation will always get cast as the angel who believed in his true, hidden self and showed biblical perseverance, faith, and loyalty in helping the man get past his fears, but….ugh.

Basically, I’m just here to reiterate my opinion that people should only date when they are prepared to enter into a marriage, and that the dating period and engagement should be short.

Don’t worry about that other person’s feelings when:

Christians usually try to care about other people’s feelings, which is why Christian criticism of non-gay, non-abortion things tends to be pretty toothless.  No one wants to run the risk of turning a potential away from the Lord FOREVERRRR by hurting that person’s ego feelings, so there are a lot of roundabout and sometimes passive-aggressive comments instead.

However, there is at least one situation where you really shouldn’t care about the other person’s feelings, and that is when there is sexual chemistry between you and someone where at least one of you is married.  Getting married doesn’t mean other people cease to be attractive.  Sometimes that just means the other person becomes MORE attractive, just like people on a diet find cake that much more enticing.

But basically, if you find yourself in a situation where a married person is attractive to you (and especially if you sense that you are attractive to that other person), you should just walk away and not worry if the other person thinks you’re rude or uncaring or whatever.  It’s more important to honor that person’s marriage (and spouse) than to try to keep up some facade of friendship.  The bottom line is that you can’t have that person, so why invest any more time in him (or her)?  Why make it more difficult to extract yourself?  It can’t lead to the place that you want it to go…at least, not without a lot of destruction in its wake.

I mean, don’t be intentionally MEAN, but don’t make that person a point in your life.  That person should be a non-point.

When guys advise girls to put out to prove marital worthiness, they really mean “only put out for betas.”

Obviously, as a Christian, I believe that sex should be reserved only for marriage, but since I operate in a corner of the internet that isn’t exclusively Christian, I figure it’s worth talking about why premarital sex is such a bad deal for women overall.  This is not to say that some women haven’t put out and ended up in good marriages anyway.  It’s more that if you look at society as a whole, it’s a bad thing.  It’s worth pointing out that the manosphere seems mainly geared toward upper-middle and upper-class (white beta) men (if not in raw income, then at least in education/social class/taste), and so a lot of advice is filtered through those lenses.  Many social pathologies have not (yet?) come to the upper echelons of society because of money and a stronger adherence to traditional social strictures.

The basic gist that I see all over the place is that women should have a low partner count but should put out for guys they’re serious about who could also be husband material.  The problem is that the same guys who advocate this strategy also believe that women have no control over their hamsters and will be ~forever ruined~ for marriage by sex with an alpha.  So basically, they are advising women to be crazed sex freaks only with betas.  This sexual performance will prove to the man that the woman is a good bet for marriage.  So somehow women are tasked with finding betas to treat like alphas within, like, three tries, lest they be branded for eternity as ruined slags who will cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat and make you raise someone else’s secret baby.  Also, they need to divine the man’s fitness for marriage within 3-5 dates – so within 12-20 hours of time spent with the guy, approximately.  This is because no self-respecting man is going to waste time on a chick who won’t put out.

This “strategy” seems like no strategy at all.  Men are banking on the premise that the two guys who came before him were horrible at sex, but she had significant relationships with them anyway (because only big ol’ whores would have one night stands or flings).  Women are banking on the much riskier premise that she will find someone who is willing to commit to her in marriage within three tries that she can also be a crazed sex freak for for the rest of her life.  It’s like playing Super Mario Bros. with three lives and you have to get to the flagpole before you die three times or time runs out.  Also, I feel like there is a presumption that the girl is always the one ending relationships, because what guy would dump a “nice” girl who is a crazed sex freak only with him, right?  But girls get dumped all the time, and not just by alphas.  Every girl, if it hasn’t happened to herself, knows girls who in good faith entered into dating relationships that ended in getting dumped for whatever reason.  The guy just stopped being attracted, the guy decided he wanted something else, the guy decided it wasn’t working out – even if the guy had also declared his love, talked about a future/marriage, often went the extra mile.

So what does a girl gain from a failed sexual relationship?  Nothing.  The guy gets sex and an ego/status boost.  The girl just loses time and gains a notch that will work against her chances of getting another marriageable guy, because guys don’t care so much about the quality of the relationship, they just care about the number.  She can also then expect the next guy to expect her to do everything sexually for him that she did for the previous guy, unless she lands a suuuper beta with a forgiving heart.  But landing a suuuper beta with a forgiving heart makes it even harder for the girl to be a crazed sex freak for him, so it’s just a downward spiral with no end.

It’s just a very bad strategy.

Recently conservative comedian/commentator Steven Crowder got married, and both he and his bride were virgins on the wedding day.  He recounted in a subsequent op-ed that he thought their wedding night was “perfect” and “nothing short of amazing. ”  Whatever kind of sex they had that night was surely not perfect or amazing by experienced sexing standards, but by coming to marriage as virgins, Crowder and his wife got to have a wedding night that they could consider perfect and amazing and that will remain a cherished memory.  More interestingly, the next day he and his wife were eating breakfast and they overheard another newlywed discussing her new marriage and opining that “nothing’s really changed.”  (Also, the groom had gotten so wasted at the reception that he wasn’t even eating breakfast with his new wife.)  Presumably this woman had cohabited with her now-husband and had used up all the perfect and amazing sex of new love long before her wedding night.  It made me sad to read about it.  At the one table were Crowder and his bride giddy with the freshness of lives newly entwined, while at the other table were people who had been there, done that so long ago that the marriage was hardly registering with them.  And people wonder where romance went and why marriages don’t last…but darn it, they got the receipts from premarital sex!

P.S.  Only three people have responded to the podcast idea.  Please weigh in if you would like to see this project move forward.

Embracity le Blessingsey!

Just doing a quick afternoon drive-by because (a) I haven’t posted a new one in a while, sorry about that; and (b) I have to finish the other half of my workout, because (c) I think I’m going to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark tonight in “IMAX.”  I hate IMAX prices, but I haven’t been to the theater since The Dark Knight’s Ridiculous Conclusion and Raiders is the kind of movie you HAVE to see on the big screen if you have a chance.

Anyhow, I was thinking about the Humility that Christian guy bloggers usually spout about how they’re not worthy of their wives and they cry when they think about how their beatific babes deigned to spend the rest of their lives with lowly guy bloggers who suffer from mundane afflictions like lust sin humanity, and being married only serves to remind them of how very sinful and decrepit they are, and somehow female readers are supposed to read this and wish their own husbands would proclaim the same to the world, and oh how romantic and Christianly it is.

Screw that!

If I’m going to be legally chained to some dude who expects daily sex from me for the rest of my life and thinks that at most I should have a job and not a career, and will watch every bite of dessert that enters my mouth with critical eyes lest I destroy his love with the power of cellulite, then I’d very much like to be married to a guy who knows his worth and believes that he is offering me a pretty darn good thing by inviting me along for the ride.  Why would I willfully bind myself for life to a man who frets and worries that he’s not good enough?  What does that say about ME and my mind, and my values?  It’s an attitude that’s insulting to women – that a woman willfully chose to cheerlead for a weakling, and we should praise her for her act of charity.

What women want is (if you will allow me the Hollywood analogy) a man who says, “I’m directing a movie called The Greatness of Me, and I am looking for a producer.  I have the vision, but I need someone who is going to help me achieve that vision because I can’t do it all by myself.  I think you can be that person.  Are you going to come on board?”

I know that it’s en vogue in Christian circles to constantly second-guess yourself and keep knocking yourself down with “I’M NOT WORTHY!” reminders, and blah blah blah pride conceit vanity blah, but women yearn for men who have thrown off timidity and have stepped out of their hobbit holes to venture beyond the Shire.  You can be humble and still embrace your God-given talents, gifts, and intellect, and have confidence in those abilities that you can give a woman a happy life.  Why did God give you any of these blessings in the first place if He intended you to second-guess Him and His design for your life?  It’s kind of like,

GOD:  Hey, Bob, I’m going to make you smart – which, let’s be real, I don’t give that to just anybody – and I’m also going to make you good at fixing things.  I’m going to give you an even temper, and I’m going to make you good with handling money.  Okay, you’re going to be a little short on athletic ability and unfortunately you’re going to end up doing all the group projects for the athletes in your classes, but you’re going to be a good writer and good with kids to make up for that.

BOB:  OHHHHH GOD I’M NOT WORTHY OF ASHLEY!!!!!!!!!!  SHE’S JUST SO GORGEOUS AND BEAUTIFUL AND HOT!!!!!!!!!!  HOW CAN I POSSIBLY MAKE THIS WOMAN HAPPY?????  SHE PRAYS TO YOU MORE THAN I DO!!!!!!!!!  YESTERDAY I SAID SOMETHING THAT MADE HER FROWN!!!!  I CAN NEVER, EVER, EVER LET THAT HAPPEN AGAIN BECAUSE I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!  I AM AN AMOEBA AMONG MEN!!!!!!!!!!  HOW COULD YOU GIVE ME SUCH A PRECIOUS GIFT???????????  SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF WITH A FOOTBALL PLAYER!

GOD: ……………………………..

Men, stop flagellating yourselves.  God gave you talents and abilities.  Sure, everyone has moments of self-pity and self-doubt, but give God some credit for His blessings, and give the woman in your life some credit in choosing you.  We’re all sinners.  This isn’t some sort of “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” scenario.

Being extremely patient for feelings.

In a recent Boundless article, the author talked about how he knew upon meeting the woman who became his wife for the first time that she was The One, but that it took five dates over the course of four months for the woman to start having any romantic feelings for him.  (The article also specifies that his wife at the time was 33 years old and specifically gave him a chance because she had accepted that she needed to “intentionally alter her approach and expectations” from those of her younger years.)

I think that if more Christians want to get married, they have to accept that this is how it will probably play out for them.  Not so much the age factor, but just the slowness factor.  It’s something that I am working on accepting.  While it would be nice to meet someone who I immediately thought was good-looking, intelligent, witty, and a good conversationalist, in addition to being a devout Christian, and, most importantly, was also attracted to me AND was marriage-minded…it’s highly unlikely that all of these criteria will be met early on. Realistically, the probability is much higher that I will meet someone who is not physically off-putting and who is nice and that I can talk to, and from there it’s up to me to open my mind.

I think it’s just an issue of everybody having to swallow their pride and accept that most of us are not sexy people and therefore will not end up with someone really sexy, and that therefore the attraction discovery period could end up being lengthy.  Most people are just NOT. THAT. ATTRACTIVE.

Actually, now that I think about it, four months is pretty fast in the grand scheme of things.  This guy’s wife could have taken two years to decide if he was attractive.  Then again, she was 33.  Age is often the NOS of courtship speed.

By the way, I’m just going to reiterate my highly mansopherically unpopular opinion that you don’t need to feel IIII AMMM SOOO CRAZYYYYYYYYYYY ABOUT YOUUUUUUUU to marry someone.  Men can be equally crazy about a series of women, but only the most romantic of women are equally excited about multiple guys over the course of their lives.  Especially as women age, companionship and emotional/financial stability become more important to the love mix.  It’s less about feeling swept away as it is in feeling secure, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the woman doesn’t love the man or that she loves him less, or that she wishes she married someone else.  It’s just more prudent.