The following conversation has been paraphrased...

6 months ago

Her: I’m available…

Him: well, I got work/school/stuff/a sporting event/something

Her: Oh, I figured because we had been out a few times/dating a few months exclusively/slept together last night that you were interested?

Him: Yeah, I’m just…uhm. Busy, with stuff. I’ll call you…

Present day

Her: oh hey, what’s up?

Him: well we haven’t talked in a while…

(Her thinking: yeah, because you stopped calling)

Him: so, uh what’s up? Wanna do something? Meet up for coffee or something?

Her: well, I’m seeing someone and I don’t think he’d appreciate it…

Him: oh. Is it serious?

Her: well, it’s new but –

Him: so you wanna meet up for coffee? Because you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately and I was --

Oh. Please. Stop.

I’ve heard this story time and time again from women. I have had so many versions of that conversation that I had to paraphrase, or it would gone on for days. So, guys, one of you, please tell me where it is written that the “if she’s hot for you, you must be cold to her approach” works? Or if she’s well, moved on and stopped waiting for you call, that you must start calling again because out of phone means out of mind?

WHERE is this written? Maxim’s advice column? AskMen.com? Advice passed down from the elders generation after generation? Where?

Because we need to quash this right now.

This does not achieve anything.

In a perfect world, you would’ve been ready for her when she was ready for you. But you weren’t. She wasn’t it. You had other options, she wasn’t as hot, and you were genuinely really busy with work or school or something and didn’t have time exclusively for her. Okay.

But now that you can’t have her, why must you try so hard NOW?

This does not stir up feelings like it does on TV. This frustrates women. Your midnight epiphany could be with the best of intentions, but you declare your feelings like this and we don’t generally think “oh! He’s come around!” we think “what the fuck?!?”

It’s a love game. There are no winners.

You could’ve been dating two girls at once and let this one go for the other. That’s fair. What’s not fair, is that you think the one you let go is on standby. Even if she didn’t move on to someone else and you just saw her one day and had that conversation on the corner that lasted 5 minutes where you realized she got really hot/was really a good catch after all/wasn’t trying to lock you down, you should NOT call/Facebook or email.

Women are like buses. You missed the ride on this one…so be on time for the next one or get to walking.

For those who follow me on twitter, you know my partner in crime, my "wifey" (in a non-sexual, non-kissed a girl kind of way) is Relationship Blogger Darling Nicky .

While I write stuff n' junk about dating and mating, SHE talks about relationships and the human condition. If you haven't taken one of her quizzes, you should. The insights on her blog are like getting advice from an expert...because well, she is.

We at HLBB are sometimes accused of "man bashing" which is totally not true. This site was created to give you some "tough love".

Now, Darling Nicky does not sugar coat, but her latest post "The Currency of A Man" is best described as a love letter to you guys.

If you haven't inspired a woman to extole your virtues in this manner, then I suggest you continue reading her blog (along with this one of course), follow (and take) her quizzes and then, take a good long look at yourself.

Enjoy. Because this is probably my favourite post of hers to date...and I agree with every word.

Conversation with one of my girls the other day:

“…he is so annoying! Disagrees with everything I say at meetings, critiques my work, tries so hard to always one-up me. But the part I don’t get is that if he hates me so much, WHY does he always have to be on my projects? So that I can make him look good?”

Me: “he likes you. Remember when you were elementary school, and a boy liked you? I mean, liked you liked you? So when you saw you, he made fun of you, pulled your hair, grabbed your bag and made mocking noises every time you spoke?”

Her: “yeah...”

Me: “I suspect that Annoying Boy, who from what you’ve told me is your equal at work and therefore doesn’t need you to look good, likes you. I mean likes you likes you.”

Her: “oh. You think?”

Me: “yeah”

Her: “but we’re not kids anymore…”

Guys, I will now ask you to pull out your wallets (no, not for money) and check your ID. Driver’s license, Health Card, Citzenship, Passport… something with your photo and your date of birth. Once you do that, check the photo. Is it you? Good. Check the year of birth. If it’s anything dated before 1997, then remind yourself of this: you are not a kid anymore…

Women figure that the “I like you so I must be a jerk to you” phase ended, oh… somewhere after grade 6. So, when you act anything like Annoying Boy from the above example, we don’t think it’s cute, we think you’re immature. Yes. Immature. It is hard to express feelings, trust me I know, but women have had enough trouble in their (adult) dating lives to try and decipher what you meant by your backhanded comments, rude behaviour or general all around jerk-ness. Mind you, there are some girls out there who love the “loves me/loves me not” thing and those girls also need to check their IDs.

If you want a girl and not a woman, then you can stop reading. If you think that manning up about your feelings means hiding them behind a veil of jerk-ness, you can stop reading. We’re separating the boys from the men in this post.

You do not want to be accused of playing head games, right? Take this short quiz:

The object of your affection shows up wearing an outfit that you would love to see on your bedroom floor. Do you:
a) make a joke about the ensemble and secretly gawk at her, memorizing the outfit and storing it in your spank bank database?
b) Say “you look…hot” and say nothing more (then memorize the outfit and store it in your spank bank database)?
c) Say “you’re looking really nice today…what’s the occasion?” or something like that (then memorize the outfit and store it in your spank bank database)?

You work with the object of your affection, and in a meeting she says something you wished you had said. Do you:
a) automatically disagree with it, just to get a rise out of her (because she’s kinda hot when she’s pissed)?
b) nod quietly and add this to the list of things you admire about her?
c) offer your own intelligent observation and then compliment her after on her comments via email or chat, somehow showing that you were paying special attention to what she was saying (in a non-creepy, non-stalker kind of way)?

The object of your affection makes contact with you (phone, text, BBM, Ping, Tweet…whatever) to ask you a yes/no question. Do you:
a) give a dumbass answer in order to prolong the conversation?
b) you decline to answer right away so that you have another shot at talking to her?
c) provide her with her answer and ensure you have a way to continue to keep the topic alive?

Results
If you answered mostly A’s – you’re Annoying Boy who sends mixed signals.
If you answered mostly B’s – awww...you’re shy. Work on getting over that a little or you’ll never get the girl.
If you answered mostly C’s – look at your girlfriend and say “I told you I was the shit…”

So, if you like her, I mean like her like her…be a good boy and man the fuck up.

Oh hunny bunnies… We’ve been seeing this a lot lately. We are not amused. It’s about her, the girl you’ve tried to wife against a logic and reason. The girl you think is your dream girl…so you go after her like you’re a starving man in the desert. Instead of dating her for the moment, you start talking about a lifetime. 6 months later, a year even, you’ve turned into Al Bundy and complain relentlessly about her.

But…You’re still with her. You tell us, she’s changed, she wasn’t like that in the beginning.

Uhm…guess what? She was.

You were too blinded by the beauty, the sex, the whatever you want to call it to see the signs. But she did NOT turn into Peggy Bundy overnight. The seeds of that were planted a loooong time ago. I’m not saying people don’t change – but you can’t say you’re dating a completely different person because, if you were honest with yourself, you would’ve seen the signs you’re seeing now. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

You’re a commitment-phobe. By the end of date one, you know how many kids she wants and why getting married in her grandparents backyard is the perfect setting. Do not be surprised if she is pushing for you to make a stronger commitment (ahem, buy a ring/move in/get matching tattoos) in a year’s time…

Your princess begins to pout because you didn’t pay for dinner/pick her up/fix her dad’s car/help her babysit? Uhm, were you ALWAYS doing those things? Then that is what is expected of you! Hello?! What other precedent is she going to base it on? I firmly believe that it’s better to feel as if you’d do anything for a person, than feel as if you do everything for a person…

She doesn’t cook/keep house/do things the way you thought she would once you got married/moved in together. This is so easy to determine: look at how she was when you lived separately, because guess what? If she wasn’t like that before, she’s not turning into a domestic goddess overnight. If you expected to give a woman keys to your place and in turn she keep house for you, I hope you’ve given those keys to a maid service. It should also go without saying, but I’ll say it anyways: she’s not your mother.

“I don’t know why she wears all that makeup/weave/hair dye/high heels or spend all her time at the hairdresser/nail salons/spa”. This goes two ways: either she figures that’s how you met her, so she needs to maintain it, OR she puts that effort into herself because she wants to. How is this a problem that your girl wants to look good? So what if she’s high maintenance…is she the one maintaining it?

“She has no direction in life…” The majority of women I know don’t suddenly give up EVERYTHING in their lives because of love. So chances are, you initially loved that you could “help her out”, give advice, be there for her, etc. Now, it’s not so fun always “being there” for her. Next time, before you feed your ego, feed hers a bit; empower instead of enable, yeah?

“She doesn’t really match me intellectually”. Excuse me, but huh?

This was NOT overnight either; you may have fucked her senseless the night before, but sweetie, she did NOT wake up stupid. Lemme guess, was it that one time she just didn’t get the joke and you realized that she never really gets the joke? Or her cute emails are full of emoticons, chat speak and spelling errors? Guess what honey, the cute ran out; that’s why she doesn’t match you intellectually this morning. She never did…the cute has just run out.

“She doesn’t match me sexually” – so, she gave you head last week and now won’t go south of your solar plexus. It’s called a “job” and if you’ve ever had those days where you didn’t feel like going to work… But I’m talking about the desire, drive, interest. If you think the “job” is a fun way to have foreplay and she only really did it the beginning because she wanted to impress you…you can tell. She reluctantly went there instead of with gusto, she screwed up her face when you asked, but took a deep breath and did it anyways. That honey, is not a match! That’s a power struggle. Hopefully, you’re an expert negotiator or your birthday is coming up real soon.

Again, change does happen. I’m not denying that. I’m talking about the signs of change… or lack of. “Wifeys” share your core values, your beliefs, stimulate you outside the bedroom, give you what you need without you having to ask (and I don’t just mean sexually) Wifeys have your back, they’re not on your back. If you not sure that she’s wifey material…

She’s not.

Guys, I want you to study this video.



Here's your cheat sheet; write this down on the inside of your forearm if you must:

1 - anticipation (it's just as fun for you)
2 - take your time (yes, take your damn time)
3 - foreplay (that lasts longer than 4 seconds)
4 - confidence (she will think YOU invented sex)
5 - switch it up (a lot)
6 - at the 2:13 mark, freeze frame the video...that's ice. Just remember. Ice.

If she wasn't going home with you before...she will now.

That is all. Goodnight.
xoxo