I’d like to be in a relationship again, but I never even get asked out (unless you count frisky 85-year-olds and drunks at the corner bar). I’m a 32-year-old woman who’s happy, sociable, and attractive. (I paid for college by modeling and continue to take care of myself.) I’m second-in-command at a big company, financially secure, and own a beautiful home. I know you're going to tell me to look beyond my "checklist,” but since I have high standards for myself, shouldn’t a guy I’m with have something going for him, too? How can I meet men in general, and more specifically, men I'd actually want to date?
--Deluxe Chopped Liver
To scare away vampires, it takes garlic and crosses, which make ugly bulges in sleek, satin evening bags. Luckily, all you have to do to scare away men is pull out a business card that says “senior vice-president.”
“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” said Henry Kissinger. Sure it is -- unless you’re a woman, in which case, it’s about as man-magnetizing as mentioning “Well, yes, each of my late husbands did die under mysterious circumstances, but, heh, heh, the D.A. was never able to pin anything on me.” Research by Stephanie L. Brown and Brian P. Lewis, published in Evolution and Human Behavior (Nov. ‘04), seems to confirm what many lonely women at the top already know: When guys go for the woman in the boardroom, it isn’t the woman running the meeting but the secretary who wheeled in the coffee and croissants before it started.
Sure, plenty of men will scamper up the corporate ladder for a one-night stand. But, according to Brown and Lewis’ study, men looking for dates or relationships tend to prefer their subordinates to their colleagues or bosses. The researchers hypothesize that men evolved to want women they can control as a means of guarding against “parental uncertainty” -- unwittingly raising kids fathered by the Neanderthal next door as their own. Brown and Lewis think this may also explain why men are suckers for “behavioral expressions of vulnerability” -- women who act like they might not be able to make it across the street without male intervention.
Men’s magazines never have screaming cover lines like “How to Meet Really Average-Looking Women!” and “Top 10 Ways to Bag a 5.5!” But, for most men, beautiful women, like powerful women, are too much work. Too hard to approach, to talk to, and especially, to hang onto: “She’ll get to my place early…one look at the guy with the abs next door, and that’ll be that!” You’ve probably met men who think like this. Well, not met them, exactly. Just had them yell at you on their way out of the bar: “Find some other poor schlub to lick your boots, Beyoncé!”
Time to quit your job and catch up on your ugly sleep? No, time to locate a guy who’s comfortable enough with who he is and what he does to be comfortable dating you, then drop your CrackBerry and the steely corporate warrior act and flirt like a drunk receptionist. A guy who’s your equal will be accomplished, and a guy who’s accomplished will probably have money, and if you’re like a lot of women, you’ll end up resenting a guy who doesn’t. Sure, there might be a master carpenter or two out there who’s man enough to be with you. But, chances are, you’ll find more boyfriend candidates while big-game hunting (in the jungle or the black-tie benefit jungle) than by continuing your efforts to dig small potatoes out of the corner bar.
October 20, 2005My boyfriend of two years recently confessed (after a few drinks) that he fantasizes about other women during sex -- not just imaginary women, but his exes and my girlfriends. I’m especially shocked because I often initiate sex, and try hard to satisfy him. Thanks to his revelation, I’m feeling insecure, not very interested in sex with him, and incredibly uncomfortable around friends he's fantasized about. Is his behavior normal?
--Feeling Cheated On
This sounds like a case of premature organ donation. There are all these stories, supposedly mythic, of people waking up in Vegas, in a bathtub of ice, missing a kidney. Then, there’s your boyfriend, found floating in a bottle of Jim Beam, apparently missing his brain.
Now, there could be some alternate universe out there where it’s a wise idea to let a woman know, “You may as well have a bag over your head during sex because I’m thinking of Eva Longoria.” In our universe, merely having a thought is not considered reason enough to release it into the atmosphere. Just ask all the other men (and women) who recast the lead when they’re in bed, yet manage to avoid alerting the editorial staff of Entertainment Tonight.
It isn’t every man who makes his head home to a harem. No, only 98 percent of men -- according to Thomas V. Hicks and Harold Leitenberg (Journal of Sex Research, Feb. ‘01), who asked heterosexuals in relationships if, over a two-month period, they’d fantasized about anybody but their current squeeze. This leaves a whole 2 percent of men -- woohoo! -- whose trips to fantasyland don’t involve leasing a bus for their woman’s friends and family.
Eighty percent of wives and girlfriends surveyed did admit to restaffing their sexual fantasies. Still, if the mind had fire laws, most of those violating them would be men. Not only are men 11 times more likely to psychically call in a sub, in another study, Bruce J. Ellis and Donald Symons found that men often ditch one imaginary alternate for another mid-fantasy. It doesn’t matter how hot a man’s old lady is, how much he loves her, or how hard she works to satisfy him. Male sexuality is all about variety. Men are hard-wired to want you, the entire girls’ dorm next door, and the entire girls’ dorm next to that.
So, what’s preventing them from going door-to-door trolling for sex? For starters, the average guy’s chances of finding any takers are right up there with his chances of bending spoons with his thoughts. Still, some contend it’s wrong to even have “lust in your heart.” Well, duh! All you should find there is a bunch of blood and maybe a few clogged arteries. People’s brains, on the other hand, are biologically programmed to scan the horizon for hotties, then notify their libido whenever one crosses their path: “Imagine bending THAT over the cash register!”
Nobody wants to admit sex can get a little ho-hum at the two-year mark. But, when it does, nobody should admit they’re hotting it up by bringing their girlfriend’s address book to bed. If your boyfriend doesn’t have lime Jell-O for brains, and isn’t just plain mean, maybe he was hoping the truth would set him free -- setting you up to do the emotional heavy lifting of breaking it off. Considering how difficult it must be to elbow through the crowd in your head to have sex with him, let alone have lunch with your best friend, maybe you need to give him the heave. In time, he should find himself much more focused on you during sex -- just as soon as he starts having it with his next girlfriend.
October 19, 2005Last year, when my boyfriend and I started dating, we had sex every other day. Recently, we became more committed and moved in together. I was sure this would lead to more frequent sex, but it's just the opposite. Now, if we have it once a week, I'm overjoyed. Beyond that, we never spend much quality time together. When he gets home, he occasionally wants to chill with me, but he usually plops on the couch, gets on the Internet, or plays video games. Whenever I ask him if he's even attracted to me, or if I need to do more to turn him on, he gets defensive. How can we be relatively young (30 and 31) and have such a stagnant sex life?
--Fizzling Hot
I wrote the chapter "How To Be A Good Houseguest" for The Experts' Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do. At 611 words, it was 609 words too long. The best way to be a good houseguest? Two words: Stay home.
People who seek to share living quarters, even as guests, are people with illusions about people. I have none. My chapter opens with a helpful stomp on everybody's rose-colored glasses: "People are annoying. All people. Including you, me, Jennifer Aniston, and people living in dishwasher cartons on the street corner. Like the rest of us, you're loud, messy, demanding, and unsightly, with numerous irritating habits -- which degenerate from irritating to excruciating the longer you're around." On the bright side, "by acknowledging the ugly realities of human nature, you might not only retain your hosts as friends but find yourself invited back."
Where people in relationships go wrong is by assuming "fish and guests stink after three days" doesn't apply to anyone they're sleeping with regularly. Not only do you think you're exempt from this rule, you think moving in with somebody you love is the key to nonstop nookie. Why? Because he's always there? Denny's is always open, but you probably don't find yourself flailing around in bed in the middle of the night aching for a Grand Slam.
Desire runs on the economics of scarcity. That's why diamonds, not speckled gray pebbles, "are forever," and why special occasions are celebrated with champagne and caviar, not tap water and a scoop of tuna. You want what's rare, or seems rare, not what's there 24/7 gassing up your couch.
Biology is not on our side. In fact, recent research suggests people in relationships are chemically predisposed to come to find each other about as sexually compelling as yesterday's Cream of Wheat. Another one of nature's charming practical jokes? Actually, anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of Why We Love, surmises sexual ennui was evolution's way of getting lovers to stop bouncing naked off the cave walls and raise their kids.
While, to the average person, a relationship seems to be one big crock pot of lust, attraction, and commitment, Fisher and other researchers see three distinct stages, each biochemically different. Lust, fueled by testosterone, gets you out in a short skirt looking for prey. In the attraction stage, you're drunk on a cocktail of dopamine and other excitors (the "love high"), still lusty, but laser-focused on one particular object of desire. Finally, there's the attachment stage, when the bonding chemicals vasopressin (in men) and oxytocin (in men and women) take over -- and getting off on each other tends to give way to nodding off on each other.
Sound familiar? Don't despair. Who says Mother Nature isn't ripe for a con? Helen Fisher suspects you can fool your biochemistry into believing you're still back in the chase phase. "Novel experiences drive up levels of dopamine in the brain," writes Fisher. This "can stimulate the release of testosterone, the hormone of sexual desire."
In other words, there's no security in security. Imagine, on the first date, if a guy ignored you to play Grand Theft Auto. Why is it any less a problem at the one-year mark? Clearly, you need to break up a little to have any hope of staying together. Move out and make like you're dating. Remember dates? They're special events where two people get all excited to see each other, put a lot of effort into looking and smelling seduction-friendly, pay close attention to each other, then, jump on each other instead of the Internet.
Fisher also cites experiments that suggest bringing an element of danger into a relationship can elevate a couple's dopamine. Perhaps you could relocate your boyfriend's lost libido while jumping out of an airplane or taunting mother bears. Or, if you aren't exactly a great outdoors type, just continue badgering him about whether he's attracted to you. Then again, while that might tempt him to throw himself off the nearest terrace, it probably isn't the kind of near-death experience Fisher had in mind. October 18, 2005
I'm a 23-year-old woman, working as a photographer's assistant while putting together my own portfolio. Last year, I met this amazing guy from London at a photo workshop. We talk on the phone daily, and he's visited me several times. Last night, he asked me to move to London and live with him. Although I've always dreamed of living there, I'm worried about giving up the ease and familiarity of my life, and wondering whether a relationship that's wonderful long distance will last in close quarters. And then, there's the bottom line: While I can work there (my father's British), the feminist in me says I shouldn't just pick up and move to be with a man.
--Seriously Tempted Sick
What, exactly, does the feminist in you think will happen if you go through with this? Let's see...you're getting off the plane in London, half excited/half scared to start your new life. There, in the waiting area, shoving past limo drivers and elbowing your boyfriend out of the way, are the anti Ab Fab: a scowling Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, shaking "Traitor To The Cause" signs at you, and shouting, "Two, Four, Six, Eight, Whose Struggle Don't You Appreciate?!"
Just think of all the sacrifices they and countless others made, so you could, what...feel compelled to stay put instead of seizing the opportunity to live and work in an international city, and maybe have a little love in your life? Too bad you aren't a man. Nobody accuses a man of selling out if he crosses continents for love. Sure, the guys at the sports bar might be a little ticked at losing a drinking buddy, but they generally just ask if the girl has a nice rack and move on to the scores.
Yes, leave it to the women's movement to turn itself into something that keeps women from moving. It was supposed to be about sensible stuff like equal pay for equal work -- fantastic idea -- and giving everybody the vote. Then, a bunch of rad-fem loonies like Sheila Jeffreys (England's Andrea Dworkin) jumped into the fray: "When a woman reaches orgasm with a man, she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression."
In other words, maybe the ism you need most right now is not feminism, but what-works-for-me-ism -- which appears to be moving to London and seeing more of this man. Maybe, like rock and roll photographer Sue Rynski, from Detroit but living in Paris for 19 years, you'll want to make London home. Maybe not. But, maybe you shouldn't wait until you're 45 and have five kids, three dogs, and a knocked-up hamster to figure that out.
Go. You can always come back. But keep in mind, the wisest relationship decisions are not based on a desire for cheap rent. Save money before you leave, stay with him just long enough to find your own place, and the two of you can just date -- which should prove much less romantically stressful than vaulting straight from time-zone-crossed lovers into Mr. Bloke and The Missus.
Sure, you're taking a chance in going -- just as you would be in staying home. After all, a replay of The Vagina Monologues could pop up on HBO at any moment, perhaps causing you to die of embarrassment at what a cartoon certain factions of feminism have become. Of course, maybe the mark of real progress is real women feeling perfectly comfortable living however and wherever they're happiest -- not a bunch of movie stars showing how comfortable they are getting up on stage and shrieking about their genitalia. My boyfriend, 26, and I live together. He makes me feel special, and I enjoy every moment with him. He does have some outstanding baggage, including a shoplifting misdemeanor he jumped bond on, which will take $2,500 in attorney fees to resolve. Although he has a finance degree, he can't get hired anywhere there's a background check. Today, he got fired from his waiter job, and I got frustrated. I'm in school full time, working part time. I'm happy to help pay the attorney (we've scraped together $600 so far), but this shouldn't become my responsibility. When I told him this, he researched suicide methods on the Internet, saying his death would be painful for me at first but best in the long run. Now, I'm afraid to ask anything of him. What if he's serious?
--Worried Sick
Imagine if everybody followed your boyfriend's lead. At the end of a meal, the waitress would ask, "Will that be cash, charge, or emotional blackmail?" Who's going to put needless wear and tear on their Visa when they can simply threaten to drown themselves in their cappuccino or slit their wrists with the butter knife?
A friend's ex-wife used to threaten suicide all the time: "I'm taking the pills, and I'll be dead before you get home!" My friend, noting the lady exhibited a remarkable will to live as long as she was getting her way, would reply, "Does that mean you don't want me to pick you up that huge Hershey bar? How about I just cram it between your big purple lips?"
Yes, sometimes, what seems to be a cry for help is really just a bluff to manipulate. Whatever this guy's doing, it appears to be working, since you're now "afraid to ask anything of him." Well, not ANYTHING. Just questions that might cause his allergy to personal responsibility to flare up. Exceptions include: "Would you like me to make you a big, juicy steak?" and "How about I work day and night to pay the attorney so you can lie on the couch and watch the fights on pay-per-view?"
Take no chances. While it might seem that a guy who's sincere about offing himself wouldn't be sending out notices -- "You're cordially invited to celebrate the end of Mr. and Mrs. Smith's son, Shecky..." -- research shows that most suicidal people do warn of their plans. So...is he or isn't he? Well, how would you know? You're merely an overworked student. This is a job for psychiatric professionals and the parents who raised him to be the man he isn't today. Inform his parents by confidential telephone call that they need to come pick up their kid before he hurts himself. Don't take no for an answer, and don't leave his side until they do. After all, it would be terrible to make a mistake; for example, failing to seize this golden opportunity to evict him from your life -- no matter how much you must "enjoy every moment" you're being held hostage by his threats to leave in an urn.
Use your time alone to reflect on why, given this guy's record -- the one accompanied by a mug shot -- you were at all surprised at how your relationship played out. (There's nothing to rev up a guy's existential angst like being told to get a job so his girlfriend doesn't have to cover his legal fees.) It isn't crass to want a partner who's going places -- and not just to county lockup if the cops get him on a traffic stop. Sure, perhaps expecting to find Prince Charming is unrealistic, but calling off the search to bond with a bail-jumping shoplifter might be a wee bit premature. I'm 24. My on-again/off-again six-year relationship with my ex ended two years ago when he dumped me for cheating on him. Two months later, I met my fiance. Recently, my ex finally became willing to talk on a friendly basis. He didn't seem to know I was engaged, and I thought he deserved more than finding out via phone. We spent five hours together. He was charming, funny, and handsome as ever. He kept trying to hold my hand and kiss me, but I couldn't do that to my fiance. At the end of the evening, I told him I was getting married in a month. He got all cold, left abruptly, and now refuses to speak to me. His text messages are short and rude. He insists he doesn't want to be with me. Should I believe this? I don't want to marry the wrong man! Is he really not interested, or is he just trying not to mess up my wedding plans?
--Down To The Wire
Do these stabbing pangs of conscience you're experiencing compare to any you've suffered in the past; say, during the emotional aftermath of backing over the garden hose with your car?
Ever the humanitarian, you decided against a simple courtesy call to inform your ex that you're about 20 minutes away from becoming some other man's wife. No, this was a job for Miracle Bra! You saddled up the twins, and off you went. For five hours, you and your team led him on, encouraging him to work up nice, big false hopes, then make a boob of himself by making moves on you.
According to you, that's what he "deserved." But, why? Does he use parakeets for target practice? Get his kicks pretending to help little old ladies across the street, then ditching them in the middle of busy intersections? Or...are you just tweaked that he turned your infidelity into an exit strategy -- dumping you and refusing to say a civil word to you for two years straight?
You can't seem to fathom that the guy might have a concern or two that does not revolve around you, yourself, and your needs like paparazzi swarming Cruise and Holmes. Tragically, there's probably more standing between you and a fiance trade-up than a crushing fear on your ex's part that your daddy might forfeit his deposit to the caterer. Perhaps your rendezvous was a little too reminiscent of his previous ride through your meat grinder. Or, perhaps he, at least, recognizes that a marriage is supposed to be a joint venture -- not simply a way of ensuring that there's one permanent staff member present at all times to meet the queen's needs.
The wrong man to marry is any man who'd seriously consider a woman who puts about as much thought into choosing a life partner as she does into picking a bowling date for Saturday night. (There's a bit more to making a marriage work than finding a guy who's charming, funny, and handsome enough to keep you too busy to answer any calls for self-examination or personal growth.) Because you've never had time alone -- you've always just hopped on the first man-bus to come along -- you probably have no idea who you are or what's important to you: key details in determining whether you've met your match or your first ex-husband. At the moment, you have no business making a serious commitment to anyone you don't have to follow down the street with a pooper-scooper. My fiance and I can't seem to agree about our wedding plans. Beyond the fact that we can't afford a big wedding, it's not what I want. I may be the only bride-to-be on the planet who feels this way, but I'd like our wedding to be simple, intimate, and inexpensive. My fiance wants just the opposite, yet offers me no help in making it happen. I've tried reasoning with him, but he's convinced we can have a big event stress-free and at low cost. I'm only two weeks into the planning, and I'm pulling my hair out! I'm tempted to call the whole thing off! What can I do?
--His Debtor Half
Will your marriage be happier if you defoliate the rain forest for your centerpieces, recite your vows under a man-made waterfall of Dom Perignon, and have Elvis brought back from the dead to play your wedding?
You've got a groom-to-be with a rich financial fantasy life: "Why can't we give each guest a Bentley as a party favor?" You, on the other hand, see hard, cold reality -- the hard, cold cement floor of his parents' garage. Stick to his vision and you and he could spend the next 20 years sleeping on it, and sharing candlelit dinners of Hamburger Helper without the hamburger.
What really needs planning is the marriage, not the wedding. Your conflict over throwing the nuptial equivalent of the Super Bowl half-time show is probably just the tip of the ice sculpture. What are his expectations about sex, pets, early retirement, personal hygiene, having children, household chores? (Just a guess on that last one, but he expects the house to be really, really clean, and you get to be Cinderella?) Is one of you a tree-hugger and the other more of a "back to pavement" type? Will he inform you during your final stretch of labor that he wants to raise the kid in the Hare Krishna tradition, and he hopes that's cool with you?
Oops, you've been so busy trying to book the Taj Mahal that you forgot to notice whether you're actually compatible. If figuring that out on your own seems daunting, you might take the RELATE (relate-institute. org) or PREPARE (prepare-enrich.com) compatibility surveys. For help turning your current dictatorship into more of a partnership, invest in one of John Gottman's weekend workshops for couples, (gottman.com). Sure, they'll cost you -- about what you'll pay for two and a half hours with a good divorce lawyer after pawning gold-plated garlic presses to pay for groceries starts getting old.
You probably can't make your fiance stop pining for a three-story wedding cake with a sunken koi pond, but maybe you can eventually come to the agreement that "something borrowed" for your wedding shouldn't be $100,000. One of the happiest couples I know borrowed only a house for their wedding -- for a potluck dinner after they got married on the beach, surrounded by 40 of their closest friends. Their un-extravaganza took three weeks of planning and cost several hundred dollars -- if you add the cost of their clothes, several cases of Prosecco they picked up at a wine warehouse, and "a really nice chocolate cake."
Maybe there's something to be said for the simple wedding you want -- one that's more a reflection of love than liens for years to come. It will free you up to focus on what really matters...which, maybe, just maybe, isn't whether the doves fly around on cue or just hop on the bride and groom statuette and do the number they usually do on your windshield. My boyfriend is a nice guy, but he not only lacks ambition and motivation, he's very critical of mine. We're both in our early thirties, but he has a $10-an-hour, no-advancement job, lives in a crummy apartment, and doesn't even own a car. I have a master's degree and a career I love, plus a car and a higher standard of living. He likes to "splurge" when we go out, but we split the bill, or I pay more. Yes, he earns less, but because I'm struggling with conference fees, car payments, student loans, etc., he actually has more disposable income. I'm sick of him reaping the benefits of my hard work while putting me down for it. (He calls my desire to live in an apartment with central air "materialistic consumerism"!) Still, I wonder if my issues with him reflect a lack of imagination on my part about gender roles and lifestyle choices. I mean, we both don't really NEED a car. What's wrong with me? How can I learn to accept our differences?
--A Relax To Grind
You don't really NEEEEED indoor plumbing. But, maybe you aren't the embodiment of wretched excess if you prefer to brush your teeth from a faucet instead of the hose, or if you pore over chrome bathroom fixtures in Architectural Digest instead of studying the how-to section in Lean-To Today: "Dig Your Own Latrine! Flush toilets are so bourgeois."
You've probably heard that money can't buy happiness. Well, welfare checks can't buy it either. Still, if you're going to be miserable, wouldn't you rather throw yourself down on a Stearns & Foster ultra-plush Euro PillowTop for a good cry about your meaningless life? Let's face it: Money is the root of good dentistry, wine that doesn't unscrew, and vacations that go beyond sitting at a bus stop and imagining palm trees. Having money doesn't make you a bad person, and lacking it doesn't make you a saintly one.
Yet, there's your boyfriend worshipping at the altar of poverty chic: "I spit on your car! And all other capitalistic icons of materialism! What time will you be driving us to dinner?" Here you are, a woman who's going places, paired up with a boyfriend who's not only staying places, but showing a rare flash of ambition in his efforts to drag you down so it won't be so lonely at the bottom.
Laziness is a "lifestyle choice"? What, like golf or living by the sea? Don't hold your breath for photographs of underachievers living in squalor to show up in condo brochures. Oh, and let's not forget that "lack of imagination about gender roles." There's nothing progressive about a man who smiles demurely as a woman runs herself into debt paying the lion's share of the check. What you lack is not imagination but a boyfriend who's more than a sponge with feet.
Stop apologizing for what you want. Tell La-Z-Boy, yeah, I lust for central air, 6,000 thread-count sheets, and spending sprees at Pottery Barn. Then pat him on the head and leave him on the curb for some other misguided girl to pick up. Find a man who cares enough to think twice about "splurging" if it means you'll be scrounging for change to make your car payment. Or, horror of horrors, you might consider dating a man successful enough to treat you to dinner from time to time, and self-confident enough to applaud your accomplishments. Tempted as you may be to walk hand-to-mouth into the sunset with your current boyfriend, it's pretty much impossible to have a fantasy love affair when reality is banging on your door demanding six months' back rent. My boyfriend is educated, responsible, affectionate, and attentive, but he's also incredibly boring. Not only is he shy, socially awkward, and never spontaneous, he isn't passionate about anything. He doesn't even get worked up about computers, which he's supposedly really into. An exciting evening for him is going to the drugstore to buy a can of peanuts on sale. My parents insist I should overlook all this because he's a good person (and better yet, "marriage material"). They say if I dump him, I'll regret it and wind up with some "bad boy." He is a good person, and the sex is great, but I can barely detect a pulse on this man. Am I being too superficial?
--Painting The
Town Beige
Sometimes a near-death experience compels a person to really start living. Unfortunately, there's no telling whether your boyfriend will ever have one. While you might feel tempted to help matters along by, say, pretending to run him down in your car, this may lead to numerous negative consequences -- for example, finding yourself considered "marriage material" by your cellmate in women's prison.
Like a lot of parents, your parents divide their daughter's boyfriends into two categories: potential husbands and guys who spend their spare time knocking over liquor stores and boosting cars. Your boyfriend does have the stability and dependability parents look for when separating the fiances from the felons. Alas, he combines these with all the personality of a bran muffin. Your mom and dad find this a minor tradeoff -- probably because they're concerned for your safety and security -- but maybe because, like many parents, they're secretly terrified that their "kids" will move back in with them at age 45.
"Am I being too superficial?" you squeak, practically apologizing for wanting to have some fun. Priggish types do paint superficiality as an atrocity akin to trapping small woodland animals to make fur vests for your Barbies. Quite frankly, superficiality gets a bum rap -- as if you can't gossip about some movie star's cold sore and still lead a meaningful life. (Take it from me: You can be both deep and deeply superficial.)
Fun is an essential part of life -- although it's frequently compromised by the need to make car payments and keep a roof over your head that doesn't have a "Salvation Army" sign bolted to it. Okay, that stuff is important. But, maybe, just maybe, there should be more to life than mailing the Visa bill on time and remaining ambulatory while your cells divide.
Do you like how a guy smells? Do you have sex dreams about him while pretending to listen to your boss? Does he make you laugh? Does he inspire you? (Inspiring you to ask, "Are you dead, dear, or just practicing?" doesn't cut it.) For a relationship to work you actually have to connect with somebody -- beyond the times you go bump in the night. This requires a guy who has a passion or two besides saving big on a can of Planters. Sure, your current boyfriend can probably be counted on not to leave you, cheat on you, or run up your credit cards. But can he be counted on to keep you awake?
Parents should be more concerned with telling girls they'll always need to support themselves -- which would eliminate the need to shove them into oxygen-sucking relationships in the name of "security." As good as your parents' intentions may be, "'til death do us part" works best when it doesn't play out like an experiment in whether it's possible to literally die of boredom. What is your view of magazines like Penthouse and Playboy? I have maybe 30 of these magazines and a dozen soft-core DVDs. I store them in my closet, but you start to get close to some women, and they feel entitled to go through your things. I don't want to throw everything out or lock it up, but, in many cases, this stuff seems to be a deal breaker. How should I react to women who don't want it in my house at all?
--Rated Ex
On airplanes, they have little light strips along the aisles to help you exit in case of emergency. Install them throughout your house so your snoopy girlfriends will have no trouble finding their way out the door.
Whatever happens, you'll always have Miss February. Sure, people are bound to stare when you're out to dinner with a magazine page Scotch-taped to the chair across from you, but there are a few things you can count on: She'll always be naked; she'll always be smiling; and she'll never crawl off page 89 and start ransacking your sock drawer when you get in the shower.
Your dates would indeed have something to worry about if your house were decorated in "Porn Star Neo-Traditional," with Jenna Jameson wallpaper and matching drapes, and instead of two stone lions guarding your porch, two snarling statues of Briana. Since you have maybe 30 of the tamest skin mags around (quaint pictorials compared to what's free on the Web), plus a few dirty DVDs, it's not like these ladies were in danger of being crushed by an avalanche of porn whenever they opened a cupboard or closet. In the absence of a nasty addiction on your part, the deal breaker should have been the invasion of your privacy -- not what some woman thinks you should do in the privacy of your home. Remember, even the government needs a search warrant to go through your stuff.
What does it say about a man when he enjoys looking at nude photos of really hot women? Umm...he's heterosexual? Male sexuality is all about the visuals. It's always been all about the visuals. This is a Pleistocene-era design element, hardwired into men over 10,000 years ago to keep them from missing mating opportunities -- not something they picked up from watching too much TV.
Women's sexuality is different. Compared with men, women have a very high cost per sex act -- pregnancy -- which is bad enough when you're in a hospital, where you can scream for an epidural. Squatting on the Great Plains, then having to drag around and feed a bunch of furry little buggers had to make a lady choosy about which guy she'd let take her behind the bushes. So, women evolved to look for a man they could count on to stick around and make the mortgage payments. Women, for the most part, don't care about seeing men naked. Quite frankly, we'd rather shop.
Each gender has its sexual Disneyland. While men fantasize about "pornotopia," note researchers Bruce J. Ellis and Donald Symons, where everybody's too busy having no-strings-attached sex to "talk about the relationship," women turn to romance-otopia, the multi-billion-dollar romance novel industry. Women's "commitment porn," with its formulaic happily-ever-after-gasm, "imposes a female-like sexuality on men that is...perhaps no more 'realistic' than that of pornotopia," writes psychology professor Catherine Salmon. "But no one is out there lobbying to ban romance novels because of the harm they do to women's attitudes toward men."
Contrary to the unsupported claims and flawed data of women who've turned victimhood into an industry, most porn doesn't exist to demean or promote violence against women. "If there is one thing all (heterosexual) porn videos have in common, it is the portrayal of women engaged in some form of sexual activity," observes Salmon. She points to the bottomless pit of gay male porn as "the ideal test case" that male appreciation for porn "is about sex, and not about violence or the degradation of women." And no, porn films don't cause rape -- any more than movies like Ocean's Eleven make people want to rush out and rob a casino.
You can find a woman who understands this stuff, but you'll have to broaden your search criteria from "pretty" and "hangs out at the corner bar" to include terms like "thinking," "logical," and "has self-esteem." Be patient in your search -- or be prepared to ladyproof your closet with a combination lock. Once you find a qualified candidate, keep showing and telling her how hot you find her. This should reassure her that your smut stash is merely occasional entertainment -- not a precursor to your running off with the "Girls Of Ace Hardware!" or installing a peep show in your front room and whispering sweet nothings like "Got more quarters?" Five months ago, I slept with a woman I dated for a few weeks. She said she was on the pill, so I didn't use a condom. Last week, out of the blue, she called and told me she's pregnant and is having the baby. When I asked how it could be mine, she said she lied about being on the pill because she's 36 and desperately wanted a child. I suspect she doesn't know who the father is, but hopes I'll be a good guy and "do the right thing." I'm not trying to shirk responsibility (I'm a committed father to a 4-year-old daughter I had with my ex-wife), but I caught this woman in several lies while dating her, so I can't help worrying I'm being played. What should I do?
--Parent Apparent
Surely, you've heard some of the names for a man whose only form of birth control was the word of a woman he barely knew: "Daddy," "Da-da," "My Old Man," and "The Dupe Who's Gonna Pay My Kid's Tuition To Harvard."
The mere prospect of having sex often reduces even a man of genius-level intelligence to one with all the sense of a sand flea. If only men were more frank about this tendency, they might arm themselves with wallet-sized translators like tourists use to keep from accidentally ordering fish nostril sashimi. These, however, would convert sexual fantasy phrases to reflect the likely post-sexual reality: "Hey, baby, wanna get naked and make twins?" Or, "Something tells me you're into the real phreaky stuff, like bankrolling a full set of braces and eight years of birthday clowns."
In no other arena is a swindler rewarded with a court-ordered monthly cash settlement paid to them by the person they bilked. While you don't mention being forced at gunpoint to have sex without a condom, potentially getting socked with two decades of hefty fines for being a careless idiot seems a bit like being sentenced to 100 years hard labor for stealing a muffin. The law is not on men's side. Matt Welch reported in Reason magazine (2/04) that welfare reform legislation forces some men to pay child support for kids who aren't theirs -- sometimes, kids of women they've never even met -- unless they protest, in writing, within 30 days, that they're victims of a daddy-scam.
While the law allows women to turn casual sex into cash flow sex, Penelope Leach, in her book Children First, poses an essential question: "Why is it socially reprehensible for a man to leave a baby fatherless, but courageous, even admirable, for a woman to have a baby whom she knows will be so?" A child shouldn't have to survive on peanut butter sandwiches sans peanut butter because he was conceived by two selfish, irresponsible jerks. Still, there's a lot more to being a father than forking over sperm and child support, yet the law, as written, encourages unscrupulous women to lure sex-dumbed men into checkbook daddyhood.
This isn't 1522. If a woman really doesn't want a kid, she can take advantage of modern advances in birth control like Depo-Provera or the IUD, combine them with backup methods (as recommended by her doctor), add an ovulation detection kit, plus insist that doofuses like you latex up. Since it's the woman who gets a belly full of baby, maybe a woman who has casual sex and is unprepared, emotionally, financially, and logistically, to raise a child on her own, should be prepared to avail herself of the unpleasant alternatives. It's one thing if two partners in a relationship agree to make moppets, but should a guy really get hit up for daddy fees when he's, say, one of two drunk strangers who has sex after meeting in a bar? Yes, he is biologically responsible. But, is it really "in the child's best interest" to be the product of a broken home before there's even a home to break up?
Short of Krazy Gluing your zipper shut, latex condoms are the only protection you have against both HIV and conniving women with baby lust. At this point, your best defense is a non-combative offense. Show her sympathy and concern, but get on the horn with a paternity lawyer about your options, including testing to see whether all the little DNA ladders match up. Assume you are the father until a test tube tells you otherwise. Decide whether you will be an involved father. (It's likely you will be a financially involved father, whether you like it or not.) If you plan to step in and dad, your first step should be picking up a copy of Dr. Constance Ahrons' The Good Divorce, which will provide you with invaluable advice on how to be a cooperative co-parent with a pathological liar/gene burglar. I'm an attractive guy who's always had trouble getting dates because of my height (I'm 5'5"). Over a year ago, I joined an online dating service, but I can't find a woman I'm attracted to who wants a guy under 5'10". Out of 54 profiles, none believed I was tall enough for their consideration. Forget about having a shot -- I'm not even allowed on the playing field. Pardon the pun, but can you imagine how SMALL that makes me feel? Why is a guy's height such an issue with women, and what can I do besides sit around angry and frustrated that I can't get a date?
--Short On Answers
That chip on your shoulder isn't making you any taller.
Your first step toward getting a date is accepting that the 6'1" women of the world probably won't be falling at your feet unless they trip over them while running after some tall guy. Study after study shows that women generally aren't attracted to men shorter than they are. This is probably an evolutionary holdover, since women typically express a need to feel "protected" -- unlikely as it is nowadays that they'll be chased by mastodons around the mall. In my own mini-study, I asked 20 female friends of varying heights -- from the 3'10" Hollywood bombshell Selene Luna to a 5'10" sociology professor -- whether they'd date a shorter man. Every single one, without hesitation, barked "No!" -- including the woman who responded to my initial "How are you?" by exclaiming, "Desperate for a husband!"
Yes, at 5'5", many women are out of your reach, but hey, everybody comes up a little short on something. Look around. There are a lot of stubby hubbies out there. Just a guess, but they probably didn't land their wives by sitting in front of their computers, insisting they'd only date Scandinavian supermodels. Take Danny DeVito. At 5', he's short, but not on charisma, humor, or charm. In fact, director Barry Sonnenfeld called him "the most self-confident person I've ever met." DeVito's inner tallness is probably what scored him his slightly loftier wife, the 5'1" Rhea Perlman. There are less famous exceptions to the height rule -- including men substantially squatter than the women they're with -- suggesting that a little guy might get lucky from time to time if he feels big enough to ask lots of Amazon women's knees out on dates.
While you seem to prefer whimpering about being short to being actively rejected because of it, risking rejection is the only way you'll date again before you die. If you'd had the guts to hit on every one of those 54 apparent height queens, you might have discovered one or two with a height requirement that was merely a height preference. That said, as a short man, relegating yourself to a dating venue where tall sells is marketing genius on the level of opening a Sizzler next to a vegan commune. Pry your pint-sized behind out of the computer chair and go where you're likely to find women who top off a little lower to the ground. (Hint: Avoid the Dutch and Swedish embassies.)
Should your taste run to the more Uma-esque, heed the research of evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Kevin Kniffin. They found that people who come up short on first impression can actually become easier on the eyes if they get into a group situation where they can show what faa-a-abulous people they are over time. Just remember, if you can get a girl on the couch, she isn't going to be thinking about how tall you aren't -- unless, of course, you remind her by kicking her in the knee. My boyfriend of three months is adorable on every level, except for his beard, which he refuses to trim. When we started dating, it was short and looked sexy, but now it's grown to mountain man proportions, which he believes "adds character." I've told him as sensitively as possible that I don't find the "Rupert from 'Survivor'" look appealing, but he doesn't seem to care. I don't want to seem shallow, but I'm not as attracted to him with the big, bushy growth. Is there anything I can do?
--Hairy Cares
Ideally, making out with your boyfriend shouldn't have a lot in common with being mauled by a hedgehog.
You don't seem shallow. You seem worried that you'll be condemned for not parroting the anthem of the undergroomed: the lie that what's inside is all that counts. It isn't shallow to care about how somebody looks -- well, not if you're planning on looking at them. At the moment, this guy's face appears to be the victim of a hostile takeover by one of those furry after-ski boots. You aren't saying facial hair length is your main measure of a man. You aren't asking him to get a new head. You'd just like him to do a little mowing on the one he has so you won't feel tempted to buy him a cologne gift pack that includes a flea-powder chaser.
He insists his beard "adds character." Unfortunately, for many people, Rasputin, Ted Kaczynski, Sasquatch, and Saddam in the spider hole are the characters it calls to mind. Meanwhile, "character" is typically used as justification for something unpleasant; for example, your dad probably claimed you'd build it by marching out into the 97-degree heat and cutting the grass. It's hardly ever associated with anything you'd actually want, like a seat in first class, or a big, juicy slab of filet mignon.
Men are civilized because women exist. If not for women, there would be no indoor plumbing. Men would eat out of tin cans with their hands, then toss the cans on the floor, only to clean up when the pile obstructed their view of the TV. Luckily, when boys get interested in girls, they learn that personal grooming is the cost of doing business. But, cut to adulthood, and here's your guy, fighting hard to keep looking like a foster home for field mice.
Not satisfied to simply drive a wedge between you, he's grown a hedge between you. He knows you'd be hot for him with a couple days growth, yet he's clinging for dear life to Sherwood Forest. What does it take to get him to compromise, if getting clued in on what you find attractive isn't enough? Must you give him an ultimatum, "Here's the scissors; there's the door"? If so, it seems he has stuff to work through before he's grown up enough to be in a relationship.
It is possible that he's hiding behind the face foliage out of insecurity. A lot of guys try to make up for hair fleeing the top of the head by letting it jungle up at the bottom. If you think this is the case, tell him how much you love and miss his face, then launch into a monologue about how sexy it is (and it is sexy) when men going bald have the confidence to shave it all off. Something here has to give -- before it becomes any harder to tell whether you're having a sex dream about him, or you just had too much to drink, and passed out face-down on an S.O.S pad.
