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Tag: Dating

Dating Differences in Foreign Lands Like Korea and Iran

by zfortadminin LOVE

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. But the way they do it in different countries is very, very different.

Here’s a glimpse into what it’s like to find Mr. or Mrs. Right in one of these five countries with distinctive dating practices.

COUNTRY: SOUTH KOREA

south koreaDating Difference: Korean men tend to be pretty forward when they like someone. It’s typical for him to call a woman the first day he meets her and send endless text messages. Since most Koreans are well into their university years when they start dating, there are love hotels where they can go to get some privacy, reports the blog EatYourKimchi.com.

Biggest Shocker: The ways things work in courtship and the actual relationship are almost polar opposite. Chris Walker-Bush, an Australian who spent time teaching English in Korea, writes on his blog Aussie on the Road that it’s common to see Korean men carry around their girlfriend’s purse while out shopping, but that’s not likely to continue into marriage. While the man may be a bit docile and accommodating to the woman while dating, the woman slips into a traditional subservient role once the deal is closed.

COUNTRY: CHINA

china flagDating Difference: China is a country of extremes, with modern cities surrounded by the old, rural ways of life. And the dating space also shows these competing interests. Women in China are now more educated, but very traditional Chinese men may still want women “beneath them,” who are less educated and more subservient, reports a story on ChinaDaily.com. Still, it’s not all in favour of the men – a Chinese guy will still try to treat his woman to meals and outings.

Biggest Shocker: For those too busy to look for a date in some Chinese cities, they can get handwritten ads clipped up in public areas like parks – by their grandparents. Yes, Chinese elders help out their younger family members by looking for love for them.

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I’m a Unicorn… I Date Couples

by Lisa Lauretain LOVE

I like to call myself a sexual socialist, meaning that everyone must have equal fun otherwise, I just can’t have a good time.

I’m what’s referred to in the dating world as a “unicorn.” My boyfriend is the male version of this, and because there’s not really a phrase for the male version, I came up with one. I call him a “Centaur.” You’re welcome. Unicorn was a term that originally came with a bit of a negative connotation. It was meant to mean someone who basically catered to the whims of a couple without expecting anything in return. While that can be one aspect of being a unicorn, I like to think the term has evolved a bit since its inception. Basically, I take it to mean someone who is into pretty much anything sexually without becoming emotionally involved. Because females who possess these qualities are so rare, they are thought of to be unicorns. I wear the Unicorn term proudly, though I think it’s a bit of an innocent-sounding moniker for something that basically means, “big ol’ slut.”

As a Unicorn, a large part of my intimate life includes dating couples. Dating a couple can be tricky territory, but it just so happens to be one of my favorite hobbies. I’ve been doing it for a while now and I’ve come to find there are some helpful hints that I have for beginners as well as those questioning whether or not it’s right for them. Here’s what I’ve found in my journey thus far.

First, let me start off by saying that this is not Polyamory. Polyamory involves emotion as well as a physical connection. I’m all about the physical! I currently have a partner who fulfills most of my needs, particularly my emotional ones, however, he has a penis, which leaves my sexual needs a bit unfulfilled. I’m about 45% lesbian, am super into transgendered folks, and I also like more than one partner quite often in the boudoir. He’s only one man with one penis, which is great because anything else might be overwhelming and could even get strange, however, we both know I need more, and he needs more too. This, so far, has been a perfect arrangement for the two of us because we have the freedom to fool around with whomever we want, and often for me that means couples!

Let’s see, how to describe dating a couple…well…it’s like being the fun aunt (stay with me on this one). When you come into a couple arrangement, you get the best parts of the relationship without all the drama and emotional involvement. You also get to have sex with at least two people at the same time! Cha ching!

The first trick is how to find a couple? Approaching one person is tough enough; can you imagine being rejected by two people at once?

“Hey, you’re pretty cute. Wait, why is your girlfriend mad at me?
No, I want both of you! Why are you walking away?!”

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What Not to Do During the First Few Dates

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

Forget the “rules” about dating.

There are no hard and fast rules for getting to know someone better, but there are some easy mistakes you can avoid to ensure you won’t send him off and running or give her the cold shoulder and lose your chances with someone great. According to data collected from Relationup, an app that provides live, anonymous relationship advice, 68% of their users seeking advice about new relationships want help managing the beginning phase of the relationship.

Here are five common mistakes people make in the dating process, why they don’t work, and some tips for how to overcome them.

Over- or under-texting.

If all you want to do is send texts to your crush all day long, let’s face it: you might be needy. You come alive with the intensity of a new relationship and may need a lot of reassurance, but over-texting isn’t going to help. Send too much too fast can easily overwhelm the receiver. Their desire to text may not match yours, which can lead you to overanalyze the situation and worry. However, if you tend to be guarded and don’t want to show your cards too quickly, step up and make sure that you reciprocate and initiate some texts as well. If you don’t respond or send a few flirts here and there, you may come across aloof and give the impression that you’re not as interested as you really are.

Rushing into things after a hook-up.

More and more, hook-ups are becoming a common way to meet someone. Sometimes, that one-night stand results in the couple never having contact again. However, some hook-ups mark the beginning of a budding relationship. Remember, physical intimacy doesn’t mean you are necessarily close and connected. Following a single fling, take time to get to know the other person and see what direction it takes, if any.

Replacing live conversations with texts.

Don’t fight or make apologies over texts. Texts are too ambiguous and misinterpretations can easily happen. Do the old-fashioned thing and pick up the phone (if you were texting, it’s already in your hand) and even leave a message if you have to. The tone of your voice helps set a context for what you are saying. Your humility, sincerity and willingness to work through a problem will come through when you talk to each other directly and repairing any damage made will be quick and painless.

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Transparent Feelings …Can Men Reveal Themselves More?

by zfortadminin LOVE

With so much research showing that young males suffer beneath the gravity of conventional masculinity, why isn’t there more help for them on campus?

Last semester, a student in the masculinity course I teach showed a video clip she had found online of a toddler getting what appeared to be his first vaccinations. Off camera, we hear his father’s voice. “I’ll hold your hand, O.K.?” Then, as his son becomes increasingly agitated: “Don’t cry!… Aw, big boy! High five, high five! Say you’re a man: ‘I’m a man!’ ” The video ends with the whimpering toddler screwing up his face in anger and pounding his chest. “I’m a man!” he barks through tears and gritted teeth.

The home video was right on point, illustrating the takeaway for the course: how boys are taught, sometimes with the best of intentions, to mutate their emotional suffering into anger. More immediately, it captured, in profound concision, the earliest stirrings of a male identity at war with itself.

This is no small thing. As students discover in this course, an Honors College seminar called “Real Men Smile: The Changing Face of Masculinity,” what boys seem to need is the very thing they fear. Yet when they are immunized against this deeper emotional honesty, the results have far-reaching, often devastating consequences.

Despite the emergence of the metrosexual and an increase in stay-at-home dads, tough-guy stereotypes die hard. As men continue to fall behind women in college, while outpacing them four to one in the suicide rate, some colleges are waking up to the fact that men may need to be taught to think beyond their own stereotypes.

In many ways, the young men who take my seminar — typically, 20 percent of the class — mirror national trends. Based on their grades and writing assignments, it’s clear that they spend less time on homework than female students do; and while every bit as intelligent, they earn lower grades with studied indifference. When I asked one of my male students why he didn’t openly fret about grades the way so many women do, he said: “Nothing’s worse for a guy than looking like a Try Hard.”

In a report based on the 2013 book “The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools,” the sociologists Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann observe: “Boys’ underperformance in school has more to do with society’s norms about masculinity than with anatomy, hormones or brain structure. In fact, boys involved in extracurricular cultural activities such as music, art, drama and foreign languages report higher levels of school engagement and get better grades than other boys. But these cultural activities are often denigrated as un-masculine by preadolescent and adolescent boys.”

Throughout elementary school and beyond, they write, girls consistently show “higher social and behavioral skills,” which translate into “higher rates of cognitive learning” and “higher levels of academic investment.”

It should come as no surprise that college enrollment rates for women have outstripped men’s. In 1994, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, 63 percent of females and 61 percent of males enrolled in college right after high school; by 2012, the percentage of young women had increased to 71, but the percentage of men remained unchanged.

By the time many young men do reach college, a deep-seated gender stereotype has taken root that feeds into the stories they have heard about themselves as learners. Better to earn your Man Card than to succeed like a girl, all in the name of constantly having to prove an identity to yourself and others.

The course “Real Men Smile,” which examines how the perceptions of masculinity have and haven’t changed since the 18th century, grew out of a provocative lecture by Michael Kimmel, the seminal researcher and author in the growing field of masculine studies.

Dr. Kimmel came to my campus, Towson University, in 2011 to discuss the “Bro Code” of collegiate male etiquette. In his talk, he deconstructed the survival kit of many middle-class, white male students: online pornography, binge drinking, a brotherhood in which respect is proportional to the disrespect heaped onto young women during hookups, and finally, the most ubiquitous affirmation of their tenuous power, video games.

As Dr. Kimmel masterfully deflected an outpouring of protests, the atmosphere grew palpably tense. A young man wearing fraternity letters stood up. “What you don’t get right is that girls are into hooking up as much as we are; they come on to us, too,” he said. Dr. Kimmel shook his head, which left the student clearly rattled.

His voice quavering, the young man stammered something unexpected from a frat brother, about how women can be as insensitive and hurtful as guys. He sounded like a victim himself. But afterward, when I asked him if he had reached out to any of his guy friends for advice or solace, he stared at me, incredulous, his irises two small blue islands amid a sea of sclera. “Nah, I’ve got this,” he said.

I wanted the course to explore this hallmark of the masculine psyche — the shame over feeling any sadness, despair or strong emotion other than anger, let alone expressing it and the resulting alienation. Many young men, just like this student, compose artful, convincing masks, but deep down they aren’t who they pretend to be.

Research shows what early childhood teachers have always known: that from infancy through age 4 or 5, boys are more emotive than girls. One study out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in 1999 found that 6-month-old boys were more likely to show “facial expressions of anger, to fuss, to gesture to be picked up” and “tended to cry more than girls.”

“Boys were also more socially oriented than girls,” the report said — more likely to look at their mother and “display facial expressions of joy.”

This plays out in the work of Niobe Way, a professor of applied psychology at New York University. After 20-plus years of research, Dr. Way concludes that many boys, especially early and middle adolescents, develop deep, meaningful friendships, easily rivaling girls in their emotional honesty and intimacy.

But we socialize this vulnerability out of them. Once they reach ages 15 or 16, “they begin to sound like gender stereotypes,” she writes in “Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection.” “They start using phrases such as ‘no homo’ … and they tell us they don’t have time for their male friends, even though their desire for these relationships remains.”

As women surpass men on campus, the threat felt by thin-skinned males often reveals itself in the relationships where they feel most exposed. “Boys are not only more invested in ongoing romantic relationships but also have less confidence navigating them than do girls,” writes the sociologist Robin W. Simon in The Journal of Health and Social Behavior. That’s problematic, because “romantic partners are their primary sources of intimacy,” whereas young women confide in friends and family.

Some cultural critics link such mounting emotional vulnerability to the erosion of male privilege and all that it entails. This perceived threat of diminishing power is exposing ugly, at times menacing fault lines in the male psyche. Experts point to sexual assaults on campus and even mass murders like those at a community college in Oregon and a movie theater in Colorado. These gunmen were believed to share two hypermasculine traits: feelings of profound isolation and a compulsion for viral notoriety.

With so much research showing that young men suffer beneath the gravity of conventional masculinity, men’s studies is gaining validation as a field of its own, not just a subset of women’s studies. Hobart and William Smith Colleges has offered a minor in men’s studies since the late ’90s. The Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities was established in 2013 at Stony Brook University, part of the State University of New York, and plans to offer its first master’s degree program in 2018. Last year, the center hosted the International Conference on Men and Masculinities, where topics included fatherhood, male friendships and balancing work and family life.

So why don’t campuses have more resource centers for men?

Some universities offer counseling services for men of color and gay men, and some sponsor clubs through which male members explore the crisis of sexual violence against women. Only a precious few — the University of Massachusetts and Simon Fraser University among them — offer ways for all men to explore their shared struggles. And these don’t exist without pushback. Talk of empowering men emotionally yields eye rolling at best, furious protest at worst — as when the Simon Fraser center was proposed, in 2012, and men and women alike challenged the need for a “safe space” for members of the dominant culture.

But wouldn’t encouraging men to embrace the full range of their humanity benefit women? Why do we continue to limit the emotional lives of males when it serves no one? This question is the rhetorical blueprint I pose to students before they begin what I call the “Real Man” experiment.

In this assignment, students engage strangers to explore, firsthand, the socialized norms of masculinity and to determine whether these norms encourage a healthy, sustainable identity.

The findings result in some compelling presentations. One student interviewed her male and female friends about their hookups and acted out an amalgam of their experiences through the eyes of a male and a female character; another explored the pall of silence and anxiety that hangs over campus men’s rooms; two students gleaned children’s gender perceptions in a toy store. One of the most revealing projects was a PowerPoint by a student who had videotaped himself and then a female friend pretending to cry in the crowded foyer of the university library, gauging the starkly different reactions of passers-by.

“Why do you think a few young women stopped to see if your female friend was O.K.,” I asked him, “but no one did the same thing for you?”

He crossed his arms, his laser pointer pushing against his bicep like a syringe, and paused. Even at this point in the semester, the students, some of whom had studied gender issues before, seemed blind to their own ingrained assumptions. So his response raised many eyebrows. “It’s like we’re scared,” he said, “that the natural order of things will completely collapse.”

Curated by Timothy
Original Article

Game Playing in Dating – How’s That Working for You?

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE

Will men forever be commitmentphobes? Will women forever feel abandoned?

My books are gender and sexual orientation neutral. I rarely write posts for just one gender but this one is mostly for women dating men but portions of it apply to everyone.

When I was a practicing therapist working with women moving on from a relationship and getting ready to date again, I would encourage them to be a little less available than they had been in their last relationship. Women, inevitably, would say to me, “I don’t want to play games. I want to be who I am.”

Okay, well why are you an always available person? Why would anyone in his or her right mind find that attractive? (Women, believe it or not, tend to be more forgiving of no-life men even though they shouldn’t be…everyone should have a life…if you are looking for a no-life person, it’s insecurity on your part).

BUT more importantly, in pursuing this person or making sure this person likes/is attracted to YOU, you are missing all the signs that he might be a problem later on.

To break that down:

1. Having your own life and your own interests makes you an attractive person. This is true when you’re dating or when you’re married 10 years. You do not want to advertise a person with a great life who isn’t ever going to be a burden or a weepy “you never pay attention to me” girlfriend and then give it all up for a relationship. That’s bait and switch and not fair to the relationship or to you.

I am telling you that a man will hardly ever say, “What happened to the vibrant, interesting woman I met?” but he’s thinking it. Even if he seems to WANT you around all the time, the bottom line is that he really doesn’t.

If a man is going to be there for you when you really need him, you have to choose your needing him times. Do you need him when you broke a nail? When your mother said something nasty to you? When you perceived that he gave you “a look”? Or when you lose your job? It is hard in the early going to figure out if someone is going to be a good and solid partner because usually you’re not going to go to your new boyfriend with a crisis and if you do, new boyfriend will usually respond the way new boyfriends do.

But if you start with the drama and waterworks right away, over practically nothing, he might say “there there” but he’s thinking “not here, not here.” Healthy men do not want emotionally fragile women. Unhealthy men don’t either but you’re not giving him the chance to “show his face” as one or the other if you’re always going on about something.

2. If it doesn’t work out, whether next week, next year or 5 years from now, you have a life and friends and good things to go back to. So many women are left at the end of a relationship wondering what the HELL to do with herself. “I gave up my friends, my family, my classes, my hobbies to nest with Mr. Wonderful. Now Mr. Wonderful is gone and my nest is empty and so is my life.”

Yes, women want to nest but your man can fly the coop. Especially if the coop is boring and engulfing. Biologically and historically women are the nesters and men are the hunters/gatherers. But women in 2016 should be spending time outside the nest and not acting like Ms. Cave Lady waiting for Grog to bring home the bronto burgers.

3. In general, men and women bond at very different places on the bonding spectrum. This is biological and innate and nothing you can do about it. It has to do with closeness hormones like oxytocin and anti-closeness hormones like testosterone.

Based on evolutionary biology and bonding hormones, the bonding spectrum is created. The bonding spectrum goes from complete attachment to complete separation. Think of it as line that goes to 100 with 0 percent being complete separation and 100 percent being complete attachment. Women, full of oxytocin and loving attachment, bond at about 80-90 percent on the bonding spectrum.

The closer they can get to complete attachment, the better they feel (nesting). Men – lower on oxytocin and higher in testosterone and biologically wired – bond at about 50 percent on the bonding spectrum. They fear engulfment and enmeshment any higher and they fear abandonment and insignificance any lower.

Women do not get that men are NOT trying to run away. Ladies, men do want connection and they want attachment. They just want it in a different zone. Remember, men were hunters and if they were just lazing around the nest, nothing would get hunted. So biologically they are designed to be out and about to get stiff done.

So women and men just innately bond at different places (yes, there are exceptions but the average is this).

So what’s the answer? For men and women to be in complete conflict forever and ever over where on the bonding spectrum they should fall…therefore never bonding? Will men forever be commitmentphobes? Will women forever feel abandoned? No.

In Getting Back Out There, I speak about what makes a happy and healthy couple and separate hobbies, interests, friends and time apart are almost universal in happy couples.

There are plenty of couples who just naturally fall into the “come here/go away” rhythm that makes for a happy relationship. People who know, just know, that to be a happy person they need to have a happy, whole identity separate and apart from the relationship. Even if there’s marriage and kids. A happy and whole person has SOMETHING TO DO that involves her and only her outside the family unit.

But these women are not the ones that have engulfment/abandonment issues. This is for those who do: I don’t know how else to explain it but when a man is secure that he will not be engulfed if he goes higher than 50 percent, he WILL go higher than 50 percent…even to 80 or 90 percent…but it has to be for a finite period of time and it helps if the woman breaks the bond and goes back to separation than if he feels as if he’s running away or needs to pull himself away in the face of tears and recriminations.

When his visit to the higher end of the spectrum turns ugly because he tried to move back to his 50 percent, he’s going to be less inclined, next time, to visit you at 80 percent and hang around the nest snuggling and cuddling on Sunday morning. If he feels warm and loving and you are getting the affection (not sex but affection) you so dearly want, it helps A LOT to appreciate it and even be the first to jump out of bed and get on with the day. Yes, I know how hard that is, but trust me, it helps a great deal.

When he is feeling less inclined, you will do the one wrong thing you can do: chase him. You will feel abandoned and unloved and run down to get him and try to DRAG him up to 80 but now he is running toward 30 and eventually to 0, trying to get away from this engulfing crazy person. And you’ll either breakup or be doing this dance forever.

I also know women who say, “Well why do I have to orchestrate all this? Why can’t he move closer to me?” Well, dear, he WILL move closer to you as long as he knows he can move away when the time comes. Even better, if he knows you will get bored with your intimacy first, he’ll be back for more in no time. And women pout and ask, “So how is this NOT a game?” It’s NOT A GAME because it recognizes that the differing bonding zones are biological and there is really no reason to try to fight it. We can march in protest, write treatises, scream from the rooftops and hope for an evolution of the not-fairer-sex but chances are it won’t happen tomorrow because you can’t overcome biological bonding by civil decree.

So why do women have to work on separation? Why can’t men work more on attachment? Because there’s really no payoff for men to be more attached. There’s nothing THERE for them on the higher end of the bonding spectrum. Even if you get them to sit around the nest, they’re going to play video games and watch football. For them nesting still involves checking out to some degree. So nesting to him is not the same as nesting to you. What is love and intimacy to you is laziness to him and do you want Mr. Lazy hanging out playing Madden 2016? No, you do not.

Even though women say they want men closer and at 80 percent, I can assure you that you do not. Ask any woman whose husband retired early and is now driving her bananas. Even if you, as a woman, wanted to be bonded and attachment at 80 percent all the time, what exactly do you do and how does it remain special? Answer: it doesn’t. You’ll both get bored and/or dysfunctional and it will be a mess.

So what is the payoff for women to work harder on being on the separation end of the spectrum? For one, when you “hang back” during dating, you get to observe this guy. Who is he? What is he all about? If you’re chasing him or trying to get him to chase you or you’re hyperventilating because he has called in the past 15 minutes, you’re never going to be able to collect objective data. Objective Data?!?! That’s not romantic!?!? No, it’s not. But being without it has led you to disaster, hasn’t it? SO COLLECT THE OBJECTIVE DATA!

Second, when you are not always trying to DRAG your guy to the closer end of the spectrum, he won’t rebel against it…and then he will WANT to be intimate and will want to get closer when you are on the higher end. So your bonding will be deeper and richer and nicer and better.

Now a caveat to this is men who purposely keep women (or several women) at arm’s length. They orchestrate this by having more than one woman or never committing fully to one woman (even if they’re married) and they dabble in the 80 percent with each woman knowing they can separate at any time. But again, HE’S orchestrating this because he doesn’t trust women and he doesn’t want to be tied to one woman. That’s a cheater. (stop calling them players and start calling them what they are–CHEATING LIARS, players makes it sound fun).

If he’s the one playing “come here/go away” you know there’s a problem. He should not be dictating YOUR availability. You should. And that includes “call me” or “we’ll go out…” blah blah. DO NOT get sucked into this early on. Do not let him call the communication shots. Do not do it. Get a grip early on otherwise you’ll be on the crappy end of a carrot on a stick.

Third, whole people have whole relationships. Healthy people have healthy relationships. Having separate issues and your own friends and time apart is HEALTHY. So if you both separate and go do your thing and have your own interests and friends, you are healthy people and whole people and when you come back together it will be BLAM! Seriously. And this starts when you’re dating and continues until you’re married 50 years. ALWAYS have your own friends, ALWAYS have your own interests, ALWAYS take time for you: alone time and time to be good to yourself, ALWAYS take some time away from the guy and the relationship that he isn’t totally crazy about (they’ll learn that it’s okay and you and him will still be okay), and ALWAYS work on yourself and the things in you that need attention. (if you have trouble being alone, you can start there).

So the idea is to not always be available when you are dating. Do not answer every call, text or email. Do not accept every invitation to every day. And do not act like this person is the be all end all of all time. Pull back a bit, physically, mentally and emotionally. When you do bond and things are good, leave sooner than you would like. Leave it good. Leave when you really want to stay longer. Don’t linger. Be upbeat about leaving and think of it in a positive way. It’s important to not leave too early and not leave too late. It’s important to leave them wanting more.

Also if YOU leave before the guy or you start to pull away first, YOU won’t feel abandoned. If he starts to end a great evening or weekend or event earlier than you’re ready to end it, your first instinct is to get him to stay longer because you’re feeling insecure and/or abandoned. He senses your tugging and it makes him want to RUN, not walk, to his nice little “not engulfed” corner and when he’s nervous, it’s not about getting back to his 50 percent…it’s about getting to 30 or 20 or 10 percent. This is when guys disappear and women panic.

It’s very preventable unless he has BIG issues and if he does, you need to know it’s not something YOU caused. Again, another payoff to leaving early. You’ll KNOW you did nothing wrong to cause this running off craziness. It’s also important to go for 50 percent most of the time. You don’t want to make a man SO insecure that he loses his mind because they tend to do that on the lower end of the spectrum. You don’t want him to feel engulfed OR insignificant.

Remember, he does not want to feel abandoned or insignificant. So you can’t just disappear completely for a long period of time…but don’t be always available either. It takes practice but you begin to know what makes a guy feel at 50 percent.

Some romantic, truly into you guys will want you all the time, but you have to keep your own life. But not to the point where they start to feel abandoned and unimportant (dipping below that 50 percent line toward 40 and then 30 and maybe even 20! Men start to miss you and want you at 45-25, but start to think, “Screw her.” about about 20 so 20 isn’t good.) If you’re out having dinner with friends, bring him home some food. If you’re out and about, let him know you’re thinking of him, but still be out and about.

This is not a game. And you ask WHY? because to you it SOUNDS like a game. It’s not. Although the idea is to spark desire in someone else, it also gives you the bonus of having your own life (because you don’t want to pretend to go out with your friends, you want to go out with your friend) and of being able to gauge someone’s reaction to this. If a guy doesn’t want you to leave and shows signs of controlling or being a big baby, you want to know that too. If a guy has objections about you retaining your friends and your interests, you want to know that. If a guy wants you to be a no-life nobody who is only interested in you being available to him, you want to know that. If a guy runs off to do inappropriate things when you’re not together, you want to know that. If there are red flags, you want to know that (and again, OBJECTIVE DATA GATHERING).

If you pull away or are unavailable and he never tries to pull you closer, you want to know that. You want to step back and give him the chance to show you what you mean to him. How does he respond if you’re not there? Does he turn into a demanding idiot? a control freak? or does he not give a damn? Again, you want someone in the middle…gives you the space but then says, “I miss you.” and asks, in a healthy way, for some “us” time. So the payoff for women is HUGE. Being unavailable sometimes and being in control of your time actually works MORE for women than for men.

Although it seems like capitulating to the way men naturally like things, it isn’t. There is a HUGE payoff for women. A better life. More interested men. Healthier men. The ability to pull back and see your own life as well as your budding relationship. Nicer and deeper intimacy. This is NOT about playing a game. It’s about understanding the innate and biological differences between men and women and capitalizing on that instead of being a victim complaining about men who won’t commit. Take Charge Today. And don’t stop doing these things no matter how committed or how long-term the relationship is.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

Millennials Dish on Dating Older

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

May-December romances are frequently misunderstood. When you’re dating someone older, people might assume that the dynamic of the relationship is unhealthy or fundamentally unequal.

The ‘gold digger’ stigma can also come into play, and suggests that people choose older partners solely for their money.

“It’s a time-honored tradition in Hollywood for older men to date younger women, and cougar couples have become all the rage as well,” the New York Daily News explained, in an introduction to a slideshow on the May-December relationship trope in the entertainment industry.

To learn more about what these relationships are really like, ATTN: reached out to four people who have dated someone older than themselves via email about their experiences and relationship advice.

Here are five tips for dating someone older than you.

1. Ignore the haters.

When your partner looks visibly older than you, people might get a little nasty.

Courtney Croft, a 26-year-old Nashville-based anthropologist married to a 40-year-old man, explained that while she and her partner didn’t encounter too many problems in their personal lives, other people didn’t always react well to their relationship.

“Most of the issues stemmed from other people’s initial negative reactions of us being together. It really weirded people out. I had some people flat out say it was gross that I was with someone so much older,” Croft said. “Or that certainly he had ill-intentions, because why else would a man his age be interested in someone so young? Now that we’ve been together for five years, that happens less frequently, but when he lets his beard grow out, which is gray, and we’re out in public together, we still get questioning looks from strangers.”

These stereotypes can also be internalized. Maya L., a 25-year-old writer who declined to give her last name, told ATTN: she had dated a 37-year-old man at 25, and a 29-year-old man when she was 22.

“I try to be open-minded, but sometimes you have to wonder why they’re at where they’re at. Is it weird they’re dating me (a child)?” she joked. “Is it weird they’ve been divorced, or weird that they’ve never been married?”

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How to Navigate the Grace Period

by Christian Cintronin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

Whether you’re hazy about commitment, new to a relationship, or playing the field it’s best to approach this grace period with honesty and mutual respect.

Dating is like buying a house. It may not be a particularly romantic metaphor, but they weren’t lying when they said, “Home is where your heart is.” Real relationships require work and commitment just like purchasing a new home. Before you move into a new house there is an escrow period. Why should your relationship be any different? There is a grace period after you met someone you really like and before you’ve decided to purchase a one-way ferry ticket to Monogamy Island? But how do you navigate this period? How do you talk about the rather tense subject of potentially sleeping with other people? And how do you ultimately know when you’re ready to commit?

Courtship has changed over the past 50 years. There was a simpler time when people got married as virgins, chaperones accompanied people on dates, and doctors endorsed cigarettes. But our sexually liberated times have given rise to people taking control over their sexual wants and needs. That’s great, but that can leave a lot of people with a murky understanding of what’s “normal” in dating. You probably don’t tell someone you’ve just met you’ve been casually seeing a few guys. You probably don’t want to spend your fourth date talking about Julia, your friend with benefits. You may not even want to mention them until you’ve dissolved your benefits agreement. But it’s important to find a balance between honesty and consideration for your and your partner’s feelings.

I personally have been on the receiving end of many an awkward conversation with guys I’ve really liked. “Sorry, I’ve been dating a couple of people and it’s really working out with someone else.” It’s like a gunshot wound to the chest. Here you are picking out china patterns and not only are you no longer in the running for America’s Next Top Partner your “relationship” was a figment of your imagination. That’s a tough, dry pill to swallow but it is a harsh reality for the new arena of dating in a post-Tinder, post-Sex and the City, pre-Apocalypse dating world. People will be dating, sleeping with, and talking to other people and you will need to find a way to navigate that space.

Whether you’re hazy about commitment, new to a relationship, or playing the field it’s best to approach this grace period with honesty and mutual respect. Let’s say you’ve met someone you really like and things are going really well. After a few dates you will want to check in on how you both are feeling. It doesn’t need to be a grandiose conversation about commitment. You will want to clear up if you are casually dating or seriously seeing each other. You may want to ask if they are seeing other people and disclose if you are. It’s also a good time to calmly tease your feelings on monogamy. It will be unclear until you mention it. Finding out your shiny new dance partner is dating a few other people can be a huge shock. So why not temper the surprise by being as honest as you can as early as you can? I have found it’s best to be honest because then you and your partner can approach your relationship as it is rather than how you both want it to be.

As your relationship progresses you’ll want to have periodic check-ins to be clear about how you are both seeing your future together. Do you want to be in a committed relationship, would you prefer a throuple, are you interested in open relationships? These are important conversations you will want to organically come to. You don’t need to push them, force them, or turn them into a huge confrontation. But it’s good to clear the air. Your best bet is a calm, casual four sentence conversation. You ask a question, they answer, you accept what they say, and you move on. This will avoid any needless escalation or discomfort. In my experience it’s good to ask and be as open and diplomatic as possible. If you feel the situation starting to escalate try to just reiterate your commitment and excitement about the relationship. That way you don’t let fear or insecurity needlessly escalate the situation.

Handling these conversations can be tough. It’s easy for these honest moments to unearth a lot of baggage. The key is to be honest, open-minded and respectful. If your partner tells you they have opposing political views you wouldn’t immediately break up so why should you do that if you have different views on sex, relationships and boundaries. Sometimes the biggest hurdle to establishing healthy and happy relationships is our own personal idealized version of a relationship. That great person you are spending time with is a full-fledged human being so entertain their individual beliefs, opinions and experiences. If you have a calm conversation you can understand how the other person sees your relationship and how they see you. Now this doesn’t guarantee a marriage proposal or that you will not break up. But it does guarantee that you’re on an even playing field and having a healthy conversation. It also ensures you are entering into a relationship with the healthiest perspective you can.

There is no right or wrong way to date. There are billions of people on the planet and there’s someone out there for everyone. But you can never go wrong with establishing honest conversations with people you sleep with and date. If you are honest and open during this grace period it will help you establish healthy patterns and develop organic intimacy as your authentic self. That’s better than implying monogamy if you’re not ready or dating a few people. It also allows you to see how well you can communicate, empathize, and handle tense conversations. Even if it doesn’t go well you’ve worked on the key skills to a healthy long-term relationship for next time. Once you’ve done that you’re in a better position to make it work or attract your right match.

Defining Cheating. What Is It to You?

by RJ Newellin RELATIONSHIPS

I found myself getting anxious about a certain app that my partner uses, and spent weeks torturing myself.

Before cell phones, cheating was a series of deliberate actions: secretly flirting (in person), arranging times and places to meet (also in person), and then physically ‘doing the deed’ – definitely in person. But now, in the age of smartphones, is there such a thing as “modern monogamy?”

Back in the day, catching your spouse cheating was a dramatic and devastating event, because it all happened IRL. There were physical and emotional risks involved with cheating, which is why it was – and is – a serious heartbreaker.

Cheating used to have a relatively standard definition, for the majority of traditionally monogamous couples. It’s not so simple, nowadays. Now that Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and various texting apps have become so ingrained in our social lives…what is cheating, really? And what do we do if our partner defines it differently than we do?

At its most basic, cheating involves stepping outside the boundaries of your relationship. For many of us, sexual contact with another person is a definite no-no. But what about sending/receiving sexy photos on Snapchat? Or a romantically emotional affair with a close friend, via text messages? If your boyfriend is following a bunch of flirty, bikini-clad girls on Instagram, could that be considered cheating?

It depends. What is okay for one couple may not be okay for another. Relationships are a ‘choose your own adventure’ story – just don’t wait until the line is crossed to tell your partner where it is.

Because you are reading this article, perhaps you’ve been questioning whether you’ve cheated or been cheated on. The past cannot be changed, but taking a few simple steps can save you a lot of worry in the future. There are a million articles about cheating – how to catch it, how to do it, how to avoid it. Before you go into the ‘how-to,’ it’s probably best to establish the ‘what is.’

Problem: You’re uncomfortable and unsure about the boundaries of your relationship.

Solution: Ask your partner what cheating means for them. It’s that simple.

It can be hard to establish boundaries, especially at the beginning of a relationship. Most of us don’t want to come off as too serious, until we have to. But why wait until something goes wrong? It might not be sexy to talk about boundaries, but it can protect you from a lot of seriously un-sexy situations down the road.

If we find ourselves worried about our partner’s fidelity, it’s tempting to stifle our feelings because we don’t want to appear ‘needy’ or ‘paranoid.’ Unfortunately, suppressing our feelings can result in them manifesting down the line – jealousy, resentment, and insecurity will inevitably hurt you more than your partner. Trust goes both ways, but so does fear. You probably know when your partner is upset about something, even when they’re holding it in. Wouldn’t you rather know what’s the matter, before it gets out of hand?

In order to avoid breaking your partner’s trust (or vice versa), it’s important to establish boundaries early on. And it’s not just about your partner – ask yourself, what does cheating mean, for you? Define it for yourself, and then sit down with your loved one and ask them what they think. Remember – it’s a discussion, not an interrogation. Their definition may be different than yours, and the more you talk about it, the easier it will be to meet in the middle.

This conversation is not meant to “trap” them or force them to adopt your point of view. Talking about your worries (and allowing your loved one to voice theirs) is about loving. The goal is to reinforce mutual trust. Using “I” statements and reminding your partner how much you trust them can make all the difference.

Without trust, there is no love. And that can be difficult when there is no communication. Maybe your partner is just as worried as you are. Talking about boundaries can actually be a very freeing experience for both of you.

I recently had this conversation with my partner, and I am so glad I did. I found myself getting anxious about a certain app that my partner uses, and spent weeks torturing myself with negative self-talk and paranoid imaginings. I didn’t want to come off as jealous, so I did nothing. As a result, I caused my partner a lot of undue worry because I was acting so strangely. When I finally sat down with him to talk about the app, I was overwhelmed by how validating it was.

For me, cheating means purposely breaking a partner’s trust. Now that my spouse and I have consciously established what this means for us, I am even more confident that I don’t have to worry about it.

Being honest about your feelings is infinitely safer than acting on assumptions. Your partner most likely has their own set of rules based on their background. It may be completely different than yours, and that doesn’t have to be a deal breaker.

So what is “cheating,” for you? How have cell phones and social media changed the way you view monogamy? Share your thoughts in the comments, below. The more we learn about ourselves, the more we learn about each other.

New Chivalry… Here’s What to Look For

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

Congrats!

I’m a modern girl. I’m independent and I’m single. I have built a career from the ground up, read everyone from C.S. Lewis to Suzanne Collins, can navigate social media with relative ease, and watch New Girl every week like it’s my job.

And? I know I can take care of myself. But hey, call me old-fashioned, too. It’s fine. I can appreciate aspects of feminism, but I prefer gender roles. I like when a guy volunteers to kill a massive spider without complaint, or lift a heavy box in my stead.

I find chivalry to be a gorgeous thing.

Most women I know are a little like that. We love our modern independence in life and in love, but deep down, we want guys to treat us like ladies. As most women will attest, it’s become increasingly rare. Gentlemanly behavior sets our hearts aflutter. We want to see it, and many of us are waiting on it.

I want a guy to court me a bit. In fact, I’m sort of holding out for that. Someone to sweep me off my feet? No, gosh no. Grand gestures are wholly unnecessary. I just want someone I can count on. I just want him to do little things to make me sure he’s the real deal.

Dating today is tough, and we women always seem to have doubts about the guys that roll into our lives. Does he like me? Are his motives genuine? Can I trust him completely? Guessing means you usually can’t, and confusion isn’t a good thing.

Most women would like to erase that. So if he puts in the time and does the little things, it’s like a screening process for us. He’s more likely to be into us as human beings, not hookups. He’s more likely to be Mr. Right when we’re over dealing with all those Mr. Wrongs. That’s why chivalry is as important now as it ever was.

Here’s to all the women who are looking for that chivalrous, good-hearted guy. He’s out there. These are the things he does to make us swoon. (And to all those chivalrous, good-hearted guys, keep doing what you’re doing. We love you for it.)

1. He holds the door for you.

The other day, I was headed inside a building when a dark-haired guy with glasses noticed me a few steps away from the door. He waited for me to catch up, then held the door open and stepped aside, allowing me to head in first. I don’t see this much anymore, living in a liberal area with a younger populace.

And yeah, I swooned. I slowed down, looked him in the eye and thanked him. In actuality, I wanted to shake his hand or give him a bear hug or something for being so darn chivalrous(don’t worry, I didn’t). Note: I have the same reaction to pulling out chairs and lifting heavy objects.

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Approaching Dating as a Scientific Experiment

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

If you think about it, relationships are just like scientific experiments: sometimes, no matter the outcomes of dates, the end results can be unpredictable.

A friend of mine was recently having relationship issues and I had to spend some time consoling and counseling her (Don’t worry, I’ve received permission to discuss this!). As she railed against fate, she moaned something about her predicament that really struck me—the need to communicate without assumptions and to not be inclined to think that something is obvious.

At this point, I tried to lighten the mood by pointing out that as a scientist, she should never have made such judgments. After all, what is obvious to one person is often not clear to another and people are rarely quickly convinced in the lab even when the evidence is there. By the same token, how many times are you going to test the hypotheses before you accept you are right or wrong? Also, you can’t go back and read other people’s minds the way you can a lab book (depending on how well the lab book is kept).

This thankfully brought a smile to her face and like a good collaborator, she threw some challenges towards my argument—are relationships then just a series of hypothesis tests?

ARE THEY EVER!!! Just think about it—dating can be considered a series of experiments with different subjects!

Relationships: the ultimate experiment

It even fits the classical written scientific report format with defined sections on the introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion. My friend was skeptical. All I could do was show her the evidence (like a good scientist), and hope she came to the same conclusions.

1. Introduction

Well, this section is pretty obvious as this is probably when you meet—introduction, get it?!?! Hahaha! Okay I’ll slink back into my cave now. But really, this is when you also assess the relevant history and concepts so that everyone can understand the current situation. And like a scientific report, this is when you’re supposed to engage the subject of your experiment … I mean, date. *Cough*.

In the way that a good introduction to a paper is meant to be selective, not exhaustive, it’s the same for your date. They don’t need to know (yet) all the nitty-gritty of your history until they decide to become an expert in the field, i.e. you.

And remember to figure out the aims and hypothesis—to find out whether this person is the one! You don’t want to get to the end and realize your study has been for naught.

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The Things You Undervalue About Dating

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

Cuddling, sharing, and happiness! These are just some of the things we can enjoy about dating someone.

1. By default, you always have someone to do things with.

2. And you can communicate using special eye-code when other people are around.

3. You get honest (read: invested) fashion advice.

4. And like, you finally have someone to make your choreographed dreams come true.

5. Sofa time is accompanied by hi-tech foot-warming technology.

6. There’s also the sweet, sweet relief of a simple hand-holding sesh.

7. You see a SIGNIFICANT improvement in meals…

And finally someone will appreciate your smooth moves in the kitchen.

8. …and twice the manpower for cleaning up (and other boring chores)!

9. Let’s not forget: Joint. Streaming. Accounts.

Guilty pleasures are best shared!

10. In fact, sharing things in general…

11. …and saving $$$ as a result!

(AKA money left over to do even more things together!)

12. Your knowledge improves from adopting their smarts and interests…

13. …and so does your hygiene.

14. Let’s not forget the comfort of sleeping with your S.O.’s shirt while they’re away.

Bonus points if you have a pet — you get all their attention too!

15. Just having someone special to hug and hold is awesome…

…and best of all, even staycations in your sweatpants can be considered sexy.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

What Hook Up Culture is Doing to Your Emotional Life

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

When I headed off to university back in the Stone Age, girls were still afraid of being called sluts. By the time I graduated, there was a worse label – “unliberated.” It applied to girls who didn’t have sex. And no one wanted to be that.

Sexual liberation – the idea that women are entitled to the same sexual agency and opportunities as men – is at the heart of feminism. It’s great in theory. But for young women, it can be a disaster.

On many campuses today, hookup culture is the norm – especially for women who identify as feminists. Hookup culture decouples sex from commitment. It is thought to be practical as well as fun. It allows women to pursue their own interests and academic careers without the time-consuming burden of messy emotional entanglements.

There’s just one problem. It makes them utterly miserable.

“The truth is that, for many women, there’s nothing liberating about emotionless, non-committal sex,” writes Leah Fessler, who should know. As a student at Middlebury College, an elite liberal-arts school in Vermont, she was like a lot of high-achieving girls – cheery and successful on the outside, an emotional mess within. When she did some research, she discovered that her feelings were virtually universal among the campus women, and also shared by many men.

Ms. Fessler’s unsparing description of the sex lives of young feminists (Most Women Don’t Enjoy Hookup Culture, published in Quartz) is bleak. In hookup culture, commitment is seen as not only unnecessary but uncool. You can sleep with a guy for months, but God forbid you should be seen having lunch together. “Per unspoken social code, neither party is permitted emotional involvement, commitment, or vulnerability,” she writes. Young women are expected to ask for sex. But the one thing they can’t ask for is intimacy.

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Why He Didn’t Call Back

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

It’s interesting how things get misinterpreted in the dating game due to lack of communication between the sexes. One of the biggest examples of this is when a guy stops calling after what seems to the woman to have been the perfect 2nd date. She’s confused, he moves on and she tells all her friends about it.

So what really happens after that 2nd date to make a guy vanish from what a woman could read as an obvious love connection? Ask a woman and she will say one of many things that are nowhere near accurate.

Having dropped a few numbers myself in the past, and speaking with men out there dating today – I will present you with the real reasons why you never got a call back from that guy:

Darren S.

Single, IT Professional who dates to find his future wife.

Women consider it a perfect date because I paid and sat there smiling while they offended me and/or bored me to death with their conversation. If there is a personality clash I won’t call and she may not even know it.

I’ve had girls offend me by talking about things or other people that hit close to home, and I have had women who were just plain old lame. I don’t owe any of them an explanation because we were just dating so of course I just get rid of their number.

Brian M.

Single, Entrepreneur who dates to find a good match.

I never really learned how to say “I don’t think we are compatible” to someone…

I would say because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that “I don’t think we are compatible” upfront.  I know rather quickly whether I’m into a girl or not, usually within the first 5-10 minutes of meeting them so I know right away that I won’t be calling her back.

But I still go through the date and try to make the most of it.  She ends up having a good time, usually.  It’s really my fault for giving her the wrong impression at the end of the date because they usually ask to hang out again and I never do.

Levon M.

Hopeless romantic – Waiter at a popular restaurant

I went on a date with this one girl, she had a blast; kept calling me for like 3 weeks straight after the date asking to hang out. I never called her back because she smoked and had less than stellar teeth.

The sad part was this girl was like “Now that you met me, I bet you won’t call me back.” I asked her “why would you think that?” I thought she was crazy, even though she was right. I answered her question with a question to get off the hook then stopped calling her afterwards.

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Have Something Uncomfortable to Share? Here is When

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE

After a long stint of online dating, Gemma Halliday had finally found the needle in the haystack she’d been looking for: an attractive, gainfully employed guy with “nothing weird or scary about him” — or so she thought.

“He seemed really nice,” the 31-year-old romance novelist from Los Gatos, California, says of her first phone call with the suitor. He even had “cereal-commercial cute” kids and a picture-perfect home. Halliday learned something else, too.

The man also had a wife — who was in a coma.

“At first I was a little shocked,” Halliday says. “It was very ‘Desperate Housewives.’ In the back of my mind it was like, ‘What happens if she wakes up?’ ”

When to drop the bomb

As strange as the news was, Halliday appreciated his honesty. “Had he waited to tell me, I would have felt he was hiding something,” she says.

Undeterred, she decided to meet the guy for a coffee date, but as it turned out, “the chemistry just wasn’t there,” she says.

But for other daters with secrets — a history of sexually transmitted diseases, a conviction for drunken driving, an obsession with “Star Trek” — the tell-and-then-kiss approach doesn’t necessarily work.

Take Tony Gilbert, 46, from Los Angeles. Throughout his 20s and 30s the body-care products salesman suffered from severe psoriasis, a red, scaly skin condition that covered 20 percent of his body. Besides the itching and discomfort, there was the painful matter of having to tell a date that things might look a little “unsightly” but that “it’s not contagious.”

Rather than share those details over an initial cup of coffee, “I got to know [the person] first, and if I thought we might get intimate, I would tell them,” says Gilbert, who is now married and completely psoriasis-free, thanks to medication he has been taking for five years.

Good decision, says Kimberly Flemke, a therapist on staff with the Philadelphia-based Council for Relationships, a nonprofit relationship-counseling group.

“If you have a big secret, you want to have that trust established first so you know that the person is going to honor your privacy,” she says. “You can’t do that in a new relationship because you don’t know the other person yet.”

How soon is too soon?

Besides, waiting to reveal a potential deal breaker such as herpes or $300,000 in credit-card debt is just good dating decorum, says syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, author of “The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family.”

“You don’t want someone to reveal too much at first because that itself is a deal breaker,” he says. “If somebody sits down on the first date and says, ‘I’m into spanking,’ even if you are into spanking, [too], you might react negatively to that.”

On the flip side, “withholding information like ‘I’m a cross-dresser’ till the wedding night” is bad form, he says. Once you’re seeing the person a few times a week and sleeping together, it’s time to come clean about any secrets that could affect the relationship.

Even then, Flemke says, there are no guarantees your secret will be met with open arms.

Jude Chosnyk, a 48-year-old technical writer from Seattle, can attest to this. Once she became sexually involved with her then-boyfriend, he revealed that he thought he was “a woman in a man’s body” and began wearing women’s underwear and stockings to bed.

“At first I thought it was a fantasy thing,” says Chosnyk, who didn’t mind a little role-playing. But then, “it kind of overtook the relationship, especially in the bedroom. It turned me off, and that’s why I broke up with him.”

Context is everything

When spilling the beans, giving your secret a bit of context can greatly help your case, Flemke says.

“Instead of dropping a bomb and watching the person sit there and absorb the information, say that if you didn’t see the relationship going somewhere, you wouldn’t have said anything,” she explains.

It’s perfectly acceptable to tell your partner you’re nervous about how your big reveal might impact the relationship, she adds. That way, your partner’s likely to have “a little more compassion and empathy.”

Caitlin Weaver, 29, is banking on this.

After breaking off her engagement to her fiancé and canceling the wedding earlier this year, Weaver, who runs a financial research institute in New York, started an anonymous blog about her newfound singledom.

“The idea was to chronicle my commitment to staying single for six months,” she says. “But the problem is that now I have started dating someone, and I’ve been blogging about him.”

Her solution? To stop blogging about her boyfriend (although she still blogs about other aspects of her life) and fess up that she did. “We weren’t serious when we started dating,” says Weaver, who has been with her beau a couple of months and hopes the back story — that she started her blog as a way to “process” how she feels about dating — will help soften the blow.

“I think the fact that I do want to tell him means that we’ve built up some trust,” she says. Now, “it’s just a question of if the blog is a big deal to him.”

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

Falling in Love in a Foreign Language

by zfortadminin LOVE

From the very first flirtation, dating a Frenchman is different

Devoid of a wingman, he’ll approach and break out some rusty high school English to compare the color of your eyes to the sky, to the river, to a bird he saw, once. When I first met my French fiancé, eight years ago now, his English was wanting, and he resorted, instead, to identifying random items in the room—table, teeth, bottle, bag.

Bless him, it worked.

But before I met my fiancé, I discovered quite a few duds in the French dating pool. These were men whose egos have remained resolutely intact after years of being brushed off by French girls who aren’t afraid of saying no. I was horrified when I realized that my all-American technique of “letting him down easy” just seemed to make French men try harder. I learned early on how to say “no” like a French girl: decisively and without apology.

After the rare “yes,” though, I learned that old-fashioned dating is alive and well in France—there is very little hookup culture and definitely no “Netflix and chill.” In fact, more often than not, both the first and the second date with a Frenchman are surprisingly devoid of so much as a goodnight kiss, which forces people in expat circles into analysis: Was something lost in translation? Have I found my way into the friend zone?

But France has no friend zone to speak of; it’s just that three is the magic number. After date three, the bise—that ubiquitous European double-cheek kiss—is retired without ceremony. You are a couple now; there is no conversation to establish this. Attempts to have such a conversation—or accidental offerings of a cheek for the bise, due to habit—both cause French men to react as though you are insane.

French men say “Je t’aime” far too quickly for my taste. I am convinced it means something different to them, because I’ve had it said to me long before the concerned party knows how to spell my name, and far before I feel ready to say “I love you” back. When my fiancé whispered it to me just hours after our first kiss—or maybe even before—I said, “I like you too,” and I tried to pretend that the translation mishap eluded me. At least I never had to worry about saying it first.

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