State of the Nation, Dating

How are we doing? Is dating working for you? Is dating being real, or could it use a stint in rehab?

My working philosophy is that meeting and uncovering new people is more complicated than ever. Like the cereal aisle in the supermarket (or the dry pasta aisle, or the juice department for that matter) choices abound. What is not in abundance is reliable information on how to discern between boxes of cereal, or indeed how to decide between them. What works for me might give you gas by lunchtime, and a third person might be better served by eating eggs for breakfast.

We all suffer - not too strong a word IMO - from the Hollywood notion of dating. They take us from quirky but cute meeting to satisfying ending by way of a challenging interlude in ninety minutes of flawless Technicolor. Of course we're all smart enough to differentiate fantasy from reality, but still, at some level a precedent so created creates room for disappointment.

Dating can be about disappointment, or it can be about discovery. As I have written previously, dating is a string of failures with one success if you want to look at it that way. Or it can be an around-the-world series of moments with different people, the ultimate prize being self-discovery and the treasure of finding The One. X marks the spot, after following a few red-herring clues.

But the greatest need is the map on which the location of X is shown. And for that, dear friends, I'm sorry to say that only you can provide the document. For everything else we have Google and blogs.





Bottoms Up, Pirate Treasure Hunters.

Take It Like A Man

Thesedays, my precious darlings, dating runs in two rivers.

The first river is the old-fashioned kind, a river like, say, the Colorado. It starts in the Rocky Mountains as snow-melt and spring bubbler, gradually turning into Lake Mead by way of the Grand Canyon. Eventually it keeps LA alive...a dubious prospect but nonetheless the fact of 1,400 miles of downhill adventure.

The second river is newer, much shorter and without any of the history or variety. It would be like a glacial river in Iceland: short, sharp and to the point. A thoroughly modern river. A great ride.

You can see where I'm meandering to with this metaphor. Long-form relationships and their precursors - by which I mean formal dating and marriage - are like the Colorado. Although the flow might start with a rush, time and terrain change the river's direction and temperament. Dams create reservoirs and calm, but also tail water and froth. Flat land slows the river down, and steep terrain does the opposite. Rocks make rapids. And eventually it turns out that we have to give it all to Hollywood...but it was one helluva ride.

Our Icelandic river is more of a day-trip flow. Anyone can hop on for the short ride, all we need do is hold hands and jump in together. It'll be fun and breathless for a while, then the ride ends. You can start back at the top again (because it's only a short hike) with or without the same partner. It's an amusement park outing.

Trouble arises (because you knew there had to be a downside) when one or other of the participants in the River Party forget which ride they signed up for. I see this when women think they are in the Icelandic way of things, but as soon as they get wet decide they need the guy to be more of a riverboat captain. The guy who thought he was in for nothing more than a quickie, or multiple quickies in a row, suddenly finds himself being expected to pitch riverbank tents and create fires and text "good morning" every day.

Huh? I thought that by her active participation as an equal that Icelandic Rules applied here, not Red River Rules. There are no tents in Iceland; we go to the bar, drink, and decide in the morning if we want to go swimming again.

That's it. Unless you want to try the Colorado. That changes everything.




Bottoms Up, My Beautiful High Country Trout.

Be Yourself. Really?

Dating advisors will tell you: for dating success Be Yourself.

Worst. Advice. Ever.

You, like me, are a sloppy mess of insecurities, half-understandings, moldy old baggage, soiled laundry and fear. A delightful and sexy melange of those elements, but still, we're all rocky road muffins.

I hardly need warn you about revealing too much of the truth about yourself on a date. Dating isn't based on truth; dating's based on outfitting our dates with our fantasies. Ignoring non-compliant data allows us to dream the dream.

However, matters can progress. Date the right person long enough and you'll find that they've either figured out the stuff you've been avoiding, or they're ready to hear it. In either case it's a milestone to know that:

a.) There's no need to withhold any more, and

b.) Someone still thinks well enough of you despite them knowing the awful truth.

That's the time you'll find yourself being yourself without being conscious of it. 







Bottoms Up, Flawed Ones.

Lies, Damned Lies and Dating

Everyone - by which I mean the internet, the only authority that counts - comes to the same conclusion: that dating is about finding the right person. The inference, rarely drawn overtly, is that the wrong people will be summarily dumped.

In essence that makes dating a process of ditching the unsuitables...with one exception.

If the vision of a slaughterhouse comes to mind, I'm not surprised. The poor optimistic lovelorn creatures line up to have what they think will be a new adventure and BAM! A bolt through the brain. The sweet irony of dating is that we can be both slaughterman and the slaughtered, as accurate a description of modern dating as most.

What to do? Well, not much that I can see. To reiterate: Dating is to figure out if you're a match and the process will take up to two years, at which point you'll know if marriage is right and viable. Two years seems like a long time, and it is. Seven-hundred days is a chunk. But it is essential, because the only way to cut through folks' facade is time. Keeping up the appearance of the person we want to project cannot outlast daily, weekly and monthly ordinariness.

Truth will out. And the sooner the better, because the longer you wait, the more that bolt hurts.



Bottoms Up, Cowpokes.

Date Night Shoes

Let's get down to business here and clear away the bee-ess. The world is divided into shoe-lovers and non-shoe-lovers. It can't be stated more clearly.

Here I'm referring mostly to women's shoes. Ladies, forget all the lists of stuff you are looking for in a man. Have just one requirement: the ideal bloke has spent at least ten minutes in the last week daydreaming about you in your sexiest heels. That's it! The guy who adores your feet in delicious footware will end up fulfilling every other need. Shoe-awareness is the killer dating app.

But I don't want to talk about ladies' shoes today, as much as that would give me pleasure. It's the guys who really need the help, because, like it or not, your footwear sends a powerful message - a truth most women inherently understand.

So, men, before you heading out on a date, do a little planning. Yes, I understand that most of us will dress without any forethought. We'll probably wear something that's clean and casual, jeans most likely with some kind of shirt. Most of us will avoid wife-beaters, with the overt and covert messages they send. Big-city dwellers might wear a suit; that's always good. My rule of thumb is that it's always better to err up than down, but be prepared to get some looks in Florida if you sport that Brioni three-piece in the Manatee Lounge.

Then we'll choose our date night shoes. That's where we need to get religion. Firstly, never, ever - and I mean never - wear trainers/tennis shoes on a date. They shout "foot odour" and will kill your date's nascent interest. Secondly, never take flops on a date. Ditto sandals. Feet are not equal-opportunity limbs; women's feet are the winners, and are the only kind to be seen naked in public. Keep your plates of meat hidden. Thirdly, cowboy boots are only for cowboys. If you try to pull that off, you look like you're trying too hard. All hat, no cattle, as the saying goes. Fourthly, whatever shoes you do choose, make sure the heels aren't worn down, the soles are in good repair and that they're clean and polished.

Now to the finer points. Men's shoes come in two basic varieties, lace-ups and slip-ons aka: brothel creepers. Lace-ups are always the first choice. They work well with any kind of trouser, jean or suit pant. With a little polish, they provide the - and this is important, because it's what women notice - accessorizing advantage. Quality, slightly formal shoes buff your image with the hint of luxury that women notice.

By the way, that's a word smart men understand that women live for: accessorizing.

Slip-ons can work, but you need to be careful. Those bronze-coloured alligator numbers you thought were so cool from that weekend in New Orleans will look odd in Minneapolis in March. And slip-ons don't encourage the good posture that well-made shoes naturally engender.

Here's the bottom line. Guys should always have at least one pair of quality dress shoes, kept in excellent repair. I prefer the more conservative English style, but of course the Italians win the sex-appeal stakes.



Bottoms Up, Shoe-istas.
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Health Warning: Serial Dating Sends You Blind

I wonder sometimes what the point of serial dating is. As a stand-alone activity, like, say, attending spin class or taking archery lessons, I'm not sure why it's so popular because, frankly, it's painful. And you never really get anywhere. It's just one fresh body after another.

Serial dating - which I define as successive bouts of fewer than ten dates - gets old really quickly. Meeting and beginning the discovery process sounds and feels like a legal proceeding after a while. All the same stuff has to be asked ie;

+ where do you come from?

+ what do you do for a living?

+ dog person or cat person?

+ spit or swallow (when wine tasting)?

...ad infinitum like some kind of early-round beauty pageant from hell. That's not a bad metaphor as I think of it, because that's what we're doing here, hoping to uncover the one we find most attractive in swimwear, dinner wear, lounge wear and underwear.

Or are we? Are we really looking for someone we want to spend our time adoring and making happy? Or has the thrill of a new possibility every three weeks taken over?

Clearly, some people like the game of dating. They're the serial life re-decorators who enjoy squeezing facts out of the newbie and finding a few that resonate. (For a two week emotional blitz.) This is using people as ornament, an enterprise that probably works short-term, but will leave you with the equivalent of an emotional hangover untreatable in the long term. Sex might be involved, but it's the Cliffs notes of sex, not the awesome component of a great marriage.

I think this is a problem. Dating should be about finding someone for the long-term. Despite my flippancy, I believe that dating as a form of sport isn't good for either men or women. The emotional cost of the meeting/discovery/sex/break-up cycle can be controlled in the short term, but gradually wears you out. And the resulting danger is that when the right person does pop into your life, you might be too jaded to notice, too blind too see.

New is fun, but depth is better.



Bottoms Up, Serious Daters.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

People claim to have amicable break-ups, but I don't buy it.

From even the briefest...what shall we call them?...encounters, a rejection is a rejection. Only the most metaphysically organized and ego-free individual can take this:

Sorry, but I don't want to see you again. 

...and honestly reply...

Whatever you think is best. Thanks for the opportunity though! 

...and mean it.

Mild resentment is the least emotion a dumpee is likely to feel, homicidal mania the most. Hopefully we avoid the latter.

The wider question is just how we got to this point. Serial dating by definition leads to serial break-ups. Break-ups should be like the collapse of a small enterprise - they're good in that you know what doesn't work, so  you can improve next time. Each subsequent business will build upon the failures of the past, but relationships don't quite work that way because each time we're dealing with a new individual. We have to do the heavy-lifting from scratch.

What multiple dating should do is hone our choice of potential partner. Sadly, the forces that motivate us to seek 'the one' are more ingrained than lessons from the immediate past. We tend to be driven by instinct and childhood biases than the more recent fact of adult experience.

Hell. Not much positivity there.



Bottoms Up, Drifters.

Single Effort - Book Review

The first rule of 'how to' books is: Know your audience.

In the case of "Single Effort: How to Live Smarter, Date Better, and Be Awesomely Happy" Joe Keller succeeds, mostly because he writes for himself. That's a good thing, because there are many guys like him looking for help, even if they don't know it.

Keller is a divorced father, a demographic (sadly) on the increase. His book isn't a narrative about the changes divorce wrought in his life, but it could be. What he's done is to catalogue the bridges he crossed and the hills he climbed after his split, and provide nicely succinct solutions to a lot of the problems he found.

For instance, creating a home. Many guys probably left home decoration to their wives. Now they're on their own, they need to think about how to set up a household that works for them and their children. Guys tend not to think in specifics in this area. A bed, a couch, a television and somewhere to put their car keys will often be the extent of their exploration. But we like a stylish place as much as women - it's just that we don't know where to start. A few clear-cut pointers go a long way, and Keller does so without condescension. Again, he knows his likely readership, because he is his readership.

That's the heart of this book. Keller shines his word-processing flashlight into the areas most guys tend to overlook; how to set up a kitchen, how to cook a few basic dishes, how to clean (a favourite of mine) and not least, how to date. Some of the information is as basic as it comes...how to choose cleaning products, or how to choose wine, for example. Some guys will already know much of this. But revising the fundamentals of life in this way is refreshing to see, and good for we men in the sense that we know we have the important stuff covered.

Naturally, Keller also dives into how to date as a new singleton. His philosophy partially aligns with mine, in that he's a real-world dating advocate. Joining volunteer groups or a fitness club, taking classes or simply being in the community are all suggestions as to how to meet women. Frankly, I'm not certain that a divorced man with minor children should be out there dating. The kids already have enough chaos in their lives. However, people will fall to their urges, and at least the advice here is practical.

There is one chapter about online dating - I guess no book like this would be complete without such a thing.

Clearly, this book is a winner on two levels. Firstly, the author's tone is pitch-perfect. He neither talks down to his reader, nor does he patronize them. Secondly, he doesn't overlook the mundane; that alone sets him apart, because the guy who buys and uses the right cleaning products in his water closet is the guy who gets the girl.


Bottoms Up, Detail Oriented Daters.

Online Dating Will Win

Online dating will win, to the cost of the rest of us.

When Ray Kroc bought the McDonald brothers' hamburger stands in the 1950s, he saw the future. He saw the  way to commoditize a fragmented business to tap an underserved market. It's a formula that works time and again, most recently in Silicon Valley.

Don Valentine, one of the most successful venture capitalists in the Valley funds only businesses with the following:

A unique product.

A competitive advantage ie: barriers to entry.

A monster market.


I know I'm bouncing back and forth between burgers and bytes, but they're the same example from different eras. In the fifties and sixties, the concept of fast food fulfilled all of Don Valentine's requirements. After World War II, folks in the US were discovering their appetites. Televisions, refrigerators, air-conditioning, cars - all these things filled the tracts of new suburban America.

Then came the appetites for food. Once your house is full of humming machines and you have a car for all occasions, it's time to look outside. When you no longer have to brown-bag it to work, businesses that provide lunch win.

McDonalds won because it catered to the taste of the country at the right price. What kept it at the top was the ability to precisely replicate the formula; the food, the stores and the service. But lots of other folks noticed the fast-food trend and followed. Once you find a successful concept, subtle changes to individual elements will create something new and different enough to separate yourself from the rest. Add a growing and wealthy population, and riches are yours.This idea still works today: think Chipotle.

So the road to changing a society is well understood; examine the desires of a population and cater to that. If you find a way to reach a giant audience cheaply and then replicate the concept you will win. That's where the confluence of:

Widespread high-speed internet,

Cheap computing and...

Horniness

...have found us, here at the rise of internet dating. In terms of monster markets, there is none bigger.

It's all pretty easy, at least in retrospect. You want to find a special someone - or just a someone - find yourself a dating website. Contact, communicate, meet, and yada yada, whatever you both want. And from the business point of view, there's almost nothing to it. Some servers, a software front end, a back end, and a credit-card processing facility. (Or ads, like Plenty Of Fish.) You don't even need to add content because your users do so. In a way, it's the smartest business model ever - there's infinite supply for a huge demand that finds you.

It must have been like this with the first one hundred McDonalds. Suddenly, the dollars can't be counted fast enough.

But there is a downside. A fast food nation is an obese nation. Unless you exercise a lot, all that fried food will eventually take its toll, because our bodies aren't designed for those processed meals. Notwithstanding, fast food is and will remain hugely popular.

It's the same with internet dating. It's easy, accessible and provides almost instant gratification. Sometimes it might even work to find the love of someone's life. In the long term though, this is not the way we were designed to find people. Just as fast food adds to our waistlines, so internet dating will subtract from our social skills and, in the end, society.


To me, that's not a win.




Bottoms Up, Big Macs.

What Is the Best Food Type For A Date?

Yes, it's calculating, but planning our first few dates will reward us.

If the aim is to create positive energy around yourself, we need to think about what will engender the best and the worst feeling towards us in, say, the first ten dates, and avoid the downside traps. Eating is a natural date focus, so let's start there.

What turns people off? Some answers are obvious: BO, nose-picking, lack of eye contact, talking over the talker, snaggly fingernails. These are general no-nos, but each kind of date has specific dangers. Where food is involved, turn-offs include inappropriate or awkward utensil usage, sloppy plate technique, chewing/talking with mouth full, burping, having food lodge between teeth etc. You can add to this list.

Now I'm not saying that any of these things will kill a budding relationship, only that, on average, they're best avoided. What we're doing here is eliminating the possibility of small errors by careful choice of venue.

Some specific examples:

Sushi:

A popular date choice, because it implies sophistication and worldliness. WARNING: Unless you're a certified chopsticks professional, be careful. All the good work done in choosing the restaurant and knowing that in Japan one always pours drinks for the other person and never for oneself can be undone with the loss of a fatty tuna down your shirt.

French: 

Another interesting foodie-type choice, if that's your bent. Your date will be impressed, but not if you eat all seventeen courses. You might have to let your belt out a notch (unattractive). Another problem is that you'll look like a prat if you attempt to bluff the waiter, especially if they're French. Haughtiness and cutting customers down to size is a specialty of the Frogs. Ruining your date here is best avoided.

Mongolian BBQ:

Ummm, yeah. No. Never take a woman to anything with "Mongolian" in the name. Until  you've been married twenty years. Even then, think verrrrrrrrry carefully.

Tapas:

Tapas has a number of advantages for a date. One is that the many plates keep up the interest factor. Second is that the timing is flexible - you needn't stay longer than you want. A third is the bite-size portions are neat and unspillable. Fourth, the drinks will cater to almost any taste. All-in-all, a Tapas place is a good date choice.

Pastry/Coffee:

Ostensibly an easy choice, there are problems with the coffee-shop date. Should you eat your muffin with a fork, or with your fingers? Do you scoop the crumbs? What to do when the only seats available are right next to the 'homeless' bum who spends all day sitting with one small black coffee cruising porn on the free wi-fi and eavesdropping on conversations between new daters? Ugh. 

High-End Steakhouse:

This is a low-risk (if pricey) option. Downside possibilities are meat caught between teeth, choosing an inappropriate wine (and having the wait staff snicker) and running out of money. But the more formal atmosphere can be a nice change, creating ladies and gentlemen of us. Sitting up straight and looking one another in the eye can lead to good things. 

Breakfast:

I like breakfast dates. You and your date choose exactly what you need, so the food isn't an issue. There's coffee involved, which is always a bonus. And everyone feels happier after breaking one's night-time fast. Usually there will be a neat end to the date, or not, depending on the day of the week. That works.

You get the picture. These examples show my own biases, but with a little forethought, you'll be able to figure out your own.

Planning - the key to a better first ten dates.



Edit: Oh, puhlease. Never.




Bottoms Up, Date Architects.

Dating for Dummies

Wouldn't it be awesome if a Date Store existed for failing or unsatisfactory romances?

At the Date Store - beautifully appointed, BTW, in complementary shades of slate and shiraz - the smart folks at the People With Experience and Perspective Bar would diagnose your love life. Within a few minutes, the details of your relationship would be downloaded, inspected and prioritized. Long-term red flags would top the list, grading down to the fact that she flosses in public.

If, in the sad case that Date Store determines that you and your sig. oth. are in the "terminal" category, those sensitive souls will take you out back and break it to you in a special You're Done room. There, you can cry in peace and mourn what you thought might have been. Then, when you're all cleaned up, they'll give you a script to use to actually break up with the person, and recommend a replacement model better designed for your needs.

~!oOo!~

People seek and use dating advice in approximately the same way they buy and use toilet paper, with more or less the same result.

Only financial commonsense and earthquake tips are ignored with the same energy.

What I think most people are after is affirmation, some kind of backstop so they can continue in the same direction. Most folks don't actually want honesty or even-handed feedback because I know me, and I'm a reasonable person, and you don't know what I know about her anyway. So there. She's the best and I'm gonna stick with her.

I'm at least as bad as the next person at relationships. Ignoring truth and reality to keep it going is my specialty, I know how that shit works. But at least now I know I suck. In that counter-intuitive way that life has, it's the best place to be.



Bottoms Up, Justifiers.

Pinball Wizard

We spend time thinking about the first date and we spend time imagining a relationship, so let's begin to fill the gap between those two points.

First dates receive attention for the obvious reason: it's officially the start of something, even if nobody knows what. They are shiny and exciting, like taking a new iPhone out of the box, turning it over in our hands, feeling its heft and texture. 

Second, third and fourth dates do not have that same sense of magic. A person can only be new once. However, the greatest satisfaction often comes with figuring out the features of that iPhone; ditto the qualities of the new person. (Calling them "features" takes the person-as-device idea too far, don't you think?)

Let's also consider that someone's first date might have come on a bad day for them. Or they might have been at the top of their game. Either way, it's an information point that only subsequent dates can put in perspective. If that person made an impression worthy of a second and third date, at least figure on them being different - better or worse - than the first time. No-one is ever exactly the same day after day.

Whenever I think of myself going on a date, I try to figure out how I will come across to her. I know my behaviour extremes, how good my company can be on my best day, and how bad my company can be on my worst. We all pinball within a mood and response range. The idea of my dating approach is to figure out if her mood and response range fits mine. It's that lock and key thing again.


I think this is the value of those first handful of times spent together. We all more become the person we really are, which then places that first date more accurately into the big picture. That's why a variety of venues, times and type of date is important. You're attempting to provoke a reaction in your prospective beau, creating a set of data points. Wow, that sounds mercenary when written like that. Still, it's true.
 
No-one said dating was for the timid.



Bottoms Up, Behavioural Scientists.

Let's See How This Goes - Wombatgram #25

It's a common enough reaction when you meet someone new, a prospect.

Let's see how this goes...

...is a natural response and in the scheme of things.

There's just no telling what will happen. 



* Click on Wombatgram for a bigger version.

Bottoms Up, Dating Adventurers.

Dating Ideas

If you have found and fancy a new person, let's think about some better dating techniques. Not that you're horrid at dating, of course, but as with any skill a little forethought will improve the outcome. Here are three ideas.

Give Your Brain Time

Number one on my list is that if this truly is a new person in your life - not an acquaintance morphing into something else - it will take time for your brain to absorb all the new information they provide. Dating is only partially about physically being with the person. Processing what you see and hear is just as important.
 
Think of it this way: we sleep not for our body, but for our mind. Sleep is its sorting and filing time. As powerful as the human brain is, it turns out that connecting the internal dots takes a while. In an arena as complex as romance, where sexuality, family, morality, money and putting out the trash are involved, discovering how the newbie fits into your abstract internal life will take a few moons. Allow that to happen.

The takeaway: Time. Take some.


Allow For Upsides and Downsides

No-one's perfect. And no-one is perfect for you. Compromise is realistic. Finding the right person is about knowing what your absolute must-have's are, what the nice-to-have's are, and what doesn't matter. If you love dogs and couldn't imagine a life without them, don't contemplate someone who only likes cats. If you're happy dancing to Sinatra at home on a Saturday night, don't pretend a club-hound will suit you. Filtering is good; filtering is the essence of dating.

The takeaway: Prioritize your needs and desires.


Dates Need a Beginning and an End

Dating is an extended job interview, at least initially. Have you ever been to a thirty-minute job interview and ended up hanging out with the gang for the night? No, you haven't. So let's structure our dates in a similar fashion, with some concrete activity - even if it's simply meeting for coffee - and a specific end time, which you communicate to your date.

This will be as easy as:  

Great, let's have lunch, but I'll have to leave at 2:00 because I have an astrophysics tutorial to give.

And make sure you leave at 2:00.

Two thoughts on this. First, it tells the other person that you have a life; that finding the right person isn't the Holy Grail of your happiness. It removes any desperation factor (or the appearance of such.)

Secondly, you're giving both of you room to breathe, always a good plan.

The takeaway: Ending a date promptly might seem counter-intuitive. Give it a shot.



Bottoms Up, Dating Masterminds.

How To Date A Supermodel

How to date a supermodel:

Step 1: Find your supermodel.

Step 2. Ask her out on a date.

Shame on you. You thought this would be tricky. She's just another woman, you know, not some kind of deity with a décolletage.

Granted, supermodels are a little thin on the ground, especially if you live in Waukegan or Wolverhampton. Likewise, you're unlikely to bump into one ordering a number one combo at McDonalds. But if you own an eighty metre-long yacht, spend mucho time in Monaco and vacation sixty-three weeks a year, the odds are better. In fact, hot babes in bikinis are probably lining up to express their affection right now. Why not go for the crème de la crème?

For one thing, supermodels always feel a little unhinged to me. You would be too if everyone within tonguing distance was tossing your salad and telling you how awesome you are. A certain unreality would come to seem normal. Unfortunately, unreality creeps towards insecurity, insecurity leads to paranoia, paranoia to drug abuse, and drug abuse to constipation, a (ahem) regular supermodel ailment I'm led to believe.

So that's the up and down of supermodel pursuit. You get to be chased by paparazzi and have your melon photographed with a famous chick; she gets to sit on your pedestal. 




Bottoms Up Bar Rafaeli fans.

Expectant Sex

Stuck in a painful silence on a first date? Introduce the topic of sex whilst pregnant and see what happens.

Okay, so a first date is too early, but by the fifth date I'd be using this as a critical question - obviously, especially if you're the woman. It seems that many men have an incomplete knowledge of the female reproductive tract. Surprise, eh?

In a way it's touching. Some guys apparently avoid vaginal sex for fear of somehow molesting, harming, defiling, aborting or otherwise embarrassing the in-utero sprog. The thought of their penis pistoning up and down inside the mother gives the dude less of a piston and more of a python. A soft python.

Coupla points here, men. Firstly, there is a pre-designed barrier between the baby and you. It's called the cervix. It has muscles strong enough to break your arm should you somehow end up in that position. Plus it is a VERY sensitive piece of your lady, as you would know when you're making sweet love and accidentally go too far. She'll let you know ALL about it.

Secondly, your lady also comes pre-designed with a place for you to have sex, known as the vaginal canal. It's otherwise known as the birth canal when used in the reverse direction, but don't dwell on that. Think of the sweet, warm, gooey love trench as a vestibule, where your junk is kept nicely separate from your pristine unborn child.

As an almost too obvious Thirdly: pregnant ladies are full of hormones that make them hornier than an Arizona cactus. Capitalize, men. For her sake.




Bottoms Up, Hot Mammas.

Slowhand

The saying goes:

"If only I knew then what I know now. I'd be cleaning up."

This is completely cock-eyed. Now I'm noticing my maturity - mostly in this grey hair that appeared (apparently) overnight - I see it for what it is. Maturity is another word for justifying loss of adventurousness.

It breaks down like this. When you're young and wide-eyed, you:

+ understand women only at the fringe

+ have no fear if she's bad for you

+ don't care whether she's good for you

+ concern yourself only with starting something

Experience, actually bad experiences, are a proxy for maturity. But I now think that a more useful maturity is one that maintains a willingness to be unafraid and a knowing of where real dangers lie.

Call it having slow hands with quick feet.



Bottoms Up, Young Singles.

Dating a Boson

Like everyone else, everything changed for me when I read that a bunch of smarties with a few billion dollars worth of kit discovered that the Higgs boson exists. Announced on the otherwise auspicious date of July 4, confirmation that such an animal lives outside mathematical equations is like the dawning of a new era.  

So it was with some disappointment in the following days that I observed little or no difference in the world outside the Large Hadron Collider ie: where you and I live. Drivers on the freeway behaved, as ever, like teenaged children on crack; mainstream media treated us, still, as teenaged children on Xanax; peace and understanding, yet again, failed to break out all over. Men and women sorta did, and sorta didn't, get each other. Everything changed, and it all actually remained the same.

But let's not despair at this, all is not lost. The good news is that TomKat are (is?) divorcing, so there's one more child out of danger, and Suri will be okay too. There is good evidence - from Tom's three exes - that women turning thirty who have children start to see life with more clarity. The gooey love-sauce fame-and-looks obsession of their twenties gives way to the reality of doing the right thing by the children, which in this case amounts to rescuing them from a cult. 

It seems about right to me that no-one should be allowed to marry until their thirtieth birthday. Better still would be if we were helped to understand why not, and chose not to of our own volition. Too many high-school sweethearts marry at twenty-two and find themselves divorced a few years later. How can the children of these unions overcome this model of parenthood?

In that light, I advocate the twenties as the Dating Decade - the more, the better. No marriage, just ten years of figuring out yourself and how you fit with others. It's possible this might have more impact than applied particle physics, as much as atom smashing underground in Switzerland might give you a hard-on.


Bottoms Up, Physicists.

The Dating Horizon - Wombatgram #24

The triumph of imagination over reality leads to all sorts of dissatisfaction and grumpiness. Best to figure out what's likely, what's possible, and what that one-night stand will actually lead to.

For greater clarity, click on Wombatgram. 


Previous efforts. 



Bottoms Up, Simplificators.

The Date Horizon

Alyssa Miller

Two qualities I observe in my own brain:

1. It looks for patterns of behaviour (in women I date) that might or might not exist.

2. Its imagination leaps to long-term possibilities with women far beyond reality.

They're both manifestations of an inaccurate Date Horizon. The Date Horizon (did I just coin this?) is the natural expectation of what's reasonable from the other person given the current state of the liaison. For instance:

* After a first date, the Date Horizon can really only extend to the possibility of a second.

* After the first sex, the Date Horizon probably includes some number of future sessions. (NOTE: Or none.)

* Once the Fidelity Agreement's in place, the Date Horizon extends out by a few months.

* Marriage takes the Date Horizon at least to the natural horizon.


I imagine that we all get ahead of ourselves when we start out with someone new. Sadly, it's unrealistic and I believe ultimately destructive when the other person fails to live up to our dream (the hide!) or we actually start living in a way that's not reality-based.

So. Note to self: One step at a time. Take each date as it comes. Understand not everyone will work out. Keep a tight rein on the imagination. Watch how nice it is when the Date Horizon really does move beyond tomorrow.



Bottoms Up, Imagineers.