Dating Don’ts

Today’s post will be a bit different from the rest, this one will be an interactive one where readers share their “dating don’t” memories of disastrous dating moments from days gone by.

This is in the spirit of public service, helping hapless daters avoid such mishaps in the future!

Stories of friend’s or family dating don’ts, or even your own flubs on dates, are welcome, too!

A Dating Exercise For Women (Re-post)

Ladies, if you are looking for a good man and are finding one hard to find, read this post! Good, good advice!

The Private Man

[I posted this just over three years ago. It needs to go viral.]

A fair number of women read my blog and for this, I am pleased. Normally, I write my posts with a male audience in mind. This post is an exception. I want women to read this very carefully and pass it along to their single friends. It’s important.

The biggest challenge is for women to re-adjust their approach to men. Women usually look for reasons to reject a man. They find the bad things first. This results in a lot of frustrated single women. To start the readjustment, I have this very simple mental exercise:

Every time you see and/or interact with a man, look for something good about him. This includes online dating profiles.

It can be something small.

It can be something big.

It has to be something.

Perhaps you see a sweaty landscaper…

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Do You Have Superwoman Syndrome?

Tags

biological clock, career woman, dating, divorce, feminism, fempire, marriage, red pill, single independant woman

If like me, you were raised to be a good little feminist, you may have what I have come to call “Superwoman Syndrome.” As a child you were told to be all you can be, and while on the surface that sounds good, the truth is the attempt to be and have it all can turn you into a burned out, workaholic who puts family and a personal life last in the attempt to live up to the Superwoman myth.

In many ways, I see feminism as the female version of the blue pill, the “pretty little lies” women have been told will lead toward a happy, successful life. Like the supplicating beta male, trying to “be nice, then be even nicer!” the female blue pill tells a woman that she should work harder, achieve more, that job title and status, “just like a man” are the path to success.

And of course if a woman tries to live that life script and finds it lacking, feminism blames her. She’s not trying hard enough, she has to try harder! She has to be more powerful, more independent, more strong because after all she is a victim of oppression and a failure if she doesn’t.

So she goes to college, starts her career, puts off marriage and family in the quest to climb the corporate ladder. If she does marry and have kids, she’s told to put her family last, to put herself first, and to let someone else do the “menial” tasks like raising children and keeping house. After all, those are things ANY woman could do, right? Why waste her potential?

So she either finds herself married with children and a husband that she barely sees or when she does she’s so darn worn out she’s just going through the motions. Or she puts off marriage and kids only to find that when she’s “ready” at age 35, she’s facing a much smaller dating pool than she would have in her early 20s, and unlike then, now she feels like she has to decide quick, maybe making concessions she would not have otherwise that lead to a “meh” at best and unhappy at worst marriage. Or maybe she doesn’t settle only to find she can’t find anyone at all, or at least not anyone who wants to marry her although they may want to sleep with her.

At this point such women either just furiously keep trying to work the broken script or they realize, perhaps too late, that they played their hand all wrong. Now what? There are no easy answers. You can’t turn back time and redo things over, and for many the path to the corner office turns out to be a lot less satisfying than it was supposed to be. Or she’s finding her employment options becoming more limited with age, as she competes with ever younger workers who are willing to do her job for less. The corporate world, she may find, will never love or care for her like a family would, she’s entirely disposable. In her youth focusing on herself may have been enough, but with age she feels the loneliness and disconnection from anything of true meaning or legacy more and more as the meaning and security her job and career were supposed to provide becomes more and more precarious.

It takes a lot of guts and insight for someone with Superwoman Syndrome to admit it’s not working out, that change is needed. However it is the only hope she has of ever getting from where she is to where she would rather be. The process can be filled with feelings of betrayal, anger, bitterness, and blame. After all she did everything society told her to do, and it didn’t work, not because she didn’t try, but because nobody told her it was a big social experiment and she was the guinea pig, a test case.

In time the anger fades and life moves on. She starts to rediscover what it means to be a women, to be female, to be feminine. She learns there is strength in weakness, in letting go of control, of following rather than leading. She learns being a womanly woman doesn’t make her “less” but makes her more. She learns no job or career will ever be as satisfying or stable or secure as a loving family. She learns a woman’s greatest achievement is not her own, but to nurture great achievement in others which in turn is her shared triumph and achievement.

If you find that it’s just not working to “be it all and do it all,” consider taking off the cape, humbling your pride, admitting that maybe independence is not the path after all, and learning how to be interdependent or even (gasp!) dependent.

There’s freedom in letting go.

Let those who have ears hear.

Focus on the Positives

Frequent commenter Fuzzie suggested some dating wisdom directed at women on another blog that I felt deserved a post on the topic: Instead of looking for every reason to eliminate a potential suitor, focus instead on all the positives.

I have many times watched friends turn away an otherwise really great guy for rather minor reasons. Ironically I have watched these same friends put up with all sorts of BS from less great guys. Go figure!

So while you don’t want to mislead or string guys along, it’s also wise to not judge a book by his cover too quickly. A long “must have” list describing your perfect Prince Charming may keep you from finding a great match that’s not what you expected, but turns out to be even better!

Let those who have ears hear.

Embrace Your Life Seasons

I have written about my children’s babysitter before, a very wise and sensible girl of a local religious sect with Scandinavian origins. It’s similar to Amish but with electricity and automobiles, but not music, television or pop culture.

It has been fascinating to get to know her and learn about her world because as an “outsider” to their rather closed off community I have had a rare chance to see inside a world untouched by feminism and modern life up close.

One thing that struck me about Samantha was that unlike most 16-year-old girls these days, she was embracing the seasons of a woman’s life as traditionally lived.

Girlhood: Largely carefree and as part of a large family there are always others to play games with. Without television and other media distraction, these girls play house, tag, build forts, and explore the great outdoors. Children do not expect to be entertained by their parents, but to make their own fun. Children are still raised to be seen and not heard, and are expected to honor their mother and father. Education is central, as girls are expected to master a basic education, along with helping mom at home with housekeeping, cooking, and tending to other siblings. Even as a young child, these girls are learning skills to help prepare them to be good wives and mothers.

Young woman: As she enters the teen years, education continues to be a focus, as these girls aim to complete their education in preparation to marry. My babysitter, for example, participated in a program where she attended community college her last two years of high school, earning her high school diploma and two year degree the same week! She then transferred to a local commuter college and completed her BA in early childhood education by age 20. Dating is not allowed during the teen years. These girls socialize at family gatherings and church functions. As they approach 18, they begin formal courtship in search of a husband, all well supervised and approved by both families first. The goal of courtship is to find a spouse, not to date for fun. Most girls marry by 18 or 19. My babysitter married at 19 and continued her education that first year while preparing for her next life season.

Marriage and motherhood: Birth control is not practiced by this group, and in fact the goal is to have a first child before the first wedding anniversary. From there these women will have another child every year or two throughout her reproductive years. Children are seen as a blessing, not a burden. Families of ten or more are not uncommon. Once mothers, these women do not work outside the home but often supplement the family income by babysitting, refurbishing and reselling antiques and home decor items, or managing the administrative tasks for her husband’s or family’s business. Otherwise life is one big play date, with these moms getting together with their kiddos to socialize after her house chores are done. Home and hearth are top priority, her own ambitions are secondary to her primary jobs as wife and mom.

Late adulthood: By age 40 or so, the childbearing years are complete and as children grow up there is more time for personal ambitions and many of these women will start some sort of work from home enterprise during these years. Still her focus is her growing brood and preparing them for marriage and adulthood but life is fun and she enjoys the company of her young teen and young adult children, who unlike most teens and young adults, honor and adore their mother.

Golden years: After her children are grown, a woman might devote her time to volunteering or supporting a charitable cause or church endeavor. Many spend time mentoring young women or new moms. Grandchildren start arriving and her home is always full of family and company. She and her husband have lived carefully and have built a solid financial foundation for themselves free of debt so life is good and relatively worry free. Surrounded by her brood and the life she has built, she now enjoys the fruits of her life well lived and is honored and revered by her community.

It’s certainly very different than the life path of a typical girl and woman in our modern world, but having seen it up close I truly question if we wouldn’t be better off as individuals and as a society by taking some lessons from this path less travelled. Rather than the oppressive gloom and doom I expected to see thanks to my own rather feminist indoctrinated upbringing, I have seen great happiness and contentment in the women within this community. They have a happiness and sense of purpose often lacking in today’s modern woman. Imagine that!

What season of life are you on as a woman? How does it compare the the path above? What do you find appealing, or not, about this concept of a woman’s life seasons?

Let those who have ears hear.

Ride The Rapids

A post at another good blog got me wondering, maybe the secret to staying married isn’t fixing or eliminating all of the relationship struggles, but simply riding the tough times out, instead?

Or another way to think about it is like a white water rafting adventure: The last thing you want to do in the rapids is jump or fall out of the boat!   By the time you reach still water, rather than jumping out, chances are you’ll want to simply paddle along and enjoy the peaceful calm before the next stretch choppy water.

See, life can be like that. Sometimes the “problems” in marriage and relationships aren’t really about the couple as much as they might be unhappiness or strife caused by other factors: a dead end or draining job, more bills than money, the trials parenting can bring, lack of quality couple time, lack of outside support, family of origin baggage, and so on. Sometimes there is no quick fix, or even no immediate fix at all. What’s needed is simply time and preserverence.

That seems to be what a study on marriage that tracked unhappy couples over a five year period says. It found that the couples who were happiest didn’t necessarily “solve” their problems, they just stuck it out. Even more telling, people in couples who split were less happy five years later than those who didn’t!

Consider the following study findings:

• Two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce or separation ended up happily married five years later. Just one out of five of unhappy spouses who divorced or separated had happily remarried in the same time period…
• Many currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals. Why did these marriages survive where other marriages did not? The marital endurance ethic appears to play a big role. Many spouses said that their marriages got happier, not because they and their partner resolved problems but because they stubbornly outlasted them. With time, they told us, many sources of conflict and distress eased. Spouses in this group also generally had a low opinion of the benefits of divorce, as well as friends and family members who supported the importance of staying married.
• Spouses who turned their marriages around seldom reported that counseling played a key role.

So ladies, in marriage remember this simple but all too often overlooked strategy for dealing with issues and struggles — often you don’t have to “fix” those problems as much as you just have to ride out the rapids to calmer waters. And whatever you do, don’t jump out of the boat!

Sadly, in my family’s case this has certainly proven true. A year after I ended my 12 year marriage, my ex stopped drinking, finally left a work situation that had been a big part of his (and therefore our) unhappiness, and things evened out. Nine years later, I very much question if rather than creating additional conflict by continually focusing on “fixing” the problems, maybe had I simply hung in and been more constructive they might have resolved themselves? I will never know, but trust me it’s not something I would wish on anyone to wonder. If sharing my experience can help another, perhaps it is not in vain. I have many regrets. Don’t be like me. Don’t learn this the hard way.

Let those who have ears hear.

You Go, Girl!?!?

Surely you have heard the rally cry of the modern woman, “You go, girl!” On the surface it seems to be an endearing term of pro-female encouragement. But is it?

Many times it can actually be exactly the wrong advice, especially when what a friend really needs to hear is, “Woah, girl!”

Women tend to naturally empathize and try to build consensus when communicating with each other. And in and of itself, this is not a bad thing. It can be very nurturing.

However in today’s culture, there’s a lot of bad advice floating around, advice that destroys families, lives, and women themselves. Such advice is often given with a “You go, girl!” positive spin, like it’s the path to happiness and enlightenment rather than instability and destruction.

Before I stumbled upon the red pill and read accounts from the male point of view about just how astray “You go, girl!” can lead a woman, I will admit I had not stopped to really consider the downside of this seemingly upbeat advice. I had many times (even at bible studies!) sat with groups of female friends and listened when women who talked about struggling in their otherwise healthy marriages with boredom and undefined unhappiness and contemplating starting over were told, “You go, girl!” when in reality the issues were completely fixable, perhaps even just a normal ebb in her overall life flow. How destructive.

Another time, “You go, girl!” can be bad advice is when a woman is encouraged to “find herself” via sleeping around or hooking up with men out of lust or as some sort of self-validation. How dangerous. I have even heard women advise married women to do so, behind their spouse’s back. Really?

There’s a big difference between truly supporting a friend and foolishly encouraging her on a path of self-destruction. So before you reflexively go along with the “You go, girl!” party line, pause and ponder what she really needs to hear. And if it’s “Woah, girl!” don’t shy away. You could be the only one who tells her what she really needs to hear, not what she or others are telling her to justify a poor decision.

Let those who have ears hear.

Who’s The Boss?

A gal I know through work who has been toying with the idea of frivorcing her husband is once again “unhaaaapy.”

Why is she unhappy? In short because her family is coming undone at the seams. And yet she fails to see the obvious, that she herself is smack dab in the middle of it.

She simultaneously berates her husband for not being the head of the family while at the same time fighting him tooth and nail to be sure he isn’t. Had she listened to him and let him lead rather than run interference, her 17-year-old daughter would not have gotten pregnant with a boy she barely knew on purpose out of rebellion, her son would not have dropped out of college because his bossy new girlfriend told him to or else, her 14-year old daughter would not be on the Internet meeting boys who claim they are 17 and making out with them in cars, and her 7-year-old son would not be living in terror at the constant threat of losing his dad if his mom follows through on her ongoing threats to divorce.

Her husband has tried to take action to prevent all of the above disaster from happening, only to be thwarted by her sticking up for the kids and telling him not to be so strict.

And yet as she wails about the state of her family, her own role in the fiasco continues to elude her.

Ladies, don’t be like her. Don’t be so darn headstrong you refuse to allow your man to be the head of the house. The only outcome of such behavior is dysfunction and disaster. If she can’t accept or respect hierarchy and authority, how can she expect her children to? That’s right, they don’t listen to her just like she doesn’t listen to him.

Maybe put another way, perhaps like me you have worked for both male and female bosses. Which was the best leader? If your experience is anything like mine, the male bosses are far more even keeled and on point.

If my friend had any sense she’d swallow a huge dose of her pride, hand the keys and the wheel of their family to her husband, and step out of the way so he can do his best to save their family before it all falls apart. I doubt she will, but I am hoping against all reason that she surprises me.

Once again, it’s all in the Book.

Let those who have ears hear.

It Starts With the Kitchen Sink

One of the problems I have encountered being raised in a post feminist world is that I got almost no instruction on traditional woman roles, such as how to keep a house.

For all of my adult life, I have been a day late and a dollar short in the domestic front. While others seem to have the mechanics figured out, I struggle to deal with what seems like endless piles of laundry, dishes, and undone chores.

And it’s not because I haven’t tried, or worked hard, or many a time gotten something in order only to have another area fall into disarray. It’s humbling to admit, but I just somehow don’t get it. This is obviously not a selling point or one I flaunt openly (except here!)

What I have come to realize is that I was so busy being taught how to be a pseudo man and live in a man’s world of career and business, I completely missed “being a woman 101.”

Luckily I have found someone who understands this, and thanks to the Internet, she’s able to lovingly teach me one baby step at a time. Her name is Flylady and like me, she once had CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) too.

One thing I love about her methods are they are positive and nurturing, almost motherly. Forget the inferiority complex and self blame, it basically boils down to homemaking is a skill that must be taught. If one was not taught, she can learn, and Flylady will help.

Another thing I love about her method is that it’s a gradual one. No grueling 8-hour marathon cleaning sessions. In fact it starts with only one step, a sparkling clean kitchen sink.

As new habits are formed it becomes more of a lifestyle than a quick fix. Like a patient and good mother, Flylady is there via e-mail reminders of daily tasks and then 15 minute decluttering sessions to help guide you to wherever you are to where you want to be.

For me, that’s a not perfect but calm and serene retreat that welcomes me and my family home like a warm hug, not the all too familiar feeling like my world was in order until I entered my house.

So if like me, you have some remedial home economics skills to brush up on, know its never too late to give yourself and your family the gift of a cozy, clean, orderly nest. Something the feminists never told you was it can be a very joyous, nurturing, and satisfying quest for a woman to “play house.”

And it all starts with a sparkling clean kitchen sink.

p.s I am not sure if Flylady had this in mind but while  my sink was soaking w bleach water I ended up cleaning the entire rest of the kitchen, and it looks great! Every journey begins with a single step…

A Tale of Tingles

A former neighbor of mine is a perfect example of how far down the wrong road tingles can lead you.

Tingles are basically feelings of sexual lust, usually for the so called bad boy. The bad boy often comes across as alpha, although in many cases I have seen such men are often good at generating tingles in women but not much else. Of course namalt.

But back to the tale. So this neighbor, who we will call Vixen, is a former cheerleader, party girl, looks similar to a young Demi Moore. In high school, she was the gal topless and making out with another girl for attention at parties. Hot, right?

Well Vixen married young, then left her first husband for his best friend, who I call Hercules. Together she and Hercules had two daughters, and it was when she was 8 months pregnant with the second (now 7) that they moved into a house two doors down.

My oldest is wi 6 months of hers, so we arranged some play dates. At first Vixen seemed to have things pretty well figured out, and she seemed happy. But as time went on I began to notice she is very good at saying all the right things, but doing the exact opposite.

Within a few years Vixen and Hercules split, a long story I have written about elsewhere. Basically they opened their marriage and things went from bad to worse, with them taking turns going out to the bar on alternate nights to get attention and validation from hook ups and other nonsense.

Well naturally that didn’t work so she arranged a branch swing, starting an affair with a then married friend from high school. He’s got a good union job, and promised her a bed of roses to leave her marriage. “I’ll be there for you,” he said. “I’ll put you up and pay for it all and then we’ll marry within a year.”

Except he didn’t. Once she left her marriage his story changed to, “you need to stand on your own two feet for awhile.” Rather than walk away, she decided to beat a dead horse, doing her best to try to make him live up to his broken promises.

Now this guy is nothing to look at, small and kind of creepy really. But apparently he understands how to generate the tingles in bed and she was hooked. The sex was wild, whenever he decided to call.

Meanwhile she met and started dating another guy, also with a great union job, who is truly smitten with her. He offered to take care of her and her girls, buy a house, she could stay home, be loved and cared for.

Except she didn’t feel the tingles, and she couldn’t stay away from the bad boy. Whenever he called, off she would go, ditching her steady Eddie for tingles.

For some reason he hung in there, hoping to be the good guy still standing at the end of it all. I suppose if guys can get tingles, he’s got them for her. Ironically he used to be a player until he met the one who played him. Karma? I am not sure.

In any case this has gone back and forth for several years now. About two months ago she told me she was pregnant, w bad boy’s baby. (Steady Eddie is snipped, 3 grown kids of his own.)

Once again bad boy made all sorts of promises, and said they would marry and raise baby, only to change his mind after she packed up half of her apartment preparing to move.

I dropped in on her this week after picking her kids up from school for her on a half day, and we sat, among the boxes, while she updated me on the latest. It appears now that bad boy is gone, Steady Eddie is having serious second thoughts himself. Imagine that?

Tingles and attraction are very important, but they can also lead a gal seriously astray. And when they do she may find herself pregnant, alone, and surrounded by broken dreams and half packed boxes, with no idea what on earth she’ll do next.

Let those who have ears hear.