Posted in:
July 16, 2008 7:39 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
It recently dawned on me
that I am being too picky with the girls I date. After I thought about this idea in more depth, I realized
that I’m really no prize, so who am I to even be picky? I decided to try an exercise that is
very much against what I was taught to do.
I spent 14 years being
educated at a small private Quaker school. The experience was amazing, but it gave me too much self
worth. I distinctly remember a
story about an I.L.A.C sign that hangs invisibly around our necks. I.L.A.C stands for I Am Loveable And
Capable. It’s taken me years to
even buy into this—and, you know what, I still haven’t bought into it
completely. The story dictates
that every time someone says something hurtful, or crippling to you, a piece of
your I.L.A.C sign is broken off. If we go around hurting one another too much, then we are all left
broken, with no sense of I.L.A.C.
But, I’ve been too picky
with the girls I want to date. Perhaps I am alone because I don’t deserve anyone beautiful, special, or
intelligent.
So, instead of looking in
the mirror tonight and telling myself that I deserve someone great (I.L.A.C), I
will go over all of the things I don’t like about myself. If I humble myself, and realize that I’m
not that special, perhaps my standards, which are impossibly high, will come
down and I will be more forgiving when a strand of a girl’s hair seems out of
place.
So, here are the things I
don’t like about myself and how I will correct them:
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Posted in:
July 15, 2008 3:08 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
A friend of a friend has called his ex-girlfriend six times since she broke up with him. I told my friend to bestow my breaking up advice on him. Whether you want someone back or not, if you follow the rules below, you will maintain your dignity, maybe win the person back, or eventually get over them:
1. Ride Off Into The Sunset
In college I took a class called “American Western Movies”. Give me a break, ok? It was summer session. But this class did teach me something. I learned I wanted to be a cowboy. They are so cool, collect, never play their hand, never look rattled, and they are always confident.
One thing they all did was ride off as the sun set on the horizon after their business was done.
Riding off into the sunset keeps our dignity. When a girl breaks up with me, I will say:
"OK, it was great getting to know you over the past (insert length of time). You take care."
My business is done.
Then, I will figuratively ride off into the sunset. I won’t tell her how much I miss her. I won’t tell her she made a mistake. I won’t call, email or text. I won’t mention her to mutual friends. I’ll be gone from her life.
Suddenly, it will dawn on the girl that she is not getting her money’s worth for this breakup. It is true: people who do the breaking up have an air of power to them. They like being the decision maker, and having the control. But after I walk away like it’s no problem, she’ll start to think:
"Wow, why isn’t he shaken up over this? Did he even care that I broke up with him?"
Or even better, the ever-popular and coveted:
"Did I do the right thing breaking up with him?"
That’s when you know you’re in business.
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Posted in:
July 13, 2008 12:14 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Guys have a major loyalty code when it comes to being with girls who have dated or hooked up with their friends.
I’ve had my horrible moments as a friend, like one night in college with my friend Jay. We were sitting in a diner at the end of the night when a gorgeous girl from Rhode Island (that’s the only thing I remember about her) straight up sat down at our table and told Jay:
You are beautiful, you have to come home with me…now.
But I told him he couldn’t leave me. Perhaps it was because I was visiting him at his campus and I didn’t want to wander around alone. Who knows the reason, but he yielded to me and told her he had a visitor and couldn’t leave me alone.
The next morning I woke up with morning wood (that strange phenomenon where guys wake up with erections), and I thought to myself:
Damn, it would have been nice to hook up last night.
Then it dawned on me how I had ruined Jay’s amazing opportunity. I apologized to him and told him he totally could have gone off with that girl. He just shook his head and said:
I wish you could have told me that last night.
In retrospect most of our guy friends actually blame Jay for his decision to listen to me, despite my behavior that my they classified as “girly”. In any event, Jay showed major loyalty that night over the chance to get lucky.
Recently, I was really into this girl who lives in Hoboken, NJ. Hoboken is a short train ride to NYC, but it’s still a major pain in the ass to get to for Manhattanites. Remember, though, when you’re into someone you’ll go out of your way. But on one occasion when I asked this girl to meet us the upcoming weekend, she said:
Bring Justin. He’s really cute.
My heart sank. She was into my best friend/roommate. Everything blew up in my face.
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Posted in:
July 6, 2008 9:31 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
The other day I was telling a friend about my three favorite girls in Manhattan. The countdown is:
#3 A cute waitress at The Bowery Bar
#2 The bartender at The Village Pourhouse
#1 A friend who I only get to hang out with once in a while in groups
Upon looking at that list, I noticed a few sad things:
- I have never talked to two of those girls
- I don’t even know two of those girls’ names
- The one girl I do talk to, I get along with great—and she flirts with me—but she has a boyfriend
The net of this is that there is no hope to get even one date with any
of these girls. Is it just a coincidence that my three favorite girls
in Manhattan are all impossible to date at the moment, or am I
purposely longing for unavailable girls?
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Posted in:
July 4, 2008 11:29 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Why do we celebrate
Independence Day? Because
independence is attractive. We
were not cool when we were a colony. My advice: don’t be like
the British Imperial Government pre-1776 and try to colonize someone. Conversely, don’t be like the Colonists
pre-1776 and allow yourself to be colonized.
Aside from sense of humor,
independence is the most attractive quality in a person. The paradox is that relationships are
entities that require a certain amount of dependence on one another. So how do we do this?
In some cases, nature has
figured it out. A good example where both partners benefit would be the
clownfish/sea anemone as outlined in Wonderclub.com:
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Posted in:
July 2, 2008 4:49 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
My obsessive-compulsive mind jumps from conclusion to conclusion (like the time I thought I had a crabs infestation just because I was itching). So, it’s no surprise that my habit of looking at girls’ toes since the summer has arrived has made me nervous. Do I have a foot fetish?
READ MORE
Posted in:
July 2, 2008 2:16 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Fourth of July conjures up memories of steamed crabs, fireflies, and
sparklers. Yeah, those things are kind of random, but that’s the
protocol for a late afternoon Baltimore cookout in the summer—oh, and
terrible, terrible cheap beer.
One would have to head further South to get real fireworks, but in our
earlier days my sisters and I were content to sprint around with
sparklers in hand. As the Fourth approaches, I’ve been inundated with
friends seeking advice and telling me stories about dating, and they
always take a moment to acknowledge the presence or absence of “the
spark”.
So, sparklers are lame entertainment for Fourth of July, but “the spark” is actually that rare thing we seek in relationships.
The spark is a tough thing to define, but listing some characteristics of the spark will help us get there:
- It does not occur often—we can date for years and never feel a spark with anyone
- It is something we are almost always sure of—you can’t “think” you’re feeling sparks, you usually know it’s there 100%
- It is not always mutual: it is possible for only one person in potential couple to feel a spark
- It is spontaneous: it doesn’t develop, it kind of just happens.
This is evident by the fact that sometimes friends suddenly feel sparks
after years of platonic behavior
- It can go away and come back
So, this brings up other things to consider. How do sparks make us
behave, and—more importantly—what kind of strategies can we use to keep
sparks flying in our relationships as they blossom into long term
unions or marriage?
Sparks make me do crazy things:
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Posted in:
June 30, 2008 2:02 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Last week was wedding week: I went down to Dallas this past weekend
for my friend’s wedding. So, I’ve been thinking about marriage…
As more and more of my friends get into serious relationships, it’s
interesting to see the ones that get married and the ones that stay
together year after year without getting married. I wonder to
myself—when will the more serious person in this relationship get fed
up and either leave or present an ultimatum?
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 30, 2008 12:28 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Ever since my sisters and I were old enough to consider, we were
subject to speeches from my traditional parents who could not bear to
see us moving in with significant others before getting married. Their
rationale was that it was just a way to off getting married.
My older sister lived with her boyfriend for over two years in
San Francisco before moving back East when they decided to get
married. The two are happily married with two baby daughters.
My little sister had a tougher experience. She lived with her
boyfriend for three years, met someone whimsically during a business
trip and returned to New York resigned to change her life. She
informed her boyfriend that they needed to break up and that she was
thinking about a career change and maybe even moving to another country.
The ensuing months were definitely tense. In New York City,
where nearly every apartment is occupied, you can’t just move out of an
apartment unless you find someone to take your spot. This is also
contingent on whether you can find a new place. So, my sister and her
boyfriend decided that the most practical thing to do would be to honor
the lease.
The next three months my sister and her boyfriend took turns
sleeping on the couch. There were also times when my sister met people
out and wanted to bring them home, but knew that it would be a bad
idea.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 22, 2008 11:51 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
I need to figure out the high-heels dynamic. Don’t get me wrong—heels are really cute. But, I think heels can be overused and I must say I rarely notice them and I don’t know the “heels experience” that a girl can go through.
I dressed as Pam Grier one Halloween and I wore size 14 red heels with zippers on the side, purchased at Payless. The most difficult thing I dealt with that night was getting harassed by some frat boys who must have thought I was a transvestite. I contemplated using my heel as a weapon at that point. OK, so I wanted to hit obnoxious frat boys with my heel—maybe I did learn the “heels experience”.
But the issue is that girls notice shoes more often than guys do. Also, guys have a play anywhere any time mentality which can really get us into trouble if we don’t try to put ourselves into the shoes of our date.
Here is what I did wrong:
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Posted in:
June 22, 2008 11:37 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
I don’t like getting set up on blind dates. It’s hard enough to find someone that you’re compatible with on your own, so what are the chances of someone else figuring that out for you?
The term “blind date” already sets off red flags. Am I too picky? Is there a set of people out there that will try anything once, and gleefully go on blind dates, half cocked? I don’t think anything as complicated as dating should be done blind. Blind anything doesn’t seem right: blind test-taking? Blind fishing? Blind surgery? That may be extreme, but sometimes dating feels as complicated as surgery.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 20, 2008 3:31 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
I recently met a girl in a
bar and got her number. The one caveat
was that I got her number under the premise that I would help her find a job in
public relations. My sister is in PR so
I would at least be able to get this girl interviews. I still haven’t learned not to mix business
with pleasure. I began asking the girl
out on dates. I thought I could start
dating this girl AND get her a job. It
never occurred to me that she might have only wanted me as a business contact.
I took her to an Italian
restaurant in the Bowery.
We sat down for dinner,
and the girl immediately took control.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 17, 2008 9:58 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
I thought I understood
flirting, but it appears I have no idea how it works. Here are actions that I thought signified
flirting from girls:
- Making a lot of eye
contact
- Putting your face close to
mine when speaking
- Brushing my arm or
touching me during conversation
- Laughing at most of my stupid
jokes (I really think this takes some effort)
- In a crowded room, you a
lot of time with me and seek me out and you don’t run away from me
- Letting me compliment you
and you push for me for more compliments
- Playing with your hair
while we are talking to each other
Guys definitely notice
these subtle things—although I’ve been told:
“You’re so stupid, that
girl was totally flirting with you and you couldn’t even figure it out.”
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 15, 2008 10:20 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Father’s day is a reminder
of the good and the bad of separation in relationships.
When I was eight, my
parents split up. My dad had met another
woman and he moved out of our house. It
destroyed me. I spent weeks at a time at
my dad’s really depressing apartment when I wasn’t at our regular house with my
mom. His apartment was stark and not
poorly set up. He needed a wife. I felt sorry for him, but I also had a
confused sort of anger stirring around inside of me.
That period in my life was
as sad as I’ve ever been. It’s one thing
to have a bad day, or times when things aren’t going right. It’s another to have someone completely
disappear from your life. In those days,
my mom would cry in front of me and wonder why things were the way they
were.
They say actors can cry on
command by thinking of really sad things. If I were an actor, I could cry on command any time I think of the time
I carpooled with some family friends en route to meeting my mom and sisters at
the beach after I stayed with my dad. I
remember waving by to my dad out the back window, feeling emptier with each
second because this time I had him all to myself was ending. I stared out that back window and waved and
waved and did not take my eyes off my dad until he was just a speck in the
distance—and he didn’t stop waving even then. This visual is what can make me cry any time I need to.
Eventually my parents got
back together—something, I’m told, that is a very rare occurrence. Now, they are grandparents and their marriage
is happy. Aside from having to re-assure
my dad that I’m not mad at him still, I get along with them both really
well.
Is it possible that this
separation was necessary to ensure their happiness in the long run? The more I look at functioning relationships
and marriages, the more separation I see within them.
READ MORE
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