I’m an old-fashioned mature kind of guy who’s open to a relationship in whatever form it may take – platonic, dating, romance, long-term relationships, friends with benefits, no strings attached, swingers, etc. – however, I’m not entirely sure where to find a woman. I have tried Craigslist, Facebook and online dating sites, and I try to be honest and straightforward with my descriptions and what I’m looking for, but it seems that no one wants to give me a chance. I’m 29 years old, husky but becoming more health conscious, and self-employed; I enjoy going out to the park, movies, museums, jazz clubs, riding my bike and stimulating conversation. My friends tell me I am articulate, generous and mannerly, I believe in treating others as I would want to be treated, and I believe EVERY woman is beautiful. I’m not looking for pity or an easy ride, I just want to find someone who’s willing to look past the love handles and see me for the guy I really am.
The most important single factor for attracting women is confidence. You know how people say animals can smell fear? Well, women can smell lack of confidence. If a guy is unsure of himself, most women won’t give him a tumble even if he looks like a movie star. So it’s vital you build up your confidence and never let women see you sweat (metaphorically speaking). You’re 29 years old, which is good; the worst part of your life for attracting women is already over. See, more boys are born than girls, but males die at a higher rate per year so by 30 the numbers are basically even; every year after that the ratio of men to women gets ever-smaller. In other words, as you age your company becomes proportionately more valuable; time is on your side. My advice is to concentrate on your work and try not to stress about women; keep riding your bike, going to museums and all the other stuff you do, and be friendly to the women you meet but DON’T pursue them or let them see you as emotionally needy. I’m not telling you to play hard to get; it must be real, not a game (and certainly not Game). If you find yourself needing sex, hire an escort; this will take the edge off and allow you to authentically project coolness. If a woman seems genuinely interested and you think she’s unattached, ask her out and don’t let it get to you if she says no; maybe she really does have to help her friend move that night. Just smile and say something like “maybe another time, then” and continue the previous conversation as if it really doesn’t bother you that she said “no”. Even if you never go out with that particular woman, doing this will help you to get used to rejections so they don’t get you down and destroy your confidence, and I’m willing to bet within a relatively short time you’ll get a lot fewer rejections.
You may also enjoy the two-part interview I gave to the London School of Attraction two years ago; it covers some similar ground.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
This guys situation matches my own. The part of your advice that just doesn’t happen with me is the meeting up with women – I need to get out more. Thankfully I’ve already been following your advice on what to do in the meantime. One of the benefits of seeing escorts is that I’ve always been an introvert and never very talkative, and now that I’ve been meeting up with these ladies it’s giving me more experience at simply talking to someone.
I’ve been reading the book “The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed” lately. It’s a book similar to The Game. It actually makes a lot of sense. If you use the advice on picking up women and instead use it to meet a woman you’d like to date then I don’t see anything wrong with it. One of the things the book talks about is the same as your advice on being confident.
Travel. I’m serious here. Travel to foreign lands. Save money and travel.
Go some place where you are the mysterious foreigner with the sexy accent.
Incidentally, as soon as you make your plans to really travel, you’ll probably meet someone who will derail those plans. So problem solved either way.
I’m not going to tell you where to travel, you’ll need to figure that one out for yourself. (However, some place with a high female to male ratio makes more sense than the opposite. Places with high mortality rates among young men also have the advantage of being what we like to call “Hell Holes,” women are really looking for a guy to take them away from all that.)
Now, if you can’t afford to travel, even if roughing it, I suspect you are not really ready for a relationship. It’s unfair, but women usually hope to improve their economic position by meeting the right guy. It is possible to find a relationship where you live off your girlfriend (one of my in-laws is a total sponge off of his wife… it’s grotesque), but if you are having trouble even dating…
Also, remember that if your purpose in travelling is to meet women, you need to tailor your trip along those lines. Don’t just go on the typical tourist “see the sites” trip. Oh, and sorry to say but two weeks will probably not be enough time, so you’ll have to figure out how to solve that one.
I’ll second the “travel” recommendation.
First – I would say the guy needs to get into shape since he seems to have a poor self-image of himself physically. The only way to address that is directly.
But yeah, travel.
Let me tell you a secret … American men are known worldwide for their generosity and curtiousness to women. Some may think I’m bullshitting here but I have talked to many hundreds of women overseas who believe that American men are more fun, safer to be with, and less self-centered. I’m not saying we’re actually all these things – but the chicks think we are.
I picked up women in Australia as a single guy like they were going out of style. They begged me to “talk” with my American accent. I’d ask them to dance and they’d be shocked … because all their Ozzy boyfriends would just sit around getting drunk at the bar.
If I had it to do all over again – I would set my sights squarely on the women of Eastern Europe … Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary … even Russia (but I’m not allowed to go to Russia 🙁 ) These women REALLY seem to love American guys and no, I’m not just talking about the hookers (which I have some of experience with them also) … but I’m talking about your everyday girls “next door”.
And bro … they are hot as shit. When I go to these places – it’s hard for me to find a bad looking chick. This is amazing to me because I was taught the stereotypical “babooshka” image of Eastern European women when I was growing up. Oh … how bullshit that was!
I’m trying to get my son to go over there … because I want grandkids and I don’t have any. If he brought home a Romanian girl to marry … I would shit myself with joy. Those girls are very dedicated to family and they are a good influence on men … they know how to drive men to be better than they are.
You’re right about that. My aussie wife was intrigued by me when I paid for dinner on our first date. Apparently, Australian men never do that.
Another data point on foreign women preferring American men. As an astronomer, I spent a lot of time in Chile. Chilean women — who are beautiful incidentally — love American men because American are so much nicer and more generous. The running gag was that every unmarried American (and, to some extent, European) male astronomer who moved down there and stayed in residence would end up married to a Chilean woman. It was funny because it was so so true. One of my collaborators moved down there and would rage about the jokes about Chilean women. Until he ended up married to one.
Go some place where you are the mysterious foreigner with the sexy accent.
Indeed. The prominent American PUA Daryush Valizadeh – aka Roosh – was struggling in the amateur circuit in Washington DC (which demonstrates how limited “game” actually is, apart from a placebo effect), but he had more success after he started traveling extensively.
Being American in America is just normal, but in other countries it carries with it a certain prestige.
A German whore once told me, on average Americans tend to be the worst lovers…
Hahaha, what did they say about the French and the English?
I’m curious what you think about PUA, btw.
I think that “Game” and “pickup artistry” work just great for men whose only goal is to get stupid, shallow women into bed. But that’s not what this gentleman is looking for.
All women are susceptible to the pointed charisma of “game.” I understand that some of them imagine otherwise. 😉
Maggie you rarely deal palaver but here you’re wrong. Telling an earnest omega male like your correspondent to “be confident” arms him with an empty phrase.
Men — never listen to women on this subject, rather — watch what they do. Watch closely and be strongly disabused.
Might as well google “Roissy” and get started.–
Dear n/a, it’s great to see you again. I’m trying to find your e-mail address but not having luck so far. If you still have mine would you please contact me? If not I’m hoping Maggie will be OK with giving it to you. Take care.
Dear n/a, I found your e-mail address. Take care.
Unfortunately, I got return mail. Please see my 8/26 5:01 PM comment. Thanks!
Re: travel – you might like to try places where they can speak your language as well. And… brilliant advice Maggie. You really should be writing this all in a book.
Since he is starting to work out more, I’m not sure if this gentleman is into running, but joining a running club would be great too. I’ve been to about two weddings of people who initially met in their local running club.
“The most important single factor for attracting women is confidence.”
No it isn’t. It’s looking hot. And even if it were confidence, pointing that out is useless advice. Confidence comes as a result of success – you can’t pump it up a priori.
This “husky” guy has already identified his problem. The rest of your advice is sound, particularly the bit about riding his bike.
“Looking hot?” Not on my planet. Methinks you’ve been reading too many magazines, or listening to teen girls; this man is trying to attract women, not adolescents.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
Every man I dated who rated a 10 on the hotness scale was a total loser. But I’ve gone out with a number of men who were, shall we say, around a 5-6 who were utterly charming, delightful in every way, and Oh. So. Satisfying.
The 10s are losers? Perhaps so, but you dated them, didn’t you? How many “husky” guys even get a chance with you?
Never, ever, ever pretend to “discuss” these matters with women.
The snake will not explain how it is to be charmed.–
No, Maggie is right about the confidence thing.
I have never had an issue with weight and I’ve always been very fit. I’m not Brad Pitt for looks but I’m not something girls would throw up at either.
As a young man – I was not very confident. I didn’t like to ask girls to dance at high school dances because i thought … “what if they turn me down? I’ll look like an idiot and be crushed!”
A couple of semesters at college really cured me of that. That’s about the ONLY thing I learned from my brief stay in college … how to deal with girls. Get drunk with girls and things just fly out of their mouths and you realize they aren’t really these mysterious animals you’ve built them up to be.
Once I got the confidence … everything fell into place but, before that I was an abject failure.
As a bouncer – I get paid to “people watch” and I see a lot of male / female interactions … mostly college kids. I’m kind of the “old man” of the bar so the young girls think of me like a father figure I think. Whatever it is – many of them approach me for advice about why men aren’t approaching them. “Are my heels too high? I’m too tall for the guys aren’t I?” … “Krulac, can you tell me what guys are looking for in girls? Because few, if any ever approach me … is there something wrong? Too much makeup?” …
I always tell them … “No, it’s a problem with the guys … they have no confidence and are afraid of you.”
This is the problem with modern men – especially of the younger generation. They spend too much time playing computer games and they have no experience with personal interaction – and they fear women.
There’s a younger bouncer (in his 20’s) who’s usually on shift with me. If he spots a hot girl that no one is talking to … he’ll ask me if he can clock out so he can go and pick her up. He’s no great looker. He actually looks like a skinhead but he’s fit and he does mixed martial arts so he has that kind of confidence of someone who’s been tested a lot.
He picks up girls … EFFORTLESSLY.
We were talking once and he told me … “I don’t know what it is … but I’m pretty good at this.” I told him … “you try … that’s why … most guys won’t even get into the batter’s plate.”
Let me tell you a little secret I know about women. Men are weak because we have a constant driving need for sex – but women aren’t perfect either – they have their own demons.
And the biggest one they have is they ALL want to be desirable to men. They want to be wanted by men and they want men to approach them. When a guy approaches a girl her self-esteem ticks up a notch and she feels good about herself. She wants more.
And here’s another secret … nine times out of ten … a girl is going to feel grateful to just about any guy that makes her feel that way even if she turns you down.
So if you really love women … approach them and pay them the compliment of male attention.
If she shoots you down … don’t stress about it … just move on and know that you did a gal a good turn by demonstrating to her that she is a woman of value.
Maggie’s advice is spot on correct. Look around you and you’ll see all kinds of slobby guys with hot women … it’s not always about the looks bro.
I want to amplify that point so that any woman reading this can disagree with me and explain to me why I’m wrong about this.
I maintain that, in spite of all the feminist bullshit about women not needing men …
Women really need men.
Men need women or we physically get ill from the lack of sexual interaction. But you girls need us to make you feel special – to make you feel whole. All these songs women write, and books they write about “female independence” and about how women don’t need men to feel good about themselves is complete and utter bullshit. The reason all this shit is written – is because you gals try to empower yourself by lying to yourself about it.
Admit it. 😀
All you have done is to confirm my initial point. *Even lacking confidence*, you had women in college. Why? You were reasonably in shape. AKA: not fat. That was enough, and the success that it gave you *then* gave you confidence as well.
But being in shape came first. Fat unconfident guys don’t get women out the wazoo in college and gain confidence thereby. Their lives follow a distinctly different trajectory.
And your anecdite aboutn the bouncer – I can only imagine that you misunderstood me and though that by “hot” I meant “cute faced”. I meant precisely your MMA bouncer friend.
My initail observation stands. What matters most is *how you look*. Character and personality come a distant tenth or so.
Well, that’s an interesting theory and I’m not saying I know what the answer is for sure … but I never had a bad self-image … physically that is. I thought there might be a lot fucked up about me though … to the point that maybe no girl would want me. I didn’t get ANY girls in High School … they were all too religious and all had “big mean daddies” to worry about. A 35 year old divorcee took pity on me when I was 17 and shagged me enough times to take the mystery out of “sex” … but the mystery out of women? Nope, she didn’t quite do that even though she tried.
So what I’m saying is … I WAS a pretty sad case until I was about 20 years old. Once I got away from the religious community I was living in (by the way, my family weren’t religious so I was a duck out of water in this place) … but in college I met girls who would drink and were willing to do shit. And that’s when I started talking to them at parties, and when they’re drunk or high – they say shit … and a clueless guy like me kinda goes … “these female creatures can be as fucked up on the inside as I am … why am I scared of them?”
And THAT was the turnaround.
No I didn’t have the baggage of being fat and unattractive – I never had to jump that hurdle but I think that’s a hurdle you have to jump for yourself – it’s not that important to women and I have friends with the gift of gab who have a positive self image even though they’re fat – and they got chicks … lots of them.
So yeah – I can see your point, and even agree with you that a bad physcial self-image can hold you back. It’s a self-imposed limitation though. Mind you, I’m talking about people here who are fat but not gross who can be successful with girls. Fat and gross dudes … I don’t think they ever have a chance with the girls but that’s not really a lot of guys.
I totally disagree; once again, you’re judging adult women – which is what the questioner says he wants – by the behavior of immature coeds. There is little equivalence.
Maggie,
You have too high an opinion of “adult women” and too low an opinion of “immature coeds.”
Often a person is nearly formed by the time they arrive at college, and almost always their essential nature is defined by the time they depart; the idea that age accrues wisdom as naturally as wrinkles is proven false everywhere and at all times. There is nothing more common than an old fool.
I’ve enjoyed the company of girls who were at their happiest in every sense of that word while still quite young; and have endured the presence of quite a few harrowingly close-minded women of a certain age.
Nothing is less true than the idea that age brings wisdom; to many it brings only regret, bitterness and pain.–
Wisdom has nothing to do with it; it’s just that very young women haven’t yet learned to appreciate men, just as children tend to have uneducated palates and prefer candy to everything else.
n/a, both you and Maggie are partially correct. White western women with (comparatively) comfortable lives tend to believe–occasionally honestly–that they want “confidence” in men. When Maggie says the “game” crap is for picking up stupid or shallow women, it’s because she’s experienced enough to separate “justified” confidence from pretend confidence.
The justified (as to women like her) confidence she’s looking for is intelligence and worldliness, and her perspective on that would likely mean someone who is successful in Anglo society. E.g., she wants someone who is financially comfortable, and who has been financially comfortable before, so that she can retire, travel the world, and have conversation about those things, and broader social relationships with people who know what it’s like to retire in comfort and travel the world.
The pretend confidence of the “game” is meant to trick less-experienced women into thinking that a man is rich. All of the tricks are designed to mimic the remotely-plausible, yet plausible behavior of someone wealthy who has somehow stumbled into the club where the woman in question is hoping to find a good catch. “Peacocking,” for example, explains why the man can’t actually afford an Armani suit; it’s because he’s so rich and carefree in his tastes that he wore something weird by choice. The “neg” is meant to demonstrate a lifestyle so pampered that the man was never forced to conform to social niceties.
In a bar filled with losers (e.g. non-rich men), the weirdo who might, might possibly have a .001% chance of actually being worth swiving is the best choice–unless you’re experienced, like Maggie, and know better ways to shop.
In Maggie’s world, she’s discussing a game a couple levels higher than that available to the standard person. She’s speaking to those women who can catch the attention of the wealthy primarily-westerners who can afford to do things like regularly buy pricey escorts, and deriding those whose only desperate hope at wealth is that a PUA seems confident because he actually IS wealthy. From her perspective, women who take their chances with the “game” are the equivalent of criminals robbing convenience stores rather than consulting for the IMF–they’re at the lowest possible stage of play.
(For more on game-related dross, see Free Financial and Pickup Advice.)
Ergo you’re both right and both wrong. Maggie’s right that plenty of women succumb to cheaper tricks like “game” for reason of being stupid/shallow, and you’re right that plenty of non-stupid, non-shallow women fall for those same tricks. Who’s right in any given instance depends on how loosely you define “stupid”…and, more importantly, how much money is being captured through the match in question.
The women on the planet right now who would, per the numbers, justifiably consider themselves at the highest stage of the game would see little difference between Maggie and the tipsy 18-year-old Edinburgh tramps who fall for the one-night scraping of some dirt-poor bloke using the Mystery Method. It’s just a question of perspective.
.
As Wolfgang Pauli would say, not even wrong.
“Confidence” is often misunderstood. It does not necessarily mean being a swaggering bully or a preening peacock. It simply means that you can look at yourself in the mirror, say “I am worthy of affection/companionship”, and mean it. If you don’t like yourself, few other people will UNLESS they are also lacking in confidence, and won’t that be a fun pity party of a relationship? 😉
Hot guys are usually way, way more trouble than they’re worth IME.
I think Paul does have one legitimate point: there is something circular about the confidence thing. What gives a man confidence? Success with women. What makes a man successful with women? Confidence.
I knew a guy in college who had some really horrible early experiences with women that just shattered his self-confidence. He basically gave up on women for a period of five years. The only thing that brought him out was a woman who *did* like shy, insecure guys (after which, he was a lot less insecure).
I also think looks do matter to some extent, depending on what you’re looking for. Women won’t demand looks in a guy who they want to date long-term but they will look for it in hook-ups and so forth (some of which develop into LTR’s). Again, I knew a guy in college who was a psychological bag of slop but was constantly getting lucky because he was ridiculously good-looking.
That’s a different kind of confidence. Look up at what Sasha says cuz she’s right on here. Confidence is basically “self-image” and valuing yourself.
I’ve had plenty of success with women – but I would not say that, whenever I’ve approached them, that I felt very “confident” that my attentions would be welcome … or enough to get them to drop their pants. That’s part of the excitement – the possibility of failure. I think if you stroll up to a girl with an air that she’s “yours” and “it’s all over but the crying girl so get on your knees” … well that’s “confidence” but I don’t think you’d be very successful with that.
One of my “faked” techniques is “clumsiness” around a girl. I remember one girl, and she was a tough nut to crack. It was hard for me to tell her how I felt about her. Well, she had a car problem in the parking lot and asked me to fix her car for her. I did and we talked a lot while I was working on her car. I made sure not to fix it too quick so we could talk a long time and there was a lot of sexual tension by the time I finished with her car. When she got into it to drive away, I bid her fairwell and then started walking away from her … backwards through the partking lot while I kept smiling at her and looking at her – like she was the only thing in the world to me. Then I purposely tripped over my own feet and stumbled – but I kept walking backward.
She later told me that was the cutest thing she had ever seen and she knew she had me from that moment on! I wouldn’t say that that move of mine (totally faked) was something a very confident man would do – but she loved it!
A man can get confidence from things besides success with women, though. Success at other things helps a lot.
Aside from the fact that, yes, many young men are socially awkward for reasons that include having little social life outside of playing video games, I believe there are valid reasons to be fearful of women and dating. For example, a lot of women are too uncharitable to men who might be a little behind on social skills. If you aren’t careful, there is a real risk of a woman making a public scene, when a simple “Sorry, you are making me feel uncomfortable” would suffice.
Another reason for fearing women and dating is that a lot of them seem to enjoy confusing men with contradictory messages, grrr. Also, in some places anyway, dating has become too complicated. If you live in these places, it’s creepy to explicitly ask a woman out on a date by saying something like “I like you, can we go out to dinner at x this week?” Instead, you have to say something that only suggests your feelings and intentions, which has the potential of causing one or more misunderstandings that result in wasting everyone’s time.
Finally, there are overprotective fathers to worry about, especially if they are current or former members of the military, lol.
I actually kind of exaggerate how protective I am toward my daughters. My oldest daughter used to give all her dates a “pre-brief” on meeting me … in which she’d describe me physically, and talk about the insane things I’ve done. So that alone, I think, was a reminder for the boys to be on their best behavior.
When I opened the door – I was always all “smile”. The only thing I ever demanded, was that my daughter be treated like a lady. And, I’m not even one of those who worried about my daughter having sex. I don’t even remember her having a date until she was 18 and she knew how to have “safe sex” and I left that decision up to her. Frankly, what a lot of parents don’t get is that a LOT of young people DIE for various reasons – and you want them to have lived as much life as possible if it happens to one of your kids.
My brothers (and their wives) all expend crazy amounts of their time and effort on ensuring their kids don’t have sex. I’ve tried to tell them otherwise, but they just don’t have the experiences I have … life is short and any of us can be gone … within the next minute. It doesn’t work anyway … one of my nieces has already had a child out of wedlock when she was 17. I think the time her parents spent toward keeping her from having sex would have been better invested in training her in having it safely. And … now EVERYONE loves that baby – so even the “worst case” scenario is really not that bad.
I buried more than a few Sailors (and one Marine) in their early 20’s and it was excruciatingly painful and left a mark on me – pretty much for life. In every case, I found the injustice of someone being cut down before they even started living life was hard for me to bear. You start thinking about all the things you’ve enjoyed that this young person will now never experience, and it’s heartbreaking.
Sex is a natural part of life and everyone should experience it – my daughters included (I still have one that is not quite into her dating years yet – and she’s a real firecracker and a very attractive young girl so we’ll see if my thoughts change on this – but I don’t think they will.)
Don’t get me wrong – if any guy had physically mistreated my oldest daughter – I would have killed him.
I will say that I am kind of surprised at the lack of stigma about teen sex and teen parenthood in my adopted homeland. I know three young women in our family/social sphere who were unwed mothers by the end of high school. That’s not something I was really used to seeing a lot in lefty northeastern USA.
Funny, I remember a convo I had with my oldest daughter when she was like 15 …
Me: “You ready to talk about sex with your dad?”
Her: “No, uhm … and please don’t … Mom told me everything … like when I was five years old. I really don’t want to talk about it with my dad.”
Me: “Your Mom didn’t tell you everything.”
Her: “Yeah Dad, I’m pretty sure she did.”
Me: “Did she tell you that being alone with a guy is like holding a loaded M-16 in your hands?”
Her: “No.”
Me: “Actually, an M-16 is safer, you can put it on “safe” and it’s pretty much innert at that point. Guy’s have NO safety mechinism and there’s no obvious “trigger” on them … and it doesn’t take a pull to set them off anyway … just a look in most cases, or sometimes even just the circumstances. So an M-16 is predictable – and guys aren’t.”
Her: “Okay … yeah I got that … can we quit now?”
Me: “You know I told you to treat every firearm in your possession as if it were loaded?”
Her: “Yes.”
Me: “Well you need to treat EVERY guy the same way.”
Her: **Sigh
Me: “Your Mom tell you that all guys are perverts without exception?”
Her: “No … are you serious Dad? You’re a guy … are you a pervert too?”
Me: “Yep, I just hide it well … and most guys are able to hide it well – but if you spent 5 seconds in any guy’s mind you’d run away from that experience screaming. I’m no different … I think about it all the time … remember when you were a little girl and you woke up one time and asked your Mom at breakfast why you heard her crying in the bedroom one morning?”
Her: “Yeah I remember that.”
Me: “Yeah well, she wasn’t crying … not actually anyway … we were doing something else and she just got a little loud!”
Her: “GOD YOU ARE SO AWEFUL DAD!!! I DON’T NEED TO HEAR THAT!!!”
Me: “True story.”
Her: “Can that be the end of it now?”
Me: “Sure … if you learned what I’m trying to tell you … that all guys are perverts.”
Her: “Got it Dad, “all guys are loaded M-16’s and they’re perverts” … it’s burned into my mind now – forever.”
Me: “Okay I guess that makes us good then.”
And there goes a girl whose serial marriages will last no more than five years or so. She’s already been told that men are the enemy.
No, there goes a girl with her eyes open, with a good male role model, and parents who are obviously still sexually into each other. I can’t imagine a young lady better disposed to a healthy and honest attitude towards sex.
Time will tell.
Which is what you should have said in the first place. 😉
Women should not be taught that men are the enemy. But neither should they go into adulthood as saucer-eyed idealists that love, sex and marriage is all unicorns and rainbows.
Which the majority in the US do. I can remember one online conversation with an incredibly naive young woman (years before I started this blog) in which she adamantly insisted her father, brothers and boyfriend were NEVER attracted to girls below 18. She apparently really believed this.
That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.
Which is why I approve of the Krulac method for teaching the facts of life to girls. Dithering on such matters only prolongs things, and better they should hear the truth from a person who loves them, than experience it for themselves from someone who doesn’t.
I’m reminded of the time I was working Navy manpower and I found out that Navy Recruiting Command was recruiting young men out of high school and having them sign contracts to be Navy SEALS.
I called the Master Chief of recruiting and he put me in touch with a career recruiter to “explain” the policy to me.
I told him … “are you telling these boys when they walk into your recruiting stations that 75 out of every 100 of them will FAIL BUD/S and NEVER become SEALS?”
The dropout rate for non-fleet returnees (read: “Boots”) was 75%.
The recruiter told me … “No we don’t tell them that.” Then he added (quite sarcastically) … “It would kind of kill the sale.”
Whether it “kills the sale” or not – Girls need to know about men BEFORE they marry them. They need to know – that they may open their husband’s computer one day and find images of naked women on it. They need to know that that is NOT fucking unusual. They need to know that, when / if he cheats … there is nothing wrong with HER (in most cases). Knowing about men is truth … and truth is what helps one to adjust to the realities of life.
I don’t think truth really ruins people.
I agree with you, these guys need to know the truth. Maybe fewer would enter the program, but my guess is that most of those who would give up on entering would have been booted anyway.
Same goes for girls needing to know about boys and boys needing to know about girls.
And likewise, the mother of every boy should explain what’s in a woman’s bedside drawer?
It might be a little less weird coming from the father, but yeah, why not? Men who know their way around sex toys are lots of fun.
Either or both. It would be less weird if we were less hung up about sex (fortunately, my parents weren’t) and I’d take a woman’s advice before a man’s about what women like.
Krulac, your story had me in stitches. I am TOTALLY stealing those lines when Sal 11000 Beta is 16. 🙂
16 is late. Best for a girl to know where guys stand at 11, or earlier. Why?
First off, better to be prepared.
Just as importantly, being introduced to the idea before you know all the details makes the introduction milder. Like, when the most the boys are thinking of looking, that doesn’t seem so drastic. When the time comes, discovering their attitude to wanting more will be a natural extrapolation.
Ah, krulac, the Stifler of the 21st century! If all the world really was an American public high school, you would be the Prophet of the age.
Well, getting in shape will give him more confidence, AND it will help him to look hot. And of course looking hot will make him more confident.
So, I think we can all agree that getting in shape will help.
Now me, something about me attracts wounded birds. I don’t know if that has jack to do with confidence or not. Mine or hers.
Dear Sailor B, I could see right away when I 1st met you that you’re a caring, gentle person. That was 1 of the many reasons I was attracted to you. To me there’s other traits in men that are more valuable than confidence.
My tendency to attract wounded birds brought me you, so I’m glad of it. It also brought me S, your favorite person, M, and probably others. I’m sure you’ll agree that even Tracy qualifies.
Dear Sailor B, your love/help, etc., have been a huge part of helping me do the recovery work. Thank you. I agree about Tracy.