The Change Up

Earlier this week I was asked why guys change so much after they have sex with someone. It can be situational, but I am going to explain the most common reason for this change.

                We all have needs, both men and women. We all make choices. Some of us just think before we make our choices. Most of those thinkers are women. Men feel the need to act on their desires instantly, whereas women are better at waiting for “the right guy” or someone who they actually respect and find attractive. Once a guy sees someone new or hears rumors about someone, they feel like they must witness them in action. If it has been a little while since a guy has seen some action, all women start to become more attractive – even without beer. When this happens they will inevitably make a decision they will ultimately regret by finding a girl out one night, bringing her back to the room and taking care of business. As soon as it is over there is a realization that a mistake has been made and we transform from the charming guy that was conversing with you earlier in the night into the asshole kicking you out before you even have your clothes back on.

                If it is not a sexual escapade to put an end to a cold streak, it may just be fear of commitment. As we talk and hang out with someone, the sexual tension usually grows increasingly obvious. We work our charm, say all the right things, do all the right things, and put in the right amount of time until we get what we want. After we get what we want, be it once or numerous times – we lose interest. When we get that chance to end the sexual tension, another tension develops – post-sexual tension. Post-sexual tension occurs straight after sex when a guy will attempt to flee the scene like he has just committed a crime. Why does he do this? His brain is like, “Uh oh, she definitely loves me now, it is going to take forever to get her to leave me alone. To make this easier on myself I’ll just leave right now and ignore her from now on.” Well, bro, don’t flatter yourself. Generally women do respond to sex in more of an emotional way than men, but no matter what you did for her in there – she can do better herself. So no, your performance did not make her fall in love with you.

                Women may become clued in to the way we try to escape so promptly after sex. As stated above, women are the thinkers and they will strategize to keep you around. They might make sure they come to your place more often than not so you can’t just leave and they will linger for as long as they can. Sometimes they will get you wrapped up in a deep conversation that they know will take a long time. They might put on a movie and make you lay there and watch it. And if you are really lucky they might cook you a little something to make you stay there and eat. Maybe a combination of all of these. When this begins to happen, men automatically become geniuses – able to escape the intellectual post-sex prison that has been built around them.

                We will have excuse upon excuse planned to escape after our sexual encounter. For some reason we all of a sudden have to get up super early the next day for work, even if you have never heard about our job or witnessed us get up before 10. We will have appointments for things you have never heard of, “I have my paleontology appointment early tomorrow, I can’t stay.” We refuse to lose in this crazy little game. And what do we win if we succeed in all of this? Loneliness.

Pet Peeve #17 – Half Empty Bag

“Bang for your buck.” Does that even mean anything anymore? What can you buy these days that is truly worth every cent you paid for it? Not a bag of chips, that’s for sure.

                If I wanted a bag of air I would go and get in a car accident. These companies aren’t fooling anyone. We can tell the bag is full of air you idiots. Let me stop myself here. I call the chip manufacturers idiots for not filling the bags with chips, but we still buy them. So really they are geniuses and we are the idiots, they have to be making a killing! This can’t be legal. They are robbing us blind.

There aren’t even enough chips in a bag nowadays for a small child. It costs like $5 for a family bag of chips – the bag has like nine chips in it. The worst culprit –Doritos. Don’t even get me started on Doritos. There are not enough Doritos in the world to match the supply of salsa in one supermarket. I buy one jar of salsa and it’s in my fridge for months. Anyone would think I’m dating a Mexican. I’m not.

                And salsa. What’s this big obsession with salsa everybody has all of a sudden? Are we cultured now? We think we’re cultured because we eat salsa? We’re broadening our horizons? Stop dipping crackers in salsa (yes I’ve seen this). Salsa is for corn chips and corn chips only. If anyone needs anything it’s a lifetime supply of corn chips since a lifetime supply of salsa only costs $10.

                At least give us one potato’s worth of chips in one bag, or one ear of corn’s worth in the case of corn chips. Chips are the crack/cocaine of the 21^st Century – they are in small supply, but we all love the taste and want more. They cost almost nothing to make, yet they can’t fill up a bag for us? I can’t stand it. I’m quitting bagged chips and moving on to tubes of Pringles. They may be more expensive, but at least I know my tube will be full. The day they start half-filling tubes of Pringles, I’m running for President to put an end to this injustice.

Pain

Pain can be a funny thing. I don’t mean pain from falling over and scraping your knee, I mean emotional pain. Pain that can be inflicted intentionally or unintentionally, pain that cannot be escaped. This kind of pain can change a person. True pain makes you real.

                Pain and struggle build character. If you know what it is to carry pain, you are prepared for challenging situations. To find someone who has been through pain is one thing, to find someone who will admit it is another. We can be too proud to admit to our pain or “weakness” and we may go as far as acting the opposite to how we feel to protect ourselves. If you can find someone who is willing and able to open up about their pain, you can assume a certain level of authenticity about that person.

                We are all ultimately looking for someone who enriches us in some way. For ladies wondering why guys “toot it and boot it,” it’s probably because you do nothing to keep them around. Maybe you talk about shit that nobody cares about, maybe you’re an idiot, or maybe you’re too easy. However, even girls who give us a challenge to keep us around eventually end up losing. Ever heard of the 5-date rule? That is when a girl will not sleep with a guy until the fifth date. All this does is makes the man accept the challenge, act interested for five dates, fuck, and flee the scene. There has to be something that keeps us around, if you enrich our lives we will treat you well. We want to learn from you and we want to teach you things.

                Pain teaches us a lot about ourselves, others, and certain situations. This knowledge gives us a greater ability to act with realness, to adapt and maintain in society with less pressure. If we bring new experiences to our partners, they will remain interested. New experiences may include, different music, different art, whatever. I play basketball, I don’t want people coming up to me every day and talking about basketball – hit me with something different and I will do likewise. Be real, tell me what’s on your mind. What I’m trying to say is that people who have discovered true pain aren’t afraid of realness. They don’t need small talk, they don’t need to lie, they know the importance of being true to themselves. They know the difference between sex and romance.

                Someone who has been through pain can support you. They are spiritually, culturally, and academically wise, as well as street smart, naturally. The way you act romantically reflects in the way you live your everyday life – there needs to be a balance. Those of us who have felt pain and struggle know the difference between sunshine and rain, darkness and the light, joy and pain. Knowing the difference between true pain and a minor interference helps define our realness. As a real man I can tell you how refreshing it is to be in the company of a real woman. Never a dull moment, never a boring conversation, and constantly learning. What more could you want?

Pet Peeve #16 – Can I Ask You A Question?

“Can I ask you a question?” What kind of answer do you expect from this? First of all, that is a question, so you have already asked me one; do you need to ask me another? If I do not wish to have any questions asked of me, you have probably already rubbed me the wrong way with your initial question. However, I will still proceed to answer it with a firm, “no.” If you want to ask me a question bad enough, I assume you will proceed to ask me the question even after I tell you not to, assuming my negative response was one of sarcasm. It wasn’t. Will I answer the question you ask me? No, since I told you not to ask it I will argue with you until I am blue in the face to let you know just how serious I was.

                Some people will even go as far as putting two questions in one sentence. Sometimes I will fall for it, but if I catch it I will give you nothing short of a sarcastic, smart-alecky response. “Can I ask you a question? Why do you have so many pet peeves?” There will never be an ask-one-get-one-free day with me. You get one question and one question only. If you attempt to double up like this I won’t even be able to answer one of these questions because my brain will begin to overheat due to a sarcasm overload. “Sorry, no two-for-ones,” is a typical response.

                “Can I ask you a question?” is a space filler. If you need to ask a question – ask it. Don’t ask permission to ask a question. That is absurd. A similar filler is, “Let me tell you this.” What do you mean let me? Nobody is holding you back, if you have the capacity to say let me, dare I say you have the capacity to tell me what it is you want me to “let you” tell me. Are you nervous? Is the filler just a warm up for what you are about to say? If so, maybe you should do some warm ups first thing in the morning, not during conversation. It’s not like athletes take a seat and start stretching in the middle of the first quarter. Get it together.

Mr. Nice Guy

I’m a nice guy, and women think I’m a nice guy. Unluckily for me women don’t want nice. When you want to be with someone nice is bad. Nice is scary. Nice is too much. What kind of sick society are we living in where nice is undesirable?

                Nice is what we were taught to be as we were growing up. Nice kids get presents from Santa. Naughty kids get coal. It’s a shame that being nice has no reward after a certain age. Sure, people like you and you make a good friend, but people will blow by you in every other aspect of your life. People are not afraid to be asshole’s in business to get ahead. Competition was created by assholes – there was originally one guy with an idea, he put this idea into action, his idea got ‘borrowed’ and sold for cheaper, and people stopped buying from the original guy and went to the cheaper competition. If the second guy was nice he would have just let the first guy continue being successful, but that is not how the world works.

                Why are women afraid of nice guys? There are a number of reasons. The first is the fear of nice guy syndrome, which is a guy whose nice deeds are only motivated by manipulating women into a relationship or sexual encounter. Once these guys get what they want there is no telling how they will act afterwards. Rather than going for a nice guy who could possibly end up being a colossal disappointment, women would rather go for a bad boy, expect the worst, and hope to be surprised. Women also enjoy the ‘challenge’ of being able to change a man, so if they choose a bad boy or jerk, they have a little project to keep them busy for a while.

                The second reason is the misinterpretation between being nice and being clingy. Some guys are genuinely interested in what you do and what you have to say. However, too much communication can be misconceived as being clingy, protective, obsessed, or anything alike. This is not always a delusion; there are plenty of guys and girls out there who are like that, so how can you blame someone for trying to escape that?

                If you are a nice guy you are probably wondering, “Do nice guys always finish last?” No they don’t. There are different girls out there just like there are different guys. These different girls have different ideas about the nice guy definition.

                Nice guy 1: committed, caring, respectful of women.
                Nice guy 2: boring, lacking confidence, unattractive.

                If you find a girl who defines a nice guy with definition 1, you can potentially finish first with her. Just like they have different definitions for nice guys, women also have different definitions for jerks.

                Jerk 1: confident, sexy, attractive, exciting.
                Jerk 2: manipulative, unfaithful, disrespectful of women, only interested in sex.

                Odds are that these definitions will not be surprising as there should be a direct correlation with their level of crazy. Nice guys tend to put others ahead of themselves and wind up getting their feelings hurt. If you want to be a nice guy, choose your targets wisely.

Pet Peeve #15 – Autocorrect

Autocorrect thinks it’s smarter than me. Well it’s not. I know what I’m trying to type when I text, but Apple thinks it knows better than me. Well Apple, where is your fucking cancel button when sending a text? Because God knows I could use that about five times a day.

                I appreciate the increases and upgrades in technology, but when I text it is rare that I use proper English. It’s cool that it capitalizes names for me, punctuates when it needs to, but I can’t cope with entire words being replaced with a nonsensical 18^th Century words which have no place in my 21^st Century slang-filled sentences. I don’t even know what swensen means.

                On the other hand, autocorrect is a life saver when I am out drinking. There are now no more texts that say, “Tou knie I lobe ypu bsby!” Autocorrect can now change small decipherable errors into a string of words I don’t know the definitions to, “Sanitorium frippet isotope hydropneumatic activism.” Thanks again, Apple.

                No matter how much we hate autocorrect though, there is an obligation we cannot ignore, an obligation to leave autocorrect on. We need it. Without it we have fewer opportunities to stroke our egos. Autocorrect makes us feel good, it makes us feel smarter than artificial intelligence. When we switch it off we realize how stupid we really are. It corrects more than we think. I hate auto correct because when it sends words that I did not want to send I have to pull a little DIRTY DESPERADO to correct myself. And as if that is not enough, it is making our society increasingly incompetent, increasingly antisocial, and increasingly obnoxious. And Siri, even with your upgrade you suck at understanding my accent. Don’t discriminate.

Hypergamy

                Hypergamy is the act of seeking a spouse of higher socioeconomic status and ‘marrying up’ to a higher status. This can go male to female or female to male, but evolutionists have stated that females have developed through evolution a preference for higher status males because they offer greater genes and greater resources for reproduction.

                The confusing issue here is the ‘settling’ that the so-called greater half of the couple must reduce themselves to. Why is someone who is perceived with such greatness in our society settling for less than they can have? Is it a below average sense of self-worth? I don’t think this is a question that can be answered without directly asking someone in this situation – which would be so rude, I mean like stereotypical mean girl movie rude.

                Another issue which I think goes alongside hypergamy is what I like to call careerin’. Careerin’ is when I see a couple walking together and one is way too good looking to be with the other. I call it careerin’ because there is no way in this world they should be together unless the ugly one has a job that makes his/her unfortunate looks forgivable. It is just crazy to me that someone would marry a person who they literally struggle to look at, just to marry up into a higher socioeconomic status. Materialism today is testing our values as a society and the scores are making us look less civilized than a pack of wild dogs. What’s next? Cannibalism?

Pet Peeve #14 – Blind Waving

Why is it that when we see someone we have an automatic compulsion to wave? Even if they aren’t looking at us our arm flings up involuntarily like a Jim Carrey comedy. I can’t stand it.

                When I am the wave receiver there is a good chance that I won’t be looking. It is likely that I am on a mission or interacting with other people. I don’t generally go out without a purpose, so why wave at me if I’m not looking? You can’t be mad for not getting any wave reciprocity. And if I get a text that says, “Thanks for waving back L” I might delete your number. Make sure there has been definite eye contact before waving. I’m talking alley-oop eye contact.

                When I am the wave giver I find it incredibly hard to forgive myself. Standing at 6 feet and 7 inches tall, people see me wave. All of the people, except the person I was waving at. So when I take down my hand and scratch the back of my head trying to fool everyone like I wasn’t waving – I look like a giant moron.

                What is this compulsion to wave anyway? Are we rude if we don’t wave? If we haven’t made eye contact, should we have been looking for you? What level of friendship do we have to be on before the waving begins? I say we eradicate waving from non-verbal communication. Once we rid ourselves of waves, we rid ourselves of the stressful responsibility of ‘polite’ reciprocation and we rid ourselves of the embarrassment that may follow if we are not seen by our target.

Microwave Society

Today we want everything to be instant, especially our generation. We buy our salads in bags, we get our news on Twitter, and we have 2 minute noodles and 3 minute rice and complain about the wait, we expect something for nothing.

                We are all idealists while we are young. Some of us grow out of this and become realists, but it seems that an increasing number of us are not making the shift from idealism to realism. We all reach for the stars; we have eyes for the road to riches, a big house with nice cars, fame and all the shiny things that go with it. We just don’t want to work for any of it.

                As we become more self-centered, materialistic, and greedy, we also become increasingly impatient. We can’t all be lottery winners. We can’t all be famous actors. And we can’t all be sports icons. So why are the people who get into these positions so dissatisfied? Greed.

                Being an athlete myself, and an amateur athlete at that. The dream is to become a professional and be paid to do what I love. I can’t even imagine getting 100K a year to play a sport. 1M a year is unbelievable. But then we witness lockouts in two professional sports in one year, both salary related. I understand that once you get out of school it is your profession and you need to do what is best for your family, but when you are making more money than you can spend, more money than regular people would ever dream of, where is the line between the love of the game and the hunger for more material things?

                Kids who were stars in college make it to the big time and they are suddenly not the stars of their professional teams. Instead of working hard to climb the hierarchy, they sulk like babies who have not been given what they cried for. This is a perfect example of people not wanting to work for rewards. Something makes us think we deserve the world. The world which others before us built.

                This applies to anything in life. If you want it, go get it. Take it. Work for it. Get it yourself. Do what you have to do to deserve it. Your world will not be given to you, you have to earn it. We are all given a path, follow yours. It will not be direct, there will be obstacles and adversities along the way, but no one said it was going to be easy, so why do you expect it to be. The year is now 2012. If 2011 derailed you, get back on track. You will get where you are supposed to be if you put the right amount of work in. And then some.

                Happy New Year.