Women's Store and Chairs

How is it that not all Women's Clothing stores have chairs for people to sit on. I recently went shopping at an outlet mall and had to go into several stores with my girlfriend. Yet very few of the stores had any chairs. How is that possible?

Think about it, many of these women go shopping with their husbands or boyfriends. Most of them are bored out of their mind as their wife or girlfriend shops. These men could probably bear it if there was at least a chair to sit on. I know when stores do have chairs, all the men inevitably migrate toward them.

There have been many a time I hurry my girlfriend from the store simply because I can't bear to just stand there anymore. She probably could have shopped twice as long in the store if there was just a place for me to sit.

Now I'm not asking for a luxurious chair. A piece of wood on top of two cinder blocks would work just fine for me. All a store has to do is buy a few inexpensive chairs and this would probably increase the time their clientele spends in the store and in turn increase the amount of money they spend.

Staying Out of the Friend Zone

I've actually had this conversation twice in the last few days, so I thought it would be a good idea to most my thoughts on the subject.

Growing up, I was very "popular" with the ladies. My problem was that this popularity did not translate into dates, it translated into me having lots of female friends. For some reason, I get getting stuck in the "Friend Zone". Much like the Phantom Zone, once in the Friend Zone it pretty much is impossible to get out. I actually was able to do it twice, no small feat, but admittedly I was never great friends with the two girls to begin with.

However, the trick should be never to get into the Friend Zone. It should be avoided at all cost. You know what I'm talking about. You meet a great girl. You go out a few times. You think things are great. But when the subject comes up of you in a romantic relationship, she looks at you incredulously and says, "Oh, I don't think of you that way. I thought we were just friends"

It took me a while to finally get the hang of this, but now I can tell you for sure how to never ever be put in the Friend Zone unless you want to be there. Here is what you need to do.

• Go into the relationship with the full intention of NOT being friends with this girl. Accept the fact that if you aren't going to be dating the girl, you will have no relationship whatsoever. You have enough friends already. It's OK if you don't make a new one. There is no need to be the "nice guy".
  
• Not sure how interested she is in you? Simple test during your first date. Plan your first date earlier in the day. Make sure it is short. Make sure you have a plan which can extend the date but do not tell your date about it. Say you go out to play mini-golf on your first date. After you play, suggest going out for drinks or a bite to eat. If she agrees, you are good to go. Girls will end the date if they are not interested. They will find a way to extend the date if they are interested.
• Make sure during the course of conversation, you bring up the fact that you are on a date. Call it what it is. Just talk about how you are having a good time on the DATE. Maybe share a horror story of another first DATE that you had. Mention what you think would make a great second DATE.
  
• Get the kiss. Nothing says you are not friends like kissing her. Seriously, get the kiss on the first night. If she pulls away from the kiss, you pretty much have your answer. No need to attack her with your tongue hanging out, but make sure you get a kiss on the lips from her. This will ensure you are not put in the friend zone.
  

Simple as that. Follow these simple rules, and you will stay out of the Friend Zone, and hopefully find yourself a new girlfriend. Do you have any tips for people on how they can avoid falling into this dreaded trap?

Women Overthink Men

I was asking my friend what she was doing this weekend and she told me how her friend wanted to go shopping for a new dress for a party that she was going to. I asked her if she was doing it to impress some guy that was going to be at the party. This turned the conversation toward why women go to such great lengths to impress men.

Now I'm a strong believer that a little bit of work on yourself goes a long way. I'm fully for someone spending time on your hair and putting on makeup that suits you. If you want to put on a special outfit to impress that special someone, great. But very quickly the law of diminishing returns happen. While spending one hour getting ready might make sense, spending three hours probably does not. While picking out a special dress might help, spending a day and a fortune on a new one probably does not.

Most men are not detail oriented. They aren't going to notice that special extra touch that you did just for them. Women should accept this and understand this. Most women actually get upset that men don't recognize these fine little touches but it is just the nature of man. We are always looking at the bigger picture and not so much on the fine details.

Women Are Too Sensitive

Pete Newell runs a Big Man's camp. It is a camp designed to teach basketball players who play in the front court about foot work, post position, etc. Many famous NBA big men from Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, James Worthy, etc have gone to his camp at one time or another.

Pete also runs a "Tall" Women's camp. I'm assuming they call it "Tall" because they don't want to offend some women by calling them "Big". Come on, isn't that just being a little sensitive? Do women who play either collegiately or play professional basketball for a living really get offended by being called "big"? Look at Margo Dydek, the tallest WNBA player. She is 7'2" for heaven's sake. Let me tell you something, if you are 7'2" you are big whether you are male or female.

Maybe its because I'm a guy and I just don't get why its derogatory to be called "big".

Yes, all my female readers may now tell me how insensitive I am.

Online Dating

I have now dated my girlfriend for a little over 5 months and I thought it was time to put down my thoughts on online dating, and specifically the service I used, eharmony.

First let me say that I'm very happy in my relationship. The girl I'm dating is wonderful and we are very compatible. Other than the fact that she is a USC Trojan she is great, but hey, not everyone can be perfect. I'm actually shocked with how well we get along and how much are interest and beliefs match.

I think most can understand that I was a little hesitant to try the whole online dating thing. Even in this day and age I felt it smacked of a little bit of desperation. But I figured that I was a pretty normal person and there must be other normal people contemplating such a move. I just had problems meeting any new people as doing the whole bar thing isn't for me (even though I have a knack for being able to just talk to complete strangers). In the end I reconciled it by just chalking it up to a change in our society that technology has enabled. After all, why is it any better to meet someone in a complete stranger in a bar than to meet a complete stranger through the internet?

So I took the plunge and signed up. The process is long but I suppose better than say Match.com which just feels like a meat market.

So what is the final verdict? I can't recommend it. What? How can that be if I met someone wonderful online? Well I think I was one of the lucky ones. Of all the people I was "matched" with this is the only one that worked out. I talked to a few people and went on a few dates but didn't really feel like I was all that compatible with any of them except for my current girlfriend. Most of my dates' experiences were the same. They weren't really meeting a lot of compatible people. I think for a few of them it made them feel even worse as if they couldn't make it work with someone online, how hopeless must they be?

Also, just like in the real world, you get a lot of fake people. People who say they are looking for one thing, but really aren't. My girlfriend is guilty of this. She put she was open to meeting anyone from anywhere but rejected anyone she met who lived to far away. You have an option to specify how far away someone can live that you would consider dating, so why even put "anywhere in the world" if you really only mean "within 100 miles"? I also found that a lot of women who think they are open minded aren't. Most women don't think they are racist but more than a few women did not want to date me simply because I was Asian.

I also don't like how Eharmony will match you with people who can't respond back to you. I had my account closed for months but still received "request for communication". These request just remain unanswered and you have no idea what is going on on the other end. They do this to maximize the number of matches they provide to people but don't let communication happen unless both sides are paying members. This can be somewhat frustrating.

But I guess it only takes one, and thus far it is working out for me. Dating is a process, and just like anything else, you probably have to have a few failures before you finally have success. So if you set your expectations low, and treat online dating as just one part of your dating strategy, it might work out for you.

Being Too Smart

Just another thing that I'm quickly finding out about women and what they say vs. what they really mean.

Most women say they want an intelligent man. However, women do not want "intelligent" men. They want, more accurately, a man who is as intelligent as they are, no more and no less. There is a BIG difference. Either that or they want a man who is smart who doesn't talk about intelligent stuff, which of course is almost a contradiction. On the last few dates I've been on I've literally been told I'm too smart. Seems odd to me.

I know for me, when I say I want a beautiful, kind, intelligent women I mean exactly that. The more beatiful, the more kind, and the more intelligent the better. I don't think I have an upper limit on any of these characteristics. I don't think it's possible for a women to be too beautiful or too smart, but then again I haven't met a female Einstein so maybe I could be wrong on this.

I guess someone can be too extreme but I don't think that I'm that smart, come on, I'm no brain surgeon. I highly doubt this would be the case for me. I mean if an extremely beautiful women like Halle Barry or someone extremely smart like Marilyn vos Savant I doubt I would run the other way. In fact, I think it would be very attractive. But maybe that is just me.

Nice Guys Do Finish Last

Haven't blogged in a while because work has been really busy.

There was this show on NBC called Average Joe. It is another one of those reality shows but this time all the men from which to choose are just "Average" and some were way below average. Now I only watched half of one show but the show recently ended and I thought it was interesting.

Toward the end of the series they introduced a few good looking guys. The twist being that would this beautiful girl choose the nice average guy or the studly hunk. The show came down to two guys, "average" Adam and "hunky" Jason. To keep a long story short she chose Jason.

Now here is my take. Like I said, I didn't really watch the series too much but here is what I do know. Adam seemed like a genuinely nice guy. He wasn't ugly but he wasn't good looking. He is a very successful stock trader in NYC and at age 27 has amassed a small fortune. Jason on the other hand is a 26 year old student in Irvine and lives at home with his parents. He seemed nice enough, not terribly arrogant, but didn't have the "sweet" quality that Jason had. Now, not that money is everything but I think what you do in life and how you live say a lot about who you are.

Before I say anything else I have a disclaimer, I know what I am about to say DOES NOT apply to all women so don't barrage me with comments how all women aren't like this.

It did not surprise me to see her pick the live-at-home hunk. Most women, actually every women I have ever talked to, say that they prefer personality to looks and blah blah blah..... I have always contended that when it comes down to it though, women are as bad as men and will often overlook every other quality in a guy if he is good looking. Not that this show proved my point but it just reinforces my belief.

Its funny because last night I was talking to two women who were berating their love life and how all guys they have dated were either losers or liars. Well Duh. I think the problem that a lot of women have who continunally get in bad relationships is that they tell themselves that they really care about personality but when push comes to shove they choose the looker. They wonder why the hunk they chose isn't nice to them or is a bum or cheats on them when they probably looked passed a hundred decent guys because they were in love with their boyfriend's pecs. Let me let all you women in on a secret. Now while this doesn't apply to all men (I don't think it applies to me) a man's likelihood of cheating is DIRECTLY proportional to his opportunity to do so. Since a man's opportunity to do so is directly proportional to his relative attractiveness you can see why a lot of good looking guys cheat on their girlfriends.

I think we would all be better off if most women just admitted that they are like most men, looks come first and carries much more weight than most women are willing to admit.