This is gonna sound like a joke, but I swear it's not. I'm an unattractive guy (not hideous, but pretty ugly) who’s overweight and really socially awkward. When it comes to talking with women, I just clam up. About the only thing I have going for me is a huge penis. While attractive guys with tiny penises and ugly dudes with suave personalities can land women, I never even get a girl to go home with me, let alone get into a relationship, which is what I want. I know a lot of women don’t care about size, but I also know some do. Am I crazy to think some women would look past my faults if only they knew what I was packing?
--Big Loser
So, you’re fat, ugly, and socially awkward. Is there an armed guard keeping you out of the gym? Is the path to the salad bar mined with plastic explosive? And, before you enter a nightclub, does the bouncer slap duct tape over your mouth and tie one hand behind your back, so all you can do is use your one free hand to point to your massive rod?
Probably half the successful male comedians look like they fell face first out of the womb onto the ugly stick. But for a few exceptions, the other half look like they came out clutching it in their tiny little hands. These guys turned their shortcomings into a living and, in turn, a way to get girls -- instead of a reason to, say, reduce themselves to a live-action version of the Joey The Giant Genitalia cartoon from junior-high sex ed films.
Another unlikely chick magnet is the perpetually scrawny, sickly, 91-year-old psychotherapist Dr. Albert Ellis. A few years ago, he told me over lunch that he spent a good part of his childhood hospitalized -- keeping him from both dying and developing rudimentary social skills. At 19, he was determined to get over his terror of talking to girls. For a month, he went to the Bronx Botanical Garden every day, made himself sit down with any woman he saw alone on a bench, and gave himself a minute to strike up a conversation. He talked to 100 women and asked one out. She stood him up. But, the experience gave him the courage to approach the next 100, and then some, and actually score some dates. In 2004, he married a tall, blonde, Australian bombshell half his age. So, while many refer to him as “the father of cognitive-behavioral therapy,” I like to think of him as The Hugh Hefner Of Headshrinking.
Luckily for Ellis, he must not have had some huge tool in his pants to use as a crutch. Sure, there are a few size queens, but if they want a big penis without a personality, they’ll get the kind that runs on batteries. Stop reducing yourself to the sum of your one giant part. If you’re fat, get some exercise -- beyond all the calories you’re burning wallowing in self-pity. If you’re ugly, make up for it by dressing beautifully. Wear great shoes. Women like that. If you’re filled with self-loathing, read up on “unconditional self-acceptance” in Ellis’ book A Guide To Rational Living. Finally, do as Ellis did, and make yourself talk to girls. Maybe even tell them you’ve been shy all your life and you’re working to change it. That shows guts, which go over even better than great shoes. In other words, whether you want sex or a relationship, your big penis is probably your biggest stumbling block. Convince yourself you’re hung like a horsefly, and you might get some girls.
July 20, 2006My husband and I have “date night” every Saturday after we get our kids to bed. He’s told me numerous times that it would really turn him on if I’d dress trashy. Over the years, he’s bought me many provocative outfits I’ve never worn (leather miniskirts, leather pants, a tartan schoolgirl skirt, chain belts, stiletto-heeled boots, “Daisy Dukes,” midriff-baring tops, etc.). When I try to explain that flabby thighs in miniskirts and a tiny cropped top plus a tummy bulge are not sexy, he just tells me I’m hot. Why can’t he see that I’m not as svelte as I used to be?
--Reality Check
He’s thinking “Woo-hoo!” You’re thinking “Mooo, mooo!” Even if you are a bit of a heifer, is it really in your best interest to correct him?
Like a lot of married people, when you pledged “’til death do us part,” you probably didn’t give much thought to how, exactly, you’d make that happen. It starts out promisingly. On the first date, everybody dresses like they want somebody to want to have sex with them. And it often works. Then they land the person, and they dress like they want somebody to want them to fix their toilet. And it often works.
It doesn’t help that women waste weeks, months, or years of their lives staring into the mirror and bemoaning their ugly elbows or freakishly-enlarged pores. If your husband is even aware that you have pores, I’ll give you $5. While there are “leg men,” “butt men,” and “boob men,” most men don’t disassemble the women they care about into their individual figure flaws. Most men don’t want stick figures, either. In studies by psychologist Paul Rozin and others, men consistently preferred women with a bit of meat on them -- just not so much that they need to be hoisted out of bed by three orderlies with a Hoyer lift.
If you want your husband to be there through thick and thin (or thick and thicker, as the case may be), you’d better work on seeing yourself through his eyes. Chances are, when he’s begging you to put on that Catholic schoolgirl uniform, what’s on his mind isn’t how little time you’ve spent in Pilates. What should be on your mind is slipping into a sexy little French thing called “bien dans sa peau” -- being comfortable in your skin, much like all the hot black and Latina secretaries I used to see when I lived in downtown New York City. A lot of them were fat, but they wore bright, tight, sexy clothes, and strutted around like they were fat and proud.
Of course, with all the bulges and folds you purportedly have in your skin, getting truly comfortable in it might take some doing. Fake it until you make it. Pick some hussy from the movies and play her on date night…and beyond. No, you don’t have to dress like you’ll be the featured stripper at the PTA meeting, but would it kill you to throw on a low-cut top, a skirt, and cute shoes before the hubster comes home? The guy’s been patient with sexual vanilla for quite some time, probably because he loves you. He does have his faults. Like, maybe he’s blind. Maybe he’s dangerously nearsighted. And maybe you should count and recount your lucky stars. Whatever you’ve got, he happens to want. Can’t you run with that? I mean, as fast as you can go while being chased around the bed in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform and thigh-high stiletto boots.
July 14, 2006I agree with your view that women should maintain their looks and take care of themselves, but I take exception to the "do what is necessary to keep your man" mode of thinking. Men like large breasts, so we have women rushing out to surgically inflate themselves. Where will it all end? How much money should women spend on keeping flawless skin, perfect teeth and thin thighs? Most women aren’t attracted to fat, balding men, but men are not under the same pressure to keep up appearances (especially after marriage). I am a “barely B” woman involved with a man who thinks women walking around with basketballs on their chests are sexy. Am I supposed to go under the knife? Shouldn't we all be better than this?
--Deflated
In other words, does what separates the men from the baboons involve anything more than $10,000 in laser hair removal?
You could say men who go for women with tube-top tankers are no better than the boy baboons chasing after the girl baboons with the biggest, reddest rumps. Maybe it’s up to women to be a civilizing force, to teach men what really matters. And maybe women will -- just as soon as they’re done posing as bank inspectors to dig up some date’s net worth, and sending over private detectives to see whether his “classic car collection” includes more than a Yugo and a Pinto up on blocks on his granny’s lawn.
Oops, it seems we’re all evolutionarily ugly in our own special way. Men evolved to go for reproductively hot bodies -- fertility indicators like youth, clear skin and dangerous curves. Women evolved to go for “providers” -- guys who’ll hang around after sex to feed and care for any little knuckle-draggers that result. Times have changed, sure, but our genes have yet to get the message. That’s why a study by Michael Wiederman of over 1,000 personals ads found that women are 11 times more likely to seek a partner with “resources.” And just a guess, but when your mother was telling you the ways of the world, she probably didn’t say, “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a drunk, unemployed one!”
If beauty sells, what’s wrong with buying it? Well, awfulplasticsurgery.com is a pretty good argument against it, with all its pictures of bad boob jobs and “trout pouts” -- collagenized lips the size of car bumpers that make women look like they’ve been body snatched by giant dead fish. Also, for a lot of men, big fake knockers are more scary than sexy. But, if you’d truly be happier with a different nose, or twin Winnebagos where your breasts used to be, why not? The big lie is looks don’t matter. The truth is, love may be blind, but lust has very good eyesight.
Here you are, a girl whose breasts are, at best, a B-minus. Here’s your boyfriend, who’s into women walking around with basketballs on their chests. Just a thought, but if this is a priority, not just a preference, maybe he should be with…a woman walking around with basketballs on her chest? There are guys out there who go for more “athletic” bodies -- guys who’d be all over those bee stings of yours. You won’t need breast augmentation to be with them. You will, however, have to remove that big, ugly growth that’s dragging you down; you know, the boyfriend you suspect lives to hear the announcement, “In case of a water landing, the girlfriend of the man in seat 5D may be used as a flotation device.”
July 12, 2006For a year, I’ve been in a serious relationship with a woman whose “best friend” is a guy she dated a while back. They e-mail each other about their daily doings -- signing “love” with an emoticon kiss (:-*) -- talk on the phone twice a week, and send birthday cards with words like “You Sweetie!” I don’t understand the purpose of such talk between non-dating men and women. She calls it “normal communication between friends.” My approach is adapt or adopt. I’m trying to adapt to the guy having such a presence in her life, but if we marry, I can’t have him sending her cards and e-mails with love and kisses. Adopting means doing what she’s doing -- writing to single women I know in love talk. I can’t do that -- it’s not my way.
--Plagued By Her xox-Boyfriend
Internet cute-icisms like emoticons are a problem. In case Ted Kaczynski or any other computer-opposed types are reading this, emoticons are punctuation marks combined to make gaggingly cute little sideways faces (:-o) intended to convey emotion in chat rooms, instant messages, and e-mail. The way I see it, they’re acceptable when used by anybody under 12, and excusable when used by 35-year-olds who have yet to master written English.
Emoticon users are also prone to use the likes of “LOL” (Laughing Out Loud), and “ROFL” (Rolling On Floor Laughing); acronyms sometimes included in e-mail to indicate that something the person’s written should have us wetting ourselves laughing. Guess what: If it's funny, we'll laugh. If it's not, and you use that acronym, it may leave us “WTTYS”: Wanting To Throttle You Senseless.
But, enough about my menagerie of pet peeves, let’s get to why you’re being so nutso unreasonable. Here’s a girl who’s pretty much typing out her daily to-do list, junking it up with punctuation-mark faces, and e-mailing it to some guy she was done with long ago. You don’t mention feeling attention-deprived, and it doesn’t sound like there’s more than questionable taste being exchanged. Can’t you just let her play nicely with her little friend since it doesn’t seem like she has any intention of playing doctor?
So, her style isn’t your style. What’s important is whether you match up on the stuff that matters most to you. Of course, if this matters most to you, you’re with the wrong girl. Sure, it’s a bit unsettling to have a girlfriend with an ex-boyfriend best friend. But, come on, are you seriously threatened by this guy’s presence, or more by your apparent inability to dictate to your future Stepford wife what she can and cannot do?
The real danger to your relationship is probably your “I’ll show her!” model of conflict resolution: “My name is Conan. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Satisfying as it might be to get revenge by writing loveyisms to single women, if you’d like to learn about the civility, deep friendship, and compromise necessary to make a relationship work, you might watch a little less old Arnold and a little more recent Oprah.
There’s a good chance these punctuation skin tags aren’t so much your girlfriend’s way of conveying she has feelings for the guy as they are a way of glossing over the fact she doesn’t. Stop stewing over “adapt or adopt,” and consider the possibility that she signs off with all that goop because she’s always signed off with all that goop. Maybe, to her, it seems cruel to suddenly yank the kissyface and replace it with (:-|) or with what you’d probably prefer t(-_-t) -- the emoticon (read upright) for flipping somebody the double bird.
July 6, 2006For about six weeks, I’ve been seeing a guy who’s here on a temporary work contract. We get along well, and I like him -- despite his right-wing political views, his messy place, and his college kid diet. However, last night he told me I’ve grown on him and he’s fond of me. Fond of me? Who says that? He’ll soon be moving across the country to his next three-month gig and wants me to come see him. Should I take the position that I’ll come when he sends me a plane ticket? I’m just trying to keep from investing myself in somebody who doesn’t value me. Am I expecting too much from a six-week relationship?
--Disappointed
Ovaries suddenly shouting “last call”? Biological clock not just ticking but wired to plastic explosive?
This is the real world, not a $3 paperback. Sure, if you were the girl in the corset who gets bent backward by the guy in the pirate suit, he’d already be carrying you over the threshold of your two-drawbridge starter castle. But, here you are feeling romantically ripped off because a guy who’s known you for six weeks announced he’s fond of you and you’ve grown on him -- and he probably doesn’t mean like back hair or a precancerous lesion.
Maybe fonder feelings will come, or maybe this will turn out to be a “time and place” thing -- like an airplane flight where you and your seatmate have some magical connection for five hours and 22 minutes, then collect your luggage, walk out of the airport, and never see each other again. Of course, even if this guy does feel more than “fond,” he might be wary of saying so, since many women see any declaration of feelings as a sort of promissory note, auto-translating a guy’s “I love you” into “You owe me.” (Not to worry, Dude, a bunch of carats will do.)
It also pays to remember that men aren’t exactly the gushy sex. Compared to women, their brain structure and hormonal makeup leave them less able to store and process emotion. They typically aren’t so hot at talking about it, either. Perhaps this is understandable, considering that brain scans generally reveal women using both halves of their brain while speaking and men only using one half. This doesn’t mean men are dumb. In emotional expressiveness, they’re like my “Historical Dictionary of American Slang,” which stops at the letter “O” because the publisher ran out of money. If I need something from “P” through “Z,” I’ll probably have to go to the library and root it out myself.
If you want more than “fond,” all you can do is wait for the guy to show it to you. That’s how men express their feelings; they don’t sit around chattering about them like schoolgirls. Avoid getting all pissy about plane tickets or coming on like he’s your one final chance not to be a spinster -- even if he is. He did tell you he was there on a temporary work contract, which meant he’d probably be moving on when it ended, not moving into a kneeling position with Barry Manilow in the background. Maybe the question you most need to ask is whether you really want him or you just want him to want you. After all, while he isn’t exactly cribbing sweet nothings from some bodice-ripper, you merely say you “like him” and “get along well” -- as a prelude to a litany of complaints about how he’s a messy, under-expressive right-winger who eats badly.