Quick gist, just in case you didn't click the link (click the damn link). Her female friend complains about finding a good guy to love. She's dated a lot of scum in the past, so Falen picks a good, well rounded guy to hook her up with. She ends up not liking the dude because he doesn't have enough 'edge.'
And this is where I went off.
I have been in a few relationships, but two long-term ones. I was married for 7 years, and I have been dating/living with my current female for over 2 years now. One thing I have learned from my experiences with women: They like projects.
My current girl scrapbooks. That is her project. I love her for this. Why? Because most of the other girls (including the ex wife) decided *I* make a good project.
I'm an overall nice guy, but I'm not perfect. I have matured a lot in the past 10 years, but mostly on my own terms. This is a point I'd love to get across to the 'superior gender.' We change when we see fit. You play less of a role in the process than you think.
Back to Falen's post. This chick loves the bad boys, the edgy guys. But she complains about the scum she's been with. This sounds like, to me. She wants a bad boy she can turn into a good man. I'm sorry ladies. We are what we are, and no amount of convincing or sexual favors is going to make us change the core of who we are.
My comment on the post was:
"There's a reason why the saying "nice guys finish last" is still around. Girls want bad boys, so there's some excitement and edge. But they also secretly want to tame them.
Ladies, you can't change us. We are who we are, and no amount of good sex is going to make us start wearing sweater-vests and watching Glee with you. If you want a guy like that, find a guy like that, and let me watch my basketball dammit.
Just for laughs, you should ask her to write down what she's looking for in a dude. Then count the contradictions. She wants a bad boy that is a good guy. Um...."
But it works both ways, gentlemen. When you start dating a girl, and she doesn't like sports, you're not going to turn her into a football fan. It's a penis, not a magic wand.
And guys... trying to be sneaky and thinking like women doesn't work either. Too many times I see a guy (or even girl) try to move in and be friends first. I'm sorry, but I have a handful of female friends. When you're in the friend zone, it's hard to get out. Only one has succeeded and been promoted to the next level. All the others, it didn't happen. It usually doesn't happen. Now, if I were a girl, and a guy has been my friend for X amount of years, I'm gonna feel even more passionately about the friend zone.
Why? For girls, it seems like non-threatening guy friends are hard to come by. My gf sums it up pretty well: "Every girl needs at least one gay guy friend. So you can have a guy friend who doesn't want to sleep with you." If a girl uses the line "You're such a good friend." I'm sorry, but you've now entered... the friend zone. Of which, there is no escape.
Back to the ladies, and the topic of the day. If you want a sweet guy who will buy you flowers, do romantic things for you, and be someone you can take home to mama, find that guy. Don't take any stray off the street and try to change him into what you want him to be.
Haven't there been enough movies and "sex in the City" episodes to show my point on this? Yet women keep trying.... thinking their magic vajayjay will tame the savage beast.
Sorry to drop the N word on y'all, but do you know what that makes you?
 |
| A Nag. |
Today's moral of the story: People mature. People rarely change, especially when influenced (read: pressured) by others. The tactic of "If you love me, you'll ________" does not work, so stop using it. If you love us, you'll accept our flaws, and let us finish watching the basketball game.
42 witty retorts:
I have girlfriends with this same problem. And I have been guilty of it myself. We want the dangerous, edgy guys to feed our dark side (or maybe because a part of us feels that we deserve to be treated like shit - if we're going to get all psycological). Whatever the reason, those bad boys rarely change. They are fun for a fling but don't bring your heart to that event.
As for this - " It's a penis, not a magic wand." I guess that all depends on who is waving it. *grin*
Props to you. I really enjoyed this post.
I think that all young girls (and clueless older women who haven't grown up) think that they can change a man. Wrong, wrong and even more wrong!
I, too, used to go for the bad guys, the ones with the 'Edge', and I got burned every damn time.
And as long as girls continue to go for jerks like this, they will continue to exist because they get what they want and then move on to the next waiting chick. Better to let them mature up some or leave them alone all together.
Ya know. As I read this, I agreed with everything you said. Only, I'm pretty sure though it makes sense, girls (including me) won't listen. Because "This guy is different" or some other shit like that. We say guys are idiots, but I'm gonna go ahead and tell you a secret you may not have known, we are just as stupid! XD
<3 this post!
Yes. I find it hard to explain what you just did, but you seemed to do it fairly easily. Congrats for that. Noww...
"It's a penis, not a magic wand."
I BEG TO DIFFER! His name is Gandalf for a reason, dammit!
Oh man the friend zone, I wasted to much time on a few girls because of this. dammit.
Ah... The truth is told. You're right about people trying to change their boyfriend or girlfriend to suit their own interests or desires.
My sister has said basically the same about how some girls go for the bad boy type (maybe it conjures up some sort S&M sexual fantasies in their minds- I don't know) and usually the relationship ends in failure with the bad boy either abusing them in one way or another. My sister, the smart girl she is, went for the guys in the past who were decent and intelligent and eventually married one.
Good, honest post, dude. Some bloggers would be afraid to touch this subject for fear of maybe losing a few female followers. Kudos!
Oh, a man of my own heart! This is what I've been complaining about for years. However, the bit about not trying to be 'friends' first is good advice, because that's usually the route I try to take. Good to know not to do that. Friend Zone is bad.
Great post!
So true! I have passed up good guys for complete dicks because.. well, just because I am self destructive like that sometimes. I have had the reverse scenario though where a guy (the ex-hubs actually) started off as a good guy and degenerated into a bad boy, unfortunately I married who I wanted to be with and was not so into who he decided he wanted to try being, thus the divorce. What do you do about that one???
@Random: Been there, done that. But neither one of us really degenerated. We married young, with the expectations that we would 'grow into' each other. She thought I would change, and I thought she would change. We thought the other would eventually conform into what we wanted.
The opposite happened. As we grew up, we matured in separate directions. We grew apart. We wanted different things. Sure, I think she's a manipulative bitch, but I think it boils more down to the face we became incompatible with each other.
I got married when I was 20. I don't recommend that to ANYONE.
This is so true. So so true
I had a mate who lived with a crazy girl. The relationship fell apart and he moaned that he always seemed to end up with crazy women. Then two women at work fancied him, one was studying part tme at college and didn't drink. The other had a failed marriage where the father got custody of the kids due to her excessive drinking. Guess which when he went for.
'But she's interesting' he said, the idiot.
And women who look for bad blokes and then moan about how they are treated are idiots too. So there.
I'm pretty sure psychoanalysits call it a projective complex, or more specifically the defense mechanism of reaction formation. I broke up with the love of my life (ok just because I'm 18, doesn't mean you can dismiss the notion!) because I kept hurting him, and I was sick of being immature to a really good guy. So my relationship ended not because I wanted an edgier guy, but because I need to be a better person who deserves to be with that guy. Why can't women think more of their partners than of themselves? And vice versa? Too much selfishness goes on in relationships, but not enough self love and love for the partner. My ex (oh god it stings saying that) also once said to me that it's unrealistic to try to project your aspirations on your partners (I once asked him if he's annoyed by our lack of common interests). As you said, change is of your own volition, and any type of change for the sake of others is superficial. As Eric Fromm said, people nowadays are too obsessed with the "object" to love or to be loved by. They're not at all focused on how to love in the first place.
Everyone likes a good project to work on.
Just so happens for a lot of ladies, their 'project' is their man.
That they can't change him is irrelevant in the face of him appearing to change for her.
prolly girls just have some kind of mental illness making em act crazy in such situations
@Alpha: Both genders are guilty of it. Maybe not equally, but no fingerpointing allowed. We do it too sometimes.
@Leila: YES! You may be 18, but you're not young in a lot of ways.
To all, I'm a big advocate of "kicking the tires" before you commit to someone long term. Test them out. Learn what it would be like living with them. Discuss topics that may result in conflict. It keeps things open and honest (KEY to any relationship) but it also identifies potential speed bumps in the future.
Meditate on this, my students. Ohm.....
I hear about this a lot from gal pals. I dated bad boys in high school and at 16, because my father died and my world turned upside down, I started dating my buddy who I never felt one drop of romance towards, but he was solid and reliable. Decades later, we just divorced. I should not have tried to make a friend into a passion and girls should not try to turn a passion into a friend. I think I have an edge that helps me over my gal pals. I was a tomboy as a kid and preferred to hang with the boys. I get them. I understand them. I like that they are not self-conscious and can just be how they are. I don't want a project. I want a novelty and men are delicious novelties. I remember a therapist on a TV show once saying, "you must ask yourself these things: do I admire him? would I like to be more like him? if I had kids with him, would it be okay if they were exactly like him?"
@ Idaho: as for your "kicking out the tires" theory, I used to think the same way until a study showed a correlation: couples who cohabited before marriage tended to divorce more by x% (i forgot what the percentage was, but it was pretty significant). I'm not saying pre-marital cohabitation will result in divorce, but the correlation really makes us wonder what drives people into and from marriages/relationships. I don't know. I think people should know themselves before they enter into something so consuming like a long-term relationship. For most, it may take a whole life time. (Yes you can conclude I'm implying most people shouldn't commit)
@Leila: I see two factors to consider in that statistic.
1 - People who cohabitate prior to marriage may not reach marriage at all. This makes the process of a split much easier. But I do agree that it does question why people get into the relationship in the first place.
2 - Religion plays a BIG factor in this statistic. The same people that believe in marrying before living together (slash-sexual relations) also abhor divorce. If you're Catholic, or LDS, the divorce process gets very very dicey, and can often result in alienation from the church. Because of this, a lot of marriages that probably should dissolve stay alive.
its hard to manage the good and bad in a person so that she feels that shes dating both the bad boy and the keeper, but thing sure gets me mad, when a girl says I DATE SCUM AND I WANT A NICE MAN TO LOVE you get a nice looking dude with a future and all of that and "OH I LIKE HIM BUT HE ISNT EDGY ENOUGH" THATS why you keep dating jerks, because you LIKE TO so all that rambling about not finding a good guy, is BS the good guy came and you blew him off.
Oh yeah? I ESCAPED THE FRIEND ZONE. The truth is, you have to be an astronomical person to do it. But the situation is a bit different, I don't know that I was fully put into the friend zone. I've known my GF all through college, but we only dated after I graduated. We also tended to date other people on and off, but would always hang out, drink, and play Wii. She gave the normal friend zone lines, but we kept joking about having sex. Eventually it just happened when we both happened to be single and available to each other. In the past I had dated the girls who wanted me to have their interests, instead of being an astronomy nerd. Some of them did enjoy the late night star shows, but mostly I think they felt they were dumb. Any college girl doesn't seem to like that. This girl, we each have our own interests, but they also sort of overlap. I like talking about astronomy subjects, and kids are usually the best at listening to them; and she is an elementary education major, so she deals with kids all the time.
Okay, what you say is true...but what's good for the goose is always good for the gander. I tell men that I may potentially date that I am bitchy, loud, obnoxious, and a handful from the start. I think I'm being honest and can save any grief for some dude who really wants a "sweet" girl. What do I get? A guy who "likes a challenge" and is trying to "tame" me! I don't need you to "change" me - I just need you to be able to put up with me! I'm just saying it happens in both directions.
@Reck: Exactly. It works both ways, I was just using the 'Dear women' premise because Falen asked me to make a post she could direct her friends to. From a dude's perspective.
I'm with you 100%. It's about chemistry, and can we coexist? You are who you are. I am who I am. Is 'we' possible? No 'yes...if' scenarios, just yes or no.
The 'project' thing is something I've observed in some of my friends. They date a girl it goes well, they move in together, they get married...over the course of years they slowly 'work' on their project - changing the guy, always for the better... Then one day they wake up and say 'You're not the guy I married'
no really?
Be yourself and every so often do something that surprises her...
would be my tip anyway
Haha very good post! All of it very, very true. I can count the number of people I've known for a decade THAT HAVE CHANGED on one finger. I've not changed, none of my friends have changed, and no girls that I know have changed. Find somebody you're interested in. End of story!
Bravo Mister! You should keep educating the opposite sex because it makes for kick ass posts! Some women just won't listen to other women. Since we know that most men won't bullshit around when it comes to love advice, we will take what you say as gold as we should!
You can't change a man! They will either adapt (if they are sneaky) or just run off.
I found me a little sexy geek who's a freak in the sheets! Fuck edge, I'm edgy for the both of us. ;)
THIS BLOG FUCKING ROCKS!!
Yep. Us girls are stupid sometimes.
There have been so many "but I can change him!" guys I have lost count (the funny thing is after they were with me they have a tendency to marry the very next girl-WTF?).
The bad boy may be fun for a while, but when it's time to settle I would choose a man with a big heart any day over a man with a big cock...tail in his hand beckoning you over with that sly wink in his eye! :)
hed hed above water
And HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA after this blog I saw this further down on reader, it fits this post perfectly!
http://memebase.com/2011/03/16/memes-never-complain-never-explain-this-is-why/
hed
@Hed: Both the heart and the cock can be big... it's not always one or the other.
Family Guy has a great gag on this, when Brian was hitting on a girl who revealed she had a boyfriend.
Brian: You have a boyfriend?
Paul: Yeah and I'm a great guy! I'm unemployed but that makes her feel useful in the relationship!
Jared's Mom: I'm gonna fix him!
Paul: Our relationship will do fine on that basis.
Jared's Mom: If he had his life together, I wouldn't be into it!
Paul: But I don't!
I always like to ask women, when you go out and buy a car, do you want to buy a 1966 classic Mustang with a broken engine, ripped interior, and bald tires, because with enough time and money you can turn it into a show car? No? So why do you want to do that with a man? Hint: he'll never become that Mustang.
I think every one of us has had a woman try to wrap herself around our hearts tight enough to strangle a python, only to move on if we act the way we're being programmed to act. And no man has EVER felt good about himself if he's become some kind of church-going, NFL-skipping, I-don't-really-need-a-beer-to-have-fun kind of guy just to please some stick in the mud he's dazzled by at the apex of his infatuation. You are absolutely right, people are who they are.
I've watched female friends of mine get implants, change religions, diet like they're scheduled for the cover of Sports Illustrated, all to fit the new "Mr.Right's" perfect profile, and they make themselves miserable, plastic, genuflecting anorexics for someone who's not worthy of carrying their closet full of skeletons to the dump.
People ought to be who they are, hook up with like-minded souls, and avoid the sculptors (those who want to mold or change them) at all costs.
Great post, and all of it true, too! People can't force other people to change. Do we ever change? Of course we do. It's just that we change because WE want to, not because someone else wants us to. The bottom line is that when you look for a partner, look for someone whose traits/habits/faults/hobbies you can deal with as is.
nice guys with feelings are found in gay bars!
No silly, it was a play on words hee hee-I was actually saying "cocktail", but tongue in cheek!
Totally agree that the heart AND the cock can be big-why do you think I married my awesome sweet hubs? :D
I fail at funny.
hed
Hi...fellow "nice guy" here.
Yeah this one really hit home for me, I've always been one of those types of guys who bends over backwards for the woman they are with only to end up being used as a doormat after a few months (usually).
But since moving down here to Latin America, it pretty much changed. Compared with the machismo thing most guys have going on down here a nice guy is a real diamond in the rough for the women here.
So I think it's more of a cultural thing than a biological one, from my experience anyway. My most recent blog post (pretty funny, you might like it) regales a story of how I crashed and burned below said "friend zone" and into a poopy abyss...
Preach! This is so true! I like your line about your girl having a project instead of making you one. I have to use that some day!
I think some women want what they can't have or tame and then comes the need to change him. That's a sure fire way to get his ass running for the heals.
Guys hate it when someone tries to change them and woman don't like it either. I know where your coming from because some of my girlfriends did that shit when we were growing up.
I married a nice guy and it didn't work out, and eventually I went towards the dark side and underneath all that he really was a NICE GUY.
Great post! It's so true that we are ALL guilty of it. We build up expectations in our heads of our "perfect mate" and then when find someone that is "kinda" and then try to fix the other bits.
@falen
Sexy geek that's a freak between the sheets? You make me fucking howl! x
I may open up all kinds of hate here but here's the real deal yall. 90% OF ALL WOMAN ARE FREAKING INSANE NEEDY FREAKS. I can say that. That is why most of my real life friends are dudes, because women are INSANE! They have no damn clue what they freaking want, then when they get what they NEED, they shit on it. Literally. I am married to my friend, one of those super rare cross over friend guys. Here's the kicker, he is a NICE GUY, and he was my friend, and wait for it. I am his 4th wife ! OMG ... YEAH count the odds of that working out right? I know trust me, we didn't even order a cake or go to dinner. Now more than 15 years and 3 kids and quite happily later he taught me nice guys finish first and women are insane. I watch football and fly off the handle, flirt like crazy, he ignores me and has no clue where the laundry room is, neither of us perfect, but perfect for each other. You can't change a man, and you can't change a woman, but you can grown up together if you can realize you are both freaking idiots. It wont work if only one of you wake up. Also did I mention almost all women are insane? yeah that's super important for all men to know.
Girls dates men with vigor and direction. They want to be lead, not be the one leading; to be given commands, and not always the one being followed. As much as women have evolved through the years, some are still traditional and are still attracted to the 50's gangster archetype.
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