The Bitter Single Guy’s Relationship Advice

Greedy Attention Seeker

Dear Bitter Single Guy: I am someone who loves being affectionate in relationships. All my boyfriends in the past have been the same back to me, obviously in the early days when you’re a bit awkward and still getting to know each it’s a little different but for me there’s always been some sort of devotion or affection apparent. Until now. I have been dating this guy for a little over a month and whenever I go over to his house he just doesn’t seem to give me much attention. I know he likes me as he’s told me himself and he calls and msgs me all the time. But whenever Im with him I just feel like I tick the girlfriend box and that’s it.

Ok I’ll give you some examples… I go over to his house after a long day at work to spend time with him and he has a friend over. I stand there for 1/2 hour listening to them talk about car engines and boy stuff. We drop the friend back home and then he asks if it’s ok if we go visit another friend. I oblige as I don’t want to be rude. We’re at the second friend’s house for 45 minutes and finally driving back home that’s when he says “So how have you been?” I just wonder why he couldn’t have visited his friend when I wasn’t there? I go to his house to spend time with him not his friends.

Second example, I sleep over at his house and in the morning at 7am we awake, talk for a little then he gets his guitar and plays in the bed for 15 minutes and then says that he’s going to get up. We haven’t snuggled or kissed at all. Because it’s so early I stay in bed. After about half an hour I get up and there he is in the lounge room playing with his dogs. I feel so angry because there I was alone in his bed and he is playing with his dogs? THEN after we cook breakfast, I sit in the lounge room watching TV alone waiting for him to come in and after 15 minutes he appears and he had been outside having a smoke! For me there is no way I would leave a guest in my house alone to go have a smoke for 15 minutes. I just don’t understand BSG, its getting really frustrating. I know I probably sound like a whiny girl but I’m used to guys paying me more attention than this! Do you think he doesn’t like me that much? Or that’s just the way he is? Or is it still too early? Help! ~Greedy Attention Seeker~

Dear GAS: The Bitter Single Guy understands how you could think that he would be the one to tell you that you’re being whiny, but he’s kind of with you on this. However, the BSG isn’t going to chalk this up to guys-who-should-pay-more-attention-to-girls, he’s instead going to call this out as basic politeness. As you say, abandoning a guest in your house to go outside for a smoke or to go play with dogs smacks the BSG of un-thinking-ness.

OK, here’s the deal GAS. You need to sit down with Clueless Boy and tell him that you expect a little more basic attention when you’re around him. So far, with the possible exception of sleeping in the same bed, he sounds less like a boyfriend and more like a roommate.

But the BSG is pretty sure you’re going to have to explain very specifically what is it you want from Clueless Boy. If you go with “pay more attention to me”, he’s likely to get all creepy and do things like knock on the bathroom door to see “how you’re doing”. Use the examples you used with the BSG to explain not just what was weird, frat boy-ish, tacky about his behavior…but also to explain what ideal behavior would have been like.

If he’s unwilling to meet you on this relatively low-key request, the BSG suggests continuing shopping.

~BSG~

Hey! Call the BSG!

OK readers, now for something completely different. The BSG wants to jump with both feet back into the podcast game, but he needs you. Try out the BSG’s new advice hotline. Leave a voicemail with your question at (856) 244-1274 and be part of the BSG’s new podcast!

FYI, this is all new for the BSG. He’ll keep you all updated.

Why Online Dating Doesn’t Work

If it hasn’t happened already, the Bitter Single Guy wants to be the first to welcome you to the Internet Age. In these heady days of instant gratification, it seems that everything anyone could possibly want is available with a few clicks. Heck, it’s not even necessary to use a computer, the BSG is finding that more and more of his random immediate needs can be met with his handy smartphone! Need to find a plumber? Just a few clicks. Have a craving for cantaloupe? Heck, have it delivered this afternoon. Feeling lonely? Yup…that’s available too.

The BSG is (and, he suspects, many of you are) aware of a myriad of online locations where he can find a bowling league, a coffee date, or sex. Yup…plain old every day sex is increasingly available with just a few clicks of your smartphone and the BSG has it under reliable authority that it’s not just creepy pedophiles who are cruising the InterWebs for some nookie.

Now this is where you’ll be wondering if the BSG has any judgement of those who partake of these online opportunities, so let him say enthusiastically no! The BSG is a fan of consenting adults having their buttons pushed in ways that also push other people’s buttons! So if you have a fetish for people who wear lace tutus into coffee shops, the BSG is pretty sure that there is someone out there with a fetish for wearing lace tutus to coffee shops. Now, with the magic of the Internet, you and your perfect match are MUCH more likely to meet than if you simply sat in coffee shops with a doleful look on your face, waiting for a random tutu wearing stranger to brighten up your life.

Yes, there are still the pedophiles and creep-o-zoids seeking to victimize the unaware but the BSG thinks we’re all getting better at knowing how to avoid them. Mostly, the BSG thinks all this technology being used to connect us is a good thing.

However, many of you will venture into online dating (for the sake of brevity, the BSG will include online hookups in the term “dating” because it’s easier than modifying every sentence) believing that the dazzling array of pictures posted to these websites will make your search nearly instantaneous…just like the aforementioned cantaloupe.

Then however, you’ll click a few pics, have a few chats, and find out that it’s not nearly that easy. The BSG believes that there are many reasons why this is so, but here’s one of the big ones.  The dreaded profile picture.

For the shortest version of this cautionary tale the BSG wants you to think about the mechanics of attraction. When you look at a picture of a person to whom you’re attracted what happens? For the sake of this exercise, we’ll imagine a simple face picture, and in that picture you might see a smile (or not), might see that the person is outside or inside, in sunlight or not, wearing a hat or not, and tons of other indicators of what’s going on. You see, your brain’s job is to categorize the input you provide and build context around the input. When the input is limited to a brief face picture, your brain (and the BSG’s) fills in the details without us even being aware it’s happening.

So, the picture ends up having a voice (deep, lilting, melodious, gravely) and maybe a laugh (titter, guffaw, hoot, chuckle) and eventually even personality traits (shy, gregarious, coy, brazen). All of these traits are ones that your brain desperately WANTS to be true about the picture you’ve provided to it, so it builds the traits around the picture even though they ARE LIKELY NOT TRUE AT ALL! Yes, dear readers, your brain will assign random traits to pictures based on what you provide.

Your eyes: “Hey! Here’s a smiling brown-haired girl with a tan and green eyes!

Your brain: “Well heck, smiles means she’s got a good sense of humor, brown-haired girls usually have sexy voices, a tan means she probably owns a boat and green eyes always go along with girls who appreciate Thai food! The eyes haven’t shown me any other part of her body, but Thai-food-loving, boat-owning, sexy laughing girls are usually also athletic, so she undoubtedly is a runner! We love girls who run! This girl is PERFECT for us!”

You see here how your brain has simply run away (pun intended) with this limited information and created a completely ridiculous person around a simple face pic? Yes, this is how it typically goes and your only hope is to recognize your brain’s tendency to fill in gaps with made up stuff so you can remember that online dating is great for volume, but in order to fill in those gaps with real information you’re going to have to meet in person and give your brain some actual information to work with. Good luck out there.

~BSG~

The Breakup Series Part 1: Relationships End

The Bitter Single Guy wants you to know that he’s no sideline coach; he’s actually out there in the dating jungle trying to make it happen just as most of you are.  Recently (predictably), the BSG himself became single again (it’s a pretty consistent state for him), and one of his friends was devastated. Seriously devastated. The BSG, as he read her email, was pretty sure that she wept a little on his behalf while she was writing it.

“Oh BSG!” she said (although using the BSG’s actual name), “I thought you had found THE ONE! You must be crushed as I am crushed for you <insert sob>. I hope your hunt for Perfect Love is finally successful very very soon.”

The Bitter Single Guy explained to his wonderfully empathetic friend that he’s not among those who believe that there is a “one”. Rather, he believes that there are “many” or at the very least “several” and that the merging of lives has way more to do with timing than anything else. The BSG was also reminded that his friend has for years complained that her marriage is passion-less and soul-crushing. Yay for finding “the one”!

The BSG wants to tell you a little of what you may already know about this idea of permanent mating or as it’s more commonly known: marriage. Now, the BSG won’t enter the brouhaha regarding whether same-sex marriage should be allowed  because he thinks all that is silliness. But marriage itself is supposedly the nirvana of relationship permanence that we’re all supposed to be working toward. C’mon, you know the drill! Somewhere in your 20’s you start dating and soon (but not too soon!) after that, you get engaged, spend tons of time and money planning for a wedding (nearly breaking up several times in the process), and finally getting married and getting yourselves a litter of young-uns who you spend the next several decades managing and launching into the world. It’s the way the world works, right?

Well, no. Not really. Sometimes there is (gasp!) divorce and then RE-marriage. Sometimes there is divorce and (don’t say it!) singlehood! The short version about all of this is that relationships end. Let’s think about some of the previous reasons for marriage, shall we:

• Ensuring sexual exclusivity to keep bloodlines “clean”
• Breeding captive farm labor
• Perpetuating the idea that women are exchangeable for cows and land

And since some of those are becoming a little outdated (although the BSG thinks there is something to this idea of breeding a captive labor pool), people are increasingly realizing that as they grow and develop and change, that sometimes their relationships don’t change with them and SOMEtimes, they realize that they would be happier (hold onto your hats) OUT of their relationships than IN them. (shocking, the BSG knows)

Yes gentle readers, the BSG has learned that when relationships aren’t fun any longer, sometimes people opt out of them as if their relationship were an email solicitation they had been receiving every month for years until one day they realized they could click on a little “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the email and that mild monthly annoyance would simply go away! OK, probably most relationships aren’t quite that bad, but you get the BSG’s drift.

Unfortunately though, ending a relationship carries the stigma of failure. You failed. You failed to stay in a relationship even though you were unhappy. And the logic that makes the BSG’s blood run cold every time he hears it employed: “I’ve already got [enter random number] years invested in this relationship, I can’t give up now!” Yes, that’s the logic that the BSG wants you to employ: you’ve already been miserable for 5 or 10 or 40 years, how could you possible give up on misery now?

By the way, the BSG wants to clarify here that the absence of misery is not happiness. If you’re sailing along numbly in your relationship and a little voice reminds you that there was a time when you laughed often and generally felt good about yourself and the world, you should listen to that voice and not to the voice that tells you that you’re “content” or “on auto-pilot” or “waxing the tadpole” (sometimes the voices are unclear in their intention). The short version of this: the absence of disease is not health and the absence of misery is not happiness. Think about it.

So the BSG wants to turn the Big Finger of Failure around and point it at people who are failing to make themselves happy! That’s right gentle readers, the BSG hereby grants you full forgiveness for your relationships that didn’t last forever and those that won’t last forever in the future. The BSG grants you the power of owning your own happiness and wants you to come in and out of relationships in a way that makes you happy, even if that means staying in a relationship for decades…if it’s working, the BSG says go for it!

Look for the BSG’s next installment in his Breakup Series: So You’ve Decided to Dump Someone!

Chemistry Trumps Standards

Dear Bitter Single Guy: I’ve been following your blog for a while now and I must say it’s very entertaining and actually helpful.

My question for you today isn’t so much about how to deal with a current relationship as it is on how to begin future relationships that have a chance of being healthy at all.  Let me explain:

I am what you would call, among other things, a late bloomer.  I had no real relationship with women until after high school and into college.  I finally entered the dating arena and was pleasantly surprised to find that I don’t seem to be as horrible to be around as I once thought.  (Yay! )  But I lack a very important skill that comes with experience:  How to set standards and when to apply those standards.  Is it ok to date, on the short term, women that violate my long term standards?  What prerequisites are ok to set as standards?:  Nonsmoker, slim, no children?  I could really use some wisdom or tough love here. ~Quality Over Quantity~

Dear QOQ: The Bitter Single Guy is glad you’ve discovered that you’re not horrible to be around now that you’re out amongst the dating population. The BSG suspects that you’re also not that late by blooming in college…he occasionally hears from folks who are blooming decades after you, so there’s probably nothing to worry about.

Standards are a great question QOQ, but the BSG believes that they’re also a bunch of crap. Now don’t get the BSG wrong here, he’s all about setting up a frame within which to look for dates, jobs, restaurants, whatever. But work with the BSG here for a moment. Once, the Bitter Single Guy was a dyed-in-the-wool steak and potatoes guy. This is not to imply that the BSG didn’t have any variety in his diet…sometimes he would have the potatoes mashed or sometimes roasted. Heck, once when the BSG was feeling pretty festive, he had them toss in a bunch of parsley in his potatoes (does anyone else remember when parsley sat on the side of a plate, but never in the actual food?).

So one day a friend of the BSG’s invites him to dinner and announces that we’re going out to Indian food.  The BSG was concerned because he had never heard of how Indian folks (who, it turned out were NOT Native Americans…this was many years ago before friendly Indian folks manned call centers) handled steak and potatoes.

Well the BSG’s meal completely lacked meat and even potatoes were nowhere to be seen. However, there was a theme of lentils and some sort of cottage cheesey substance. Both of which, and this is the key point to the BSG’s digression here QOQ, were AWESOME! The BSG since that day has explored as much of the variety in Indian food as he can and has been pleasantly surprised over and over.

QOQ, here’s the gist: have standards but be very prepared to abandon them in the face of chemistry, because attraction will ardently refuse to be governed by your standards. You’ll be attracted to who you’re attracted to and the BSG hopes that you meet someone who does for you what Chicken Tikka Masala does for the BSG.

~BSG~