How to Attract (and keep) men

In My Humble Opinion
81

You also eliminate E, the class of men who don’t worry about whether she’s a slut and aren’t going to go on ten dates before finding out if she’s lousy in the sack, has weird hang-ups, can’t orgasm, whether she trims, and etc. Is this the kind of girl that can kill half a bottle of wine, screw for awhile then nestle up and share Chinese takeout while watching Animal Planet? Call me crazy but I want to know before I go on ten dates, because that’s like, non-negotiable.

Because that’s like two months. Even assuming I’m willing to sit around getting horned up for two months with no relief, I’m not going to invest that kind of time just to find out she’s a crappy lay. And to be honest, I don’t know many girls that are going to invest two months to find out the same thing about me.

Plus I’m a big believer in boning when the time is right. First date, third date, maybe tenth date. But if it took ten dates to get to the right time, in my opinion you’re doing it wrong.

82

That’s class C.

I doubt it - human relations are too complex to assign a single cause to anything.

Look, I realize that many of us would like to believe that we live in a world where no one bats an eye if you screw anything in pants on fifteen minutes notice. But the letters to the Penthouse Forum and porn movies are mostly fiction. Many men are not particularly eager to date someone’s sloppy seconds, and while that does not mean that non-virgins are doomed to a life of loneliness, it does mean that many otherwise potential candidates are going to think in the back of their minds, “Well, she screwed me after knowing me for an hour. What will she be up to if I ever have to go out of town?”

I think she has described a short-term relationship involving sex earlier in the thread, and she said it wasn’t what she wanted. IOW, she hooked up with a guy, had sex with him, and then they broke up immediately upon learning that she expected him to act in such a way that she could stand to be around him. (My apologies to Gestalt if this is inaccurate). And she mentioned that an earlier relationship was longer-term than two months.
So, she is (apparently) looking for more than casual sex. And what she is doing now, however you want to characterize it, is not working. So she asks for advice on what to change.

Being honest up front about what you are is probably the best advice so far. It is less effort to sustain in the long run, and therefore a long-term strategy. My follow-up to that advice would be that Gestalt think about developing a relationship before hopping into the sack, to weed out those men who think with Mr. Happy instead of the brains God gave them.

If you settle for less than you want, you won’t be available when what you want comes around.

Ah, the great dance of dating. Thank God I am out of it.

Regards,
Shodan

83

Let me get this straight. You have a man who wants a relationship but not sex. Okay, that’s clear. Please explain how such a fellow ends up having sex on the first date, contrary to his desires. Barring rape, that can’t happen in the world that I know.

84

Shodan, you are missing my point. Let’s not pick on Gestalt and use a hypothetical girl named Emma as an example. Emma wants a guy for the wrong reasons and is trying way too hard to get one. One of her strategies is to put out sooner than she might otherwise. You would tell her not to, which isn’t terrible advice. But you have not addressed Emma’s real problem, and she is going to continue to make relationship mistakes.

You also fail to make room for the possibility that putting out may not be a strategy to get a guy in the first place. Emma would have the right to make that choice for herself, and shouldn’t have to choose abstinence to be successful in finding a relationship. Your old school morals ignore the fact that women have sex drives too, and that the onus is not on them to remain chaste, or else be undeserving of a healthy relationship.

85

Does not want perhaps means could care less about but won’t say no to? Now, I myself fall into that category (depending on how well I’ve, errr, attended to myself recently,) but I don’t think there are a lot of other men who could take it or leave it. And most of those that do, like me, wouldn’t think less of someone more willing than I to engage in sex.

Unless you assume that that means you wouldn’t be able to trust them because they’ve proven themselves willing to have sex in which case you too are suspect.

Or you’re the vanishingly small percentage of people who are actually like what Shodan says.

86

In response to all the people who are asking why I want a bf . . .

I think part of it is the security of knowing that you generally won’t have to spend a weekend night by yourself; it alleviates general loneliness.

I also like cuddling.

I’d say about 50% of it, though, is that I want regular foreplay and sex, with someone who knows what I like and how to please me, without having to worry about STDs or feeling vaguely icky, which I would feel if I hooked up with lots of random guys.

But overall, despite the accusations of clinginess, I think I’m fairly independent, in that I don’t need a lot of time from a guy. In the situation described, I got impatient and cally/texty because the guy was just acting distant and weird and it was annoying me and I wanted to know what was up.

Gestalt.

87

Buy a vibrator - it doesn’t care if you get clingy - and if it goes weird on you, you change the batteries. Maybe a few movies or a dirty book or two. If half of what you are looking for is sexual satisfaction, figuring out a way to get that for yourself will make it oh so much easier to find the other half in a productive, healthy way.

88

Oh, I have tried, oh how I’ve tried . . . I’ve perused every friggin sex store in the area . . . it’s just impossible to imitate an actual person and the arousal and satisfaction that comes from that, you know?

89

Imitate? From what I’ve heard, the Hitachi magic wand is a better lover than 98% of men.

I’m in the 2%, of course

90

Pick better guys.

91

:slight_smile: Of course.

I recommend Blueberry Buzz. It’s long and bluish green and full of ridges.

92

I know what you mean. If it were all about having good orgams, I’d marry my vibrator. :smiley:

Hey, I want someone to hang out with and cuddle with and fuck regularly as well. It’s not that hard to find tolerable guys who are willing to do this; if this were my top priorty I would have a boyfriend right now. But being independent, to me, means being able to enjoy weekends by myself and nights with my vibrator. Not all the time, and not more than spending time with someone I really like, but definitely more than being with a guy just because I want to be with a guy.

But people are different, and I have plenty of friends who tell me that independence is overrated. So YMMV.

93

He doesn’t. If you offer sex on the first date, he declines. If you offer sex on the tenth, he also declines.

Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Just not the relationship mistake of having sex too soon.

No, that’s pretty much what I am saying. Putting out (too soon) is not a strategy to get a long-term relationship, by and large.

“Shouldn’t have to” doesn’t enter into it. I am talking about how men react (often), not how they should.

Is it fair that men sometimes devalue women who are too easy to get? Perhaps not. Nonetheless, they often do.

One can deal with it, or continue along on the assumption that life is fair, or that other people will react the way you want them to, instead of how they want to.

See above. Nobody said anything about being undeserving (besides you).

I am talking about how things are, not how they should be in theory. You’re trying to turn this into moral condemnation. That is not the point.

Emma doesn’t get into healthy relationships, for a variety of reasons. One reason is that she gets to the sex part too soon. If something doesn’t work, you change it, if you’re smart.

Sex changes things. This friends with benefits thing doesn’t always work out as ideally as it is supposed to. You can say “that’s not fair” until you are blue in the face. It ain’t gonna change anything.

Feelings are real. “Shouldn’t” is a different word from “won’t”. If Emma were happy with the way things were working out, fine, don’t change anything - live your life as if it were The Pizza Guy Meets Cheerleaders in Heat. But if not…
Regards,
Shodan

94

I’m going to have to side with Shodan on this one.

I’m not certain how much of it is how having sex early in a relationship will change a prospective boyfriend’s perceived value of carrying out a full-fledged relationship with you and how much of it will simply serve a filtering effect to find the guys that can tolerate you for at least a double-digit number of dates, but if one is looking for a reasonable relationship, waiting to have sex for at least a few dates isn’t unreasonable.

As others have mentioned with the, “games,” the PC line on The Dope is that any level of gamesmanship or playing it cool is unnecessary in honest relationships. But that’s theory and then there’s reality. So it goes with sex.

95

Men my age (early 40s) don’t seem the slightest bit interested in me except for quick chat.
Men twice my age are a different story. :shudder:

96

Well, offering sex ain’t quite the same thing as fucking as you wrote originally, you know. I was confused because you made it seem like sex just fell unwanted into a guy’s lap. Most of the time when sex is had in fledgling relationships, it’s because a guy initiates and/or persues it…so if he doesn’t want sex, all he has to do is not steer things in that direction and most women will follow his lead. Even if the women do want to have sex.

There’s a reason why we never hearing about guys being asked to “put out”.

97

Gestalt,

Male here, 41.

Echoing what others have already said you are coming across as very needy. If I was going out with you, I’d have alarm bells ringing. When I go out with a woman I like to think she is interested in hooking up with me in particular, if I feel she just wants to hook up with a guy, any guy, and that any other guy would do just as well as me, that is a complete turn-off and would kill my interest. Likewise the issue of you wanting to change the man, his temper or whatever. Guys in general hate this, we hate it when longstanding wives and girlfriends do it and we really, really hate it when someone we’ve just met does it.

Men stay if a woman is interesting to us and if she doesn’t scare us off somehow. Things that turn women off men are pretty much the same things men also dislike in women. Desperation and/or neurotic neediness is one of the worst traits for either a man or woman in dating, and if you feel it, honesty be damned, you’re best not showing it.

As for whether its better to be eager or to play it cool and act hard to get I think there’s no hard and fast rule, it depends on the guy. Many men do like the chase and some form of aloofness may work for them. Others will interpret this as “she’s not really into me” and just move on. Shy men in particular will often react by just dropping it and wont ‘push’. In general I think if you’re interested, act interested (but not desperate or needy).

Blowjobs and boobies work to a point. They’re great, make a woman much more attractive to me, and at some point I want/expect them, but they wont keep me around if I think a woman is neurotic. I dont agree with Shodan. Maybe it’s a generational thing but I dont think less of a woman who gets physical early, I prefer it that way. As long as I have the feeling its about me and you, and not “Oh my god, I am so lonely, I cant be by myself, I must have a man, any man, I suppose you’ll do”. That’s not a very flattering feeling!

98

Depends on a lot of things. How much I wanted it, how much risk I thought it might entail.

And that’s the thing. I’d be thinking: It didn’t work out once and I didn’t get seriously burned by it. Am I willing to tempt fate a second time?

99

Perhaps, but if so they’re troglodytes, and ending up in an actual relationship with one of them is not exactly a desirable result.

If you really think about it, the “I can’t respect you because you had sex with me” mindset is, well… a bit unhealthy, at the very least. Why on earth would I want a partner who considers himself so unworthy that my affection results in his contempt?

100

Shodan, If you keep telling women all this “don’t give it up” business, we’re going to have to take your Man Card, you know. Sheesh, you might as well, I dunno, admit to asking for directions or something. :smiley:

Seriously, the thing that the OP needs to “fix” is right in the title of the OP: the (and keep) part… that’s like asking how to make horses drink. A relationship shouldn’t be a goal you tick off some checklist, it should just happen because it is amenable to both parties, period. There’s no way to make it happen, it just does. Impatience in this regard is a common reason for failed relationships.