WotWentWrong

Back in college, I knew this girl Lauren. Lauren was known for her reputation, and it wasn’t a good one. She was beautiful, outgoing and a lot of fun.  Unfortunately that wasn’t all that she was known for.  Lauren was also known as the campus “bike”. I watched her go home with different guys almost every weekend, but I figured that this was college and she should be allowed to have her fun.”  Isn’t it every girl’s right to explore her sexuality in college away from the prying eyes of her parents?

Lauren had been “seeing” (sleeping with) this one guy, Kyle, for almost a month when she mentioned to me that she was starting to really like him. But as soon as she let her feelings be known to Kyle, he bailed.

Now, Kyle was actually a friend of mine, so I decided to investigate.  I asked him what went wrong. His response: “Yeah she’s cool, but I’d never date her.  Who knows how many people she’s been with, or what she would do behind my back.”  Kyle and Lauren had jumped into the sack right from the start, and he also knew of her reputation.  So his concern wasn’t entirely unfounded.

This scenario seemed to play over time and again for Lauren. I watched time and again as Lauren was treated as a commodity and passed over once the initial attraction had been satiated.  It made me wonder, once you are known to be promiscuous and have had a certain number of sexual partners, is there any correlation between your number of sexual partners and your dateability?

Every person is different when it comes to sex. Lauren is an extreme example. But, just to give some perspective, the Kinsey Institute found that the average number of sexual partners for women is 4; for men, its 6-8. This research was done a few years ago, so don’t have a panic attack if your number is a little higher. This just shows where most people fall on the scale. For instance, Lauren’s number was a (very high) multiple of 4; I wouldn’t recommend that.

Where men get praised for sleeping around, women are called sluts. But it takes two to tango, so every time a guy puts another notch on his bedpost, so do the girls. And now that we are getting married at an older age and starting to have sex at a younger age the time gap between your first sexual encounter and your wedding date increases the amount of time a woman is sexually active, so naturally numbers will be a bit higher.

This is one of the biggest double standards around.  A woman’s number shouldn’t stop a man from wanting to settle down with her, or have a relationship longer than a one night stand. Some of those guys who wouldn’t date Lauren probably had numbers just as high, if not higher, than hers.

In America, 96 percent of women who have slept with more than 20 men can’t find a husband. Don’t worry! This statistic is not real, but it is the premise of the movie “What’s Your Number?”  starring Ana Farris.

Like the protagonist in this movie I started thinking, is there a number that is too high? Can the number of partners you’ve had make you un-dateable or undesirable? If so, what is the turning point between having fun and earning a bad reputation?

What’s the big fuss over this number? Why is it more acceptable for men to have a higher number? Is it an ego thing, is it jealousy, is it about wanting a conservative girl to bring home to mom, or is it just competitive nature? And girls, are you embarrassed by your number, proud of it, or so indifferent about it that you never even bothered to count?

How many people have you slept with?  Is it too high?  I’d love to know, so please comment and share your opinions.

Being set up on a blind date is, let’s face it, a potential minefield.  Not only does it present challenges between the two parties on the date, but it can also be very telling about the perception your friends have of you and the type of person you should go out with.

This blind date was no different; in fact it left Shane quite perplexed as to his friend Mike’s intentions in arranging this setup.

When Sarah arrived at the restaurant, she was wearing a tight, red miniskirt that barely covered her underwear and a top that left little to the imagination. A tad too provocative for Shane’s tastes, but he wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt since Mike had bothered to set them up.

“So, what can I get you to drink?” He asked at the table as the waiter began to approach. “A glass of wine?”

“A double shot of Jameson,” she dismissively said to the waiter. “I need to relax after work,” she said to Shane with a flirtatious wink as she not-so-subtly eyeballed him up and down. He was trying to be polite and not stare too much at, well, you know.

When their drinks arrived, she threw back the double shot with a speed that, as he later learned, she had learned at numerous sorority parties in college. As Shane was reviewing the menu before deciding to order the chicken, Sarah said to the waiter, “Bring me another in ten minutes.”

She was throwing drinks back like the lady in this blind date from hell:

Shane could sense where this was going!  He did a quick mental check of the amount of money in his wallet – did he need to stop at an ATM?

“So, you’re 28, right?” Shane asked while their food was cooking. “Do you plan to stay and raise a family here in New York City soon?” It was a deliberately posed marriage-oriented question.  Mike knew of Shane’s goals to find a long term partner and that he pictures each date from the beginning as a potential wife and mother.  Mike must have seen something in Sarah as wife potential for Shane to have set them up.

“I don’t know,” she said with a laugh as she gulped her second double of Jameson. “I just want to have fun right now. You’re only 30 – why do you care about anything like that?” Shane gulped. This was clearly not going to work out – what had Mike been thinking?  But he couldn’t end the date there.  He would have to see it through at least until the end of the main course.

After their meals were delivered to the table, Shane concentrated on finishing his chicken.  Meanwhile, under the table, he felt her foot rubbing against his leg. Shocked, he jumped, hit the table, and knocked his glass of Riesling over. She laughed – but when he withdrew his leg, she gave a flirty pout.

He thought she had gotten the picture.  But then, as they almost finished our meals, she “popped the question”: “Do you want to have sex after dinner?” Whoa.

After stopping himself from spitting out the wine he had been drinking, he gave it fleeting consideration.  Yes, he’s a guy, and he has the same desires as any guy.  But he knew that it was not what he would (or should) do and that he was looking for the type of girl who would not have sex on the first date.

So, when they were finished, he paid the bill and walked her to a taxi. He never called her.

A few days later, Shane met Mike and a few friends for a beer after work. “WHY would you set me up with a girl like that?” he asked Mike. Mike and the others – who had been seemingly in on some type of joke – broke out in laughter.

“Dude,” Mike replied, “You haven’t gotten laid in so long. I showed your picture to my easy coworker, and she thought you were hot! I just wanted to help!”

I think we’ve all been there.  We’ve spotted that guy across the room that has the kind of presence that few men have.  He’s magnetic.  And charming.  Or at least it seems so – because the women seem to swarm around him like moths to a flame.    These women use all the tricks up their sleeves to get his attention – they are provocative and flirty.  And at some point, this guy will probably walk out with one of these girls on his arm.

“What was it about this girl that he chose her?”, we ask ourselves.  But are we asking ourselves the right question?  Perhaps we should be asking whether an encounter like this between these two people actually has any hope of going anywhere long term.  This girl captured his attention, but for how long?

According to Rori Raye, relationship expert, in a recent video stream, women are going about trying to snag a guy in all the wrong ways, and the women that use their sexuality and let things get physical too soon are setting themselves up for failure.  That is not the way to create a lasting connection with a man.  So maybe that girl had a fun night with the charismatic guy, but it probably didn’t go anywhere.

So when did women start chasing men?  Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?  Has equality gone too far?  Something to think about.

That’s not the only thing we’re doing wrong, Rori tells us.  Engaging with guys on an intellectual or mental level ain’t going to cut it either. Men don’t fall in love with our brains.

So what is the key, then?  An emotional connection, apparently.  If I understood Rori correctly, she advises that we make ourselves more open, more vulnerable , and in turn, our prospective guy will return the favor.

To watch the full videostream from Rori Raye, see below.

Rori teaches specific things you can do to raise your self-esteem that will make you irresistible to a man. To learn more subscribe to her free relationship advice e-newsletter. You’ll learn a whole new way of relating to men that will make you feel better about yourself while you find the relationship of your dreams.

Martha’s ex Dave had a problem closing doors.  When he broke up with a girl, and she was just about over him, some sort of alarm seemed go off in his ego department and he would dip back into her life just to confirm that the door could still be prised open if need be.

Once he dipped in, and could tick the ‘she’s still an option’ box, off he went again, just in case she thought this meant something, and wouldn’t it be wrong of him to make her think that?  Dave Ja Vu could not commit to a break up any more than he could commit to a relationship.  He inspired passionate wrath from ex’s and protective friends alike.

But whilst I sympathised with Martha every time he pole vaulted in to kick another crack into her heart,  I couldn’t help ask myself, do we hand over too much responsibility for closure to our partners?

I thought back to a time where I had chased down an ex who wouldn’t commit, insisting that he own up, and break up with honesty and directness.  At the time, I felt I was owed this and caught up with him in the rain after a night out.  I was anguished that he would not say the words, “I’m no longer interested”.  I felt that he needed to do the right thing and let me go, give me permission to move on and let go of the power. But who was giving him this power? Me. There was no cage.  I had invented it.  Looking back, like Martha, was I guilty of giving away too much personal power to another person?  Why is it so easy to feel that only they have the keys to lock the door? Where did we leave our keys, and is it time to cut some new ones?

If Carrie had fully functioning keys to her own door, would she be so angry, or would the door have been locked and soundproofed at Mr Big’s first exit leaving no need for anger?  My grandmother always used to say “If a man walks out on you, be sure the door shuts behind him.” So, why do we so often give these houseguests the keys to our own doors and misplace our own? Guests can go as they please, but when they are given the power to decide when our house is locked or open, can we call it our house at all?

At University, Matt was the boy you loved to hate, and hated to love, but did so nonetheless. Jack Nicholson, James Dean, and George Clooney all rolled into one, he could turn the charm on and off like a light switch, and exhibited more hot and cold behaviour than a faulty refrigerator.  His modus operandi consisted of swooping in and making a woman feel like the most special, sent from Heaven creature borne of divinity ever to grace the earth and sign up to a university course.

He was a little bit like the main protagonist in this video:

He would start his conquest by playing it cool and teasing her.  Once the girl felt flattered to have gotten his attention, the sleeping giant known as the girl’s ego was awoken and when he then withdrew, she found herself hooked on a feeling, eager for the same attention, and he, like a love drug dealer would have one more victim dependent on him for validation.

Until he met Polly.

A drama student, Polly was so lost in her own world, she was immune to the charms of a boy like Matt.  When he gave her his infamous predator look, she stared blankly back.  When he showered her with compliments, she thanked him, but remained unmoved, and when he went for his token withdrawal move, she barely noticed. Unwittingly, she managed to awaken an even larger sleeping giant, HIS ego. Underneath that cool as a cat charisma lay Matt’s pretty substantial insecurities, and when his notch on bedpost mode of self validation was scuppered by Polly’s indifference, he crumbled and Don Juan transformed into Desperado.  He sent text after text, would frequent the Student Union on the off chance she would be there, and even find himself hanging around a building formerly alien to him – a building known as the library.

Once, I asked Polly if she felt anything for Matt.  She turned to me and simply said, “My mother taught me that if something charges at you, run.” I suggested maybe she was special, and he had just met The One.  She simply replied, “Matt is a man who wants what he can’t have, and will never want what he has. It’s not about me.  I’m worth just as much as the girls who pine around him.  If I turned around and reciprocated, he’d pull back with me as well.  I’m not special”.  It’s statements like that that made me think Polly, at such a young age, was wrong.  She was special, and her mother should be cloned and sent to every teenage girl’s house in the country.

This week we unveiled our eagerly awaited ‘Breakup Stats’ page, allowing users to filter out anonymous, aggregated Top Breakup Reasons and Methods data by age, gender, length of the relationship and region.

We also released a new infographic, diving deeper into the top reasons users gave for breaking up.  Anonymously aggregated data from 500 random users during the site’s first three months revealed surprising takeaways, including:

• The site’s users are equally split between genders.  Everyone thought the site would skew much more female, but the difference is only one and a half percentage points.
• Early tech adopters don’t want kids?  Among people who said children were a reason for breaking up, four times as many users said the problem was their partner wanting kids when they didn’t vs. the other way around.
• Losing the ability to compromise:  The top three reasons among users who selected from the You’re Too Much category were: “too high maintenance,” “too demanding,” and “too inflexible.”  We all know people get married later today than previous generations did.  The top three reasons in this category all have something to do with rejecting a partner who requires a lot of work to be with.  Being single longer seems to have made us quite attached to that lifestyle.  It’s spoiled us a bit, and suggests the ability to compromise has dropped.