In The Trenches

Connecting with new people has a fancy modern name: networking. As far as words go, it's not sexy - too many reminders of Chamber of Commerce mixers and awkward Meetup groups. Blech.

Nevertheless, here we are a few hundred thousand years on, trying to find juuuuust the right one. But  we're not alone. Married friends of singletons are big on changing our single status, even a little bit. Which explains why I received this email, reading in part...

"I’m reaching out to make an introduction.  Not for a date, but for a connection.  You’re both single, well read, well traveled and fun.

Maybe you can get together for drinks and giggles...."

This came from a married (naturally) female friend whom I thought understood that her focus should be on finding me potential lerv interests, not a book-club buddy. 

Spot the subtext in the email with one swift reading, ie:


...Not for a date, but for a connection...

Translation: Either I'm too ugly for her, or she's a beast.


...single, well read, well traveled and fun...

Translation: Hopelessly unavailable, set in our ways or just plain ornery, we are both destined to be a confirmed bachelor or an unavailable spinster.


...drinks and giggles...

Translation: Because the thought of sex between you two is laughable.


Yes, I know, I'm an ungrateful ingrate. We can never have too many friends. Blah, blah.

Still. It's brutal when you gain insight into others' perception of you. 






Bottoms Up, High Opinion Holders.

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.

Cerealization

Finding the right person can be a chore or a delight, depending upon how you look at it. Yes, first dates can be energy-sapping. Yes, meeting so many incompatibles is dispiriting. Yes, you will question your will to live. Too often you'll wonder how so many weird, self-absorbed, boring, ill and frankly unappealing people think they might have a future with your bright, optimistic, balanced, gorgeous self. But we must endure.

I compare the process to deciding upon a breakfast cereal - in a world of infinite choice, start by precluding huge swathes. For instance, anyone over the age of ten should consider avoiding any cereal with an animal or super-hero mascot. Then there are the key words 'pops', 'frosted', 'loops', and 'smacks', all of which tell you that nutrition can be found in the box, but only inasmuch as you think cups of sugar are good for you.

The big-picture dating prospects to avoid IMO are folks with an untreated depressive illness; those who have any kind of addictive partiality; anyone with unresolved parental or family difficulties; and anyone who doesn't floss.

Shoot me, but I believe in immaculate oral hygiene.

Given that first dates - or a bunch of them strung together - are exhausting, we can filter a lot of maybes beforehand by figuring if any of the big deal-breakers (above) pertain. You can get pretty good at ferreting out the info you need with well-timed pre-date questions, eg:

So, are you an alcoholic?

or

I'm on anti-depressants myself. You too?

See how I did that without alerting them?

Once it looks as if they're not Froot Loops or Cap'n Crunch, then a first date is worth a shot. Still and all, low expectations will keep you mentally upright, because even the best filters are only a start.


Bottoms Up, Shoppers.

Friday Fluffer - Make Love Not Porn

Ashley Tisdale

The crack-addictive nature of porn for guys is the never-ending stream of new, easy trim. Just one more pussy can be more tempting than any woman will ever understand.

Until now.

I think Cindy might have run smack bang into the middle of something sticky that she didn't like.

Cindy Gallop's TED talk.

And here's her (awfully designed but interesting) website. Make Love Not Porn.



Bottoms Up, Pron-Stars.

Love Matador

 Paz Vega photo credit.

The PUA community is fully aware of the value of dressing to impress. Overdressing, actually, with the aim of making themselves the centre of attention. Peacocking they call it.

Grabbing and maintaining a woman's eye is the aim, and a quirky or bright outfit will help. The theory is that once you set yourself apart from the shlubs in flops and cargo pants, bedding a woman is then a matter of time.

The lads are probably right.

In Florida, where I live, a man in a long-sleeved shirt creates a stir. If he's in a business suit with necktie and polished shoes, the local television news sends an outside broadcast unit. Of course the climate mitigates against much more than shorts and a flamingo-print shirt, but still; we're a state of slobs.

So I have a vision, thanks to Katherina. The most colourful and distinctive male outfit I can think of is that of the matador. I'm SO tempted to dress myself as a torero - accessorized with hat and blood-red cape - and go about my day. In the morning I'd take my espresso, go to the bank and pump some gas. In the afternoon, naturally, a siesta. And then at then at cocktail hour I'd head to my favourite bar trailing a line of swooning females.

I'd be like a Bullfighting Pied Piper.





Bottoms Up, Picadors.

Digital Love Analogue

 Stephanie Gateshet.

We're clearly moving from centuries of an analogue world to lives defined digitally. The changes are easy to see - we no longer measure, we count;  infinite shading is now thin slicing; perhaps is either on/off.

If this isn't the revolution of all revolutions, I don't know what is.

But, like, whatever. My interest lies in whether we're changing the nature of love. Is love analogue or digital? Do we look at love like a Caravaggio or a PDF file? Is the answer as obvious as it seems?

Digital love sounds awful. A bunch of ones and zeros on a wafer of silicon won't get anyone's heart racing, let alone inspire them to write a song or pen poetry. However, those ones and zeros are canny things; they understand that they're neither warm nor sexy, so they present us with a more lovable facade. The photo above, for instance. Or blogs. Or iTunes. Somewhere along the line, the digital gods found themselves a first-rate PR firm, and followed its advice.

The problem is that all their solutions are good at describing love but hopeless at actually being it. The look that melts your heart, the feeling of her touch, the invisible communication of minds in synch - I guess a robot will eventually simulate these things, but it will still be reproduction of love, not the core.

So I think we're safe for now. Love will be analogue for a long time, probably until your DNA has sex with an iPad, at which point we're all screwed. Or apped. But at that point it won't matter: we'll all be too busy shopping at Amazon for a lover to notice.




Bottoms Up, Microprocessors.

What Kind of Person is Google?

If we had the power to turn search engines into people, what kind of person would we shake hands with if Google turned biological? IMO, he'd be that guy who sits off to the side of the party, close to the door but away from the kitchen. When people ask "Where can I put my coat?" or "Is this beer cold?" he answers immediately without looking up from his smartphone. An Android, natch. He's dismissively inclined, dispatching we unclever mortals without even a smile.

Google IS a male. He LIKES direct questions, and issues direct answers in response, taking a kind of smug satisfaction in being right. Right is a relative concept in Cyber. Mr Google has no filter for the crass, nor discernment for subtleties of certain kinds of search terms. In that way, he's like a savant - knowledgeable without being smart. Like an immature male. Master Google rather than Mister Google?

And I wonder about his name. Master Google isn't Andrew or Tom or Stavros. He's not Shamal or Riccardo, and he's definitely not a Buddy. I'm tempted to call him Neil. As in Neil Armstrong, another emotionless numbers-butt who did amazing things but looks like a stiff in a bar. Master Neil Google.

I don't know.

What I DO know is that we need a female Google. Girl Google is a more emotionally-grounded and nuanced Google who tends more towards asking how you feel about the answer. We should call it Booble. Miss Booble is the girl-next-door who won the scholarship to a fancy university and ended up turning her pep into $600 per share. Miss B is probably hosting the party. She's catered amazingly - including Inuit appropriate snacks for her friends from Far North Canada - and gets to talk meaningfully with all her guests.

Miss B is totally the girl every man wants, but she is oddly attracted to the moody loner in the corner engrossed in his phone. He's short and cool. He's achingly aloof. He ignores all but her most direct questions. And she wants him with all her being.





Bottoms Up, Searchers.

Friday Fluffer - Kiss the Wombat

Today's Fluffer is for you nature lovers.






Bottoms Up, Marsupials!





Sweet kiss from here. [link]

I am not associated with Kiss the Wombat in any way. Who owns that site is a mystery to me, buy it's incumbent upon me to promote something so worthy.

Women on Top

The Masculine Movement's struggle runs up against the Pussy Ceiling in many fields. Men still represent a tiny minority of strippers, for example, or witness the inequality of sexual distribution in Public Relations jobs - 70% of practitioners there are female.

Matters are clear when it comes to college undergraduates in the United States too. The majority of students in post-secondary institutions are female - 57/43 - which reminds me it's high time to dust off my application for that Masters in Creative Writing and Beer. I like those odds. Perhaps that fact alone, the paucity of guys in higher education, speaks to the failure of the Masculine Movement. What we need is an inspirational figure, in the same way that the Feminists have Gloria Steinem or Germaine Greer.

Suggestions welcome.

Men are hopeless and becoming more so in many fields, but especially in sleeping their way to the top. It's a somewhat dated concept now, the idea that promotion or corporate advancement can be had by shagging your supervisor. More important is that with more women in authority, the opportunity for men to redress this imbalance improves every day.

Now, ma'am. May we talk about my raise?





Bottoms Up, Ladder Climbers!



Blackchickonabike supplied the pic. [link]

Friday Fluffer - Instruments of Pleasure

The fight to the bottom afflicts businesses everywhere.

Walmart fights suppliers for a one cent advantage.

Airlines fight customers by charging for everything more than the seat.

Fast food joints sell us ever more food and ever less nutrition.

There is one business that aims for quality and satisfaction by selling us the best - at least in the line it calls 'Instruments of Pleasure'.

It is with great pleasure that I give you Kiki de Montparnasse.

Beautiful things for beautiful times. Quality. Probably NSFW, but only mildly. [link]





Bottoms Up, Pleasure Seekers!


Pic from here [link]

Friday Fluffer - Love Letters

One of the most popular Googled posts hereabouts is this one: Love Letters [link]

If you have a romantic bone in your body or your trousers, I recommend you give it a shot. Not for what I had to say, but for the letters quoted.

So it was with some amazement that I found myself the recipient of a copy of the DVD pictured. Who knows how these PR people work. They send me a slightly personalized email asking about my interest, and POOF! there's a package in my box.

Let's get this straight: I am a huge, retrograde, old fashioned fan of hand-written letters. If they involve love, all the better. What we have here is a stellar dramatic production of a performance of historic love letters between Clara Schumann[link] and her husband, some hack pianist.

I am incapable of reviewing this thing dispassionately, so I plan to send it to the person most likely to give us clarity: Mr Martian. [link] Send me a real life postal address, and review this wondrous thing for us, my friend.

For those who like shortcuts, the DVD is a performance of Schumann's work punctuated by love letters between husband and wife. The parts are played by Sting and his wife, Trudie. It is heartachingly beautiful, despite the pedigree of the performers.

But I want Martian's opinion.




Photo by me.

This is a quick run-down of the DVD performance. [link]

Sex With Attitude

Repellent thought that it is, I guess that our parents build the foundations of our attitude to sex. Inbuilt drives to reproduce work on one level, obviously, but as anyone who has ever asked a complete stranger for sex knows, drive needs a driver - or a chauffeur, really, to get where it wants to go. Smoothing out the rough edges of animalism helps us accommodate that inner beastie, and is partially the reason parents exist; to tell us how.

In other words, our parents give us the architecture by which we think about and approach sex.

Let's contemplate that for a minute or two: Your parents create the framework for your sex life. By sex life, I am not talking about the reproductive blarney. I'm talking about how you feel about your feelings, how you deal with the irrationality of attraction, or how you resolve conflicts around fidelity or abstinence.

The problem that I see is that we entrust this very important job to two amateurs who are probably embarrassed to even consider their darling sixteen-year-old fucking like a minx. Which is probably why in the end we learn more about what sex means - or should mean - from our peers and media. That starts in one's teenage years and they hardly seem better choices. At least our peers provide a kind of library of sex-facts, a sort of TeenBonkWiki. None of the information is likely any good, but at least one can pick and choose from all the foolish notions out there in the school quadrangle.

In the end, most of us rely on the time-honoured methods: experience, advertisements and porn, although I guess someone has 'rents who rocked at telling it like it is.




Happy family from here. [link] Don't bother reading the article.

Edited for too many partiallys, a word of which I am apparently partial.

One-a-Day

Warren Beatty is an ancient Hollywood star.

There is news - or what passes for news thesedays - about the number of women with whom he had sex in his past single life. The allegation (congratulation?) is that somewhere north of 12,000 different women played hide-the-sausage with Mr Beatty. The source is a newly published unauthorised biography written by Peter Biskind of Vanity Fair.

Mr Beatty claims (via his lawyer) he was misquoted and that the book contains inaccurate statements.

The 12,000 number might or might not be true. It has the smell to me of a publicity ruse; a nice big round number that newspaper 'style' and 'life' sections picked up without question. The number didn't come from 12,000 women coming forward claiming they'd been with Warren, nor were there 12,000 condoms or 12,000 soiled sheets. Mr Biskind takes an unattributed statement that Mr Beatty had sex with a new woman every day for thirty-five years, then multiplies 365 and 35 to come up with 12,775.

In other words, the source of this 'fact' is a pocket calculator.

You will be relieved to know it does not include "daytime quickies, drive-by [encounters], casual gropings, stolen kisses, and so on", writes Mr Biskind.

That is good news.




Photo of Julie Christie, apparently one of the 12,000, from here. [link]

Edited for clarity.

Male stereos. Sorry, stereotypes.

Advertising is where we find the stereotype clearly defined. Here's how we men are dismembered by those high-priced creative types.

The hero. Powerful because of self-delusion - there go I, but for a few more gym sessions, and a bit more cardio.


Outdoors man. Control over nature...likely from the comfort of his car, looking at his wristwatch. Dubious.


Urban man. Narcissism plus money. Probably not getting as much pussy as he'd like.


Family man. Sweet. Hopelessly unrealistic.


Breadwinner. Misnamed. Should be called 'Branded-goods-loving trust-funder.' Who lives like that?


Man at work. Funny, they never romanticize cubes or horrid bosses or disgusting office coffee.


Erotic male. Ha ha. He's gay.


The Consumer. As long as he has some disposable income and isn't filing for bankruptcy.


Quiescent Man. Weird, that's on my to-do list. Right here. It says 'Buy Canali suit.'

At least they don't go down the path of men as semi-literate sports-mad drunken morons.

Wait.



Edit: Thanks to Doc Annie, here's how men can get all the women.



Thanks to these folks.

What is romance?

DocAnnie's description of romance is the best:

For me, it's mainly about making otherwise ordinary moments together feel as though no one else in the world exists except the two of you.

That captures it.

Cool. But there is still the question of whether romance just happens or if it can be manufactured. Ideally, romantic moments would pop into our lives like...umm...black holes in the universe. Okay, like unexpected bills in the mail. Alright, like winning lottery numbers. That's better. Winning lottery numbers.

If the media are our guide, our chances of romance are improved if there's a little forethought. For instance, to have a tender experience, first book a restaurant, get dressed, order wine and...you know, romance happens. Gondola rides are super-romantic, so get yourselves to Venice, hire a gondola and - bing! - romance.

Yeah, it sounds kinda cheesy to me.

My point is that there are two kinds of romantic moments; the spontaneous and the pre-prepared. The everyday moments of special connectedness must spring from a base of affection, but are otherwise random. It's like finding a wild tomato on your walk to work. They're special because they're natural and surprising.

Manufactured romantic moments are like hothouse tomatoes. We expect that they'll be available, and they will be of a certain quality. They won't taste the same as wild or home-grown tomatoes, and anticipation slightly dampens their impact. But they're tomatoes nonetheless.

Here's how advertisers see romance.




Romance Part 1, Romance Part 2, Romance Part 3.