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Reading Tea Leaves

May 28, 2012 by 10 Comments

Here’s a post I came across via @Urwingman.

The author, Nick, poses the question of whether or not porn is interfering with men’s/people’s dating success.

Almost every guy I talked to had the same reason for their dating struggles — they weren’t meeting enough girls. They gave excuses like “I don’t have the time,” or “I just don’t feel like it.” So, I pried further to determine where this lack of motivation stemmed from.

I found out that these men do have the time and energy to socialize with more women. This includes their lunch breaks, after work, on the weekends, and during errands. The glaring problem was that their daily routine included going home, pleasing themselves to porn, and then relaxing to play video games or surf the net…..

Consistent masturbation to pornography stops men from meeting women.

I don’t know. I’m not so sure that porn really has anything to do with it. Doesn’t this speak more to the possibility that these guys just don’t have an overwhelming desire to date anyone? I mean, if masturbating sates a person’s desire for companionship, doesn’t that really speak to the importance they place upon a need for companionship more than anything else? Therefore, it’s not the porn that is the problem. Nor is it the accessibility and ease of wanking it. I would think it’s the person’s desire to interact and form connections with other people that is the issue. Maybe it stems from a fear of rejection or a simple lack of interest in dealing with the hassle of dating. I don’t know. But I highly doubt that porn is the problem. It might be an outlier, but it’s not the root cause of why these guys aren’t going out and meeting people. Personally, I think that if guys consider masturbation to be better than a real live person from time to time, there are much deeper issues at work. You can get off and have no desire to meet anyone in those few hours after, but that typically fades, doesn’t it? Sure, if you’re sitting at home pleasuring yourself every 4-6 hours on the clock, then that might be a problem. What’s keeping people from going on dates or meeting people isn’t that they’ve relieved a sexual urge. It’s that they’re probably depressed. Porn or no porn, that would still be a factor. The correlation being drawn here doesn’t really work for me. But then, I think most of the correlations we draw between certain behavior and an outcome are sometimes faulty and our a result of us projecting our insecurities or fears on to other people .

Take that post we discussed last month about the woman who wrote out a tutorial for other single women about how to find a boyfriend via online dating. She did all these things, like post a photo sans make up, and drew the conclusion that those very things are what attracted the guy she was dating. Yet she and this man had only been dating a few months, and he ended up breaking up with her not too long after her story went live on her site. (Mind you, one of them was how she liked to be spanked. So in that regard she might have a point.) Maybe if she had 3 or 4 relationships that came about due to this profile, then her theory might be true. But one instance does not indicate a pattern.

I was reading another story the other day about a woman who had been set up on a date by a matchmaker. From the minute the matchmaker informed her of the date, she went looking for clues to help her determine the guy’s level of interest. She followed the matchmaker’s instructions and placed an introductory phone call, then she sent him and email and he replied to that and they set up the date. But he didn’t contact her in the time between when they set up the date and the day of the date. So she show’s up at the restaurant and it’s pouring rain outside. She sends him a text to let him know she is there just in case he doesn’t know who she is. (Side note: the matchmaker didn’t send either of them photos of the other.) So 10-15 minutes go by and the guy shows up and she’s sitting at the bar. He finds her and she offers to go to the hostess to see if their table is ready. When she leaves he pulls out his phone, and he’s still checking messages when she gets back to their spot at the bar. Of course, she’s miffed that he “couldn’t wait” to pull out his phone then, yet didn’t manage to reply to her text just 15 minutes before. Never considering that, um, it was pouring rain outside and he was either walking in the rain and didn’t want his phone to get wet or just rushing to get to the place on time to meet her. Then she goes on to share that he kept stabbing his lemon and was pleasant enough, but…

So she offers to drive him to his car at the end of the date. She drops him off and they hug good bye and she says something to him about seeing him again. He gives a vague reply. He never calls her again.

Let’s rewind for a moment. So he did all these things that apparently annoyed her…yet she still wanted to see him again? Okay. Here comes the part where we play what my friend M. calls the “reading tea leaves” game. That is when we review the dates in our heads and pick out things that serve as “evidence” to support our rationalizations. Her findings? He was unavailable. Based on the things he did that I mentions above, he was an unavailable guy. It wasn’t as simple as the guy just wasn’t into her. It became about all the negative things he did that proved that the outcome had absolutely nothing to do with her.

We do this, thought, don’t we? We look for causes and effects and correlations? We do all kinds of what some people refer to as “unethical research” in order to come up with definitive explanations. I think we do this because we need to connect  a bunch of insignificant and innocuous dots rather than face the truth.

 

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Filed Under: Date Like a Man, Dating, Meeting Men, Meeting Women, Oral Sex, Red Flags, Rejection, Sex Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

He Said/ She Said – Porn, Condoms, Cheating & Texting

May 8, 2012 by 25 Comments

Here are three questions from our last He Said/She Said event that should generate some interesting discussion.

Why are men so comfortable not wearing condoms? Why do women have to insist on it?

I would guess that men prefer bareback for the same reason a woman prefers it – it just feels better.  The sensations are all intensified. Obviously, condoms are used to prevent accidental pregnancy and STDs. But if the woman is practicing birth control and the guy knows he doesn’t have any STI’s, then he doesn’t understand why the condom is necessary. That’s why he’s usually lax about it. He’s not as worried about contracting something, so there isn’t much urgency on his part. Where men usually screw up is when it comes to pregnancy. Guys have to learn how that whole area works. Women have to be stringent about their reproductive organs and areas. Between breast exams and Pap smears, we have an acute awareness and understanding of how our parts function and therefore we know when something is off. Which means we have  more pregnancy and STD scares than men. That’s why women are so insistent. We’re paranoid. We’ve also been conditioned to believe that if we don’t use condoms that that means we don’t respect ourselves or that Karma will rear its head and infect us with herpes. If we go without, we’re foolish and reckless and have low self esteem. We’re not educated or responsible. We’re dumb.

Where this becomes a moral or ethical issue is when you make a pledge to use protection or when you’re in a relationship and cheating. If you intentionally betray a promise or have unprotected sex with someone outside of your relationship, you’re either really selfish or really passive aggressive.

From Time to time I have watched porn even when I have been serious with someone. What is the best way to bring this up? I don’t think I am addicted but once in a while I have that urge. Is this an issue?

I don’t know why you have to introduce your porn habit or collection to the women you date. Most women accept that most men watch porn. When this question was asked, one woman was very vocal about how she would break up with any guy that watched porn and that it was disrespectful to the man’s partner. Being the compassionate and sensitive woman I am, I told her she should plan on either having every man she dated lie to her or she should get used to being single. Sometimes people – men and women – watch porn because they don’t have anybody to fantasize about at the moment to help them get from Point A to Point B. Maybe they do have someone but want to switch things up.  Or maybe they just want to have an orgasm and not have to deal with any of the emotional preparation or clean up. Sometimes we just want the orgasm. You can’t take it personally if a woman uses a vibrator or a guy watches porn. There are times we just have a hit of horniness and need a release. Nobody should have to defend or explain that to someone who claims to care for them. If it bothers you, then you’re insecure and you need to deal with that without projecting it on your partner. Note that we’re not talking about porn addiction here. That’s a whole other issue.

Why is it that men only text? Do they not know women want them to take the effort to call when asking for a date.

Yes, they know. Most don’t care, because they don’t allow themselves to be guilt tripped into indulging some random woman’s need to feel special. And that is all it is – a need to feel special. Ladies, stop with the bullshit about how it’s indicative of laziness or cowardice or how it’s easier to talk on the phone. You want to feel special. End of story.

The man I’m dating admitted that he cheated on his previous girlfriend. Should I trust him?

First of all..why is he telling you this? Was this a situation where you found something out and confronted him? Did he offer this information up? If he revealed this on his own with no provocation from you, then that’s a bad sign. That’s self-sabotage or passive aggression. He’s either warning you or trying to make you insecure. If you heard this through friends or connected some dots based on other things he told you and you asked, then I don’t think it’s fair for you to hold his honesty against him. He should have lied, of course. Most men would. But he didn’t. You can’t trap the guy and then dump him for telling you something you already knew. If he lies, and you know he’s lying, you still can’t really blame him. He’s covering his ass. We all do it. That’s why you don’t ask these questions or dig for info. This just in: we’re all assholes at one time or another. Don’t delude yourself into believing you’re going to find that one special asshole-less snowflake. They don’t exist.

I think that, as human beings, we make mistakes. People cheat. It happens. Where it becomes unforgivable to me is if they did it multiple times. Especially with the same person. One time? I can forgive that. But if they did it repeatedly then they obviously were able to push past the guilt or remorse. That’s the true betrayal. (And if they did it without a condom? Well, you know where I’m going with this.) If someone can do that multiple times, that’s not someone who is safe. They may not do it again, but they have the potential to betray in other ways.

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Filed Under: Birth Control, casual sex, Date Like a Man, Dating, First Date Sex, Meeting Men, Men & Communication, Potpurri, Red Flags, Sex, Texting Tagged With: , , , , , , ,