A long while ago, you wrote an incredible piece of general advice for teenage boys. The advice was so excellent that I clipped it out to keep in case I ever had a son. Well, years later, I have a son. But I no longer have that precious piece of paper.
My son is only 9 months old, but I am worried that by the time he is a teenager, you will have retired to some fancy ranch where you will spend your days raising organic cattle, being nasty to the local genetically-modified-wheat farmers, and passing the afternoons on the porch sipping gin from a teacup while terrorizing the local boys with a Super Soaker.
But I digress. Any chance you could reprint your advice for teenage boys? I know that I, my partner, and my son will all appreciate it.
GGG Lady Lover And Mama
Congrats on the birth of your son, GGGLLAM, and here, at your request, is my advice for the hard-up teenage boy:
You’re having a hard time getting girls. That sucks. I remember what it was like when I was a young teenager and wanted boys and couldn’t get any. It sucked. But the sad fact is that most young teenage boys are repulsive—that is, they are half-formed works in progress. Girls mature physically more quickly than boys, which means most girls your age already look like young women and they’re generally attracted to (slightly) older boys—and there you are, aching for your first girlfriend, but still looking like a short, hairless chimp.
But don’t despair, HUTB. Your awkward/repulsive stage will pass. In the meantime, here’s what you need to do: Worry less about getting your young teenage self laid and start thinking about getting your 18- or 20-year-old self laid. Join a gym and get yourself a body that girls will find irresistible, read—read books—so that you’ll have something to say to girls (the best way to make girls think you’re interesting is to actually be interesting), and get out of the house and do shit—political shit, sporty shit, arty shit—so that you’ll meet different kinds of girls in different kinds of settings and become comfortable talking with them.
Some more orders: Get a decent haircut and use deodorant and floss your teeth and take regular showers and wear clean clothes. Go online and read about birth control and STIs, and learn enough about female anatomy that you’ll be able to find a clitoris in the dark. Masturbate in moderation—no more than 10 times a day—and vary your masturbatory routine. I can’t emphasize this last point enough. A vagina does not feel like a clenched fist, HUTB, nor does a mouth, an anus, titty fucking, dry humping, or e-stim. If you don’t want to be sending me another pathetic letter in five years complaining about your inability to come unless you’re beating your own meat, HUTB, you will vary your routine now so that you’ll be able to respond to different kinds of sexual stimulation once you do start getting the girls.
Good luck, kiddo.
(The above advice was for a straight teenage boy. Gay teenage boys should read “boys” where I said “girls,” “anus” where I said “vagina,” “prostate” where I said “clitoris,” and “fist” where I said “fist.”)
I am a 27-year-old male, identify as bisexual, and enjoy crossdressing—although I have only crossdressed with guys I meet online. I have no real desire to meet guys unless I’m dressed up. And when I do get together with a guy, once I cum, I’m ready to leave. I can’t see myself in a relationship with a guy.
With females, I can see myself getting married and having kids, etc., and when I have sex with a woman, I’m not in a cum-and-go mentality. But when I’m dating a girl, after about a month, I start to float back to jerking off while chatting—just chatting, not meeting up—with guys who found my online crossdressing profiles. I know I could try to get a gal to use a strap-on on me, but that doesn’t really appeal to me. I like flesh-and-blood cock.
Do I hold out for a gal who is open to me having the odd bisexual encounter or do I learn to use my imagination a bit more during strap-on play? I thought in the past that I might be gay, but I figure since I have no desire to date men and can’t see myself with a guy long-term, I must be bi. What are your thoughts?
Sorry If This Question Is A Little Scatterbrained
First, SITQIALS, I’m sorry if my response is a little scatterbrained. I’m on vacation and currently in something of an impaired-state holding pattern over the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t read all of today’s Savage Love mail—yours was the first letter I pulled from the stack—because the shit that’s impairing me is forcing me to take it easy. How easy am I taking it? So easy that I’m not going to change “cum” to “come” in your letter.
Anyway, yeah, it sure sounds like you’re into women, SITQIALS—even your fetish screams “into chicks.” Your crossdressing and role-playing
fantasies are all about your bone for women and femininity. You dig women so much, you want to play the role of the woman—you want to look like a woman, be treated like a woman, get fucked like a woman. But in your fantasy scenarios, SITQIALS, men aren’t human beings and sex partners, men aren’t people with whom you could potentially have relationships, they’re props, the finishing touch that completes your ensemble.
And once you blow your load, once the game is over (once you COME), you’re done, you don’t need that prop anymore, and you just want to scram.
So what do you do? Well, I think your fetish makes you pretty damn near incapable of monogamy, and you’ve already discovered that strap-ons don’t meet your particular needs. So, yeah, I think you should hold out for a woman who’s into your fetish and turned on by the idea of sharing your ass—when it’s wearing panties—with a few good men. It’ll mean a longer search for the right woman, which you should be willing to do, because you’re worth it.
You might want to Google “autogynephilia.” Not saying that’s where you’re at or headed, don’t know enough about it to endorse it, but… it seemed relevant, food for thought, the more you know, etc.
I have two things to ask/say: (1) Could you remind people that if they’re going to cheat on their partner, to use protection? (2) Could you give me advice on getting over my ex-girlfriend? She ended things pretty terribly (see question 1), yet I’m still having a hard time letting go.
Broken Up
(1) People, if you’re going to cheat on your partner, please use protection. It’s quite literally the least you can do. (2) Fuck other people—lots of other people. But if you were the one who dumped her, with cause, after she cheated, and she wants to get back together, well, sometimes forgiving someone for cheating is easier than getting over them. Only you know if this is one of those times.
CONFIDENTIAL TO CALIFORNIA: Congratulations!
On behalf of all Californians – thank you Dan, we couldn’t have done it without you!! xox
The advice to GGGLLAM should be followed by some grown-ass men as well.
We’ll cut you some slack for your really, really half-assed column this week, Dan–you deserve a vacation, you really do–but get back on track soon, dammit!
@2: Yeah. Pretty much everyone, really. Take care of your body, have interests, be sex-savvy.
Another memo to teen boys: Ask for help now if you have no clue what to wear/smell like/read, etc. Could your dad, uncle, someone. Could be the clerk at a clothing store or the bookstore. Ask.
Especially in the area of clothes, some people are unhelpful drones, but once you find someone genuinely nice and helpful, it makes a HUGE difference. If you’re completely clueless, they’ll help you figure out what fits you, your budget, your core style, etc.
And pleeeease don’t ask, “How do I talk to girls?” They’re just people. Be nice, ASK QUESTIONS (everyone likes talking about themselves), and you’ll do fine. If you don’t click, it isn’t because she’s an alien species; it’s because you’re different people. You don’t like every guy you meet, and vice versa, right?
To the bi guy: I’m a straight chick engaged to a bi guy. He told me a few months into our relationship about his sexuality and fetish (giving bjs). Though I was a very very vanilla girl, my guy was so great I was willing to try opening the relationship up to keep it. So I set rules I was comfortable with (he can’t do anything w/ a guy that I can’t do) and went for it, unsure of whether it’d work out, honestly. (I was the first gf he told, tho he cheated on all past girls)
Two years later – we’re about to get married and his kink has turned into something that turns me on. We talk about it freely and totally trust each other.
So basically: be an awesome guy to an open-minded woman first, then break the news and talk it out.
I’d love to see a similar article written as advice for teenage girls!
This column is posted from the future, featuring a letter from the past.
I think I’m freakin’ out, man!
Damn, Dan, I know you’re on vacation and all, but I do believe that this is the first time that you’ve re-run two SLLOTD in the same weekly column.
Ah well. They’re both interesting, at least…
Thanks so much, Dan, I’m printing that first bit of advice for my sons AND my husband.
@5, excellent advice!
@6, me too!
@6 They have a gazillion magazines to tell them that. Boys are lucky if they have a father figure give them life lessons, and many of them don’t.
@6 — Well, in all fairness, magazines directed at girls don’t tell them things like “Take care of yourself and dress well to attract men.” They say things like “You’re not attracting men because you’re fat and dress badly.” Subtle distinction. (Or at least, the last I checked, that’s how it worked.) And hell, I had a father figure available to give me life lessons (or at least every other weekend, I did) and he sucked at it. He once tried to give ‘the talk,’ but I just wasn’t interested in the subject at that point in my life so he gave up on the first try when bringing up the subject didn’t trigger a deluge of awkward questions from me.
Er, my comment at 11 was meant for @10. Stupid ‘just woke up from nap posting.’
If all you care about is attracting as many members of the opposite sex as possible, Dan’s advice is spot-on. But I personally recommend just being yourself (behaviorally)–you should still be cleanly and wear clean clothing. But don’t wear fashionable clothes if you like wearing something different. If you want to try goth, go for it. It’s not popular but you shouldn’t sublimate your personality to the demands of what is “popular.”
Read if you enjoy reading. Play football if you enjoy football. Pick up an instrument if you like music. Draw or paint if you like art. Play world of warcraft if you like computer games.
Be true to yourself first and foremost. The girls or boys will follow eventually and you’ll be a more whole person than if you spend your teen years molding yourself into an Abercrombie and Fitch plastic mannequin.
Being unpopular in high school (while reading constantly, playing saxophone, getting valedictorian rank in my class, and skipping the weekend parties because I didn’t care for liquor) meant I didn’t get any action until I was 20. But damn, have I had some extremely fulfilling experiences because I didn’t simply drop trou for the first person who came along and was interested in me.
@11 – Totally agree. Magazines for teenage girls aren’t particularly helpful, but at least they pretend to make an effort to offer advice. Magazines targeted at teenage boys are about external stuff, like gadgets, music & sports. Very little attempt to offer advice there, other than how to make something cool from crap sitting around the house.
I also had an awesome father figure who never bothered to have “the talk”. He figured that I was smart enough to figure out Tab A & Slot B on my own, like many guys do. The real advice came down to: “Pay attention to what you are doing” and “Actions have consequences”. Which, when you think about it, can really cover the whole “how to score with the ladies” topic without useless details. (Who wants to hear their dad talks about his “moves” anyhow?)
The general advice for teenage boys can probably be summed up as: “Men get more pussy than boys, so work on growing the fuck up!”
@11: I haven’t picked up a magazine directed at teenaged girls in a while, but I didn’t get the impression that things got so cutthroat until you got out of the teen market. Besides, the question asked for quality advice, and the advice for the usual pursuers (have your life in order first, having your shit together is incredibly attractive) is different from quality advice for the usual pursuees (people will try to tell you all sorts of shit to varying ends, make critical thinking and self-discovery your primary focus for this point in your life.)
Dan, that was great advice for teenage boys.
@10 is absolutely correct and should be noted as such. I received pretty close to zero advice on romantic/sexual relationships from my dad; he quietly gave me an old sex-ed book and a package of condoms once, but basically almost never touched the subject at all. Frankly, even if he had given me advice, I’m not sure how good it would have been. I certainly wasn’t getting any trustworthy information from my friends either. What’s left to learn from? Movies? Porn? Health class teachers? Ho boy.
I don’t think I was alone in this way, either. The general impression I get, in retrospect, is that the girls often got more reliable support from family and friends than the guys did. Keep that in mind when you marvel at younger guys’ complete cluelessness in such matters.
And thanks for making a bit of effort in that direction, Dan.
Crossdressing dude potentially has a third option aside from “share his ass” or “spend his life feeling unfulfilled”: find a drag king. A female partner who’s willing to swagger around like a douchebag and objectify him a bit before pegging his hot little girlie ass might be just the thing. You never know until you try, right?
I have to chime in with the “be yourself” advice for young boys. To attract girls you have to suppress a little bit of yourself when around them – be more discreet about farting, don’t ogle other women when you’re with one you’re attracted to – but those are more social conventions one can abide by and still be true to yourself.
Just don’t do what I did. When I was 17 I decided that, in order to stop repelling girls, I needed to pretend I didn’t like heavy metal and start listening to U2. The non-metal girls could tell I was posing, and the metal girls (a few existed even back in the 80s) didn’t know I was one of their tribe.
To thine ownself be true, like that old bi writer said.
On behalf of grammar whores everywhere: thank you, thank you, thank you, Dan. The difference between “cum” and “come” should be pointed out at least once to every person taking high school English. Wishful thinking, I guess…
One more thing for the teenage boys out there: condoms. Learn to buy them. Learn to keep them handy. Learn which ones you like best. Learn how to put them on properly and masturbate with them. Learn how to take them off without making a mess, wrap them in toilet paper, and put them in the middle of the trash can (NO FLUSHING!) Perhaps, none of that will get you laid the first time, but it will sure as heck get you that second date!
I’m glad you run your teenaged boy advice every few years, Dan. It’s gold.
Wow. If you wanted us to read old columns, just say and enjoy your vacation. Two repeats – one even from months ago? 🙁
SITQIALS, there are a lot of women who are turned on by guy-on-guy action (some examples being myself and the girls I obsessively watched queer as folk with). I guess I can’t make a blanket statement saying you’re every woman’s wet dream, but you’re a lot of womens’ wet dream – particularly if you’re OK with a little voyeurism on her part while you have your bi encounters. It’s up to you whether you want to hold out for a woman who’s into the odd bi encounter, but I think such a woman might be easier to find than you expect.
I know this advice for teenage boys seems to be popular, but I don’t think it’s very good advice, at least not for straight boys. It’s probably good advice for gay boys, but attracting girls is very different than attracting boys. Girls, especially young ones, care less about looks, muscles, interests, and friendship, and more about status, dominance, personality, and attitude.
Teenage boys need to learn things like how to tease girls, how to ignore them, how to avoid seeming needy, how to avoid getting stuck in the friend zone, how to flirt, and how to play hard-to-get. Your advice is good for making boys into good people, but possibly counterproductive for attracting teenage or early 20s girls (who are not the most mature people around).
Having been a teenaged girl myself, I can at least agree that looks don’t mean a whole lot, but there’s a critical level of ugliness that you must be above to be considered dateable. Just as you must be “this popular” to date.
Example: super cute guy in middle school. I secretly had a crush on him but couldn’t date him because he played magic the gathering and dnd with his friends, and barked and purred at people walking past his desk (ok so he was a little nutty and/or furry, too). Regardless, even though he was cute, he wasn’t dateable.
But overall, structuring the majority of one’s life around the pursuit of their preferred sex is pathetic. Do what you like and be yourself, and if the girls/boys don’t follow, they weren’t worth your time anyway. Because eventually, you’re going to lapse into being yourself around them. If you pretend to be super GGG or open-minded to reel a person in, but really you’re not into that kind of sex, you’re participating in a bait-and-switch. I don’t support the b&s method for ANYTHING (including personality, sex, interests).
@26: “attracting teenage or early 20s girls (who are not the most mature people around”
When I was 19, if I met a guy who “played hard to get”, I would have thought he was a condescending douchenozzle. I still do. Courtship games are bullshit.
I agree with @28.
I remember when I was about 14 through 18 and there was one guy who ALWAYS had girls around him. He wasn’t the best looking, but he was always well groomed and extremely comfortable around girls and could talk to them about their interests because he was genuinely interested. Girls had crushes on him (including me). But I do agree with @26 about not appearing needy. Appearing desperate is never attractive for both sexes.
Wow @26, I bet you get a lot of girls and have long satisfying relationships! Ewwwwww.
I appreciate Dan’s intent, and I’m all for hygiene and good manners. But I really wonder whether reinforcing the notion that an entire group of people is “repulsive” is constructive. A lot of male pathologies start around that age, and being made to feel repulsive, worthless, etc. is at the heart of a great deal of it. Maybe making boys feel like their basic self is repellent isn’t the right way to fix that problem…because the normal human reaction to an intractable situation which isn’t your fault is either depression, or rage. Do we really need more of those things in the world?
Also, @26 has a good point in that being a good person is all well and good, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to be a good person when you’ve had loads of sex first. That may sound facetious, but I’m quite serious. Once a guy comes to regard sex as something that’s fundamentally available to him (because he’s a basically attractive person), rather than a scarce commodity that he’s always in danger of losing (because he’s fundamentally UNattractive), it’s the first step towards a more mature attitude towards relationships.
There’s also the “sowing one’s wild oats” factor as well. So many guys are haunted by all the sex they didn’t have in their teens and early 20s, and they carry that into their adult relationships as well. Again, that’s something we don’t need more of in the world.
@31 – “Once a guy comes to regard sex as something that’s fundamentally available to him (because he’s a basically attractive person), rather than a scarce commodity that he’s always in danger of losing (because he’s fundamentally UNattractive), it’s the first step towards a more mature attitude towards relationships.”
There is some truth to this. The perpetual unrequited horniness of high school/college boyhood can create, in some guys, certain patterns of thought that die hard – I have multiple friends in their early thirties who only now seem to be coming around to some deeper understanding that they are, in fact, capable of attracting women just as they are.
A douchenozzle is really only good for one thing, being inserted into one’s ass/pussy. Maybe a condescending jerk is the opposite of a douchenozze?
@26
Boy you know everything about women, don’t you? What a charmer.
Maybe the advice to BU should have been read: “Fuck other people – lots of people, WITH PROTECTION.” I mean, I’m just filling in the blanks here, but the reference back to Question 1 indicates that there are STIs or pregnancy involved. Also, going to the doctor might be a good call.
SITQUIALS could do with reading Alice in Genderland, an autobiography about a married man who dresses at the weekend and has a male partner when he’s dressed. Might give a few pointers.
http://aliceingenderland.com/
@28 – I think the term “asswipe” is much more degrading. A douchnozzle has a use, and an asshole has a use. Actually, it would suck to try to live without an asshole. An asswipe is a one use item, and once it’s done, it is totally worthless.
@37: Well, an asswipe has a use too, even if it *is* disposable.
In fact, I think we, as well as our assholes, would all be bereft, if we did not have proper asswipes.
And most douches, at best, are optional (and can genuinely mess up a woman’s system, making it a more-than-apt metaphor!). Asswiping is not … I hope!
Dan, you continue to ROCK!!!
Thanks again for a great column!!
“Broken up”‘s post reminds of a time several years ago when I had my window open and my neighbor had his window open and all of a sudden I heard a loud, angry woman’s voice, “WHY DO YOU HAVE HERPES MEDICINE!?” Followed by some pleading, more yelling and doorslams. I didn’t hear a female voice from that direction again …
Can we please get past this advice to ask girls questions. True, women and girls like a guy who is comfortable around them, and can talk to them like any other person. But they generally hate the guy who comes up and starts asking questions. They much prefer the comfortable guy who can speak in an interesting way, then converse. The interview is a real deal killer when meeting women. Very boring.
Comment #26 was posted by a bitter and clueless manbaby.
Work to become a good and attractive man and you will end up with good and attractive women. Make yourself into a fucking crazy bitch who plays mind games and the women you date will be just as creepy and irritating as you have inexplicably decided to become.
@26 may come off as a douchenozzle, but methinks a lot of you are being a bit naive. “Be yourself” and the girls will come a runnin’. OK.. the yourself that has no idea how to flirt or be dashing, witty and charming? After all, if a woman is sending you signals that she’s interested, and you’re too dense to pick up on those signals, she will at some point decide you’re either not interested or gay.
And then there’s the whole joyful, painful process of learning not to come off as clingy or desperate, in any number of ways. OK, if you like a girl, you should call her, text her, etc. But if you do those things too soon, too much, women will think you’re creepy. **ALL** women. Ditto, initiating too much physical contact too soon – ie, holding hands. Ditto.. any number of behaviors.
Young men grow up watching movies and TV shows where the “nice guy” always eventually “gets the girl”, usually by being really, really, sickeningly nice. Ugh. Wrong, wrong, wrong. First of all, women are not mysterious creatures; like men, they have to be attracted to someone. Without that attraction, you can be as “nice” (usually, read creepy, clingy, desperate, and like a doormat) as you want to be, but you’re getting nowhere, ever. It takes a long time to unlearn those sorts of hideous notions.
The idea that if you just have a well-rounded life you’ll meet all these quality women.. naive. I’m sure that women can tell you the same thing: just because you have a good job, great friends, fulfilling life etc. is no guarantee that the dudes won’t be more than a stream of creeps.
dan, you just solved a life long mystery.
My whole life I have never had the least bit of trouble garnering the positive attention of girls and boys I liked. However everyone around me who made far more serious efforts to wear stylish clothes everyday, style their hair everyday etc. Just had the dickens of a time. I could never understand what their problem was.
But I just realized the difference with your letter: I sat in the library reading and I went downtown to rallies and started up charity drives. I developed opinions on my world and tried to do things to help it. I guess I never realized or even fathomed the thought that at the end of day I was probably more interesting than these other guys. But now that i think of it, one of my g/fs in high school flat out told me.
I have one piece of advice to tack on from “In like Flynn (?)”. Don’t compete with the man or woman you’re with. People hate being upstaged all the time, and it makes you look like you have some issue with not being the center of attention(i.e. it’s annoying as shit).I mean, contribute to the situation, and take the stage when they don’t want it, but let them shine, don’t compete with them and they will like you that much more.
@41: “But they generally hate the guy who comes up and starts asking questions.”
Yeah, that makes you seem like a weirdo. Who the hell “comes up” to a person and starts asking questions?
My point was, if you feel you can’t think of anything to say (a common problem for many of the socially maladjusted), just try to think of interesting questions to ask. It shows that you’re digesting what she’s saying, thinking about it, and possibly taking it into new directions — maybe your question takes the topic in a direction she hasn’t thought of before.
It also gives you more material to bounce off your own thoughts.
@43: I think you have some odd hang-ups about this notion of “nice” and what people here are saying. Most of the advice focuses on knowledge and personality. The point is, if you don’t obsess about getting pussy and focus on yourself as a person, girls and women will automatically read that as “not desperate.”
I frankly enjoy the company of guys who have their own interests and thoughts, and not constantly viewing me as some kind of challenge for their wit and charm, because inevitably these guys come as a bit smarmy and I feel uncomfortable that it’s turned into some kind of mating dance. What reads to me as “flirty”: A smile, humour, and being engaged in the things I say. Chemistry, to me, is good conversation. That’s it. You want to show or reciprocate interest? Ask her to get a coffee/ice cream/etc. together. That’s it!
If a woman runs screaming from you (I’m using the general “you”) because you texted her two days after meeting her instead of three, then she’s an idiot way too obsessed with “The Rules.”
If you’re calling her three times a day trying to find out where she is, etc., then yes, YOU ARE CREEPY. If you can’t recognize that, you’re not the person we’re trying to help here. We’re trying to help average teenage boys who are way too worried about imaginary missteps and secret codes and hidden feminine clues.
“Young men grow up watching movies and TV shows where the ‘nice guy’ always eventually ‘gets the girl’, usually by being really, really, sickeningly nice.”
The bizarre thing is how many of those movies are written by men. They have this fantasy that they don’t need to be real people with their own lives — as long as they cling on long enough, a woman will eventually give in and want you. Yep, I hate those movies and shows too.
@43: Good post. I think @26 is taking a lot of crap from people who aren’t actually reading his/her post, which basically says that (1) teenage boys need to learn to treat girls in a non-clingy, non-needy way and lose the powerless, grasping vibe, and (2) girls are generally attracted to status, self-possessedness, and a kind of good-natured detachment (aka “cool”). And so it’s useful to project those things in an indirect way — like teasing a girl instead of hanging on her every word, or not being fooled into thinking that overbearing earnestness is the way to a woman’s heart.
All of this is true, though obviously it depends somewhat on how good-looking and charismatic the parties in question are, among other things. A guy who’s smoking hot can act like a doofus and will probably still get girls. A girl who’s not conventionally attractive probably hasn’t been on the receiving end of overwhelming male attention the way that “hot” women often have, so a guy who acts pleasantly indifferent isn’t a refreshing change for her. Social context is a big factor too: the behavior that’s perfect for England would fail miserably in Brazil, and vice versa.
I’m not sure why it makes people so angry to contemplate these things. There’s a place for open-hearted sincerity, but it’s generally not an efficient means of getting laid or attracting the opposite sex. Being aware of these psychological truths doesn’t mean you have to be crazy heavy-handed or manipulative about them: if you KNOW someone’s “playing hard to get”, then they’re doing it wrong. The idea is to project the sense that you have a life outside the other person, and aren’t going to drop everything for them at a moment’s notice.
@45: Your advice is spot-on up to a point, but telling someone “don’t obsess about getting pussy” is both completely correct, and totally unhelpful. There’s a certain level of insight that a teenager is never going to have until he actually GETS said pussy; it’s amazing to watch how much a guy’s personality changes after he gets laid for the first few times.
Also, it’s good that you’re authentically interested in other people and expect the same. But you may be underestimating how many out there are looking NOT for real people, but for archetypes. For every guy who watches a movie and thinks that persistence will wear down the girl of his dreams, there’s a woman who reads a romance novel and fantasizes about the mysterious, powerful man who instinctively understands her and wants to whisk her away. Many people, male and female, prefer this tidy fantasy to messy reality; it’s not even remotely a guy thing, but simply a human thing. Understanding what it is and where it comes from is crucial for anyone who’s actively dating.
@45
Yes, focus on yourself and don’t “obsess about getting pussy”. But this in and of itself is not going to mean you magically end up dating and in relationsips. There’s a whole messy tricky part in there, where you have to learn all of these new social skills, which you kind of blithely dismiss with “Ask her to get a coffee/ice cream/etc. together. That’s it!”. That’s it? So you go for coffee and somehow end up dating and in the sack together? Uh huh. Not buying it, sorry, ’cause I lived it, however poorly.
And then there’s the part where, hey, what if you’re this great guy, with lots of interests and doing things all of the time, but you almost never meet any women? Of course you want to live your life and not worry about these things, but implying that this will inevatibly result in success with women is flat-out incorrect. If your social circles are mostly guys, or mostly non-single ladies, or people who don’t float your boat.. well, you’re SOL, aren’t ya? Especially if your passions are things that skew to male-dominated.
The point is, that yes, we should tell awkward teenage boys to focus on personal growth and not on “trying to get girls”, and *hopefully* the “getting girls” part will sort itself out in the end because you’ve grown into a confident, attractive man. But it’s not necessarily *going* to turn out that way, and implying that it will is another Big Lie, just like all of those stupid romance movies and TV shows, which we are in complete agreement about.
Actually, I don’t think we should tell awkward teenage boys to focus on personal growth or themselves per se. I’ve always found that line of advice to be more or less bullshit, in the same way that I think that “learn to be happy on your own, then you can be happy with someone else” is bullshit.
Of course, personal growth is great, and having your shit together is crucial once a relationship gets going. But humans are social creatures who like to hang out, have sex, and do a million other things that need sociality to work. In order to make that sociality happen, you need to understand what makes people tick, what they want, and how their actions relate to their conscious and unconscious selves. (Many people think they want X, but deep down they really want Y, even though they’ll swear up and down that X is what they want and get infuriated if someone contradicts them.)
So actually, rather than “focus on yourself”, I’d tell an awkward teenage boy to focus more on other people — but on UNDERSTANDING them, not on trying to get things (validation, sex, etc.) from them. If you understand what other people want, you can figure out how that fits in with your own life, and what can be changed without cost to yourself to make yourself more magnetic. People who can do that have much better luck with the opposite sex; people who can’t are at a permanent disadvantage. It’s unfair, but so’s life.
@48: “So you go for coffee and somehow end up dating and in the sack together?”
Um, don’t most relationships start out that way? I’m not saying all coffee dates end up in relationships, but all relationships start from some point, even something nebulous like just getting drinks together.
Anyway, with that comment I was mostly addressing this point you made: “After all, if a woman is sending you signals that she’s interested, and you’re too dense to pick up on those signals, she will at some point decide you’re either not interested or gay.”
Basically, indicating interest isn’t rocket science.
“And then there’s the part where, hey, what if you’re this great guy, with lots of interests and doing things all of the time, but you almost never meet any women?”
The point to create a foundation that you can build on later. Find out what your interests are, develop them, and then later when you start seeking out women, it’ll be a lot easier to interest and keep them at your side.
“If your social circles are mostly guys, or mostly non-single ladies, or people who don’t float your boat.. well, you’re SOL, aren’t ya? Especially if your passions are things that skew to male-dominated.”
Then go out and find interest groups that do. Hell, there are chess clubs and hiking clubs that are advertised as singles-focused.
Focusing on your interests doesn’t mean pretending every circumstance is perfect and ignoring a flaw like “no women here!” You’re treating this advice like it means “don’t ever try to meet women.”
And can we keep in mind that we’re still talking about TEENAGED BOYS HERE? If you haven’t fucked someone by the time you’re 20, you may be above average in that respect, but you’re by no means not a doomed virgin, especially if you go to college, where there are tons of women.
“But it’s not necessarily *going* to turn out that way, and implying that it will is another Big Lie.”
Does anything necessarily turn out any way? Advice is a guideline — like pointing someone in a general direction that sort of helps them get there, but there’s probably going to be obstacles and errors along the way.
Christ, if someone got mad at me because my advice didn’t guarantee them a lifetime of pussy and happiness, I’d tell them to fuck off.
@48: Also, I honestly don’t mean to turn this into a “well do you have any better ideas” but I am genuinely curious: What *is* your advice to teenaged boys? If you don’t think things like “have interests” is helpful, I imagine “be dashing and witty” doesn’t really help either.
I’m interested in hearing what you think dateless people should do to draw in others. I mean, hell, it’s not like I’m roping them in either.