Are We From The Same Planet?

There is a piece in the November 2, 2015, Time about advice on the internet.  It references advice columns dating from the 1690's up to and including Dear Abby and Miss Manners.  A typical question to Dear Abby was, "how is a guy supposed to know if a girl is cold, playing hard-to-get or just nice?"  Permit me to try to answer.  Well, cold is not nice and neither is game playing, so how did that word get in the same sentence with the others?  Did he possibly mean to ask if the girl was a good girl?  And was he equating being a good girl to being cold?

I'd like to say, well, duh, if she doesn't respond to you at all, she probably isn't into you at all, but that seems a little harsh.  There is that off-chance that she really is playing a game.  Even if the latter is the case, it would be healthier to run off in any direction.  If she entraps you by game playing, you will be forever locked into games which always end with bad feelings for all.

Many books have been written to help others find a mate.  In fact, research projects have been conducted about people's sexual needs, prowess and fantasies.  Young people today don't have the advantages of knowing what the Kinsey research found out, like men think about sex every few seconds, but women have other things on their minds.

Men, per the Kinsey report, think about having sex with people in their everyday lives.  Women prefer to dream about an unknown male we would probably refer to as a knight in shining armor, or else some celebrity.  In other words, men and women are usually not even on the same page.

Then there was the age of body language and it's interpretation.  There were experts that said if a woman crossed her arms over her chest and crossed one leg over the other, she was signaling she was not available to you.  Other experts said, no, that meant they wanted you, but were just in denial.  And the experts in body language in business settings said it was that people were not liking what you were saying and were shutting you out.  Shutting out or not, it brought new fads.  There was a long period of time when moronic men, entering a room where there was a single female or a really hot married one, would slap his arms across his chest and his leg over the other emphatically denying his availability.  I guess if a woman was interested, it might have hurt.  But the general response was genuine anger that he thought he was such a hot commodity that anyone had noticed him before the gesture.  It also told the women he was projecting his own feelings toward them.

Following in jig time were cautions that body language in one part of the country was not the same as that in another.  Having lived in five states, I can say that this is true.  In two of them, I've been exposed to a movement I don't understand.  The man leans forward from the waist up and in a large sweeping motion, waves his chest in front of the woman's.  The first time it happened to me, my entire body startled.  I was at his door asking if my missing young son were there with his son.  I still don't know what it means, but he and I were definitely not on the same page and my body told him so.  By the second or third time from other men, I wasn't surprised, but just ignored it.

There is another unreadable signal that's happened only in my current city and I have not a clue what it means either.  The man faces the woman and places his hands palm inward and touching his hips, with his fingers pointing at the woman  --  the hands are resting parallel to his genitals.  Now, I could say that sexual as this seems he may be inviting the chick to bed.  But on the other hand, it's possible it's a new form of flashing the middle finger to tell her to go to hell.

Whatever, it's all too primal for my tastes!  Men back in my day would walk up and ask us to go out for coffee or a movie.  The shy ones sent a mutual friend to find out if we were interested.  Of course, when I think of the cost of Starbucks or a theater ticket, I almost don't blame the guy for trying to get by on charm.  But if all he is looking for is getting laid on the cheap, let me suggest he find someone on the corner a couple or three blocks from my house.

Which brings us to goals.  What is it you are really looking for when you approach a woman?  Just sex?  Your goal should dictate whom you approach and how.  Are you looking for a relationship? Then, it is probably important to take age into account.  An eighteen year old male and a fifty year old woman probably have nothing in common. Yet, time after time, I've witnessed a younger male move in on a woman that much older than he.  Same can be said for thirty to seventy or forty to seventy-five.  What is the motivation for such a move?  Sex?  Wouldn't sex with someone young and pretty be a more sane move?  Or are you just thinking someone that much older would be more vulnerable?  If that's the reason, you are disrespecting yourself as well as the woman.  You feel so badly about yourself that you think you can't get someone your own age?  Are you looking for a mother?  Do you think they have more money than someone your age?  On Social Security (LOL)? What are you hoping?

Are you wanting to start a family? Is that your goal?  Well, certainly you need someone at least under forty.  A lot of women go through the change in their fifties.  A woman I once worked with remarried her ex.  They were in agreement before the marriage that there would be no more children.  After the fact, he decided he did want more and nagged her to use artificial insemination.  Pregnancy, guys is hard on a young woman, much less on someone who has passed her fertile years.  What was he thinking?

There are also cultural differences.  One mentioned in body language books was about young women from families that used chaperons to go on dates with the young.  These girls could afford to be more relaxed with their movements because the chaperon was there to protect them.

One male, who was Asian, had a habit of expressing his availability by bending his knee and raising it, then turning it to the side, exposing and thrusting his clothed genital area.  I don't think anybody would misinterpret that intent, but get real guy!  Women aren't animals out on the street running with a pack of mongrels.  That's way, way, way too primal for most of us.

So, in summation, know your own goals.  Are you looking for just sex, unmarried relationships, marriage and parenthood or mere affirmation of your sexual self?  Pick your target population with that in mind.  People your age are more likely to have your same desires and goals.  They probably like the same kind of music and movies.  Know your gender.  Women, if they are looking, are more likely to be looking for a relationship and men for sex.  Women who are looking to start families want solid citizens with jobs and stability.  Women who have reared one family are not usually looking for number two.  This includes new infants or infantile mates.  A school teacher, lawyer or doctor is not inclined to want to be with a wanabe mechanic who is going to spend all his evening with his head under the hood of a car.  A real mechanic doesn't want to come home to work on her garage full of used cars.

Women like Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe or Kim Kardashian are the kind that multitudes of men would like to ensnare.  But, unless you are Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Brad Pitt or Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, you are unlikely to get to first base.  We all have to face reality and set our goals accordingly unless we love putting ourselves in the path of pain.

And remember, just because Kim Kardashian is the stuff of your fantasies doesn't mean you are the stuff of hers.  So, be careful not to project your own needs and feelings onto them.  They probably didn't get the same memo you did.  Like the book title says, women are from Venus and men from Mars.  Or is that the other way around?  When it comes to mating, we definitely are not from the same planet.

Not Nice, Just Likable

There was a person in my world for some time who thought nothing of telling falsehoods.  Said person was extremely good at it, so good that someone could be telling the truth beside the person and he/she telling a bald-faced lie, and people would believe the liar.

The other day, I was listening to someone describing an individual I did not know.  A long list of stories was being told which included a couple of low-level crimes.  Then the narrator said the individual was a "nice person".  When faced with skepticism from a listener, the story teller said, "No, really, this is a really nice individual".

I don't think so.  I think he/she is a really likable, though not nice, person.  Do you understand the difference between likable and nice?

A nice person is always polite and thinks of others.  He avoids breaking laws.  She places other's needs before her own, sometimes to her own detriment.  A nice person would never knowingly create problems and then not try to help resolve them.  They are not perfect, but they do their best to do the right thing when needed.

Not all good or nice people are likable.  Not all likable people are good or nice.

Take the con artist.  Nobody would ever be able to pull a con on someone unless they had a likable personality.  They can pull off a sting with ease because others want to please them. Others want them to be as good inside as they appear on the surface  --  the facade.

A bully, for instance, makes people do his/her bidding by exercising brute force.  Who likes a bully?  But, if a bully learns to finesse and manipulate, to be persuasive and likable, he can be seen to be nice.  The facade is deceiving.  The core is still bully.

There are a lot of levels of nice/not nice in the spectrum of humans.  Figuring out the difference is necessary for us to survive, at least emotionally.  Unfortunately, we live in a world where not everybody is trustworthy.  Knowing the difference between nice and likable could come in very handy.