My Female Equivalent

One of my best buddies at work is a coworker of mine who I can relate to very well.  We are both in our mid 20's, and totally comfortable being single.  As a matter of fact, we're too comfortable being single.  Neither of us are really that motivated when it comes to chasing down the opposite sex. We'd both rather pursue our hobbies... which for me include writing this blog, making rap music.  (Yes, I have turned down girls wanting to hang out to blog.)

Today he sends me this link, from a relationship question section of the Boston Globe, asking if this was the female equivalent of me.  To save time, I'll take the important excerpts that I can relate to.


"I'm in my 20s and I know I have awhile to find "the one" (if that even exists) but I tend to push away perfectly decent guys for ones who are no good. People who know me say I have ice running through my veins. I instantly get turned off when potential suitors give me attention, like if they send me a text in the morning "hope you have a good day!" or try to hold my hand...  How do I stop being so heartless?

...On some occasions, the guys I really like start off as a hook up (that may be my problem!!) but I end up dating them. And I get annoyed with the nice guys when they text or call me almost every day. I call them stage five clingers while my friends say they are trying to be nice or show interest. I am an independent person who likes to live my own life...."


Wow, I am in love.  I think this is the girl for me.  I, too am ice cold!  I can't remember the last time I put myself in a state of vulnerability!  I too get turned off when girls show interest or try to make plans for the both of us!  I too am an independent person who likes to live his own life!

If I was to meet this girl, we could have the perfect relationship.  We would hang out no more than once a week, "hang out."  By hang out, we mean eat some cheap Chinese carryout, drink some alcohol, and then put in a movie to provide a soundtrack while we hook up on the couch.  The next morning, we'd part ways only to re-convene the next week to repeat the cycle.  After about 2 months of this, we would probably "ease up" on contacting each other because we felt we were getting too close to dating.  By "ease up" I mean reduce the hook up frequency to once every 2 weeks.  During this time I would find the next girl to replace this one.  Though she is probably a really cool girl, I would justify moving on to the next girl because the current one "isn't hot enough."   I would never call her ever either, just text.  And, in the rare instance we were caught out in public, she would never initiate body contact, ever.  That's the kind of relationship I'm talkin about!

What was the editor's response to this woman's issue?

"My advice is to continue this horrible pattern. Do it up. Date a bunch of mean guys who string you along and dump you. Ignore the nice guys who want to take you to dinner.

Why do this? Because you want to. And because at some point, you will get sick of it. It will get boring. You'll get sick of yourself. You'll get sick of these guys. You're just not there yet. Your friends are right to question your choices, but your gut is in control. Your gut wants the chase. You have to play out the cycle."

Wow, best advice ever!  I've been following it for the last 3 years and my cycle hasn't played out yet.  I give this same advice to my other single friends...  only their blood isn't as cold as mine.  They are missing out!

Alien Attraction

Smokin'

Like most of everyone else in America, I went to go see Avatar in the theater shortly after its release.  Lured by the splendor of cutting edge visuals, I donned my 3d glasses, sat back into my seat and enjoyed over 3 hours of entertainment. After the movie was over, as I walked out to the parking lot, I turned to one of my buddies and said."Hey man....  that girl alien.  Would you hit it?"

The question might as well have been rhetorical, cause he immediately turned to me, squinted his eyes, then smiled.

"Hell yeah!" he replied. "I mean... she was like 14 feet tall though... so I dunno if I could physically do much for her, but she was hot."

 Who's hotter?  No matter who you choose, you're still a winner!

Neytiri was her name, and she was by far the flyest Navi on Pandora.  I mean, hands down, she had definitely had ever Navi boy on Pandora on lock.  I like to pride myself on being an astute observer, and purposefully scanned the face of every other female Navi who graced the screen.  No one even came close.  There wasn't even another Navi who I'd even consider cute.

**SPOILER ALERT**
No wonder the prince alien who was Neytiri was pre-ordained to was so pissed when she started hanging with Jake.  He should have killed Jake when he had the chance.  If you remember, they explicitly state inthe movie that the Navi only get one partner for life.  There's no divorce on Pandora.  Therefore when Jake hit it with Neytiri, for the prince dude, it was a wrap.  No wonder he went on that suicidal rampage in the final battle, getting shot off the back of a hovercraft.  He literally had nothing else to live for.







So yeah, I said it.. Neytiri was hot.  I am not more ashamed to declare her hotness than I was to proclaim my attraction to Miley Cyrus.  As a matter of fact, she's not the first alien I'd holler at.  How about the green chick from Star Trek?

Good job, Kirk!

Speaking of Star Trek, Seven of Nine?

 Tempting

OK, on first glance you'd probably say yes here.  I dunno much about Borg, but they are supposed to be somewhat robotic.  At first glance, she seems very human.  Upon closer inspection though she has a robotic like hand and that eye socket's pretty gangster as well.  I'd honestly be afraid to be intimate with her.  I dunno, the thought of sharp edges on those and other (possibly hidden/internal) metallic features just kinda kills it for me. 

The Queen from Alien

 

 Hell no.

If you think she is hot, you have lost your mind.  Not only is she dangerous, and ugly.. but she scretes acid from her saliva glands.  You coudldnt even kiss her if you wanted to.


The Alien From Species

 

 Holla!

At first, this seems like an excellent idea.  Her human form is super hot.  Not only was she hot, but seeing that her purpose on earth was to fertilize her alien eggs with human sperm, she was very aggressive.  However, once she got you in the sack, she turned into this.

She would then proceed to thank you for fertilizing her egg by riping you apart.  If you were smart enough to smell the trap, I'd definitely recommend you away.

Match.com Wrap Up

It took 6 months to complete the study, but I did it  I exceeded all expectations and took out 11 girls from Match.com over a 6 month period.  Over the course of my study I made numerous observations and tried many different techniques to get dates.  Let's take a stroll down memory lane, do a little analysis and see what was learned.


So, let us get on to the wrap up shall we?  I took a screenshot of my match.com homepage on the last day before my account expired to help give you guys an idea of what the home page looks like.

Note the 'Dating Tips And Advice' section.  "Will He Every Marry You?"  If you have been dating for several years, things are 'going well,' and you have to ask, the answer is probably "no."

As you can see, Match.com's homepage does a pretty good job of keeping you abreast of your account activity.  Much like Facebook, as soon as you log in you are immediately notified of any winks, emails and who has viewed your profile.  If you notice, during the 6 months, my profile was viewed 679 times by 150 people.  I naively thought that that was somewhat impressive until the Caretaker showed me her account, she had thousands of views by over 300 guys, and was only on match.com for 3 months!  I distinctly remember her having an inbox full of emails that she hadn't even bothered to read, from guys raging in age from 21 to 40 years of age.  (She was 25)  That's not that shocking, except for the fact that she wasn't even that good looking.  She is a 7 on her best day.  If she can get that many hits, really hot girls probably get two to three times as much traffic!  

With this knowledge we can either conclude that I am not very attractive, and thus many women skip over my profile after seeing my picture, or that there are a disproportionate amount of men on match.com looking to score.  Pray to god it's the latter.


Quality
Yes, contrary to popular belief there are hot girls on match.com.  How many?  Well just like real life, probably 20% of them are what you would consider datable, and 10% hot!  As far as ethnic break up, there aren't too many minorities on match.  I once did a reverse search to see what my competition looked like.   I was the only black male in his mid 20's with complete sentences and proper grammar in his profile.  Hot commodity?!?! I wish.


Incase you are curious, out of my 11 dates, 2 were black, and 9 white.  I tried really hard, winking at every Asian girl within a 50 mile radius, but couldn't get a single bite.  One Native American girl hollered at me, but she didn't make the cut.  One Puerto Rican girls also hollered, but unfortunately she didn't resemble  J. Lo in the slightest so none were offered dates.  Two girls were definitely obese.  The rest had pretty normal bodies, and only one was what I'd consider "athletic."  I wanted a bit more diversity... and tried, but oh well.

I'd also like to re-iterate that there were so many people on there that I knew!  Guys and girls.  Funny anecdote, on a summer trip I showed a few friends my match account and then suddenly of them confess to having one as well and show me theirs.  It was definitely funny to compare account's, girls and techniques.  It's a secret society for sure!  Kinda of like Fight Club, it seems the first and second rule however, is not to talk about it.




Success Rate

So, I had 150 views and went on 11 dates.  That's a 7.3% success rate.  However, I pretty much went out with the first 11 girls who showed interest, disregarding looks almost completely.  I say "pretty much" and "almost" because I definitely turned down approximately 5 women just based on looks alone as I could only afford to put myself through so much abuse.  Had I taken out those 5 women, I would have had a 10.6% success rate.  That's pretty damn good if you ask me....  until you realize that I only really found 3.5 of these date's attractive.  So in reality, I am going lock in the final success rate at 2.3%.  That seems low, but it's probably realistic to my success rate at bars.  I figure on an good night, I may talk to 5-10 girls.  Two to 3 of them are attractive.  Number of times something actually becomes of it, with an attractive girl?  Once every month or two?  Yeah, probably about a 2.3% of the time!


Technique

I got dates through every technique known possible.  I emailed, instant messaged, winked, and even used the "Daily 5" pick.  Which is the best technique?  Well, I honestly believe that girl's like emails as opposed to winks.  This was actually confirmed as I asked every girl I took out what they preferred.  Almost all said emails.  Emailing is the way to go, but authoring a custom email can be time consuming.  Between my laziness and apathy, I chose to just wink at girls, then email them if they winked back.  However, if I was more serious about finding a girlfriend, I would probably do the wink/email combination.

Suprisingly, when girl's emailed me, most emails were super short.  I mean along the lines of "Hey, whats up?"  I found that a bit weird as I was definitely more formal with my letter writing.  Whatever works though... I really can't give any advice here, not only do I know the answer, but I don't think there really is proper match.com etiquette. If she thinks you're attractive, unless your portray yourself as an idiot, I think she'll write/wink back.

Another good technique is to look at who has viewed your profile, and message/email/wink at them.  Chances are they found your profile pic somewhat interesting, otherwise they wouldn't have clicked it.  

Cost
Slumdog paid for the first 3 months, and I covered the second 3 months only because I like to be a man of my word.  Those 3 months cost me $40.  How much did I spend on all of the dates?  Probably about $250.  To be honest, that is my largest regret.  I seriously blew $290.  Good thing I'm rich, bitch! (sike!)

Booty Factor
So before I even started this study, someone informed me that Match.com was the booty call site, and if you are serious about relationships, you go to eHarmony.  I am going to have to partly agree with them.  Match.com is very casual.  I mean, some girls blatantly stated in their profiles that they weren't looking for anything serious, while others were definitely on the hunt for a boyfriend.  The site is very informal however, and honestly, the fact that you pay for it gives you of legitimacy compared to say... Craigslist.  OK, so legitamacy over Craigslist isn't saying much... so lets compare it to OKCupid instead.

Did I have any luck through match.com in the booty arena?  Maybe...


Conclusions

As I've stated many times on this blog, I am not much of a dater.  I was initially about anxious about being on Match.com as I really had little interest in taking numerous random women out on dates.  In hindsight however, I am glad I did it.  I met a not only had fun, but met a few cool girls and also learned a bit about myself and what I like, as well as don't in women.  

Would I do it again?  No, but that's only because I have no interest in putting myself through 11 dates in 2010.  Honestly, if I was interested in dating, I probably would have a match.com account simply for the fact that it's another line in the water.  You can't catch anything if you're not fishing!  Why not utilize it?

Stop Hating On Jersey Shore

This guy is the man.  A pure hustler, he can get women to buy booty shorts with "The Situation" scribed across the butt.

Topical blogging is great, because it gives me a lot of filler material to write about in between my original postings.  It's not that I've run out of things to talk about, it's just that on going current events always pave way for fresh new thoughts and opinion.  Jersey Shore was heating up the airwaves after its debut a about a month ago and I have a few things to say about it.

Racism/Stereotypes
This is totally off subject for my blog...  but a lot of people were calling for MTV to remove this show because it portrayed Italian Americans in a bad light.  These people claimed the show promoted negative steroetypes and made the Jersey Shore look like a horrible place.

My opinons.....  First off, in regards to the steoretypes, have any of these people you seen BET?  Black people have a whole channel that does this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  I bet if you turn to it right now you will see either a booty filled music video, a reality show about TI and Lil Wayne's baby mommas or syndicated UPN show.  Their spring fling festival is entitled Spring Bling!  If Jersey Shore gets taken down for being offensive, everyone employed by BET should be jailed for years of oppression.

And secondly, just as the inner city is portrayed via BET, northern Jersey is indeed a horrible place.  Only people who are from there and don't know any better.

The Cast

It seems the that a lot of people out there are offended, shocked, humored by lifestyles that "guidos" and "guidettes" live.  The tanning, house music, and working out seems to not jive with pop culture.

 

 Let he without sin cast the first stone!

 My opinion... Get over yourselves.  Everybody  fits into some camp or another and thinks other groups are wierd.  When it comes down to it, the cast of Jersey Shore is just another group of young people. Just like any other group of young people, when you put them all in a house with a bunch of alcohol, crazy things happen.   When you catch it all on tape, its hilarious to watch.  Unfortunately for these people, its caught on film, forever!

The guys on are just like any other warm blooded males.  Aided by camera crews they go out hunting girls and attempt to lure them back to their layer equipped with a hot tub.  Any young single male on an MTV endorsed reality show would do the exact same thing.  Two of the guys even have great gimmicks which aid them in getting women.  Calling yourself "The Situation" is an awesome gimmick.  I guarantee he starts hundreds of conversations with groups of girls just by introducing himself that way.  Some other dude is a DJ.  How can you hate on these guys?



If there's something about the cast we should complain about, it's the lack of attractive women.  I swear this is the first show on MTV without attractive females!  Lets do a roll call.

Snooki.  Not hot, at all.  Extremely annoying.

Sweetheart.  She honestly has the cutest face, but that body is a hot mess.  Look at her stomach....  sloppy.  Is this the best you can do MTV?  I know you can and should have done better.

JWOWWW.  While not hot, this girl definitely thinks she is the hottest.  She is forever flauting her boob job out in the open and is definitely trying to jump start some kind of modeling career off the show.  Honestly, she just looks trashy.  I suppose that if you had to hook up with a cast member, this would be the trophy...  but its definitely 100% on account of her sluttyness.

Angelina.  This believe I saw this girl bragging about how she is hot "natural."  She may be natural, but she's not hot.   She also has a fetish for cockblocking the male cast members.  One of the guys in the house retorted to her offensive behavior and self flauting with the best line ever.  "Lose 5-10 pounds and we can talk"  Zing!

Snookie's Punch 

 Moments before Snooki is laid out.

Now, I know Shooki is annoying and all, but DAAAAAMMMNNN!  That was wrong on so many levels.  First off, not only does the guy have the nerve to punch a girl, but he sucker punches her.  She doesn't even see it coming.  Two, he provoked the thing by stealing her shots!  Three, the guy was a teacher in NY?  Four, why doesn't the guy standing in between him and the girl even do anything?  What has the world come to?

The "L" Word and Pets

 Ugh!

The "L" word has made single people gasp, cringe and fidgit in their seats since the beginning of time.  You see, many of us single people are single because we are not fond of the whole concept of "commitment."  Loved is looked upon as this crazy irrational emotion, which when reached, is a sign of both parties commitment to one another.  In theory, only catastrophic events can split up two birds.


Back when I was doing the match.com study, I noticed that a lot of women on the site (50%?) would post pictures of themselves with their pets.  It was then I realized that "love" isn't the "L" word us single guys should be worried about.  The word we should be worried about is "loneliness".

Yep, it seems that single girls in their mid 20's start to panic, get lonely and often obtain pets to fill that void.  I dunno if its the want to love something, or the innate motherly urge to take care of something and be loved back.   It's probably a combination of two.  Its funny because when I sat and thought about it, only 3 guys I know (and I know hundreds!)  have any pets.  On the other hand I can think of 10 girls I know with pets off the top of my head without even trying.  Most have cats.  After making the observation I decided to ask a bunch of these girls why they had pets.  They all answered the same, "because I get lonely."

When you sit and think about it, this is some scary shit!  I hate to say it, because I think it comes off a bit sexist, but man, it really makes girls seem a bit needy.  A needy girl is the last thing that single guy needs in his life.  You know how a lot of guys say that confidence is a turn on?  If you don't know any, this happy black man is one of them.  Loneliness girl is not indicative of a girl being confident.  The thought of a lonely girl  latching onto me like a leach makes my skin crawl.  A girl who will wrap you up like that will most likely want a relationship and that's the opposite of what I'm looking for.  You see, if I can avoid the effects of loneliness on women, then I will never have to worry about love!  I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone!

Plus, dating a girl with a pet is like dating a girl with a kid.  It's a package deal and you can't hate one while liking the other.  I hate cats, but at least they're low maintenance.  The fact that they shit in a box is super convenient.  Cats however, suck for a lot of reasons I'm not going to get into for the sake of staying on subject.  A dog, while much cooler on the on the other hand is also much more horrible.  I guarantee the dog will try to mess up your swerve and walk in while you and your lady are trying to get it on.  The cock block will be complete when either the dog starts barking, or she says that she doesn't want the animal to see her naked.  She'll never be able to spend the night at your place cause she'll have to take the dog out both that night, and early the next morning.  No matter what kind of animal it is, if it sheds, not only is it super annoying, but you suddenly become a vessel carrying evidence on you that you were your girl's house.  Pet hairs will be in your clothes, car, gym bag...   blegh!  Then wait till the day that the girl goes out of town and asks you to take care of her pet while she's gone.   It is at that point when you know the girl has lost her mind.

You will wish death upon this animal.  Trust me, I've been there.  Why do you think that last paragraph was so descriptive?  However, let anything happen to that animal and the girl will be crushed.  The black hole of loneliness that the pet fulfilled will grow in size and gravitational pull and only you will be capable of saving her  universe!  Thus, the pet is both your friend and enemy!  While you wish harm upon it for all of the trouble it causes you, you know that without it you'd be pressured to be a boyfriend at a exponentially increased rate.

PS - I do not hate animals.  Just ones that come in between me and my objectives!

I'm Back! Time Fill You In!

Well, school's over, and it's the new year... so back to blogging full time.  I was forced to take a hitaus from the blog while I completed my Master's degree, but now that it's out of the way I can blog like a champ.  Hopefully I can find the time to post somewhere between 3-4 times a week.   I've let you all down in my absence, and promise to make it up to you.

I suppose it's only fair to fill you in on how my single crusade has been going.  First off, and most importantly, I am in fact still single.  I exhale a sigh of relief every time I re-realize my relationship status. Life is good. 

Secondly, Match.com is over.  My subscription expired a few months back and with it being a recession and all, I decided to call it quits.  I will have to deliver a wrap up on my impressions ASAP.

Third, my web development team is going to be pissed that I am still posting on this site instead of the new one.  Truth be told, I must be getting old or something because I find Wordpress super frustrating to use. While this site isn't as flashy and is lacking revenue generating ads, it is very easy to use.  I will have to consult my lead web designer on a way to get the new site up and to snuff.

So with no further ado, lets explore more of my single observations and experiences!

Match.com Date 11: The Teacher

 Ha, so you thought match.com stories were over didn't you!  Around the time I took a long hiatus from blogging, I went on date 11.  Yes, I actually surpassed the number of dates I was supposed to go on by 1!  Why I put myself through this pain, I dunno, but I'm here to report how it went.  I unfortunately forgot to save her pictures so you'll have to go off my description of her appearance.

So, this girl and I connected through a wink she threw my way.  I took a look at her profile and well... she was OK.  She was blonde, shoulder length hair, freckles, fair skin...   Body type "about average."   She could stand to lose 10lbs, but at her age (27), between her career, habits and metabolism,  that was probably already a pipe dream.  If you hadn't noticed, being disappointed with match.com dates appearances was something I was used to at this point.  I can't remember what her profile said...  I must have seen something interesting in it though, because I decided to email her back. 

We exchanged a few emails back and forth, and truthfull they were all so textbook and boring.  Theyd go something like:


Her - "Hey, hows it going?  Are you from the area do you like sports?  If so which ones?"  
Me - "Hey, I'm doing well.  No I'm not from here, I'm from...   Yes I like sports, particularly.....  What do you do for a living?"
Her - "I'm a teacher...  I like football too!  Do you miss your home state?"

The very generic back and forth chit chat.  I would try to interject some humor at times and she wasn't having it.  I ended up giving her my phone number and she called one day and we had little conversation.  I have to admit, that this girl had way more character over the phone than she did through email.  We actually held a pretty awesome conversation!  Approximately 30 minutes later we agreed to meet for drinks at a locally brewery.

So, I show up on time for the date and about 5 minutes later she shows up.  To be honest, she actually looks a bit better than advertised! She was probably 5 foot 5?  Not thin, maybe 140lbs?  I wouldn't go brag about or show off to my friends or anything, but she was far from embarrassing.  We go inside and sit down at the bar and chit chat over a few random subjects.

This was one of the most internally conflicting dates of my life.  You see, this girl was a few years older than me, but maturity wise, was on a whole other plane!  The things I find fun and entertaining, like drinking, she surpassed and moved on from a long time ago.  Unlike every other girl I had been out with, she owned a home, had a graduate degree and was looking to from teaching to educational administration. Its hard to explain what I was feeling, but basically, I had never been out with a girl with this amount of maturity and responsibilty before.  As much as I found her responses and opinions on things interesting because they were so polar opposite to mine, they were so boring at the same time.  Very little of what she found fun, I would even think about doing in my spare time.  If maturity is about becoming lame, I hope I never grown up.

On the flip side, there was one huge negative.  From what I gathered, she was probably the only one of her friends that wasn't married yet, and many of those friends have kids on the way.   She said something about having been to like 6 weddings in the last year alone.  Girls, listen up.  The mere implication of there existing social pressure for a husband and babies is something that you should just avoid on first dates...  and probably in the first 3 months of any relationship you ever start with a man under 30.  It's OK to start with the end in mind, but pace yourselves!!!

We ended up having 2 drinks each,  I covered the bill and we parted ways.  She definitely had a good time.  It was really easy to make her laugh and she often commented that I was "ridiculous."  While I didn't find her particularly physically attractive, I did find her mentally stimulating.  Would I hang out with her again?  Yes, she was that interesting to me.  I'd like to pick her brain again.  She was also an awesome conversationalist.  Would I consider dating her?  Hell no!  Not only is she not hot enough, but my immaturity would be exposed in 15 minutes and that relationship would be over before it even got started.