DREWspective

I remember Art Berg (deceased), one of my favourite NSA speakers, saying that most things we fear never come to pass. In recent times, that statement gave me a sense of hope.

The only problem is, sometimes they do.

One of my biggest fears while I was growing up, was falling hopelessly in love with a girl, only for her to run off with some other guy (or several other guys) and rip me to shreds internally.
I haven’t told anyone that before, and I wouldn’t have mentioned it if it hadn’t happened. There was the big thing last year about my world collapsing because of someone whom I thought I was having my first relationship with, but there have been countless other girls who I really wanted to get with, but they chose to date someone brighter, lighter and a whole lot whiter.

That worst fear came true without me having to think about it, even though it was probably in the back of my mind some place. Now that it has happened I’ve grown more cynical, but at the same time there are things I’ve been forced to accept. (Won’t go into those here.)

Most recently, I had to face a very intimidating fear. I wanted to leave my current job (still do), primarily because of the work environment; I felt strongly that it was counter-productive, not just with the job but with my self-esteem and personal development.

I’d been putting it off for months. I’ve only been at this job for seven months, and it would have been the third in a string of short permanent roles since university. Even more threatening was the possible reaction of the boss, who makes a habit of talking over people and throwing their weight around. They talked down to a good friend of mine: someone who left the company after four years. Imagine the bollocking I’d get for just seven months.

But I finally brought it up, and they had a very hard time accepting it as an answer. I did it three times in total, each time thinking about the situation.

And my reward for facing my fear? Verbal abuse. I had my personal life thrown in my face, being rudely talked over, before being left alone and shattered in the room, while the boss congratulated themselves or something.

Have you ever had that? When you’re "encouraged" to open up to people, or told you should be doing something, yet you get attacked when you do? Real healthy, isn’t it? Funnily enough, the only thing that does is make people not want to open up.

So I’m still at the job, and not for the first time in my life I feel trapped. It makes me think about my ultimate worst fear… I’m not going to say what it is.

This has been a post in the making.

Having been speed dating a total of eight times, I’ve noticed some commonly occuring themes during the events. Here are a few of my observations: feel free to disagree or agree with them as you will.

Please note that I am specifially referring to speed dating in the 20s age group in London; these may be less relevant for older people, or those in other places.

Observation #1

Men want female friends as sexual partners.
Women want male sexual partners as friends.

A lot of these so-called dating gurus say that men focus on looks, while women focus on looks and personality.

Bullshit. If anything, in today’s society it’s usually the other way around.  As a guy or girl, how many times do you get blocked and deleted as soon as you reveal your photo? How many times do you do the blocking and deleting?

Either way, we can all agree that looks are important to both sexes. But there’s a huge difference between how important looks are to each genders.

I am speaking as a disgruntled, generally luckless speed dater, but with most women (at any kind of speed dating event) it really does all boil down to looks. Show me someone who disagrees; I’ll show you a liar.

From my experience in the dating and even friendship world (and it may be that I’m in London, which is generally a shallow city), girls get so many offers from men, so they are looking for people they find attractive physically and sexually to be their friends.

On the other hand, guys have enough problems with just talking to a girl, and would be just as happy making friends with those they didn’t find attractive. Of course, there are guys who are just after one thing (and they usually get it), but even they have female friends.

I famously carried out an experiment on the London branch of Gumtree some time ago: I posted an ad looking for friendship (and only friendship) with females.
Of the nine responses I’d received, seven of the girls demanded to see a photo, and cut off all communication once they found out what I looked like. The other two had just stopped responding after a while.

Observation #2

Men are more serious than women.

There have been maybe one or two girls at an event that I would have liked to have been involved with, but at the end of the day I have always been primarily looking for stable female friends. The guys I’ve spoken to at events, though they don’t say it explicity, are in the same boat.

In most cases, the emphasis in "speed dating" for guys is dating.

Ask any girl why she chose to go speed dating, and you’re guaranteed to get an answer similar to:

• "just for a laugh"
• "something to do"
• "for fun, innit"

As with the dating game in general, the onus is on the guy to do all of the work, while the girls just sit pretty (Rapunzel syndrome); this is merely an opportunity for them to evaluate the guys on offer.
With many companies offering a free event if nobody is ticked, they’re prepared to go away empty handed (probably to abuse the system). Either way they’ll decide whom they’re attracted to, and completely discard the rest.

In most cases, the emphasis in "speed dating" for girls is speed.

Observation #3

Men make up their own minds.
Women have their minds made up for them.

Before you queue up to disagree, I have a couple of questions for you:

How many times have you seen or heard of a guy pursuing a girl, or taking some course of action, though it’s against popular culture?

How many times have you seen or heard of a girl pursuing a guy, or taking some course of action, because of popular culture?

Whether your opinion is influenced by real life or the media, depending on your perspective, the answers will probably be the same. There are of course exceptions but, far as I’m concerned, too few.

In speed dating, both guys and girls compare notes during and after a speed dating event.

It has also been known for girls to change their minds based on what other girls think of potential suitors. Girls are far more concerned about having approval from other people than guys.  While deep down a guy wants a girl who will compliment and "complete" them, in their 20s and even 30s a girl is more concerned with finding a good "trophy", to improve their image and make other people jealous.

You won’t get a confession any time soon, but people changing their ticks has happened in at least one event I’ve been to. This is probably another reason why girls statistically tick less than guys.

In her mini book on speed dating, Clare McCann tells about a strange phenomenon: guys who tick more than one girl in a group of friends are often less likely to be a long-term match after the event. When the girls find out, they’ll wonder: "does he like me or her?" The result is that nobody wins, because there’s perceived competition and each girl thinks they’re going to lose.

Whether it was this phenomenon or something that I did wrong, I had experienced this after one event: one girl didn’t even respond to an e-mail, while the other, after a short phonecall and text messages, decided to break communication.

On the flip side, I have never known a guy to have based his ticking decisions on what other guys have ticked. Time after time, it’s been demonstrated that, if a guy really wants to see a particular girl again, he will register ticks for every girl that he liked.

From what I’ve seen, most guys keep details of their ticks a secret, but openly talk about the women they like (and dislike).  They also see other guys being a threat, even if subconsciously, but they all think they’re in with a chance… if only they get ticked back.

Observation #4

Men generally want what’s different.
Women generally want what’s popular.

I can’t sum this point up any better than Chris Rock’s famous line in one of his shows:

• guys look at someone else’s girl, and say they have to get a girl just like her;
• girls look at someone else’s guy, and say they have to get him.

There’s a hidden rule in the dating game, that says a girl will reject someone if they have never met their friends’ approval. Guys, on the other hand, have been known to risk friendships and even social status to date a particular girl.

In the film John Tucker Must Die, many of the girls in the high school had been out with the titular character, and complain about his ethics. But as another male character says later in the film, they all queue up to go out with him.

Guys, on the other hand, seem to be after someone who may be like someone they’ve found attractive, but is "just for them". Girls seem to know this, as shown by their efforts to emulate actresses and singers and the like in physical form.

There are noticable examples of guys initially rejecting, or turning a blind eye, to girls who aren’t very popular (Napoleon Dynamite, American Pie, any "teen" movie you can think of). But whether it’s a girl or a guy that does it, if they’re chasing someone on the basis of perceived popularity, I see it as a sign of not knowing what they really want.

In terms of speed dating:

Both girls and guys will go for the people who have the highest perceived value. But for the girls, it’s usually restricted to the one or two most popular people (in accordance with Observation #3). Guys will probably tick everybody they’re drawn to, whether as a friend or otherwise.

That’s enough bullshit from me.  Thanks for reading; just remember that these are my observations, and that I don’t expect anyone to take them as gospel. Actually, you shouldn’t; go out and see for yourself.

I’ve written about this before, and have made my views known about it on many an occasion. But not on DREWspective. So here we go.

Following my best friend’s success with online dating, where he claims to have had no less than 15 dates as a result, I decided to give being much more proacitve a go. I signed up to the same dating site as he did and began interacting, as well as going speed dating, winking on Match.com and trying to get things going on Facebook.

Unfortunately—since the Internet is the same as going outside these days—the result for me was exactly the same as before: a whole load of "not interested"s and unreturned emails.

There’s been a lot of them recently, but the icing on the cake comes from two or three girls whom I arranged to do something with. At the last minute they fall silent on me, giving their excuses or no reason at all. But when they do surface, they’ve magically ended up with someone else.

Today’s topic is silent treatment, and I’m going to tell you why I think it’s an evil thing.

First, let me point out that I’m wholly against using silent treatment as a first resort. People who use silent treatment as a first resort deserve to burn in hell.

You’ve probably met people who keep things to themselves and won’t tell you what you want (or need) to know, building up like a pressure cooker until they finally scream and shout and level blame and abuse on you.  You’ve probably met those kinds of people who think they can do whatever they want, and hide whatever important information they want. Those people use silent treatment as a first resort.

Second, let me talk about why silent treatment itself is bad.

For me personally, silent treatment—especially from the opposite sex—is a sign of disrespect, and a lack of responsibility; they don’t respect you enough to give you an answer, and they don’t care what it would mean for you.

Imagine you tried to call someone with your last remaining credit, and they hung up on you. Imagine using your last 10p to send them a text message that they never respond to. How about writing a long, detailed email to someone who doesn’t send even a short one back?

There’s advice circulating around the dating community that guys have to send detailed emails to potential girls if they want to increase their chances of getting a response.  How many of you guys have spent valuable time writig individual emails to girls who’ve written those lazy, cut-and-paste profiles, and got nothing for it? Wouldn’t you feel deflated?

Lots of people say that they don’t respond, no matter what the circumstance or medium, because they don’t want to hurt their feelings. Bullshit. Have you ever stopped to think that not responding would hurt their feelings?

Fair enough, you could argue that some people wouldn’t like what they hear. That would depend on both parties: the person wanting to know should be ready to accept what’s said; the person with the answer has the responsibility of telling them in the best way possible.

Personally, I might not like the answer I get (because I prefer pepole to tell the truth rather than candy-coat things), but in the long run I have far more respect for people who tell me how it is to my face, than people who resort to games and silent treatment.

There may be times when silent treatment is necessary, for example whe someone won’t take the clearly-explained, verbal hint. I say it should always be used as a last resort.

Your thoughts, please.

It turns out that I’d left this as a placeholder post, which I haven’t added anything to yet. I’ll briefly go over what happened now.

On Tuesday 5th, I went to yet another speed dating event in London. The venue was the 101 Bar near Tottenham Court Road: a venue I’d been to twice before, and a very good one for this kind of event.

The turnout was very poor on the girls’ side, even for a 20s event: there were only 11 girls to 17 guys. The good news was that the quality of the women was much more consistent than at the other events I’d been to; you pretty much knew what to expect.

I was hesitant to tick anybody this time around, but I’d met this very attractive French girl whom I seemed to get on with. As well as ticking her, I’d ticked four other girls whom I wouldn’t mind seeing again.

The next day, having convinced myself I’d get nothing after a long, hard stretch at work (and accidentally getting on a fast train to St Albans, before heading back on a train that missed my stop), I was rewarded with one match. Except it wasn’t the French girl; she’d decided to follow her less interesting mate, which was a damn shame.

But like all of my previous "matches", the match hasn’t responded to my friendly introductory email.

I’m certainly thinking that speed dating isn’t ever going to work out as well as I’d like. The girls don’t take it seriously at all, and in the end most of them are just after trophies. Whatever you do, don’t expect it to be any different to going to a bar or a night club to meet women; you’ll get the same results. Anyone who says otherwise is either a) a girl or b) good at pulling in night clubs.

Today I’ve added a new category for my posts here on DREWspective: language. I think it’s important enough to warrant having its own category.

Language—here in the UK at least—is something that people either piss on or use as a manipulative tool. Some people either deliberately misspell words they don’t even know the meaning of, or they use words to control people. Maybe even both.

Nowhere is it more abused than in schools and educational establishments, which is unforgivable in my book as you’re dealing with kids. But you’ve also got to watch out for it at work. I’ve been in my current job for just under two months, and already I’ve heard a series of disturbing, common language themes. (You may have heard me mention it before.)

We’ll start today with one that recently cropped up, and one of my all-time most hated pet hates:

Need.

When someone tells you they need something.

When someone tells you they need you to do something.

When someone tells you that you need to do something.

When someone tells you that something needs to be done.

Some of you reading this will probably say, "do you really need to talk about this?" I rather stupidly asked about it on Yahoo! Answers once, and got a very similar answer. To those people: fuck you, I’m talking.

Wayne Dyer said in one of his audiobooks that a need is something that, if you don’t have it, will immobilise you.

I’ve certainly had times where I felt I really "needed" something: the foam shapes from the US, for example, is something I "need" to continue making the chibiModels, so until them I "can’t" continue work on them. But there you go; I put can’t in quotes, because there are other things (such as painting the heads) that I could do.

You’ve probably heard people talk about how some people feel they "need" a particular thing to be happy, to be rich, or to progress to the next level. Without this thing, they feel like they can’t change. It’s like when you have a craving for a particular food, and you can eat as much of any other kind of food as you want, but unless you have that food, you won’t be satisfied.

There are of course times when the need is genuine. The only basic needs for people are oxygen and water (in my opinion), but some people could have a few more. I’d argue that having faith in something is also a need, even if it’s having faith in not having faith.

My beef, is with people who use the word need as a controlling force. These are people who throw it around, like a sadistic master goes around whipping their slaves, or someone who feels the need to put a curse—or "lol"—in every single sentence. These people are only interested in manipulating others, and the word "need" is usually synonymous with "getting people to do" something.

There are much more relevant alternatives: is required; this must be; I would like; I want; is supposed to; and many more. There’s no excuse.

Just remember that you have a right to define for yourself what you "need"; don’t let anyone define your "needs" for you. As Brian Tracy once said, just wave one finger at them and move on.