Rusty's Blog

If you pick up a book specifically aimed at guys looking to get involved with women, there is a basic starting point that they all have. ‘Don’t be desperate.’ There are various techniques for addressing the possibility of being desperate that are discussed. And each of those has it’s advantages and disadvantages. However they all stem from the perspective that a guy looking to get out on a date is desperate. Desperation is pictured as the worst possible starting point for dating, and you have to become not desperate in order to be successful with women.

There is a problem with this stance. Being desperate is a really bad place to start from. Women can tell you are desperate almost the moment you walk into a room. Some may even equate the emotion to having a stink about it. But it is not the worst place to start. That place is Contentment.

If you either ‘are’ content with being single, or live in such a way that shouts ‘I’m OK, Don’t worry about me, if nothing happens, that’s OK too.’ then you have to change that first. That change may go through desperation, or possibly straight to being an engaging, fun person to be around, confident and all the things that a woman is looking for either short term or long (depending on your own goals) but it’s somewhat unlikely. In many cases you’ve developed some bad habits that you will need to make changes to.

My own case. In December of 1988, and January of 1989, three things of importance to me happened. Somethings I’m pretty happy about, and something equally shaped me, but was another sign of something already happening.. The things that I’m happy about will get just this brief notice, which may seem odd, but it affects a lot of other things, so I’m going to include it. In December of 1988, my daughter turned 4, and in January of 1989 my son turned 1. I’m very proud of both of them. Also in December of 1988, I had my first divorce hearing, and in January of 1989 my divorce was finalized. Why the birthdays of my daughter and son are important to what follows is that at the time of our divorce, they were both living with me, and I had full custody. The reasons for why that happened are not important. It happened. For the next 9 years I retained full custody. I made a few mistakes, and after 9 years we ended up exchanging custody.

In trying to be what I viewed at the time as a responsible single parent, student, and all, I really didn’t go out and get involved in any of the various social scenes where we lived. Oh, I can come up with lots of excuses. Money was tight, I couldn’t afford a baby sitter, no relatives in the area to ask to watch the kids, The real simple matter is that I found the divorce pretty unsettling, had not developed a lot of frineds and was not in a position where I was likely to be inoved in a social scene that I could have dated within. And I got comfortable there. I had my kids, there was no pressure to go have more kids. From then until now, I’ve dated somewhere between 5 and 10 times, depending on what you call a date, and none of them got to so much as the groping stage. A couple involved a bit of kissing, but I doubt anyone would consider that news to write home about.

I can come up with lot’s of reasons why, but I never felt like it was a good idea to bring a date home. You can make what you will of possible reasons for that, but the ultimate explanation is that I didn’t need to, so I didn’t, and sinc the daet was not going anywhere, they didn’t progress.

And while I’ve been ‘content’ I would not say that I was satisfied. They are two different things. Content means that there may be better options than what you have at hand, but the work to get to the point where you can enjoy those options isn’t worth the effort in your mind. Satisfied means that you’ve really got a pretty good thing going. There may be better options than what is satisfying you, but this is really good.

I suspect that there are a lot of guys, and probably a lot of women too, who happen to be content. You are actively looking for and reading books about dating. You may even be trying the suggestions out, but there’s something missing. Oh, you have the desperation licked, it’s out cold. It’s just, that this dating stuff is a lot of work, and, I’d rather sit at home and watch some TV, or work on a project, or… There is no urgency in dating for you.

Ok, I can here some of my friends, “What, what do you mean no urgency? Don’t you want to get laid? Sex is just about the best thing about being human!” and so on. In response, Yes I do want to get laid. I do think it’s just about the most fantastic thin that has ever happened in my life, and I want very much to do that again. However I’ve gon all this time without getting laid, and I’m not exactly dead, so what’s the hurry? I want it to be with someone I care about (Or other excuses.)

The reality is I got content. I do consider the sex I’ve had to be some of the very best experiences in my life. OK, some of it was sort of dull, at least if you ask my ex. (I certainly am not going to claim that we went through the entire Kama Sutra in the 4 years we were married, but there were definitely times where sex seemed to be mechanical, I’m sure that was true for both of us, and not always at the same time. And not only does that make for bad pr0n, it isn’t really good for wanting to get involved in a relationship either.

I wouldn’t have been interested in dating if I didn’t think there was something better than what I was living through. But as I say, pretty much every guide on how to get out and date presumes that you are starting from being desperate. You’ve built up this deep need to get laid. That woman might reject you and you are afraid that it will leave you devastated. And as I’m reading it, I can see where that would be the case for most guys, but I’m not sure how it applies to me. Because it doesn’t. I’m in the state beyond desperate. Not quite apathetic, but it’s close enough to not make a significant difference.

I’ve been in a rut, and it’s time to get out. That is going to take a lot of cleaning up. There’s a lot of garbage that’s accumulated that needs to simply be thrown out, donated, sold off, etc. I may get to the point where I am desperate. I kind of hope not. but the objective is to get to the point where there is urgency in meeting and getting involved with the women I am interested in. From there? There is a universe of possibilities.

I doubt I’ll be ‘documenting’ all of the stuff that happens along the way. I’m pretty sure that most people would think it is boring. Certain friends I am looking to to keep reminding me that there is something wonderful beyond where I am, and whether they are involved in that for me or not, I’m not going to get too concerned about.

Every guy knows at some level that he is replacable. It could be with another guy, or a woman, a toy, or even an interestingly shaped handdle, or piece of a broom stick. It often doesn’t matter if a guy is married to a woman or not, He may be replaced at almot any time by another guy, who happens to be convienent, and attracts the appropriate, or is it inappropriate, interest.

One of the side effects of this is that guys either get overly confident, blustery, the like about their own proweres, ability, or endouments, or (and this may also be within those, he becomes insecure, and starts seaking signs that his current interest is devoted tohim in ways that may never materialize.

Someone is going to come along here, and accuse me of saying that “all women are low life scumm who … yada, yada.” I’m not. I honestly think that a majority of women are very satisfied with their partner, and suspect that within stable relationships, the majority take no opportunities to stray. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that most pair bonds are stable relationships. Entirely too  many of us find some way to either re-affirm our manhood, and there is a strong incentive for a woman to find a stable partner who will provide over the long term, whil finding an unstable partner who excites and pleases her for brief periods of time.

With a few exceptions, I suspect that the ‘unstable’ partner is going to carry a lot of characteristics in common with her long term partner, if only to reduce the chance that she will be abandoned with a baby that matches a few characteristics that are somewhat uncommon for highly unlikely to have come from him. Say for example if he and she are read headed irish folk, and their new baby happens to have somewhat darker skin tone, or straight black hair, mom might gt concerned that dad is wondering just how close she’s been getting to the black or indian postman, or the asian tax lawyer they worked with last winter. It’s possible that he’s been ‘replaced’ even temporarily, but if she were thinking about it already, she’s probably made sure that it’s the irish milkman she’s getting some on the side in the morning with instead.

Again, I’m not saying that this is the majority situation. But it does happen, and many, if not most, guys are very concerned about it happening to them.

One method of coping is to ‘Play the field.’ and ‘not commit’ to a relationship, untill he’s a lot more certain that he’s not being played for a fool.

Women, as much as some guy’s will suggest otherwise, by playing the field, or having a girl in every port or at every truck stop, etc, you are not replaceable. And at some level you realize that. You get jealous when you think that a guy is cheating on you with another woman. Now some guys might think that this is strange, why should you be allowed to be jealous, and the guy sort of has to cope with his fears. Well, there is an average 19 year commitment reason that you become concerned over very quickly.

If you’ve decided on the nice stable guy, and all too late you discover that he’s still playing the field, and has knocked up some other woman, you start having all sorts of questions that need to be handled. “When was my last period” may very well be the first question you ask. Ok, it’s not exactly a question for you, it’s more along the lines of it’s been X days since i started, or finished my last period, and I have n-x days left. And you robably know that if you areat x=n-x, or within a couple of days of that, and you’ve been messing around, that you may now have a really big concern over who’s going to help you while Stable guy is over at the other woman’s house raising his other woman’s child.

My take on it is that there’s not a lot of time being spent on trying to figure out what the likelyhood of you being pregnant are. If you’ve been working towards that condition, you already have a pretty good idea of where you are in the cycle. It’s more handling the emotional concerns of ‘what now?’ than trying to figure out ‘odds.’

Of course some guys are going to be cuckooled. It happens, and strangely enough we tend to see enough variation in even ‘perfectly matched’ parrent’s children that a cucooled child can often get by un-noticed. Ladies, I’m going to suggest that if you’ve introduced this sort of a situation, that you work damned hard to make sure that your huby knows that he is appreciated. Perhaps more than he was when you got together to begin with. Specifically you want him to know that even though he was sitting home alone the nights you were in an out of town staff meeting just 9 months before littl one showed up, that little one is very definately ‘dad’s. And reward him frequently. We tend to think with our balls entirely too often, but I would say that its perfectly OK to take advantage of that, and keep our balls happy and in play.

As hard as I tried for 9 years as a single parrent, I can assure you that I know that mom is not who I ever was. I made mistakes, and I know that mom’s do as well, don’t get me wrong, And I don’t think there is ever going to be a step-mom who will suffice. In most cases a father who becomes a single parrent, either as a result of a divorce, or as a result of becoming a widdower. As a single parrent, it’s almost a given that dad will not have the time to get involved with someone who he will be comfortable bringing into his children’s lives as a ‘replacement’ for ‘Mom.”

There are things that I’m not happy with about my ex. Some of them are related to how she fought some of the battles we fought, legal and others. But the thing that most disturbs me is that since we separated, I’ve not developed a stable relationship with another woman. And as odd as it seams, the fault for that is not her, so much as it is my own.

The really bad part is that I like a number of women that I trust, though some might consider that trust to be misplaced. In my case the trust is that I have what I conseder to be a reasonably confident ability to predict an unfavorable result to specific situations. Mostly it means that I won’t let myself get into a situation where that variety of result can happen with them. I’m really hoping that in most cases, that ‘trust’ is misplaced, however I don’t expect to give many people the chance to gain confusion on the subject.

Sounds like I don’t like women? That’s not what I said by any means. In fact with very rare exceptions I very much like most women I have become aquainted with. I even like my ex, and there are people who think I should not. But ‘liking’ is not the same as ‘willing to risk.’

I’m at the point in my career where I am really working on getting my retirement in order. That’s not exactly conducive to having and raising children. And it’s really not conducive to paying child support for 18 or 20 years either. At some level I do think that’s rather sad. But it’s a decision I’ve pretty much committed to for myself.

Obviously this does not mean that I have to be alone. At the moment I have some pretty good ideas of who I’m not interested in sharing that part of my life with, but I still haven’t decided what characteristics I am interested in.

Experience suggests that I won’t see more than one or two comments on this blog, if I see even that many. That said, I really am open to suggestions. I’m not interested in a ‘mail order bride’ or being set up in an “arranged” situation. I wouldn’t mind a few recommendations, or meetings that are arranged, it’s the whole ‘your going to do…’ variety of arrangeed that I’m not interested in.

Tomorrow is Mother’s day. If your mother is arround, send her a greeting of love, and appreciation. If she is not arround, and you’re hardly alone in that, remember her with fondness and love. Especially remember her hopes and wishes for you. It’s entirely likely that you have not achieved many or all of those dreams. Most of us do not. But those hopes and dreams are still a part of her image of you, and you should remember those things too. After all, Your mother was not replaceable either.

Best of wishes.

…it’s not all it’s cut out to be.

Don’t get me wrong, tolerance is a start. Just remember it’s not an end.

Kind of tough starting with the ending isn’t it? Actually, that ‘ending’ is just a start. I suppose a bit of an explanation is in order.

If you ask people what the founding principles are of religion in the united states, it would be that people should tolerate other people’s religions. Or rather a lot of people feel that way. This basically means that we should allow other people to ignore what we feel is a sound principle of our own faith, and that if what they choose to do is against our own faith, we should just let it go. As an example, most of the Christian derivations consider Sunday to be a day of worship, and not of work. Jeudaism on the other hand treats Saturday that way, and Islam tends to treat Friday as the day of worship. Tolerance suggests that we should ‘let’ people of the other two faiths practice thier holy days.

The problem with this is that we tend to find that ‘letting’ people do this tends to grate at our nerves, and there is no way we can get beyond that under the auspices of Tolerance. It is a start though.

What Tolerance is intended to lead to is Learning, Understanding and Acceptance.

If you can allow people to do what their faith, or views suggest is the correct thing to do, and you recognize that there is a problem from your perspective, you can then Ask why people with those faiths or views do those things. Without Asking, you can never get to Learning why they are doing that. Christianity treats Sunday as the holy day of the week, because that is the day of the week that Christ rose from the grave. Jeudaism treats Saturday as the holy day of the week because the commandment says that we are to remember the sabath or seventh day, and keep it holy. This is in rememberance of the 7th day of the week of creation when the Lord rested. Within Islam, Friday is the holy day for a number of reasons, including Adam being created on Friday, the revelation of Islam as the religion, and the day of resurection being Friday. (slightly different meaning from Christ’s resurection, but we’re not going to go there for now.)

Once you have learned why people of another faith follow specific practices, it becomes a matter of recognition and acceptance that while they may not be important reasons for you to follow those practices, they are important to the people who practice that faith.

Just about everyone in the office starts work at 9 am. Bob regularly shows up at 10:30, and works till an hour and a half after everyone else goes home. This bothers a number of his co-workers, but his manager, and thiers, seems to just take it in stride. His co-workers ‘Tolerate’ Bob’s behaviour, because they see that their manager continues to allow it. On the other hand his manager has noted two things. If Bob works those hours, he oddly enough gets more done in that time than anyone else on his staff. Also Bob is in training for the upcomming olympic trials. By the time Bob shows up at work, he’s already spent 3 hours working out and getting cleaned up for work. When Bob gets off work at 6:30, his first stop is the local gym where he puts in another 2 hours before he goes home and spends the next 3 hours working on his graduate degree program. His co-workers may ‘tolerate’ Bob’s behaviour, but at this rate Bob’s not going to be working with them for long. His boss understands and accepts the behaviour, because he is aware of the even larger picture around what Bob is doing.

School’s and govornment offices are investigating a 4 day work-week in some cities. 20 years ago, the idea was proposed, but there was no way that it was going to happen. The lifestyle we had at the time did not encourage that sort of flexibility. Some of the things that have changed since then include more 2 parents working. Higher price of gassoline, and food. Working from 8 am till 6 pm may seem like a long stretch, but if you can save 20% of your commuting budget, might it be worth the redistribution of work? How about if it saves more like 25%? At the moment a lot of bus companies charge a different rate after 6:00 pm than they do from 3:30 to 6:00pm. This may not be a lot of help to people who may have to pay a little bit more at the parking garage for the added 2 hours, but they also end up without those hours at all (as well as any time spent going to and from the office from the parking garage) for the 5th day that they won’t be working. One school district found that just the savings in fuel costs for reducing the school week by 1 day pays for a class that they would otherwise have to eliminate. It also has an impact on the cost of school lunches for the district.

In a time where we are all looking for ways to save money, these can be very important reasons to investigate those alternatives. However in large portions of the business sector, the 5 day 8 hour work week, with an added 8 hours of overtime on Saturday presuming you would like to continue working here, is so ingrained into their work ethic that you can forget about seeing them change anytime soon. It will happen though.

So remember, start with Tollerance, but it isn’t the end. Recognize that you are missing something, and learn what it is that will convert Tolerance into Acceptance, and Appreciation.

It’s not about sex, not about money. It’s about reality. First of all, I don’t care how beautiful you think a given woman is. Her beauty is not going to specifically help you, and may very well be a significant hinderance to you.

OK, First up, all women are first of all ‘People.’ Just like you are. Why is this important? Because now you can start considering how your behaviour may be affecting her.

We all worry about some factor of our appearance. Anything from ‘hat hair’ to our skin condition, to the color of our cars. We nearly all make some decision about what we wear today, on some personal concept of style. It may be flawed, guys on average tend to be more likely to be color blind and thus choose some combinations poorly, or ideal (rare indead) but it does say something about our view of ourselves. All women are doing some of the same things. In fact on average women are more concerned about their own appearance than guys are, but if you start with something that you probably do care about the appearance of, this will make more sense over all.

I’m going to presume that you have a bicycle, motorcycle or motor vehicle of some type. Whether you spend a lot of time on it’s appearance or not, you do notice the attention it gets. If someone seems to turn up their nose at your car, that probably means something to you. If someone seems to take no notice of your bike, then that means they don’t se themselves as someone who would be excited to go riding as well.

‘Normal’ levels of attention is something like a compliment about the color, or style. And an enthusiast may spend some time talking with you about the engine size, highway performance, who did the paint job and so on.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people you start to get concerned about. Perhaps all they can seem to talk about is the rims, or they are overly complementary about the paint job. Beyond that are the people who just sit and stare. You might even get concerned about the safety of the vehicle, because that person just doesn’t seem to be able to leave the subject alone.

That’s the end you might want to start thinking about, and deciding if you are emulating. First of all if a woman is in the group of people that is considered Beautiful by the public at large, she will appreciate the recognition, in moderation. Think about it. While more than 95% of the people on earth may not care about her one way or the other, the remaining 5% are probably all around her. It’s likely that she has heard nearly every pickup line known to man, and a few known only to women And one thing she knows is that people will try to compliment her in an effort to get indimate with her.

She doesn’t mind that people think she’s attractive, it’s the fact that altogether too many people think that the only thing she is happens to be ‘attractive.’ Being attractive is likely to bring a variety of benifits, but the constant attention eventually gets dull and boring. And after some period of time is even annoying. Yes she wants to know that you think she’s attractive, but that’s anything but the most important thing you can do. In most cases you being currious about what she is doing and why, will do more to improve your stature with her than having the sweetest car ro Bike, or having a Million in the bank, or being cut like Atlas.

Are there exceptions? Sure. There are women who won’t take a second look at a guy who doesn’t have a huge bulge in his pants when he is sitting back relaxed. There are women who won’t talk to a guy who doesn’t have a 6 figure job and an 11 figure checking account. And there are women who want nothing more than continuous complements from addoring fan boys.

If you want one of those women, you know what she’s looking for. Go get in that group. And good luck to you.

That is the exception. Women are not (usually) objects. They are not ‘things’ or ‘things to be possesed.’ (usually) The vast majorety of women are excited about something in their lives other than their appearance, and are far more interested in being recognized for that, than just about anything else in life. Women are ‘people’ And just like people everywhere, they are far more than they appear. If you don’t recognize and respond to that, she will treat you as nothing more than you appear to her as. Which is either annoying, or possibly dangerous. And in all likelyhood, isn’t very favorable to you.

Go, say Hello, introduce yourself, and ask what she likes about what she is doing. It’s likely to get you a lot further than any ‘pickup line’ you can come up with. Might you get ‘put down’ for the approach? Sure. So what. Now you knwo something more about her, and if all that is, happens to be that she’s not interested in you, That’s OK too. For that matter she may be more interested in what your response is than anything else. If it’s clear from her response that she’s not challenging you, (or you think it is) say ‘Well have fun with that.’ and move on. If it appears to be a challenge, and you feel up to it, go for it. If you spotted her doing knitting or needle point, and asked what she liked about what she was doing, and her response was something like “Stitching the names of those about to die. How do you spell your name?” an appropriate response might be ‘D-e-a-d–m-a-n–w-a-l-k-i-n-g, but I’m not planning on telling the guy operating the guilotine that the slot for the blade needs to be greased, until after I’ve been pardoned. Oh, and you’ve dropped a stitch there…’ <wink>. or ‘I’ve replaced all the gun powder with black pepper. I’ll escape while there sneezing.” and so on. If you include the ‘dropped a stitch’ line, then hopefully after she’s lightened up a bit, say “seriously, I don’t know the first thing about embroidery, (knitting, or whatever it is she is doing) but I do like to know ‘why’ people do things they find interesting. What makes this interesting to you?” In short you may not be someone who shares her specific interest, but you’re interested in her, in ways beyond her appearance.

If all a woman was interested in talking about with you was your car, and the conversation never got to other interesting subjects, you would loose interest before too long. Most women are pretty much the same way. Men and women all have diverse interests, and if we can share more than one interest, that makes each of us a bit more interesting.

And believe me, we all want interesting.

A couple of disclaimers. I happen to be oriented towards women, so there is a large portion of the human experience related to guys in relationships that I have little or no insight to give. There may be some carry over of thoughts on guys that may be of use to the gay community, but that is neither the community I am personally interested in, or the subject of this blog. I am also not a professional when it comes to studying people. I’m not going to quote studies, reports or anything along those lines to give evidence to my comments here. If you happen to study the topic as part of your profession and want to point out areas where I am so far wrng that it’s not funny, you have my blessing. It’s not like I’m going to loose any standing in the field of psychology or sociology. I recognize that I may state a lot of things that are wrong, and hope that people will politely correct me on those elements.

I am a guy. I’m not an expert on guys, but I tend to be somewhat thoughtful on a number of topics, and some people think that I explain topics that I find interesting very well. My primary interest is not in guys, but in talking to women (who are my primary interest) I’ve encountered a number of observations, statements and accusations that I think warent some commentary from me.

Guy’s generally want to do three things. First is survive. Second is get laid. Third is competition. Pretty much everything a guy does can be looked at as part of one of those three things. Work is doing something that you’re ‘good’ at in an effort to make it possible to survive. If you can have fun while doing that, great. And there are more than a few occupations that tend to get one laid, which works out well for guys doing that.

In general guys are not all that complex. In competition, we only rarely strive to be the best so that we get laid more often, it tends to be a secondary reward. Wining tends to increase our chances of survival. And we consider it play as well. In many competitions, the play aspect is more important than the ’survival’ aspect.

Some people think that the getting laid aspect is part of the surviving, or even the play/competing aspect. I won’t say that it doesn’t have a place, just that I don’t personally think that it is the critical aspect in general for guys.

A common misconception through the years is that ‘all guys think about is sex.’ I have three days in mind that clearly put that subject on ice. Fishing opener, Hunting opener, and Superbowl Sunday. Some people may say that the first two are part of ’survival’ but even they recognize that those guys who go out on those days to hunt and fish, are not doing so because the fish they bring in, or the deer meet (elk, moose, bear, etc.) is a critical and life sustaining part of their diet. Additionally both hunting and fishing have some interest in Trophies. That’s competition, not survival, and it’s about as far from getting laid as these things tend to get.

There are other events through the year that demonstrate that guys regularly put thoughts of sex further down their list of things to do than is often suggested. That said, it pretty much always is there, and under some circumstances can be brought up to the fore rather quickly.

Guys don’t tend to multi-task well. In the computer world there are two ways that programs can multi-task. The first is interrupt driven. Something interupts the processor in doing whatever it is doing, and takes over until something else interupts the processor. The second is scheduled, where each program is allocated a timeslot to do work within, and that’s ‘it.’ (As a note, implementation of the latter is often done using a clock that interupts the current process and tells the processor to go on to the next process or program.) The problem with Interupt driven multitasking is that you end up with tings left to get done that just don’t happen. The advantage of course is that responsiveness seems ‘better.’ Guy’s tend to be interupt driven when it comes to doing things, and capturing our attention. Some of us have gotten to the point where we can priorities those interupts, though even that is not always a very clean process.

Perhaps the most demeaning thing you can say in the presence of a guy is “All of the good guys are taken.” It’s just one of those statements that you can’t go right with amoung guys. No matter how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the guy sees himself as, if he’s single, you’ve just painted him with the ‘I will ignore you’ brush. He knows he’s already been judged and found lacking in your eyes. One joke I’ve read on the topic points out that single women think all the good ones are married, and married women ask ‘who got them” and the logical explanation is that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ guy.

The other serious flaw on the ‘All the good guys are taken.’ statement is that a guy hearing that statement wil all too often hear it as ‘I don’t expect to be treated well by a guy.’ And if you don’t expect to be treated well by a guy, then you must expect to be treated like dirt, so he will do just that. If you want to be treated well, you have to recognize that there are a lot of guys you haven’t met who very likely will treat you well, and you need to be more vocal about what you want and are looking for in a guy, especially when there are guys present.

Want to be treated like royalty? It’s basically a fairly simple 2 step process. When talking with a guy, ask him where he thinks the two of you will be in a year or two. Five or ten if you’ve been seeing each other for a while. This will set him up to be thinking of the two of you as a couple with some history. Then ask what sorts of things would work towards improving that relationship for the two of you. Be ready to think about what you see in him as someone you can see yourself loving a year or so down the line, and see what sorts things you can see up front in him that you know will get better with time. And part of that is going to be how much you love his generous nature to you. How you love how thoughtful he is towards you, etc. Along the way, letting him know what sorts of responses he can expect from that sort of treatment will make it significantly easier for him to figure out for himself.

While a guy may be looking at you only as a person to share the sack with tonight, he may also be looking at what you being a part of his life will mean for him and his future. Letting him know directly what you can do may be out of the question. However if you demonstrate to a guy an understanding of what he does and is, he is far more likely to see being with you as improving his survival state, and possibly increasing his opportunities to enjoy life.

Granted that does imply that you are looking for someone who offers what he is able to, and that you are looking for something more than a one night stand yourself. If you want a one night stand, make it clear up front that you’re after one thing only, and don’t confuse having a good time with him for thinking that perhaps you should change your mind. I’m not saying that he will think less of you or anything, just that you chose to be with him for a specific activity, and have let him know it. If you’re willing to entertain rethinking that later on, you have to let him know that something significant in your relationship with him has changed, and you like what you see so far.

There are a lot of guys out there who are not looking for a one night stand. Some because they are cynical, others because they see it as a matter of their faith. If you are spending nights clubbing, or the like, you probably won’t run into either. But on the off chance you do, recognize that spending time with him is going to be something other than sex, though it may be sexually charged. Personally I suspect that he will be releaving that charged state in private, but it’s probably not something he’s going to be willing to discuss.

Guy’s tend to ‘find’ women by appearance. So obviously appearance seems to be ‘importan’t in meeting guys right? Not really. In fact it can be one of the wost things you can do for your chances. It’s not a given, but most guys over the age of 20 have figured out that the ‘Hot Babe’ at the bar has more put-downs at her disposal than he has pickup lines. (And yes he does need to learn that the best ‘pickup line’ to use is ‘Hello, my name is [his name].’) If you go out of your way to show up as the perfect 10, most guys will look at you, and decide whether they want to go through the put downs or not. Since it’s neither ‘fun’ nor likely to improve his chances of ’survival,’ you know that most of the guys that will approach you are looking to get laid. They may be doing ot to show up their buddies, but at this point he doesn’t knwo enough about you to know if that’s likely to enhance his survival, and there’s always the chance that you are at the bar with your 250 lb linebacker boyfriend who will see if the guy who aproaches you works well as a tent peg, really discouraging him.

Most guys don’t know what sorts of signals women are sending to encourage him to approach her. Many will recognize that a signal has been sent, but not necessarily what the meaning is. And the vast majority have no idea what the sequence of steps from first sight to a passionate kiss are. For most both of these things are essentially a strange language that they don’t understand. It doesn’t seem to prevent them from getting along well enough with many women, but obviously it’s not a given that you will find such an experience enjoyable. Sorry.

Obviously this is rather short, and hardly encyclopedic. As much as the above is filled with generalizations, it should be viewed as just a small part of what makes a guy someone you may want to get to know. Every guy is different. If you don’t believe me, ask a dozen married women if their husband was swapped with some stranger, would they know the difference. Yes they would. And every woman is different. There are guys who seem to either ignore that, or appear to believe that it is wrong, but ask them which of any two women at the shopping mall, or wherever they may be, is of greater interest to them, and it is clear that he does think of each woman differently.

Hopefully this is of some help to someone. As I say, I love women in general, and are rather fond of a few, while lusting after several, some of which may be in the fond of group as well. I’ve come to the broad concern that I’m not sure who I may be ‘right’ for these days. I’ve pretty much gotten past the ‘they are all nuts’ phase, though that does still crop up from time to time. Whether I lust after a woman, are fond of her, or she’s in the ‘love em all’ group, I really wish the very best to all, including that you find someone who loves you as much as you love them.

I think that comment ranks right up there with ‘He must have a big dick’ or ‘He must have a really deep bank account.’

First of all a word of explanation. The title comment was voiced to me by a friend, some time back, who was going through a divorce, and had recently found out that her now, or soon to be, ex was already living with his next partner.

If you think this is ‘your’ statement, or you know who made the statement, I personally would appreciate it if you did not speak up and announce that. To tell the truth, it’s actually a statement that needs to be corrected along the way, and if you remember saying that, or something like that while you were angry about losing someone, I’m hoping you get more out of the rest of this than angry with me for repeating the statement.

On average, guys tend to present themselves as pretty shallow. I include myself in that statement. We have our ‘tastes’ in what we like about potential partners, and in general are not too ashamed to say so. My personal preference is for healthy tits on a thin (fit) body. Beyond that some guys prefer specific leg shapes, hip sizes, waists, muscle tone, hair, eyes, etc. All generally physical characteristics.

While I do have those preferences, I have to admit that in the long term, those prefernces are pretty limited compared to the rest of what I am looking for in a long term partner. The big problem is that most of what I am looking for in a woman is a lot harder for a guy to specify than physical characteristics are. For example, I’m interested in someone who has a healthy (in my eyes) sex drive, but who’s also interested in enough of the same things I am interested in (science fiction, dogs, photography, science, technology) that we can talk about most of those things, and that she has enough other interests that I can learn from as well as being currious about things that I am interested in that I can teach her as well. Trying to ‘define’ that is not something that I would expect guys to be good at, so even I accept that what we can explain we are interested in about various women, is pretty shallow.

And we’re even more shallow in putting down people. If a guy we don’t know very well is on the arm of one or more women that our shallow interest is paying attention to, our ‘put down’ of the woman is that either he’s got to have a big dick that she’s interested in, or that she’s a gold digger and is after what must be a deep pocketbook.

The reality is that every person out there is a very complex collection of characteristics, both physically, and mentally.  Most guys, even most of the shallow ones, realize that women are looking for more than great sex or money from the guys they are with. At some level women are looking for a guy who can keep their interest in a number of areas, and provide some level of excitement to stay focused on, and share. A big dick isn’t going to do that for most women. Neither is being ‘rich.’ As part of a whole package of other things, they may be great accessories, but it’s a fairly rare woman who’s primary focus on a guy is something that shallow. And she may be a ‘10′ beauty wise, but if that’s the main focus of what a woman is looking for, I certainly am not interested in her.

And that’s the crux of the matter. The reality of a guy saying that a woman is interested in some guy for some shallow interest is almost always him telling himself that she so shallow that no matter how beautiful she is, he should take no interest in her. I.e. he’s justifying not paying attention to her, or women he thinks are like her.

Likewise suggesting that the new love interest of a guy is a some woman with bigger tits, is almost always a technique to tell yourself that the guy you spent the last several months, years or decades in love with, isn’t worth the attention that you had been paying to him.

And if you go back and think about it, you may realize that you were labeling him as being ’shallow’ even though your love for him in the past was anything but shallow.

One of the reasons I’ve wated a while before writing this is that the process of giving yourself reasons to think ‘less’ of a former partner is an important part of moving on.

For most of the past year, one of my neighbors has been refering to her ex as ‘The Asshole.’ I don’t know him, and will reserve judgement, but my suspicion is that there’s something else going on in the situation. Part of the problem is that part of what they were doing as a married couple is something they are still doing with each other since their separation or divorce. They are still involved in a business relationship, so they have to interact with each other as part of that business, which is leaving her feeling pretty raw and not letting her emotions heel properly. It’s only been in the past month that I have heard her start to referr to him as ‘the Ex.’ Which I think is a positive sign.

The real problem with referring to an ex in a demeaning way is that you are telling the people about you that you are stuck in a fairly childish point in your recovery from that relationship. A guy that may be interested in a woman who discovers she is acting that way could either encourage the response, and hope that she is going to ‘rebound’ into his arms (unlikely but I suppose it’s possible, I just think it’s not a good way to build a lasting relationship) or he can set asside his interest, maintain a friendly relationship with her, and wait for her to grow out of the event. Of course that tends to leave live rolling on around you, and you should be staying involved with other people.

Yes the shallow part of me thinks that the specific woman is pretty hot looking. Additionally I happen to like a lot of the interests she has. But I think it’s not going to go beyond the friendship.

In any case, when it comes to how we talk about other people in our lives, we tell other people something about ourselves as well. If we try to say that we are not interested in this person, or that person for a reason that on the face of it is pretty shallow, we’re disclosing how shallow we are as well. That’s not all bad. At times I think we need to be shallow. It gives us markers we can use as starting points for directing our other interests as well. The odds of my finding a thin woman with big tits who fits all the rest of my interests are a lot more ‘reasonable’ than if I were to be concerned about race, height, hair color, family wealth, and so on, and still have her be interested in the things that are harder for me to define. For some friends, the only concern they have about a prospective partner is that they have a compatible faith. But it’s absolutely critical that that match for them. My shallow interests are really more of an ‘interest’ builder than a ‘must have.’ I’m far more likely to be interested in a woman that fits those two aspects than someone who fits neither. Yet at the same time, I can decide that this aspect is not as important to me as how well we get along talking. And so on.

OK, this is getting somewhat long winded. If the message seems to be aimed at you, remember that I find a lot of myself in a similar situation, and this is at least in part designed to help me as well.

It’s Friday. Have a great weekend.

I think that there are probably a lot more of your friends who know other friends of yours, than you realize. Consider your work and say one avocation of yours. I can easily pick from work and two avocations, but if we start with just one, it is a bit simpler to explain.

At work I am part of a team of about 20 people, some in the city I work in, some in a couple of others. I also work with people from other teams on a shift overlap related basis, So if I simply include the people in the city I work in, I am part of a team of about 30 people that I work amoung with some regularity.

One of my avocations is helping to run a science fiction convention. This last year the convention attracted some 2500 people. Of those some 250 were part of the dedicated volunteer team helping to keep things moving. Of that I work directly with some 40, and somewhat less directly with another 40, or about 80 total.

So that is something on the close order of 110 people who I can state overlap directly with me. None of the people I work with are a member of the set of people I work the convention with. I have absolutely no doubt however that there are people in each of the groups who know people in the other groups. Sure there are a lot of people in each group who do not know each other. But that’s not at all difficult to find in most cases.

I am not counting third level aquaintences at this point. One of the people I work with regularly at the convention is married to a stewardess. Since I work with people who have a need to fly from time to time, it is amost certain that she has met one or more of the people I work with. Likewise I have a friend that I see ocasionally at work, but don’t work directly with, who has been involved with running the convention in the past, so obviously he knows quite a few of those people as well.

Why is it that we tend to know people that may completely unbeknownst to us know each other? I think it has a lot to do with what kind of people we are. Whether you work in Marketing, and socialize in a church that has no-one from your company in it, or you work as a publisher and spend your free time at bar’s or even dances, there is some aspect of your work life that tends to be a part of your avocations. In my case I fully acknoledge that I am a geek. Some may say Nerd, and I don’t have any need to argue with them.

In any case both what I do for work, and being part of running a science fiction convention, tend to involve interacting with other geeks. That being said, both sets of ‘friends’ are part of a larger set, geeks. You can undoubtedly find similar set overlaps between the people you consider friends at work, and friends at play.

It can also be fun to find out who amoung the various sets of people you know, do know each other. Some of those relationships may be entirely unexpected.

Enjoy.