living one day at a time
Man: This is why nice men finish last.
One of the most common questions I am asked by men is… “Why do nice guys finish last? Why aren’t women attracted to us like they are to the bad boys?” Let me cut to the chase and try to help my “kinder, gentler” brethren. To begin with, nice guys divulge too much information far too quickly. They tend to convince themselves that if they don’t reveal every single positive quality they possess, they will lose any chance of success with their love interest, when, in reality, the opposite is often true. Smother a woman and she is gone. Leave no mystery and she is gone. Explain, in vivid detail, why every single one of your past relationships has failed and yup, you guessed it, she is gone!
Nice guys appear too needy and desperate through their words and actions. They try to take care of a woman’s every want, need and desire before that women even knows what they are herself. Nice guys live a very predictable (and somewhat boring) lifestyle and leave very little mystery for women as their life is an “open book.” Women view this as a lack of “excitement” in these men’s lives and shy away immediately and instinctively. Nice guys tend to place women on a pedestal and give them the impression, “Go ahead and date every other guy on the planet, because when you finally come to your senses I will be right here waiting for you like a welcome mat next to your door.” Nice guys turn themselves into a woman’s “friend” by spending too much time with her when she wants or needs to “hang out and be with someone” rather than be alone. As human beings, we are rarely attracted or drawn to our “friends” in a romantic or passionate way. Nice guys use the words, “I love you” much too quickly and sometimes inappropriately - such as on a first date. For women, it comes down to a simple premise, if a guy seems too good to be true, he probably is and by the way, if he is THIS amazing, why isn’t he taken? Why is he available? In trying to be everything to a woman, men end up projecting a lack of confidence, self-respect, self-esteem. They need to learn that they will not find the right person until they become the right person.
Women tend to want what they cannot have, which is why “bad boys” are so intoxicating to them. Bad boys often live a very dangerous, aloof and mysterious lifestyle and rarely place women as a top priority in their lives. Women find themselves competing to be THE ONE to “break the wild horse” and reach a man who up until now has been unreachable by and unavailable to all other women. Bad boys divulge precious little information about themselves and make others, especially women, work extremely hard for any information they dredge up or time they “get” to spend in their presence. Bad boys appear to have “all that they want or need” and thus are never aggressively pursing anyone or anything. They don’t need to. What they want or need usually comes looking for them. In fact, the farther away a bad boy runs, the faster women run after them. Women exclaim, “He just doesn’t know that he needs me and that I am the greatest thing that would ever happen to his life,” or perhaps “He needs me…he needs someone.” What bad boys do have, they feel they deserve, almost as a birthright. They give women the impression, “You are going to have to fight hard for me and put up with a lot of crap and even if you do, I still may not want you in the end.” Bad boys may have several attractive, successful, driven women vying for their affection, whereas nice guys seldom receive this same type of attention. Why? Women know they can always return to the nice guy…he will still be there waiting for them after they have exhausted all their options chasing the guys they are not sure they can have. Confidence is so sexy and bad boys exude a calm, cool demeanor that says, “With or without you, I am satisfied with who I am and what I have. I don’t need anything or anyone else…ever.” The gauntlet has been thrown down!
Ultimately, women know they have time to chase the bad boys because the nice guys who adore them aren’t going anywhere. They know they can always come back, return that man’s affection, and win him over… instantly and again, nothing turns them off more.
Nice guys, if women see that you have a complete and exciting and fulfilling life without them, they just might want one with you. I am not suggesting that nice guys become jerks or treat women with disrespect, I am simply offering that after initially letting a woman know of your interest in her, you need to back off and GIVE HER A CHANCE TO MISS YOU! Nice guys are so desperately afraid that if they are out of a woman’s presence, they are also out of her mind. Again, in reality, the opposite is almost always true. Try it… or are you just too nice?
She may lack the confidence necessary to enter into a more “full time” relationship. She may lack experience or have experienced repeated relationship failure and be hesitant to enter into another one.
Who doesn't want her own Edward?
tric:
A normal guy would say: “I love you Baby!”
Edward Cullen would say: “You are my life now.”
Normal Guy would say: “I think I am falling for you.”
Edward Cullen would say: “The lion fell in love with the lamb”
Normal Guy would say: “You hair looks like a haystack; go brush it!”
Edward Cullen would say: “Your hair looks like a haystack but I like it.”
A normal guy would pick a random song from a random artist and dedicate it to you.
Edward Cullen would sing you a song he wrote for you while playing the piano.
If you died, a normal guy would find another.
If you died, Edward would kill himself cause life without you isn’t worth living.As you leave the house, a normal guy would say: “Bye, see ya!”
As you leave the house Edward Cullen would say: “Come back to me, love.”As you come back to the house, a normal guy would be watching TV and wouldn’t even notice.
As you come back to the house, Edward Cullen would be welcoming you by playing the piano with a song just for you.A normal guy would wait for you to make him breakfast.
Edward Cullen would make you breakfast everyday.
While you are both out for dinner, a normal guy wouldn’t keep his eyes off the sexy waitress.
Edward Cullen wouldn’t even notice the waitress was a female.
A normal guy, while driving, would keep one hand on the wheel and one hand on the radio.
Edward Cullen, while driving, would keep one hand on the wheel and the other attached to yours.
While far apart in different places, a normal guy would say: “I miss you.”
While far apart in different places, Edward Cullen would say: “It’s like you’ve taken half myself with you.”
A normal guy wouldn’t care or notice if you had nightmares.
Edward Cullen would sing until your nightmares went away.A normal guy does it with everyone.
Edward Cullen only does it with one.
A normal guy buys you flowers and chocolates.
Edward Cullen buys you a car.
Love makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up these defenses. You build up this armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something like kiss you, or smile at you, and your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple “maybe we should just be friends” or “how perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-of-you-and rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not Love.
— Rose Walker in The Sandman, The Kindly Ones
Love vs Obsession
What is the difference between love and obsession? Didn’t both make you stay up all night, wandering the streets, a victim of your own imagination, your own heartbeat? Didn’t you fall into both, headfirst into quicksand? Wasn’t every man in love a fool and every woman a slave?
Love was like rain; it turned to ice, or it disappeared. Now you saw it, now you couldn’t find it no matter how hard you might search. Love evaporated; obsession was realer; it hurt, like a pin in your bottom, a stone in your shoe. It didn’t go away in the blink of an eye. A morning phone call filled with regret. A letter that said ‘Dear you, good-bye from me.’ Obsession tasted like something familiar. Something you’d known your whole life. It settle and lurked; it stayed with you.— Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen
Kiss
We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don’t
grow on trees, like in the old days. So where
does one find love? When you’re sixteen it’s easy,
like being unleashed with a credit card
in a department store of kisses. There’s the first kiss.
The sloppy kiss. The peck.
The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we
shouldn’t be doing this kiss. The but your lips
taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss.
The I wish you’d quit smoking kiss.
The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad
sometimes kiss. The I know
your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get
older, kisses become scarce. You’ll be driving
home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road,
with its purple thumb out. If you
were younger, you’d pull over, slide open the mouth’s
red door just to see how it fits. Oh where
does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile.
Rub two smiles, you get a warm feeling.
Rub two warm feelings and presto-you have a kiss.
Now what? Don’t invite the kiss over
and answer the door in your underwear. It’ll get suspicious
and stare at your toes. Don’t water the kiss with whiskey.
It’ll turn bright pink and explode into a thousand luscious splinters,
but in the morning it’ll be ashamed and sneak out of
your body without saying good-bye,
and you’ll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left
on the inside of your mouth. You must
nurture the kiss. Turn out the lights. Notice how it
illuminates the room. Hold it to your chest
and wonder if the sand inside hourglasses comes from a
special beach. Place it on the tongue’s pillow,
then look up the first recorded kiss in an encyclopedia: beneath
a Babylonian olive tree in 1200 B.C.
But one kiss levitates above all the others. The
intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss.
The I’ll love you through a brick wall kiss.
Even when I’m dead, I’ll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.
— Jeffrey McDaniel
What you don’t know is that when you are sleeping, I stay up watching you. I trace the contours of your face, your torso, your hands, all the while your skin glows luminous from the streetlamps filtering through the windows, or the moonlight floating its way into the room. I count the rhythm of your breathing, watch your chest rise up and down slowly.
I try to remember the outlines of your body, memorizing the order of your moles and freckles. I do this all instead of saying this: I love you.
(via here)
10 Things We All Must Figure Out for Ourselves
via marcandangel.com
- Love – There is no official guide for falling in love, falling out of love, or dealing with the emotional intricacies of love. Love cannot be taught and it certainly cannot be forced. Love is an instinctual feeling, a powerful sentiment, one we will all find under different circumstances and must each figure out for ourselves.
- Friendship – Some personalities simply click and others clash. Just like love, friendship is a natural process that cannot be forced. Other people can select our acquaintances for us, but over time we will find true friendship on our own. When the conversations are comfortable and relaxed and a mutual feeling of trust is apparent, true friendship has been found.
- Loss – At some point each one of us will experience a loss in life. It could be the death of a loved one, the devastation of personal belongings, or a vicious rejection in our career. Each of us is going to naturally deal with loss in our own unique manner, some taking more time to reflect on it than others. While suggestions can be made, we must figure it out for ourselves, morn if necessary, and move on when we are ready.
- The Short vs. Long Catch-22 – There is a paradox found in various situations where we must choose between short-term and long-term fulfillment. It governs the path we take concerning our aspirations, desires, and available opportunities. Things that seem positive in the short-term can turn sour in the long-term. Likewise, disciplined efforts to meet long-term objectives can lead to a more dull short-term existence. People can try to advise us in specific situations, but we must ultimately figure out how to manage this catch-22 for ourselves across the broad scope of our lives.
- Self-Forgiveness – We all make mistakes. It is an inevitable element of being alive. Since we are undoubtedly our own toughest critic, we sometimes inflict unnecessary self-guilt on our conscious for certain actions we did or did not take. This typically hinders our productivity and happiness. Many self-help instructors attempt to teach self-forgiveness, but every circumstance and individual is slightly different than the next. Experience is the key. General experience in dealing with the process of trial and error across various life circumstances is really what increases our comfort level with making mistakes.
- Life Balance – Living a healthy, rewarding life involves the simple art of balance. We must balance risk vs. reward, family and friends vs. career goals, quantity vs. quality… the list could continue indefinitely. Over time, and with enough experience, we will be able to evaluate any situation, decipher the boundary extremes and find a happy, healthy medium between these extremes.
- Responsibility and Independence – Responsibility is not a quality instinctually instilled in all human beings. Some of us have to work really hard at leading a responsible life. The key is to realize that it is okay to assist someone, but the full burden of a responsibility should never be taken away from its owner. If it is, the owner will never learn, thus becoming forever dependant on others. Cause and effect is the ultimate guide to responsibility. “If I don’t get a job, I won’t have money to buy food.” Our success with responsibility will eventually lead to complete independence.
- Character Identity – “Who am I?” We all have to figure this out for ourselves. Character identity is incredibly difficult to define. We all have ideas in our minds of who we are, who we want to become, or how we want to live. The single greatest gift a human being possesses is free will… our ability to think, make choices, and take action with the decisions we make. These decisions eventually mold the person we are, our character identity.
- Betrayal – Dealing with betrayal usually sends a person on an emotional rollercoaster ride. There is no practical way of preparing for it because every act of betrayal contains a different set of variables. When it happens, we are usually left asking a series of questions. Why? Is there another side to the story? Can we work through this? These are questions only the people involved can answer and deal with.
- Happiness and Success – As I stated in my last post, happiness is doing what you love, and success is excelling at doing what you love. Nobody else can tell us how to be happy or what to love. As we progress through life we uncover these mysteries on our own. Once we have happiness figured out we can map out a course for achieving our own personalized version of success.
