What women (don't) want...

Current mood: Relieved
Current song: Glee Cast - She's Not There

Women are complicated creatures; everyone can agree on that. Especially when it comes to dating and what we want and look for in a man. One second we're saying a manly man who's cold and treats us kind of badly (the classic jerk/badboy) is the ideal type... the next second we prefer the sensitive, romantic sap who'll eat ice cream and cry over a romcom with us. It's getting just as hard for guys as it is for girls to live up to expectations nowadays.

I personally have my own list of preferences and an "ideal" type in mind, but I am not picky whatsoever. In fact, of all the men I've dated, I don't think a single one was in my own standards. Not to say they were below a suitable level (well, maybe a few were), but they didn't follow the particular type I look for. I don't know... they say you shouldn't be picky, but then they also say you shouldn't settle. See what I mean about the flip-floppiness of it all?

One thing that is usually universal, however, is what women avoid when seeking out their ideal man. No matter if you're into the manly men, or if sensies are more your cup of tea, there is a list of qualities that in any situation are always a dating Heisman. I have talked extensively over the years with my friends, their mothers and my own, and with my grandmother and other people her age. This is based on solid, scientific research, from three generations of women... so pay attention, guys. Here are the top ten traits women will 9 out of 10 times avoid in any man:

The Cheap Guy
   Yes, this is first, because if you ask any woman what traits in a man she dislikes, cheapness is ALWAYS on that list. Now don't get me wrong, I'm no backwards old school type who thinks a man must pay for everything all the time. I will gladly go dutch on occasion, or even pick up the entire tab. But the Cheap Guy is not just any old stereotype breaker. He is not only unwilling to ever pay for you, but he will gladly admit so to your face. The guy who openly complains about how expensive it is to take you out anywhere, he not only drains your own bank account, but your self esteem as well. And of course you know he will gladly pay for his monthly Xbox bill before taking you to that play you've been dying to see. Let me just say this: if for your birthday, he offers you sex... it's time to get the hell out of dodge.

The Constant Drunk/Partier
   Even if you consider yourself a party girl, no one likes the guy who is spending every weekend of his life getting trashed. The Constant Drunks take this behavior well past college and partying years. He is the guy who can't get any enjoyment from an activity unless there is a drink in his hand. And of course, drunkenness usually leads to embarrassing or rude behavior, that will surely be talked about the next day amongst your co-workers. The Partier is usually the only one at the party having any fun, ruining everyone else's attempt at having a good time. He is also a user, and will eventually begin to drag your life down with his insatiable need to be drunk. Even if they have a steady, responsible job, this pre-alcoholism in the Constant Drunk is a major red flag for future behaviors. And it also goes hand in hand with the next guy...

The Player (eventual cheater)
   Have you ever heard a woman say "I so want a man who will hit on every girl who passes him?" Yeah, didn't think so. The Player is overly confident and cocky, self-absorbed, and thinks he is god's gift to humanity. He pretty much believes that every woman he hits on wants him just as badly. The problem with this, is that eventually he will come across a woman who does. Alcohol can play a big role in the Player's life. If he's prone to being a flirt, the Partier mixed with the Player can be a nasty combination. Also called "man-whoring," this quality is as equally unacceptable as a female slut. Although there is one difference: men like sluts, but women don't like man-whores.

The Dirty Slob
   This has always been one to bother me personally. Women have all these standards of hygiene that we must follow, but it has always seemed as if it's more "manly" for a guy to be a nasty pig. This is certainly not the case. Watch any Axe commercial. There's nothing that ruins a romantic moment more than a man who stinks. The Dirty Slob not only has bad hygiene, but terrible cleaning habits. You can only be so far out of college for that "frat house/bachelor pad" look to still be acceptable. The Slob also has bad manners, especially when it comes to eating, and to flatulence. We can handle burps and farts once in a while, but when we start washing brown stains out of your underwear, things have gone too far.

The Guy With No Future
   He doesn't have to be a millionaire, or a rocket scientist, but all women want a man who will help take care of them. Ambition is a big part of this. The Guy With No Future, however, has no drive. If he could, he would sit on his tush all day long, getting paid to do nothing. Yes, we all fantasize about this, but we also innately crave for our lives to have some kind of meaning or substance. The Guy With No Future could care less if he had no purpose in his life. He is an extremely lazy person. He will make no effort to not only pay bills, but to clean the house, walk the dog, or take care of the kids. Then again, the Guy With No Future will more than likely not have the opportunity to buy a house OR a dog... so you have nothing to worry about there.

The Mama's Boy
   It is universally known that a man who loves his mother is a very desirable quality. But like most men on this list, the Mama's Boy takes things just one step too far. When in a relationship, you are not dating him; you are dating his mother. Everything you discuss, is then discussed with her. Everything he tells you, is usually dictated by her. When the Mama's Boy is at an age where he should be very moved on from his home setting, he still latches onto her, and even goes as far as not being able to function on his own without constant contact with her. The Mama's Boy is basically a permanent, adult breastfeeder, and all he is doing when dating you is looking for a new mama. If you're dating a Mama's Boy, his mama sure as hell better like you... and the quality of your child bearing hips.

The Coward
   Mama's Boys and Cowards are usually peas from the same immature pod. Cowards are oftentimes treacherous and inconsistent, retaining those boyish qualities that his current relationship with his mom causes. If you want security, ladies, do not date the Coward. He will offer you no protection, will leave you behind in the event of a life threatening emergency, hide behind you if there are bullets involved, and will more than likely hand you over to the rapist to buy him time to get away. The Coward is no knight in shinning armor. No, he wears his yellow skin proudly.


The Know-It-All
   The guy who constantly thinks he is right, and knows everything about everything. He is the center of attention, and he knows it. This usually goes hand in hand with the constant arguer, who will debate and one-up you on everything that comes out of your mouth. He is usually also very self-righteous and judgmental of others. Quite a deceiving quality, this guy will initially impress you with his vast range of random knowledge... but with a generally pompous and bombastic attitude, the Know-It-All will eventually show his true colors, as soon as you try to reciprocate any intelligence of your own.

The Selfish Guy
   All men think a lot about themselves, but the Selfish Guy also completely does not think about you. He is very inconsiderate, and completely oblivious and uncaring of your feelings. He will whine about his day without asking about yours. Like the Cheap Guy, he will spend his money all on himself.. but unlike the Cheap ones, he will not even think that perhaps he should spend any of it on you. Not only does he think the world revolves around him, but will step on you to make sure it completes its revolutions. This is one of the worst qualities to possess, and should be avoided at all costs.

The Emotionally Unstable Guy
   This one covers everything that has not been covered already. It's bad enough having men who won't show their emotions, but there are many men out there who show way too MUCH emotion. The angry guy, the crybaby, mr. negativity, the indecisive, the guy with no humor, the guy with too much humor... a man who does not know how to handle his emotions is doomed to derail in a horrific bloody mess when he careens head-on with the ever-present emotionally unstable woman. The Emotionally Unstable guy is more common than people think, and remains to be a continuous problem, thanks to men's refusal to admit that they feel. But of all the negative qualities, this is the one that is most "fixable," so there is hope out there yet! Now, if we could only get them to ask for directions...


Whelp, those are the top 10 bad boy behaviors, though there are in fact many more. However, this list is in no way intended to bash men or their pretty typical behaviors, so if you see yourself reflected in these traits, don't feel too bad. This is just as much a product of your surroundings as it is on your own shoulders. But most women will agree, these are the things we go well out of our way to avoid, and will not be happy campers if any of these behaviors stay present for too long. So while I'm not telling you to change who you are, I am letting you know what sets us off, so you can try to keep those things a bit more in check. Good guy behavior = happy women = plenty of sex... so I'd call that a win-win, wouldn't you?

The trees that grow slower bear the greatest fruit

Current mood: Carefree
Current song: ELO - Mr. Blue Sky

In case you were wondering, yes this is the same blog. I'm the kind of person who likes change, and can't stand for things to be the same for too long. That's why I rearrange my room every year, why I change wallets every time I go to Target, and why my desktop background rotates between my hawaii pictures every 60 seconds.

So it seemed only a matter of time before I changed around the colors and design of my blog. I will probably start doing so every few months, so prepare for a new look pretty frequently. If my last theme was "across the day sky," consider this one "across the night sky."

Now, onto today's topic; life. Yes I know that's pretty broad. More specifically, I've been thinking lately about the speed of life's development, and how that varies greatly between everyone. Here's the average life course, as dictated by american society, in a gist: graduate from high school, move out of your parents' home and go to college, get a good job and find your soulmate, buy a house, get married and have a bunch of kids, work towards retirement, retire in a new home visited by grandkids every holiday. This is basically the order of things, and there is a certain timeframe in which each step is expected to be accomplished.

Of course, being a freethinking sociologist/borderline feminist, who hates the word normal and tries to break as many societal norms as possible... I find this to be a load of crap. Not the list itself, but the expectation that you *must* complete everything in the list, in order, in a certain amount of time, to be deemed socially acceptable.

The great thing about people however, is that even though society has this particular list for us to follow, everyone goes out and creates their own list anyway. Some people start their dream careers straight out of school, others go back and pursue their passion much later in life. Some women have children at 18, some women have them at 40. Sometimes marriage happens immediately, other times it never happens, and others it happens 4 or 5 times. None of these paths are right or wrong. Even when someone feels their life hasn't gone quite the way they planned, they shouldn't let that get them down. Every choice we make leads to something, and whether it's good or bad, it makes us who we are and we learn from it. And there is always time to go back and change the list around. The point is, you can't make concrete life plans. Even if you've made your own life list, don't let society dictate what that is. And be prepared to be flexible, because things can change at the drop of a hat.

Now, that list I mentioned above, the one that society deems acceptable, is actually the list I want for my own life as well. However, I don't plan on doing it within the "normal" timeframe, and I've already gone out of order with moving out of my mom's house. I've been living at home all through college, and as of right now, I plan to stick with my mom while going to law school as well. Being 25 - 26 and still living at home may seem pretty late, but I actually have many friends at college who are still at home. In fact, ironically enough, the *new* norm is for college students to do exactly that, hence why medical insurance for young adults on their parents' plan have been increased until the age of 26.

So my life list has gone in the order of college, job, THEN move out, and I am completely okay with that. But something that had been bugging me up until recently was the whole marriage thing. I have a ton of friends who are getting married soon, or who have been in long term relationships and who are already having kids.. and it really started grabbing at me. I began to feel self conscious, like the fact that I couldn't hold onto a relationship for more than a couple years, or that I certainly wouldn't be having kids anytime soon, meant that I wasn't planning my life correctly.

But then I started looking more closely at the individual cases of these soon to be married couples, and I realized that each situation was completely different. Some of the couples are my age, some are in their very early 20's, and another couple I know didn't get around to it till their early 30's. And on top of my many friends who are getting married, I know even more who have been completely single through their mid-twenties, still not experiencing a relationship or any physical intimacy even during their entire college careers.

The concept of life course norms are pretty ridiculous to begin with. During my grandmother's generation, families began early and they grew big. During my mother's generation, women waited until their late 20's to have kids and had only about 1 or 2. Most of my friends are only children or have just one sibling. Now during my generation, it seems to have reversed again, where couples are having large families early on again.

As for me, I'm between start and finish in terms of relationships. I've been dating for about 5 years and have gone out with a wide variety of guys. I've had both casual dates and long term relationships, I've been physically intimate and overall experienced in almost every facet of dating life. The only thing I haven't done yet is live with a man or get married. So really, I fall right in the middle of the two paths, between no experience and the end result of marriage, and I'm between the two average ages where women are having kids nowadays. Which seems pretty "normal" to me.

Even so, if it takes me till I'm 35 to get married and start having kids, then that's a-ok with me. I'm no longer going to worry about if and when I'm getting married, or if and when I'm having kids, or if and when I will retire in that nice little country home with grandkids all at my feet. I'm enjoying living my life in the moment, taking things one day at a time. My future life list is just that; my future. Right now, life is pretty great just as it is, and seems to me that it can only get better.

I may be a slow growing tree, but I will be bearing some mighty fine fruit one day.

Should Do Saturday: I should make a list of shoulds

Current mood: Contemplative
Current song: Adele - Rolling in the Deep

I've been thinking a lot lately about "shoulda"s. It started with reading a friend's recent blog post *coughJencough* about her experience with yoga. (Jen, if you're reading this.. you're a fountain of inspiration. I swear, you should give speeches. =] ) Yoga began as a "shoulda" for her, as it has been for me for a couple of years now. The difference is, she turned her shoulda into a dida!

I have a lot of "shoulds." Not a day goes by where I don't think to myself, or my mom, or a friend "Man, I really should _______" It's really easy to say a shoulda, but another thing entirely to actually act upon one, especially large goals. That's why new years resolutions are so popular. 

The best way to make your shoulda a dida, is to make a list out of it. If you have a large list, set a time frame in which to get them all done in. I don't know if I'm at a stage in my life to make a "100 goals in 365 days" kind of list just yet, though I really would like to one day. But I have a few main shoulds on mind that I would like to see myself accomplish, possibly this summer. Many of them involve my newly fixed knee, so they will take a while to build up to. But I also have a few that are achievable at any time... all I need to do is set my mind to them. And what's the best way to do that, again? Why yes, a list. You're listening.

So, inspired by my new Things I Love Thursday adventure, I got the idea to make a Should Do Saturday, where each saturday I list a few things that I would like to see myself try, both big and small. Small things I can attempt right away, whereas larger goals I can take time to plan and feel out. The point is, getting them down on virtual paper will give me a constant reminder of all the everyday shouldas I think about, but never stay for very long in my mind. 

For my first SDS, I'll focus on one particular should I've been thinking about lately. I've been considering that I should become a vegetarian. This is something I have never considered before, thanks to my insatiable enjoyment of every kind of meat (that is socially acceptable) there is. But like most of my ideas and schemes and new adventures, they stem from impulse and spontaneity. This idea started from a book. 

After finishing off the second book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series (fiiiinally), I decided to take a break and pick up where I left off in Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat, by Hal Herzog. If you enjoy anything dealing with culture, sociological issues, or animals... GO GET THIS BOOK. I haven't been able to put it down, it's so so interesting. (It even has a chapter involving gender roles with animals... hellooo, is that me or what?) Anyway, in the book, Herzog discusses various anthrozoologic issues, such as why we love some animals but hate others, why we keep animals as pets and how far back does that go, what causes fads in dog ownership, do children who abuse animals become violent adults, etc. 

The parts that I have been thinking a lot about lately go along with my consideration of vegetarianism. Herzog discusses a lot about the various cultural norms of animal consumption, like why is it okay to eat certain animals in some cultures, while in others it's taboo? In America, we find it repulsive to think of eating rats or snakes or even the family dog, but in other regions of the world, it's the norm. In the most recent chapter I read, he brings up the hypocritical way in how people outrage about the cruelty of cock fighting, but don't think twice about the hellish conditions the chickens we eat live in, not to mention the way in which they are slaughtered (trust me, it's brutal). 

I've felt bad sometimes in the past about the meat I consume, especially when visiting farms and interacting with cows and pigs and sheep up close. I can't stand the sight of an animal being slaughtered, even in the most humane way, nor could I ever do the task myself (I guess a career in farming is out). But as long as I don't picture the animals as I'm eating them, or I choose to naively think that this particular piece of cow I'm eating died peacefully in its sleep of natural causes, I'm able to get through my 15 ounce steak with a clean conscience. Herzog points out that most Americans, not just me, have to try to mask the fact that they are consuming animals, to get though each meal guilt free. That's why the English language has adopted words like beef, pork and poultry. It sounds a lot better than saying "I'd like a slice of cow, some pigs, and a cute little birdy, please."

While this book is fascinating and eye-opening, it is not the only reason I am considering becoming a vegetarian. I could easily just turn a blind eye and keep enjoying my meat, blissfully unaware of the actual process it took to get to my plate. However, the number two reason people become vegetarians (the number one involving bleeding heart animal activists who don't like to eat "anything with a face"), is to live a more healthy lifestyle. It is medical fact that meat is bad for you on a number of levels, unless you are the type of person who can eat small amounts of the healthiest part of chicken and some fish, cooked a certain way, without adding any salts, butters, or seasonings - basically, flavor - to it. But I am certainly not one of those people. My chicken better be fried, my bacon sizzling, my fish dripping with butter, and my steak rare enough that I can still hear the cow moo (talk about insensitivity toward animal rights).

Lately I have been actively trying to eat healthier, both for my figure and for my heart and bones. More fruits and veggies, drinking more milk, less junk food and chocolate consumption. The one thing I have not done, however, is decrease my meat intake... especially red meat. Like the average college student, I have slightly bad cholesterol levels. But I'm sure most of that is due to my extreme love for steak. This is another reason I thought about going veggie. I'm not the kind of person who can just cut back on something... I basically have to go cold turkey. So vegetarianism seems like a good course of action for me. I'll feel better about not participating in the cruel slaughter of animals, and I'll also be taking a good step towards my health, especially since it's statistically proven that vegetarians are also more active and fit and generally healthier than carnivores.

Becoming a vegetarian seems like it could be one of those immediately achievable shouldas, but there are a few factors against me right now. First, it's the beginning of summer. Summer means barbecues. Barbecues mean hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken, ribs, steak... all the food I love that I've missed over the long winter. I feel like I want to indulge in at least a little of my favorite summer meats, at least until the 4th of July holiday is through. The second, less shallow, reason I shouldn't cut out meat just yet, is that I'm still recovering from major surgery. My physical therapy begins soon, and I'll need the iron and protein of meat to help strengthen my knee back up. I don't think beans and peanuts will cut it right now. So I figure that the holiday actually serves as a good start date. By July 5th, I'll have recovered well enough, and probably be sick of bbq food by that point anyway.

So there's my first SDS. It's not too large of a goal, it will just take some time to truly get into the mindset of. But I'm excited. And I also can't wait to make my next Should Do Saturday post! I'm thinking of making a list of all the physical activities I'll be able to try now that I have 2 working knees again. I'm sure this is not the first time someone has had this idea (it's basically just a glorified to-do list), but I'm feeling good about it. Feel free to use this to think about and make your own SDS's!