Date night

Age: 24
Ethnicity: Hispanic, white mix
Met her: online
Height: 5’ 0”
Body: Somewhat disappointing. A little more than pictures indicated in the stomach, arms, and thigh regions.
Boobs: Again, didn’t live up to expectations.
Butt: Looked ok, but also looked like it took quite a bit of effort to get into those jeans.
Date: Drinks, and -- surprise, surprise -- some unplanned food.
Cost: $31 + $25 paid by her

Summary:
The date is best summed up by the following quotes:

   “Growing up, I was kind of a chubby girl.” (Uh oh)

   “I’ve never really taken care of myself, you know, aesthetically.” (Oh god)

   “Let’s do it again.” (I'll think about it)

Argument for seeing her again: She was cool, easy going. Her body wasn’t THAT bad. She was sitting down next to me at the bar the whole time, which tends to have an unflattering effect on the stomach (Ok, I'm rationalizing). Fat girls, or in this case, formerly fat girls tend to be, let’s just say, more adventurous in bed.
Argument against: Rule No. 4.

Red flags I missed: Upon further review, Nos. 2 - 4 may have been present to some extent. Again I was burned by the “average” body type. Probably should just steer clear of it all together.
Lessons: I’m starting to think the fact that I’m getting regular poon elsewhere is killing my motivation. I’m just not feeling the urgency. I’m not desperate enough. A few months ago I probably would have jumped all over a girl like this. But now? Not worth my time.

My WhatsYourPrice adventure (Part 1)

You may recall my analysis of WhatsYourPrice, the online dating site where men agree to pay for a date with a woman. Sounds a lot like prostitution, doesn’t it? Well, we’re about to find out.

Based on the amount of money I’d spent in recent months on dates with women I’d met online who turned out to be duds, I came to the conclusion that paying for quality might not be that bad an idea... as long as it increased the probability that I'd get laid. So I set out on a mission to find out what this site is all about. Here’s what happened:

Two perspectives on marriage

I was on a business trip last week, travelling with two colleagues, a man and a woman, both married, both in their early 50’s. I had a couple marriage related conversations I’d like to tell you about to illustrate four points:

1. The significant financial and emotional risk of being married.
2. The common dogmatic assumption that everyone should want to be married, just because that’s the way it is.
3. The fallacy that not wanting to be married means you are afraid of commitment.
4. The fallacy that being married is required to have kids.

My first conversation was with the man, and illustrates point #1:

Infidelity is a one way street

The good news is that we’re finally talking rationally about infidelity.

More and more couples are choosing open marriages-- that is, marriages in which they spouses agree that being sexual with someone outside the marriage is okay.

The bad news is that no one seems to want to talk about the obvious: male infidelity is different than female infidelity. I hate to let the cat out of the bag, but men and women are different. Not only are their sexual appetites different, but when they do want sex, they want it for different reasons.

I’ve written previously about the fundamental mismatch in sexual appetites between men and women. The natural corollary is that no one should be surprised by male infidelity. Frankly, I don’t think anyone really is surprised when it happens. So why does our society continue to be shocked and appalled when men are unfaithful (if that's what you want to call it)?

Ask Men dating survey results

As I mentioned earlier, Ask Men has partnered with Cosmo to put together a great survey on the dating habits and tastes of men and women. Check them out if you have the chance. For now, I'll summarize the best results relating to the topics of this blog:

On marriage:

• To the question of whether or not they believe in marriage, 85% of women say “Yes, definitely!”, while only 66% of men say they plan to participate. Hmm, I wonder if that is a reflection of who is favored by the rules of engagement.
• How important is a prenup? 32% of men say somewhat or very important, versus only 26% of women.  Do you see a trend here?
• When asked which sex gets screwed in divorce courts, 79% of men and 41% of women say men get screwed. 1% of men and 18% of women think women get screwed. So both sexes agree. Men get screwed. Can we update these laws now? Waddya say we make things a little more fair?

On infidelity, sex, and attraction: