I've always loved surprising my wife with expensive jewelry and lavish vacations. However, I lost my job, and my new job pays far less. There's barely money for necessities, let alone luxuries. My wife has been very supportive, reassuring me, "I'd love you if you were flat broke," which makes me feel even more of a desire to wow her. But realizing we have no funds for a big trip this year, I suggested a "staycation" (where we'd just stay local and lie around and relax). She agreed to it, but I could tell she was disappointed. I'm worried that the "magic" of our relationship was based in part on the lavish gifts and that we'll lose it now that our resources have dwindled.
--Underfunded
A staycation doesn't have to be a bummer -- provided you don't make it sound like it'll entail your wife's climbing a mountain of dirty laundry while you go sightseeing in the basement.
Sure, it's better when living hand to mouth means being fed chocolate-dipped strawberries at a spa in Gstaad. But it wasn't just the lavishness of your gifts that made your wife happy. The money you were able to spend camouflaged what you were really doing to delight her, which was employing the element of surprise.
Over time, relationships, like powdered substances available on dodgy street corners, stop providing the buzz they did at first. Neuroscientist Wolfram Schultz found that unpredictable rewards are the most exciting kind for the brain -- maybe even three or four times as exciting as expected ones. And research by Sonja Lyubomirsky, who studies happiness, finds that one of the most effective ways to keep a relationship buzzy is by injecting surprise -- the novel, the unexpected. (Unexpected good things, that is, not having your partner come home to find you in bed with the cleaning lady.)
People think they have to go big on surprise, and this keeps them from doing much that's surprising. But it's the surprise itself that counts, not whether you rented elephants. Recently, I was having a particularly craptastic day -- until my boyfriend, who was away on business, told me to look above the molding over my kitchen doorway. Most awesomely, he'd hidden a little bar of my favorite French chocolate there before he left. In other words, don't worry; there should be "magic" aplenty if you just shift your surprise pipeline from, say, Tiffany the store on Fifth Avenue to Tiffany the postal worker who delivers your mail -- including a handwritten love letter you've mailed your wife.
Likewise, in staycationing, you just need to go places and do things that are exciting and new. This takes only imagination, the events calendar from the paper, and what you've already shown you have: love for your wife and a desire to make her happy. While you're out there watching the sunset instead of your bank balance, consider that there is an upside to your downturn: finding out that your wife didn't just love you for your money. Of course, there's no telling whether she's just been using you for sex.
My boyfriend of two months doesn't seem insecure. But last week, after we left a party, he said it was humiliating that I was flirting with this good-looking guy in front of all of his friends. That guy is a professional photographer, and I was just asking for some tips. I'm annoyed because I don't think I did anything wrong.
--Social Butterfly
If you go to a party with your new boyfriend and spend a half-hour mesmerized by another guy, it helps if the guy's wearing a feather boa and size 15 women's shoes. Assuming your boyfriend isn't insecure and you aren't covertly on the prowl, it's the optics that are the problem. A guy's buddies are both supportive and competitive -- sometimes looking out for him and sometimes looking for his Achilles' heel so they can poke it with a sharp stick. So, what to you is a totally platonic conversation, to the guys standing across the room with your boyfriend, comes off like you're sitting in some dude's lap and licking his earlobe. The good news is the optics can also be the solution. Engaging in sporadic touchyfeely with your boyfriend -- hugging him, kissing or stroking his cheek -- can be a sort of ad for "I'm with him, and I plan to continue that." It's bad to let a boyfriend curtail who you are, but it helps to be sensitive to how even innocent extraversion can come off to an audience, especially in the early stages of a relationship. No guy wants to bring around his hot new car and then watch as some other guy gets his fingerprints all over the hood.
I'm 22 and deeply in love with the wrong person -- my uncle-in-law (my mom's sister's husband). We started confiding in each other, one thing led to another, and we've been sleeping together for over a year. I'm so drawn to him. He's magnetic, charming, a great person, and a devoted dad. I know I need to end this, and before my family discovers it, but my lust for him seems insatiable.
--Drowning
It's sometimes good to confide things of a personal nature to one's uncle -- like that your mother always loved your brother more, not that you aren't wearing any panties.
Don't kid yourself that you're into the guy for all of his great qualities, like what a "devoted dad" he is -- a term not typically used to describe a dad devoted to sneaking out to meet his niece for sex. Your "insatiability" is textbook behavioral conditioning. Lab rats that only sporadically get a pellet when they push the little bar become obsessed with pushing it. Rats that get a pellet every time will stop pushing when they're no longer hungry and go about their ratty business. Likewise, if this guy were totally available -- if you could get sex pellets on demand -- you'd stop seeing him through a junkie's glazed eyes and notice who he actually is: a guy who doesn't care enough about devastating his wife and kids to keep his willy in its cage.
You aren't going to stop lusting after Uncle Romeo; what you can stop is the behavior that follows: running off to have a sex date with him. Tell him it's over, and then come up with replacement behavior -- maybe doing an hour of killer cardio -- to plug in whenever the uncle lust bubbles up. To help maintain your resolve, especially at first, consider the kind of woman you want to be. Do the sorts of things this woman would do and avoid doing the sorts of things (and people) she wouldn't. For example, it might be nice to find a guy who loves being around your family, but not because he's already married to somebody in it. And finally, when you're thinking of activities more in keeping with the new you, consider the obvious -- that if you're meeting your sex partners at family gatherings, you really need to get out more.
After three years of dating, I'm ready to propose to my girlfriend. She's in college across the country now, so I'm waiting until late February when she'll be home to visit. My plan is to take her on our favorite hike and ask her there. The thing is, we've been arguing about when (and if) I'm going to propose. It's starting to get awkward and maybe even hurting our relationship, but I'd hate to ruin the surprise by telling her I'll be proposing in a few months and not to worry. Any ideas on how I can keep the peace while keeping my secret?
--The Gloom
At a certain point, a woman starts to believe the only way she'll get rice thrown at her is to start a food fight at a Chinese restaurant.
Of course you want to propose just right, out in nature, complete with small woodland animals holding the "Will you marry me?" sign and breaking out in song. The reality is, you'll probably do okay with just about any proposal that includes a diamond ring and the words, "Will you marry me?" (Ever hear of a woman complaining, "Yeah, all he did is get down on one knee, pull out the little velvet box and tell me he wanted us to spend the rest of our lives together"?) So maybe what's better than the perfect proposal is the perfect-enough proposal -- the one that comes before your girlfriend builds up so much resentment that she changes her voicemail message to "Sorry, can't come to the phone right now. I'm having revenge sex with the guy in the next dorm room."
You're smart to want to take advantage of the romantic power of surprise, but you can do that on any old Wednesday. My suggestion is that you get on the phone with her one morning (extremely soon) and make like your boss has interrupted your call. Tell her you'll talk to her later, and do that -- at her door on one knee. The unexpectedness and the extravagance of your flying there will give her a romantic story to tell in class the next day, and doing it sooner rather than later will allow her to spend the next few months engaged instead of enraged. (Not to worry -- you'll have a lifetime of opportunities to make her so pissed off that she refuses to have sex with you ever again.)
For two months, I've been dating an awesome guy. He does sweet things like leaving cute notes on my windshield, but I worry about how he looks up to his older brother, who isn't the greatest person. What's most worrisome is how his brother treats women like garbage, saying anything to get them into bed and then ditching them or cheating. I haven't known my apparently awesome boyfriend long, so part of me worries about whether any part of his brother has rubbed off on him or will. How much of a "family resemblance" is there between brothers?
--Having Cautious Fun
Younger brothers do tend to look up to older brothers, and frankly, this is hard to avoid if one's older brother is always dangling out some married woman's second-floor window.
But behavioral science research finds that personality isn't transferred from one person to another like cat hair from a couch to black pants. "Personality similarity between relatives seems to come mostly from their shared genes," writes behavioral geneticist and twins researcher Nancy Segal in "Born Together--Reared Apart." About your boyfriend and his brother, Segal told me, "If they were identical twins, I would worry!" Identical twins share 100 percent of their genes, she explained. But "siblings share 50 percent of their genes, on average" and "can be very different."
And even with those genes they share, biology isn't destiny. The same gene that vaults into action in one brother (sending chemical signals to the brain that influence personality) might spend a lifetime napping in the other. Gene expression -- whether certain genes get switched on -- is triggered by environment (which includes diet, chemical exposure, and a person's experiences). And although these brothers grew up in the same family, the same environment's effect on different siblings can be different because they experience it at different ages, with a different combination of genes, and with different peer and other influences. So, for example, four brothers can have the same physically abusive grifter father but only one of them -- executed murderer Gary Gilmore -- ends up a cold-blooded killer. And then there's Bill Clinton and his half brother Roger -- one of whom was the leader of the free world and the other, a leader in finding the free beer.
Chances are your boyfriend looks up to his brother for historical reasons -- for building him forts out of couch cushions and making some bully wear girls underwear on his head -- and he doesn't want to mess up his misty view with new information, like how his brother collects girls' tears in little labeled glass vials. You, however, are on the right track -- "having cautious fun" instead of deciding your boyfriend's the cheese and closing your eyes to any information contradicting that. But while your boyfriend's brother is a user of people, which points to a lack of empathy, your boyfriend's behavior (just per the notes he leaves on your car) suggests he takes pleasure in delighting you, which suggests he truly cares about you. If only his brother would show similar thoughtfulness and start leaving his own cute notes on girls' cars -- perhaps something along the lines of "Roses are red, violets are blue; I just got a shot at the free clinic, and so should you."
My wife and I divorced just over a year ago, and I asked my friends to stop being friends with her, which I thought they had. I just learned that a friend is starting a new job -- for which my ex-wife recommended him (knowing he was looking because they remained "friends" on LinkedIn). I'm glad he got a new gig, but I'm angry people are still in touch with her, since the marriage ending was pretty much her fault.
--Hurt
Good morning, General Pinochet. You apparently forgot to put the word out to local birds to boycott your ex-wife's bird feeder and order squirrels in the park not to take nuts from her. You don't get to tell grown adults who they can and can't be friends with. Instead, you trust your friends to behave like friends. It's a bit much, however, to expect everybody to stop being "friends" with your ex-wife -- to remember they once connected on LinkedIn and go click the button for "Off With Her Head." And frankly, in this economy, I wouldn't hold it against somebody even if they got their job through a LinkedIn connection to Charles Manson. The ironic thing is, you're the one who really needs to disconnect -- to finally decide to move on instead of remaining married to your resentment long after divorcing your wife. Try to remember, time flies "when you're having fun," not "when you're resenting your dog for not doing the noble thing when he's at her place and going on a hunger strike."
A woman wrote you about flirting relentlessly with a male classmate who seemed interested in her but may have been too timid to ask her out. You asked her, "If a man can't endure a possible 10 seconds of rejection, is he the man you want with you when danger rears its head?" Absent a link between shyness and an inability to defend a woman in danger, I think you're being unfair to shy guys.
--Irked
If timidity were useful in defending people in danger, police sergeants would announce to their beat cops, "Okay, everybody, go out there and hide in the back seat of your patrol car!"
You're right that physical courage -- willingness to risk physical pain -- is different from emotional courage: willingness to risk rejection or other social pain. But they're more related than you think. Brain imaging research by UCLA's Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman finds that the same regions of the brain that are activated by physical pain are activated by social pain, and Eisenberger reports that "individuals who are more sensitive to one kind of pain are also more sensitive to the other." Further pointing to a connection, what's good for a sprained ankle seems good for a sprained ego. In research Eisenberger collaborated on, 500 milligrams of acetaminophen (think Tylenol) taken twice daily was actually found to diminish emotional pain. So, no, it isn't a stretch to suspect that a guy who shrinks from social ouchies might respond to physical danger as if his spirit animal were the breadcrumb.
There's this notion that the shy guy approaches "the chase" like it's the "lie there like cold salmon," simply because he isn't a people person. That actually describes an introvert -- somebody energized by being alone and easily overstimulated in a crowd but who isn't necessarily afraid to hit on a girl he's interested in. But a shy person, instead of having self-esteem, has "what other people think of me"-esteem. This means a woman's rejection isn't just a bummer; it's a crushing confirmation of his worthlessness as anything more than a container of salable plasma.
When a guy's male role model appears to be grape jelly, it isn't a woman's cue to do all the work to make a relationship happen. This is dating, not a pet adoption. Besides, you get what you settle for. A guy desperate for approval is a guy a woman can never count on -- to show her who he really is, to stand up for what he believes in, or, maybe, to even know what he believes (without sticking a wet finger in the air).
A guy like this isn't someone a woman can respect and admire. That's essential, because real love involves having a crush on a person as a human being, not taking pity on him for his shortcomings. The shy guy to have is the one who's worked on himself and come out the other side -- who maybe still fears asking a woman out but manages to do it anyway. This tells her something about her -- that he wants her more than he wants to avoid rejection -- and something about him: that he has the qualities women look for in a man -- courage and character and not just the really basic stuff like a Y chromosome and an ability for point-and-shoot urination.
I went on a first date to a Japanese restaurant. My date kept licking his fingers clean. All his fingers. One by one. He's otherwise a truly great guy, but I don't know whether I can date someone with such weird table manners.
--Shocked
Coyotes lick their paws for good reason -- because there's no waiter to bring them a warm washcloth in a little dish. When an adult human does this on the first date -- the date we all know is scored by a team of invisible judges in the mind of the person we're with -- you really have to wonder. As for whether this guy's dining behavior will be a deal breaker, when you don't have an answer, the best answer is usually waiting and collecting information until you do. So go on a few more dates. See whether he sticks his snout in the gravy boat. How you ultimately respond will probably depend on both the strength of your gag reflex and how old you are. Women in their early 20s will ditch a guy if his cowlick grows in the wrong direction. Women in their 50s and beyond understand that "truly great guys" are in short supply, and they come to appreciate the little things in a man, such as a pulse, bladder control, and the ability to remain awake throughout sex.
January 1, 2014My boyfriend of two years has always disparaged gentlemen's clubs. I truly believed him until he visited his family and I searched Google Maps on his computer for something in his hometown. The text box predicted "strip clubs" there. I confronted him, and looking to prove me wrong, he showed me his "places" history. Various searches for strip clubs showed up. (I don't think he understood that Google keeps track of that stuff.) He claimed he didn't do these searches and suggested that his brother or someone who borrowed his computer did. We have sex regularly, and he is loving and treats me very well, so I put aside his lying and gave him another chance. I should say that I understand men's interest in these clubs; I just don't feel it's right for guys in relationships to go because of the possibility of cheating happening. Disturbingly, I just found some Hooters coupons with his stuff. I think that the fact that he may go to these places doesn't bother me as much as the fact that he's lying about it.
--Worried
A woman wants to believe a man when he claims he hates those nasty "gentlemen's clubs." Yeah, the last thing any man wants to see is a totally hot 21-year-old with enormous breasts doing upside-down splits on a pole.
There's that line from politics: "It isn't the crime; it's the cover-up." Not only did your boyfriend pre-lie, laying out the above bed of lies like lettuce on a cottage cheese plate, but he followed up with the obvious honker that it had to be somebody else searching for nudie bars on his computer. Yes, it was probably Granny, who, like many women her age, loves to go to strip clubs and make it rain Social Security checks.
As for why he lied, consider that there's a notion that men are pigs -- simply for being men. Men evolved to be highly visual and variety-driven in their sexual desire, while women evolved to be more emotion- and commitment-driven. Male sexuality isn't wrong; it's just different. But men are so used to being under attack for what turns them on that many default to denying it. They keep mum to avoid conflict in their relationships, in part because they think they could never explain male desire in a way that wouldn't make a woman's head fly off and chase them around the room.
The truth is, we all lie, all day long, and often think nothing of it. If you cram your muffin-top into Spanx or put goop on your eyebags, you're lying about what you really look like. And frankly, if people could read our thoughts, most of us wouldn't make it to lunchtime without a co-worker's bludgeoning us with a stapler. But because we alone know what we're thinking, a person can say sweet, relationship-enhancing things to his partner -- "You're the only woman for me!" -- while entertaining less palatable fantasies: "If only I could have you, your sister, the Swedish women's bobsled team, and that girl from The Weather Channel in a swimming pool of butterscotch pudding!"
Still, fantasizing and cheating are two different things. Sure, some guys who go to strip clubs are looking to get some on the side, but a guy can do that at the office or the corner bar without breaking out a wad of Benjamins. And Hooters? Naughty in concept, but in reality, a place to eat heavily battered chicken strips while having platonic conversations with a married waitress in gym clothes and 1980s pantyhose. As for those coupons your boyfriend had, nothing helps a guy seduce a waitress like whipping out a voucher for 10 percent off. ("Hey, big spender!")
Another woman may turn your man's head (or make it swivel like a turbo lazy Susan), but that doesn't mean she turns his ethics, too. If you have reason to believe your boyfriend is a good guy, driven by ethical standards instead of what he can get away with, chances are he's just looking at strippers from time to time instead of looking to get some strange. Relationships are built on trust, but they're also built on white lies about who we really are and having the wisdom to look the other way at stuff that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. You and your boyfriend have heat in the bedroom, and he is loving and treats you well. Sounds like he's happy. That's probably the single best motivator for a guy to make visiting strip clubs nothing more than an occasional form of sightseeing -- as much a threat to your relationship as a visit to the Grand Tetons (on one of those days they're decked out in flaming nipple tassels and 5-inch Lucite heels).