OK, so I've recently re-entered the dating world after a two year hiatus. Yea and huzzah. After a conversation at the gym last night with my closest friend, I decided I was going to periodically write about what it's really like to be out there as somebody other than a club hopping, under employed, vacuous 20-something. Should be good for a laugh, and, I figured why not something from a male perspective? After all, we've been bombarded with everything from Sex and the City to Vagina Monologues, so I figured the male perspective was underrepresented. Where to begin...
Well, if you're like me, and almost everybody you know is married, and are folks you've known for years, any new social interaction as a result of their acquaintances is probably going to be nil. Married people tend to hang out with married people, and you probably already know all their friends and acquaintances anyways. Furthermore, if you work in an industry that is 95% men (like I do), meeting people through work is also a non-starter. So, where does that leave us? It leaves us with the tried and true "Just go out and live your life and you never know who you will meet", which is always the first and best ongoing option, and also with the good old digital age internet dating website, which is an easy way to jump start meeting people you may have never otherwise encountered. It's the latter I'm going to talk about today.
Have you ever looked at one of these sites? Not only is it enough to make you want to pretty much adopt a life of solitude and celibacy, but it also pretty much makes you fearful for the future survival of the human race. What you basically do is scan through a ton of photos of people in completely unrealistic daily activities (Look! Here's me white water rafting after I got back from my weekend in Vegas...had to cut the rafting trip short though because I had to be at my winery tour in Napa by 7!). Or there's multiple people with skydiving pictures. Seriously. Take a look. Also, lots of rock climbing, hiking, and boating. You may think this screams "See how interesting an adventurous I am?" , but what it really screams is "See how I constantly need to be entertained? Because if I sit still for one second I may have to have some sort of inner reflection....and that simply cannot happen!" I'm all for weekend getaways and such (I love going to San Francisco and the Central Coast), but if you need to be on the run 24-7, and spend every free second on an adventure, there's a name for that...it's called manic, and it's not appealing. Also, unless you have a helluva job of your own, you're also advertising that you expect somebody to fund this manic lifestyle for you. Unless you just retired at 35 from your lingerie modeling/stand up comedian/nuclear physicist job (i.e. ridiculously hot, funny and smart), I cannot imagine men lining up around the block volunteering to endorse their paychecks over to you.
Know what's even worse? The written profile. You will find a common theme. It will have lots of words such as these: "Not looking for players", "looking for a gentleman", "No liars", "No cheaters", "After a wild life looking to settle down", "Looking for somebody real", "Looking for a serious relationship only", etc. (and a multitude of these will be filled with syntax and spelling errors). Reading this sort of tripe will induce vomiting, so I suggest you keep a bucket nearby if you find yourself reading one some day. When a woman writes something like this, they might as well have just put it all in one encompassing sentence: "Well, I'm a low self esteem, dysfunctional wreck who has dated a non-stop stream of emotionally unavailable assholes who cheated on me like their life depended on it, and I personally have slept around a ton as well. If your somebody who I haven't slept with yet, drop me a line as I'm too worn out to successfully keep up with my trampy ways, and hopefully you'll settle on me." Yeah! I'll be right over sweetheart. Gag.
Then there's the one percent (and even that might be generous) who seem to be reasonably interesting, sane, and attractive (and age appropriate for me, which is 30+). But there's always a catch. Very often a woman in this age group (again, we'll use 35 as an example) who has actually made a successful career for herself will be childless (spent last ten years building up her career...to which I say kudos) and looking to start a family. They will state it in their profile: Want kids? "Definitely!" They need a reality check in that, generally speaking, a 35+ year old guy isn't looking to start a family. Who wants to be pushing 60 by the time your kids are out of the house? A guy in this age group is looking to share a life with somebody, not start a brand new one. If you haven't started a family by now, it probably isn't in the cards for you, you know? You're at an age when if you were to have kids, you'll need to start having them immediately. So, if you haven't already been with somebody for a period of time and are now ready to have kids, trust me, meeting a guy now who is looking to have a six month courtship and then proceed into immediate procreation is not likely, and if you do meet that guy, run. He's a nut job. If a 36 yr old guy is looking for a future potential mother to his children, he'll probably be aiming for a twenty something who is young enough to space out the heirs to the kingdom...not a 35 year old who will have to spend the next four years in a hell of non-stop pregnancy. Sorry. But there 'ya go.
So, as you can see, the pickings are slim for a whole host of reasons. Should be interesting.
OK, so there it is. Installment one of what it's really like to be a 42 year old guy looking to enter the dating pool again. I'll keep you all updated as things progress (or, if they don't progress, i.e., I just go ahead and go all Ted Kaczynski and become a hermit in a shack in the woods writing my manifesto and making pipe bombs). Luckily, I also have my friends to keep me entertained, as well as my guitars and music, the gym, a stack of good books, and a shelf full of high end whiskey (Makers 46, Black Bush, and Johnnie Walker Gold Label. Yum). Either way, my weekends will be filled.
Cheers...
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
A New Blog for 1-1-11
A new blog (oh, why the hell not?) for a new year. But, I'm going to talk about an age old topic long analyzed by hack stand up comedians and talk show hosts from the 80's. Men and women. Specifically, how we communicate...or more accurately, how we don't, and why there is very little use in trying. Let me proselytize here (as if you could stop me).
Let's use the data set of "X" and "Y" for simplicities sake. It does not matter what "X" and "Y" stand for or what they are (a woman would probably tell you it matters very much what "X" and "Y" is, whereas a guy can live with the fact it "is what it is"). If a conversation were to take place between a man or a woman over "X" and "Y" it might go something like this:
Woman: Is it "X" or "Y"?
Man: It's "Y".
Boom. Done. Information disseminated and conversation moving on to other topics. Well, in the man's world this is what's happening, but the woman's head is racing because the conversation SHOULD have gone something like this if the roles were reversed:
Man: Is it "X" or "Y"?
Woman: (25 minute preamble on why it's important to understand the differences between "X" and "Y"; why you need to "feel" the difference between the wildly divergent properties of "X" and "Y"; why it should be IMPORTANT to YOU the very real upsides and downsides to "X" and "Y"; her personal opinions on the merits of "X" vs. "Y"; why her friend Jennifer is such a bitch; her crazy mother's phone conversation with her earlier that day; don't piss her off because she's having a bad hair day ((you've failed to be able to tell the difference)); how come you're not wearing that shirt she bought you?; she is unhappy with the size of her ass ((somehow that came up...again)); why are you bothering her with "X" and "Y" anyways since you OBVIOUSLY DON"T CARE; and she'd like to know how YOU FEEL about "X" and "Y" before she answers your question because she needs all the pertinent information before she commits to an answer) It's 3 o'clock (that was her answer).
Now, the man has no idea why his question was answered with a completely different topic than the question he asked. Somewhere in minute 17 of her answer he got lost, and started wondering if that movie they're going out to see later has any nudity in it.
He will now get in trouble for not paying attention to her answer, and be accused of not having any feelings. Which is true. We don't. We're men. The only feelings we have are hunger, horniness, occasional fits of rage and anger, and merriment and laughter at the misfortune of others. That's it. And, if the guy is 41 yrs old like me, even the horniness isn't the overriding thing it used to be when he was, say, 21. Generally, a good nights sleep, a really cold beer and his teams game televised in hi-def on the tube has displaced that particular lizard brained urge (which, by the way, has made life immeasurably easier). So, somewhere along the line you will apologize for not listening appropriately, and never really know if it were "X" or "Y", and the woman will have accomplished her goal of keeping you in a constant daze of confusion. But there is hope.
And what is that hope you ask yourself? Age. You see, as a man gets older, we loosen that death grip on the need to be right, and have EVERYBODY know it. You hit your 40's, and are quite comfortable knowing you're right, or, if you're wrong, not really caring. Just smile, nod your head, enjoy your beverage, and be dazzled at the wonderment of your team rendered with such crispness on your widescreen (this can also be substituted or accompanied by really good high fidelity audio equipment...the kind of stuff where you are mesmerized by the clarity of the hi-hat and can hear the 5% delay added to the crash cymbal...and the infinitesimal percussive tick of a finger tip on an open E-string. Some of you will know what I mean).
Let's use the data set of "X" and "Y" for simplicities sake. It does not matter what "X" and "Y" stand for or what they are (a woman would probably tell you it matters very much what "X" and "Y" is, whereas a guy can live with the fact it "is what it is"). If a conversation were to take place between a man or a woman over "X" and "Y" it might go something like this:
Woman: Is it "X" or "Y"?
Man: It's "Y".
Boom. Done. Information disseminated and conversation moving on to other topics. Well, in the man's world this is what's happening, but the woman's head is racing because the conversation SHOULD have gone something like this if the roles were reversed:
Man: Is it "X" or "Y"?
Woman: (25 minute preamble on why it's important to understand the differences between "X" and "Y"; why you need to "feel" the difference between the wildly divergent properties of "X" and "Y"; why it should be IMPORTANT to YOU the very real upsides and downsides to "X" and "Y"; her personal opinions on the merits of "X" vs. "Y"; why her friend Jennifer is such a bitch; her crazy mother's phone conversation with her earlier that day; don't piss her off because she's having a bad hair day ((you've failed to be able to tell the difference)); how come you're not wearing that shirt she bought you?; she is unhappy with the size of her ass ((somehow that came up...again)); why are you bothering her with "X" and "Y" anyways since you OBVIOUSLY DON"T CARE; and she'd like to know how YOU FEEL about "X" and "Y" before she answers your question because she needs all the pertinent information before she commits to an answer) It's 3 o'clock (that was her answer).
Now, the man has no idea why his question was answered with a completely different topic than the question he asked. Somewhere in minute 17 of her answer he got lost, and started wondering if that movie they're going out to see later has any nudity in it.
He will now get in trouble for not paying attention to her answer, and be accused of not having any feelings. Which is true. We don't. We're men. The only feelings we have are hunger, horniness, occasional fits of rage and anger, and merriment and laughter at the misfortune of others. That's it. And, if the guy is 41 yrs old like me, even the horniness isn't the overriding thing it used to be when he was, say, 21. Generally, a good nights sleep, a really cold beer and his teams game televised in hi-def on the tube has displaced that particular lizard brained urge (which, by the way, has made life immeasurably easier). So, somewhere along the line you will apologize for not listening appropriately, and never really know if it were "X" or "Y", and the woman will have accomplished her goal of keeping you in a constant daze of confusion. But there is hope.
And what is that hope you ask yourself? Age. You see, as a man gets older, we loosen that death grip on the need to be right, and have EVERYBODY know it. You hit your 40's, and are quite comfortable knowing you're right, or, if you're wrong, not really caring. Just smile, nod your head, enjoy your beverage, and be dazzled at the wonderment of your team rendered with such crispness on your widescreen (this can also be substituted or accompanied by really good high fidelity audio equipment...the kind of stuff where you are mesmerized by the clarity of the hi-hat and can hear the 5% delay added to the crash cymbal...and the infinitesimal percussive tick of a finger tip on an open E-string. Some of you will know what I mean).
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Stuff at 3:23 am
Well, due to the unusual hours I work, my sleep schedule is somewhat contrary to the rest of society and I find myself doing normal things at abnormal hours. In this case, I'm killing time on the 'pooter (as in 'computer'...not the toilet...gross) as I do laundry. Yea. Its always a party at my place. Anyways, a few thoughts:
-what is cool? Are we allowed to decide for ourselves anymore? It seems to me we are not. Example? Levi's vs. Apple products (I just saw one of their incessant commercials so I'm using them as a prime example). One became cool, and one was made to "be" cool...once an incessant marketing campaign beat it into your head. Here's what I mean. Levi's jeans were originally developed as a tough, utilitarian pair of pants for gold miners in 19th century California. The reason why they were blue is because that was the cheapest and most durable dye Mr. Levi Strauss could get in large quantities for his denim pants. Why denim? Because gold miners work in rough conditions and needed a tough product. Then one day starting in the 50's, kids started wearing these jeans and they started to become associated with rock and roll. They were anti establishment. They weren't polite. They became cool. People took a product designed for something else, and decided it was cool when it wasn't trying to be. In fact, not trying to be cool (and I mean genuinely not trying to be) is the very definition of cool. People were free to decide for themselves what was cool free of a (then) existing marketing campaign telling them how cool they were for wearing these jeans.
Now, contrast that with Apple products (confession: I'm typing this on a MacBook). It is decided they are "cool" before they are even released to the public. We have no choice in the matter. Their products are released at conventions of rabid followers by the company president who struts around in his black mock turtleneck, jeans (ha!), and his ever present bottle of water. And people sit in rapt stillness as he unleashes the next "cool" product. "It's the new iWad toilet paper applicator!" (Had a convo with a person a while back about toilet paper application products, and I know how Apple loves 'applications' *pun intended*, so it seems to me only a matter of time before they develop something along these lines...maybe have U2 star in the commercial. You know, Bono wiping his backside with an iWad while Beautiful Day blares in a multi-colored background. God knows these guys are apparently whoring themselves out for these things now...iPods? Blackberry's? Bono, stop now while I can still think of you as the guy who sang The Electric Co. and New Years Day...not the guy shilling for corporate giants). Bow down to the "coolness" of Apple! Now, to me, that is a company trying too hard. And trying too hard isn't cool. If your products are good and worthy, then people will decide if they are cool or not, you don't need to push so hard (after all, nobody is attracted to somebody demanding "love me", right?).
-women are put off by men with a brain. Here's what I mean. Women may complain about a guy having a single minded focus of thinking with his dick, and they may make a big deal about being treated as an object, etc. But you know what? I think its a front...a lie. I think they PREFER their men this way. Here's why: a guy, say, younger than thirtyish, is pretty preoccupied with getting laid...or at least the almighty beejay. It's kind of what we live for. And guess what? That makes us easy. Predictable. Controllable. MALLEABLE. And a woman loves a malleable guy. And when sex is a guys prime focus, all a woman has to do is play the card she was BORN WITH: her sexuality. How easy is that??? I cannot imagine, as a man, going through life with the idea the world will cater to me just for the sole reason I'm in possession of a functional penis. I mean, it must be awesome, and I can see why so many women obsess over this part of themselves...sometimes to the detriment of other aspects of their being. But then something happens to a guy post thirtyish...we realize how stupid we were, and that we sold ourselves incredibly short. That, and once you've been laid enough, you realize theres a whole helluva lot more to life, and you begin to wonder just how worth the effort it all was in your days of yore. Things like a womans sense of humor, intelligence, hell, A JOB, start to matter. Is the person nice? Yes...nice counts. A LOT. You begin to realize pretty is everywhere. Smart? Funny? Decently employed? Sane???? A fucking RARITY. A young man will sell his soul to the dumbest, nastiest, craziest wench if she's hot enough. A guy who has lived a little will laugh and say "Yeah...nice rack...what else 'ya got?" I think this throws women off their game...maybe even worries them a bit. A guy NOT thinking with his dick is a wild card...unpredictable...and a mystery as to what to do with. Unfortunately, nobody gave me this pep talk at twenty...and truth be told I was so obsessed with T&A I probably wouldn't have listened anyway. But now? I feel liberated.
OK, laundry is done, and time for bed...
-what is cool? Are we allowed to decide for ourselves anymore? It seems to me we are not. Example? Levi's vs. Apple products (I just saw one of their incessant commercials so I'm using them as a prime example). One became cool, and one was made to "be" cool...once an incessant marketing campaign beat it into your head. Here's what I mean. Levi's jeans were originally developed as a tough, utilitarian pair of pants for gold miners in 19th century California. The reason why they were blue is because that was the cheapest and most durable dye Mr. Levi Strauss could get in large quantities for his denim pants. Why denim? Because gold miners work in rough conditions and needed a tough product. Then one day starting in the 50's, kids started wearing these jeans and they started to become associated with rock and roll. They were anti establishment. They weren't polite. They became cool. People took a product designed for something else, and decided it was cool when it wasn't trying to be. In fact, not trying to be cool (and I mean genuinely not trying to be) is the very definition of cool. People were free to decide for themselves what was cool free of a (then) existing marketing campaign telling them how cool they were for wearing these jeans.
Now, contrast that with Apple products (confession: I'm typing this on a MacBook). It is decided they are "cool" before they are even released to the public. We have no choice in the matter. Their products are released at conventions of rabid followers by the company president who struts around in his black mock turtleneck, jeans (ha!), and his ever present bottle of water. And people sit in rapt stillness as he unleashes the next "cool" product. "It's the new iWad toilet paper applicator!" (Had a convo with a person a while back about toilet paper application products, and I know how Apple loves 'applications' *pun intended*, so it seems to me only a matter of time before they develop something along these lines...maybe have U2 star in the commercial. You know, Bono wiping his backside with an iWad while Beautiful Day blares in a multi-colored background. God knows these guys are apparently whoring themselves out for these things now...iPods? Blackberry's? Bono, stop now while I can still think of you as the guy who sang The Electric Co. and New Years Day...not the guy shilling for corporate giants). Bow down to the "coolness" of Apple! Now, to me, that is a company trying too hard. And trying too hard isn't cool. If your products are good and worthy, then people will decide if they are cool or not, you don't need to push so hard (after all, nobody is attracted to somebody demanding "love me", right?).
-women are put off by men with a brain. Here's what I mean. Women may complain about a guy having a single minded focus of thinking with his dick, and they may make a big deal about being treated as an object, etc. But you know what? I think its a front...a lie. I think they PREFER their men this way. Here's why: a guy, say, younger than thirtyish, is pretty preoccupied with getting laid...or at least the almighty beejay. It's kind of what we live for. And guess what? That makes us easy. Predictable. Controllable. MALLEABLE. And a woman loves a malleable guy. And when sex is a guys prime focus, all a woman has to do is play the card she was BORN WITH: her sexuality. How easy is that??? I cannot imagine, as a man, going through life with the idea the world will cater to me just for the sole reason I'm in possession of a functional penis. I mean, it must be awesome, and I can see why so many women obsess over this part of themselves...sometimes to the detriment of other aspects of their being. But then something happens to a guy post thirtyish...we realize how stupid we were, and that we sold ourselves incredibly short. That, and once you've been laid enough, you realize theres a whole helluva lot more to life, and you begin to wonder just how worth the effort it all was in your days of yore. Things like a womans sense of humor, intelligence, hell, A JOB, start to matter. Is the person nice? Yes...nice counts. A LOT. You begin to realize pretty is everywhere. Smart? Funny? Decently employed? Sane???? A fucking RARITY. A young man will sell his soul to the dumbest, nastiest, craziest wench if she's hot enough. A guy who has lived a little will laugh and say "Yeah...nice rack...what else 'ya got?" I think this throws women off their game...maybe even worries them a bit. A guy NOT thinking with his dick is a wild card...unpredictable...and a mystery as to what to do with. Unfortunately, nobody gave me this pep talk at twenty...and truth be told I was so obsessed with T&A I probably wouldn't have listened anyway. But now? I feel liberated.
OK, laundry is done, and time for bed...
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