Re: Dating Advice · 7:27pm Feb 14th, 2016
Valentine’s Day is coming up soon here (yeah, I started writing this a few days ago), a day where we celebrate a martyr who was beaten, stoned, and then beheaded in third-century Rome by giving a big payday to florists, confectioners, and Hallmark.
Also of note, mob executions.
For those of you who have a girlfriend or other long-term female companionship, this is also when she becomes rather cross with you for repeatedly associating this day with brutal killings rather than doing your part in supporting florists, confectioners, and Hallmark by giving her things made by them.
If you’re among those single on this holiday (for the record, “holiday” comes from “holy day”, and it’s technically only that for Anglicans and Lutherans), though, you likely notice another popular tradition for this time of year: articles and blog posts on how to get a date/sex/girlfriend/other female companionship.
In my experience, most of the advice given within such literature is questionable at best. Sometimes it even descends into useless and/or misogynistic. Occasionally it even hits “that’s atrociously sexist you asshole, why would you even say that.”
But authors obliviously endorsing date rape aside, I felt I was in a good position to put out my own thoughts on this topic. What makes me so qualified, you ask?
Well, a trend I notice in these advice pieces is that they’re rarely written by anyone who ever needed such advice. Suggestions on how to overcome confidence issues, from someone who’s never had them, is about as helpful as financial advice from Donald Trump.
If you still don’t understand why that’s a bad thing come November, please do not vote this year.
On my end, though, I’m about as much the stereotypical nerd as you can imagine. Overweight, weird hobbies, crippling social anxiety… and somehow, despite all that, I have a number of female friends, a wife, and a child. I’m also, as you might guess from those last two items, a bit older and more experienced than some authors of this advice.
Now, let’s get started on mine — and all of the things I can’t actually help you with.
First things first, I will not tell you how to make someone like you, because that's impossible. You can't make anyone like you; liking you is a decision they have to make. Unless you're Princess Cadance, then, yes, you can make someone like you. If you are Princess Cadance, I'd like to inquire if you and your husband are open to the idea of multiple partners. I promise I'll give him back.
But for anyone else, all you can do is try to be a likable person. How can you do that? Well, once I get a few other things out of the way, I’ll go into it as best I can.
(Another thing I will not be telling you is how to convince someone to sleep with you against their better judgement. That Pick-Up Artist shit is abhorrent, and even if I knew anything first-hand about how to do it, I’d refuse to do anything to encourage it. So we’re going to leave this topic out of the list entirely.)
The second thing I will not tell you is that this will be easy. A lot of my advice will involve changing yourself, and that is never easy.
There are some obvious exceptions, of course.
(Source)
Actually, I’m not sure I can really call this advice for getting a date. See, finding a relationship might be what you want, and it might be one end goal of self-improvement, but it can’t be the only thing. For one, tying your progress to a goal wholly reliant upon the choices of others is going to just end in frustration and you abandoning your efforts. Plus, it’s better for your attitude and confidence in the end if you try to improve yourself for your own sake, rather than as simply a means to an end.
That’s another thing I’ll get into more detail on later.
The third thing I will not tell you is to be confident, because despite the popularity of that statement, it is stupid advice. This is where that bit about “written by people who never needed to hear it” thing really shines through. The fact of the matter is, if you were capable of just willing yourself into confidence, you’d have done that already. Telling a person who lacks confidence to just show confidence is about like telling a frightened person to just be brave, or a shy person to just be outgoing, or a depressed person to just be happy.
Does anyone believe that people remain in a negative mental state solely because they’re not trying to get out of it?
Confidence is earned, in a way. It, like anxiety, is a reaction to expected future events based upon past experiences. You can project an air of confidence, certainly, but that’s so much easier when you have something to draw it from.
The last thing I will not tell you is how to understand women. That’s because this is also stupid, as well as a bit sexist. There is one important thing you need to know to understand women:
Women are people, too.
Yep, just like you. That means understanding women is simply a matter of understanding people, and treating them like people. You’d be surprised how rarely this is actually done.
Well, with all the things I can’t do for you out of the way, what can I tell you?
This isn’t going to be a list so much as a bit of a discussion. It might seem to meander a bit, but trust me, it’s all relevant.
Except for my humorous asides, which are tangential at best, but always provide the utmost hilarity.
So, I told you I wouldn’t tell you to “be confident”, but then I went on to say you need to earn confidence. How can this be?
See? Hilarity guaranteed.
Confidence is a thing that can be built up, from bits and pieces, in a number of ways. That’s part of why it’s dumb to tell someone to just have it. It kinda skips the whole process. Again, kind of like telling someone to get in shape. That’s easy for you to say, Healthy McSaladaeater, but how about when I’m 80 pounds overweight with a body that’s already being damaged by my bulk? How do I get to where you are now?
Oh, by the way, I’ll be telling you to get in shape later. Go hypocrisy!
I can’t exactly give you a roadmap to gaining confidence, because everyone’s situation is different. I can only really tell you what works for me, and try to extrapolate that into a sort of general guideline.
Where to begin, though?
Well, there’s one thing that I was hesitant to mentioned. Not because it’s one of those “things I won’t tell you”, but more it just feels like something I shouldn’t have to. Unfortunately, experiences with conventions and game stores have lead me to see otherwise.
Here it is.
Personal. Hygiene.
I know, I know, it’s on all the lists, and it’s just so basic, but… the people I’ve met as a Magic The Gathering player…
(I was going to post the clip of Vegeta retching after killing Dodoria in DBZ Abridged Kai 2, but apparently no one has trimmed out just that one bit on Youtube, and I don’t have time to do it myself. It was either the full “thick, meaty vagina” scene, or just this lazy note that hopefully reminds you of who said that and causes you to reproduce the sound instead.)
What you have to remember is, like I said, women are people. So, the process of acquiring a girlfriend (or any sort of close relationship, really) is fundamentally the same process as acquiring any other sort of friend, just with two additional ingredients: (1) sexual compatibility and (2) physical/emotional attraction.
Now, do not assume that becoming friends with a person of the appropriate sex who you find attractive means they will actually have sex with you. This is often a symptom of “Nice Guy Syndrome”, and that is usually a sign that you’re being a colossal douche. Remember that thing I said earlier about not being able to make people like you? That shit’s important.
But with that out of the way, it’s vital in gaining friends that you not be an innately repulsive person due to abysmal personal hygiene. This goes double for a dating or sexual relationship, because being a generally dirty and gross person is a massive hindrance to that whole sexual attraction angle.
Barring certain “special” interests, of course.
(Source)
Clothing and general appearance can be another important thing to think about. Now, I’m not going to advocate that everyone go clean-cut in polos and designer jeans or something, but at least try not to look like your photo belongs on People of Wal-Mart or something.
I don’t think there’s anything that words can add to this.
(Source)
You know, things without holes or rips, or at least no obvious ones. Things that actually fit. Things that have been washed.
But this is all surface presentation, isn’t it? Well, kinda, but it also comes back to that confidence thing again. When you’re looking your best, you’re aware of it. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s still uplifting going out with that in mind. Like I said, confidence can come in small doses.
That’s a big reason for getting in shape, too. (See? Told you I’d come back to that.) Now, I can’t act like this is something I’ve mastered, myself. That bit earlier about 80 pounds overweight and already suffering? Describing myself there, and probably being very optimistic on the weight problem. So, rather than tell you what I did to get better myself, I’m going to tell you all the things I should do myself. Of course, all of this assumes you’re out of shape, and a lot of it assumes you’re overweight. But since most of my readers will be American, those tend to be safe bets.
For those who don’t have those problems, congratulations! You’re ahead of the game, and should keep that in mind if you still experience frustration in the other areas I’m talking about.
For the rest of us, here are things to consider.
Dropping soda is a nice step. I’ve just finished my second can of Sprite for the night, and each one was 140 calories that didn’t do me any more good than plain water would have. And no, don’t just go Diet. Maybe use it temporarily to wean yourself off of the habit, but the problem with diet soda is the artificial sweeteners they use are still enough to trick the body into believing it’s being fed sugar. This increases insulin production, and when there’s no sugar influx for the insulin to respond to, you just wind up craving sugar to make up the deficit.
Avoiding pre-made foods in favor of cooking for yourself is a good idea, too. I know it seems time-consuming and expensive, but it’s one of those things where you eventually reach a point where you just keep enough leftovers handy that the cost is spread out over a long period and you always have something relatively easy to reheat on hand.
On that bit, if using a microwave to reheat food, it will lose water over repeated heatings and gradually become unpalatable. For sauces and similar foods (taco meat, for example), which are particularly hard-hit by this, you can mix a bit of water in to avoid it.
A Fat Guy Talks About Food blog inside the advice blog? Insert Xzibit meme here.
Not only do you avoid the incredibly unhealthy things that come from grocery store freezers or fast food joints, but you also learn to cook. Not only is mastering a skill both appealing and good for your state of mind, women love a man who can prepare a meal for them (I do not know if this also applies to men, but food is good so I will assume it does).
We’re gonna get into that “mastering a skill” thing in a minute.
And finally, the big one, and the one that everyone sucks at. Exercising regularly and consistently, and maintaining the habit even after you reach your target weight. Thing is, there are things that you can get out and do to get exercise in beyond just hitting the gym.
Maybe go hiking?
Go out and check out scenes like this.
(Scource)
Join a boffer LARP, perhaps.
Amtgard?
SCA?
How about the various video games that try to “gamify” exercise? The most direct and helpful as far as personal training goes is, in my experience, Wii Fit.
The official trailer is seriously the only thing that’s not like 20 minutes long.
But the most fun has to be Dance Dance Revolution (which also has a pretty good knockoff version free on PC).
Don’t worry, you don’t have to be THAT good.
And before anyone complains that boffer fights or dancing games are too dorky, remember what brought you to this site.
Are you sure you’re in any position to call anything too uncool for you?
Besides, you saw how people were reacting to the dancer in the DDR video. Skill is impressive, even when it’s in something silly like that. And boffer games are social activities. You’re going to meet people through those who will be participating right alongside you. Hey, you might even make some friends through those activities, and that is, like I said, the same way you can meet a significant other.
How did you think I met Asilin?
And what was key to that, then? Well, it was a situation I was confident in. I was one of the better fighters in our park (confidence and something to impress — this is what I was talking about with “mastering skills” back when I was talking about cooking or DDR), and even without that, we were all on pretty level ground, socially-speaking. We were dorks doing dork things. Made for a pretty casual atmosphere that was pretty conducive to forming a relationship. But we were friends before we were dating. I know it’s stereotypical that those sort of things don’t work out, but in my experience that isn’t true. Again, rather than worrying about finding love, go out and have fun and meet people.
Well, fuck, this has gone downhill a bit, hasn’t it?
I already said I wasn’t sure this was really dating advice and not just, you know, general life advice. Now I’m telling you not to worry about finding love to begin with.
Yeah, here’s the thing. If you can go out, enjoy yourself, and be in mixed company without smothering any females present with attention, you’re going to look pretty confident in yourself. If you’re taking care of yourself, dress decently (even if that means “entertainingly quirky” rather than “stylish”), are relatively fit (make good on the other parts and this might not even be a huge factor), and seem sure of yourself, you’ll do alright.
However you do it, don’t try and hunt for the relationship. Just go out and have a good time, and see what develops. If you pick up someone you’re into as a friend, and they seem like they want to be more, then sure, go ahead and make the move. If they turn you down, accept that and let it go.
Obligatory.
It might take time. You might have to put yourself out there in other ways. Maybe it won’t get you a girl at all in the end. But you’ll be better off for it anyway.
This site has taught me that yes, people do remain negative because they don't want to escape.