Posted in:
October 14, 2008 1:25 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
At first glance, it seems impossible that I could learn anything about
relationships from my company's presentation training. But during the
communication section, we learned:
Humans shut off or get frustrated when something is not effectively communicated.
According to my training, there are four types of people out there:
Drivers
Drivers
are direct and don't tolerate nonsense. They don't realize that their
stark honesty can be taken the wrong way. The best way to effectively
communicate to a driver is to keep things short and manageable. They
don't like to get bogged down in details. You might try something like:
"Do you have five minutes, I need to talk to you about two things".
A driver thrives on one-word answers. Drivers are impatient, and they like to make quick decisions.
READ MORE 
Posted in:
October 13, 2008 4:24 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
It takes a certain amount of luck, the perfect storm, to
meet a person at a party or at a bar.
I've laid out the different ways to "meet" a girl when out:
Mutual People Watching
I like to pick out fun activities to do with a girl when I
first meet her. Together, we can
critique outfits, laugh at antics, and make observations. It's a great way to feel out a person's sense
of humor, and even get a feel for their intellect. But I have to watch out for being too
critical of others or coming off as condescending.
Hating a Place Together
This is taken from the "perfect pick up line" I once wrote
about. I can get into someone's corner
by immediately bonding with them over how lame a place is when meeting them. How miserable is it when the music is too loud,
or when the bar is too hot?
Commiserating is a great way to build kinship. In fact, when something sucks and you all
realize it together, you end up forming a tighter bond than when everything is
perfect around you-the "in the trenches" together mentality.
READ MORE
Posted in:
October 10, 2008 9:16 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
My dad came to this country from the Philippines when he was in his 20's, so he's quite "Americanized" by now.
Like
any dad, he wanted to bestow love advice upon his son, so during my
earlier years he would take time to share his thoughts. Some things
bombed, such as:
"Once you've dated a girl for a month or so, tell her you love her. She will appreciate it."
Even I know not to play my hand that early. But, he meant well.
He also tried to give me the following advice:
"Women and men are pretty much the same, you'll realize that as you get older-so no reason to be intimidated by women."
This
was just as preposterous as his "early declaration of love" advice. I
grew up with two sisters; they were kind of like guys. But most girls
that I knew didn't like sports, were somewhat irrational and too
emotional, and very unpredictable. They were nothing like my guy
friends-they made sense.
But as I get older, I wonder if men and
women are indeed very similar. I've learned this by watching my own
actions. Here are some ways that I've behaved like a woman:
READ MORE
Posted in:
October 9, 2008 2:00 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
I've been asking some of my close friends a question that is
making them all uncomfortable but, like the good friends that they are, they
are offering me advice to the best of their abilities. My question has to do with kissing and some
differences I've noticed in some of the girls I've kissed lately.
This thing I've been noticing has taken a toll on the rest
of my experience with these girls. A
good kiss is like a great opening scene in a movie. It grabs you and pulls you in and you don't
turn away from that screen until the very end.
Your emotions are on edge, but you enjoy the uncertainty because, at the
same time, there is a miraculous feeling of comfort within the moment.
The trend that has been bothering me is that the three girls
I've recently made out with do a lot of pecking. That is, pecking on the lips and cheek and
neck. Sure, this feels great, but there
is not as much passion in these kisses.
And, there is a major absence of tongue.
READ MORE
Posted in:
October 8, 2008 6:09 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Closing is the fine art of finishing what you've
started. You meet a girl, you charm her
up, you close the deal. Going home and
making out, going on a date the next week, or getting a girlfriend out of the
conversation are all outcomes of a successful close.
Here are the reasons I can't close:
I'm Not Sure Of My Goal
What do I really want on an average night out anyway? There comes that fateful crossroad every time
I'm talking to a girl: do I get her
number and try to ask her out on a date, or do I ask her if she wants to hang
out at my apartment at the end of the night? Bottom line, without a clear goal
in my head, how am I supposed to accomplish anything? Sometimes I feel successful when a girl just
says I'm cute. I go out on top at that
point, because I'm sure it will all be downhill from there if I try to push it
further.
READ MORE
Posted in:
October 6, 2008 2:49 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Do you have "the one that got away?" To qualify, they must have the following two characteristics:
We
had to have a chance with them at one point. We either dated this
person or knew they wanted to date us. There's some kind of history
there beyond just having a crush on someone that didn't know we existed.
The
one that got away improves, becoming more attractive after we've blown
it or after they are gone. We wouldn't want them back or lament
anything if they didn't get even more attractive than they were before,
right?
My work friend, Margaret, has a very entertaining one
that got away. A while back she was dating this guy who coached
football at a nearby college. He was making $11,000 a year (the
average rent for a studio apartment in NYC is around $1,800) and living
in the basement of the gym. I would ask Margaret about her weekend:
"So how was your night in the basement of the gym?"
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 29, 2008 12:28 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
This past week was National Unmarried and Singles Week. I've spent too
much time admitting all of the stupid things I've done that have left
me single. But today, even if it's only for a day, I will stand up and
be proud of my singleness.
Here are my favorite things about being single:
It's cheap. Sadly, I don't have enough money to even go on that many dates in this
city. For example, my good friend goes out to dinner every week and has
also been on a few vacations this past summer with his girlfriend. That
has got to add up to at least $5,000 that I don't have.
TV Control. I
am so set in my TV viewing: Sports, History Channel, Discovery Channel,
stupid ‘80's anything, and so on. If some girl came over all the time
and attempted to commandeer the remote (and if she was sweet and cute
I'd have to give in), I'd be pretty sad.
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 28, 2008 3:38 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
The bars at Dewey Beach, DE are very close together along the water. This makes for an unfortunate situation when the night ends: several bar crowds travel down various tributaries emptying into a debaucherous circle in the road. It looks like those sections of crashing waves where three of four separate waves come together and the water looks all confused and twisted.
It was in this mess one night where my friend and I found ourselves trying to locate the rest of our group. As we hung out there watching the craziness fly by, a cute girl materialized out of the mass of people and grabbed my friend and started kissing him.
Somehow, the girl became detached from my friend (probably brushed off him by some passing drunk) and ended up in my arms. We then proceeded to makeout in the circle. After a few minutes the rest of my friends managed to show up and we decided to go to a party at a friend's house.
As I started off with my friends, the girl called after me:
"Aren't you coming with me," she asked.
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 26, 2008 4:03 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
There is a fundamental difference in how girls will judge another girl versus how a guy will judge another girl.
When I say a girl is hot, I'm only talking about her appearance. Girls will dismiss a girl's hotness for these sorts of reasons:
- I don't like her bag
- Her shoes are annoying
- I'm not in a good mood today so everyone is ugly
- She looks like she works out too much
- She doesn't work out enough
- I know her and she's crazy
- I knew her in high school and she was too competitive
Girls get mad when a hot girl is doing something they want to do. For example, my older sister wishes she was a sideline sports reporter. I'm always saying how hot ESPN's Erin Andrews is and my sister will say: "Ugh I hate her".
I can understand where you guys are coming from. I think it's acceptable for you guys to say that Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page is hot because I love his work and he's awesome. But if you say Papa Roach's guitarist is hot, then that's annoying to me because Papa Roach sucks. Perhaps my sister thinks Erin Andrews lacks talent, or that she could do a better job on the sideline.
But the point is, ladies, when a guy is talking about "hot" or "cute" it is purely based on appearance. We are not taking into account what they do for a living or even their sanity.
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 24, 2008 1:13 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
For those of you who missed the hate-fest against me on Jezebel.com, take a quick look at the fallout over my Sarah Palin post.
For
the record, I'm not really Republican or Democrat-I have mixed views.
However, I find the angry Democrat girls more fun to annoy during
arguments.
I'd walk up to some angry Democrat girl and say:
"Eh, once you're making over $60,000, you'll turn Republican."
Obnoxious,
I know. But, hey, I have sisters so I'm blessed with an antenna that
can seek and attack any girl who is the least bit annoyed at a given
moment.
Please note that not every Democrat female is angry.
I've hung out with a lot of fun Democrat girls who put their views
aside when judging people. Any political discussion we have is civil
and we actually listen to one another.
Angry Democrat girls are
bent on making me feel guilty. They tell me I have bad environmental
habits. One time, I was walking by a group of people complaining about
something on behalf of the Democrat party in Union Square, and some
girl thrust a sign in my face that read:
"God hates you."
I thought to myself: "well, of course God hates me, but wow-who are you to tell me that?"
Republican
women just scare me. They are brutal and unforgiving. They get mad at
me for not understanding finance, or wasting time caring about the
environment.
So, am I bad about the environment, or am wasting time because I care about it? I can't win! But the Jezebel audience was full of angry Democrat women just waiting to attack.
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 23, 2008 10:28 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
I've been on one of those little rolls lately that guys get on, but
they don't want to jinx it by examining it. Of course, I'll examine it
today and jinx it.
I've been meeting a lot of attractive
girls and maintaining contact after the initial meeting. I find this
to be more of a measure of success than "getting laid," because it
leaves open the opportunity for something that could be much more
fulfilling.
They say that first impressions are everything, so my theory for my lucky streak is that I'm making good first impressions.
You
get one chance to make a first impression. Here are the things that
have helped me or hindered me in the quest to make a good impression on
a girl:
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 19, 2008 5:50 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
A few days ago, I attended a beautiful funeral service for a friend of
the family who battled lymphoma for 14 months. David was a senior when
I was a freshman in high school. He was close friends with my older
sister and I am close friends with his younger sister who graduated the
year after me.
It was too soon for him to pass away. He left
behind a beautiful family, and over 200 people attended the service-a
testament to the amount of lives that he influenced in a positive way.
I can say that David had a role in the very beginning of my dating life.
I
remember a grey Fall day outside our school when my older sister called
me over to their group on the blacktop in front of the middle school.
Usually this was a scary proposition; my sister's friends were
intimidating, popular, beautiful, and successful. Sometimes, out of
sheer boredom, her guy or girlfriends would haze me.
But this time, there was a noble reason.
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 16, 2008 10:50 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
A few weeks ago, I knocked over my external hard drive off my bedside table and, to my horror, my computers no longer recognized its existence.
This was no ordinary data that was stored on this hard drive. No, it wasn't old tax records, important family photos, or great music. It was 165 gigs of select porn that I have compiled for the past five years. Irreplaceable.
Let me take one more step back. My buddy Bryan (my boobs-obsessed friend), and I have always lauded Avenue B in NYC because it is full of half cocked bodegas, and shops. Every shop looks illegal in some way. Nestled on a block on Avenue B is a shady
computer store called (obviously) "Computer," run by two Asian cousins.
Bryan had told me about a conversation that he had had earlier in the year with one of the Asian cousins:
BRYAN: "Well, I have a lot of music, and well- a lot of porn too on this computer."
COUSIN: "Oh, well we all have that."
This was the kind of understanding I was looking for. Why take the hard drive to a Best Buy where some woman whose first language was English would give me a dirty look after the repair?
When I took the drive in, I explained the problem, then I was put on the spot:
COUSIN: "So you have a lot of important data on this?"
I cracked.
ME: "Well, uh...I'm not even really sure what's on this."
A few days later I received some good news: I could have the drive fixed AND have my "data" rescued.
Bryan and I went to pick up the drive to experience the miracle together. One of the guys was already smirking when I walked in. They knew.
The worst part of the process was when they plugged in the drive on the showroom monitors and the contents of the drive appeared across all five of them. But, like I said, they knew. They were smart enough to have the settings at "List" and not "Thumbnail" to avoid embarrassment. He asked me about a special movie file he had never seen before and I gruffly stated:
"Oh, those are work files"...total lie.
Me, Bryan and the two cousins exchanged understanding glances, a moment-- spanning a language barrier-- and capping off the perfect discreet experience.
The experience reminded me that males have a universal acceptance and love of porn.
In college, porn was on our TV in the background like light rock in a dentist office waiting room. Guys talk about it openly, and comfortably. When I told my friends about my porn drive breaking, I was greeted with groans and comforted.
The porn that meant the most to me was a movie called "Edward Penishands": a touching story about a misfit goth character who happened to have dildos instead of hands. You should have seen him try to eat spaghetti. But on sad the day my buddy took it to wrestling practice and watched the video with the entire wrestling team, only to have it stolen by one of the coaches. Because of its mysterious disappearance, Edward Penishands became the stuff of legends. READ MORE
Posted in:
September 13, 2008 9:11 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
I don't think I'll ever understand women. The best I can do is master the things that make sense. I know certain things make girls happy. I know that it's important to give a girl I like attention, to treat her with respect, treat her how I would want to be treated.
But the other day I was thinking about things about women that I will never understand no matter how much I try to figure them out. Folklore has always preached not to go into the wilderness, because it was the unknown. It is human to fear the unknown.
So, I've listed things I don't understand about women...which basically means: things that freak me out about women:
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 12, 2008 2:35 PM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
When determining if you should let things get serious, remember: actions speak louder than words. With that being said, here are ten dating red flags. If you see any of these, do yourself a favor and reconsider if it's worth it for you:
1. You Are Not on the VIP List For Breaking News
Were you the last to learn about this person's job promotion or newborn niece or nephew? Once things are serious, you should be among the first to know about exciting news, or bad news.
2. They Avoid Meeting Your Family or Friends
If they are shying away from meeting your friends/family consistently, then there are problems. Even if they are very shy, they should want to meet those who are important to you.
READ MORE
Posted in:
September 11, 2008 8:32 AM by Rich Santos | COMMENTS
Can you believe that I have faked an orgasm before? This is a clear case of the shoe is on the other foot.
As I was growing up, the older guys told me I better not be a "two-minute" type of guy. It put so much fear into me. The last thing I wanted to do was leave any sexual partner unsatisfied. It immediately turned sex into a pass or fail situation. And, as you can tell from my 2.3 GPA at University of Delaware, I don't do well in a pass/fail situation very often.
Every time I have sex, I do everything I possibly can to not ejaculate too fast. This usually leads to ejaculation not happening.
Concentrating on not giving in, letting the mind wander to anything else other than how good the sex might be leads to bad sex. But, what if I let myself realize how good the sex is-I might just ejaculate too fast.
Trying too hard to ejaculate has a backward effect too. I've t
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