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.
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~
Dear Bitter Single Guy: I met a girl a month ago at a friends’ wedding. We’ve been talking everyday. About 3 weeks later I visited her, she was out of town for work. There was cuddling, sex, dinner, etc. Then I left on my preplanned cross country road trip.
I’ve been on the road for two weeks. We still talk everyday, but it is hard. About a week ago, she told me she loved me. I don’t feel the same way, which she is cool with.
I want to date her when I get back, but something feels weird now. Like, some of the spark is gone? Am I freaking cause she told me she loved me? Should I be? ~Unsure Behind the Wheel~
Dear UBTW: The Bitter Single Guy is going to tell you that a declaration of love after a ton of phone calls and one really great date is a little premature. Now the BSG is pretty sure that there are readers getting their gander up about the joy and realities of love at first sight as well as other fairy tales, but he stands by his snap judgment.
The BSG suspects that you are feeling the “whoa” response of someone who’s in a relationship that is going to fast. The BSG suspects that this feeling is felt most often by dudes, but he has spoken to girls for whom this is true, too.
The BSG recommends that you tell Speed Racer that for your ramp-up-into-relationship needs you need to move a little more slowly with the every day phone calls and may need to have at least another live date before concluding that this fledgling relationship is going to be able to fly on it’s own or if it will go the way of so many other new relationships and plunge to an untimely end at the base of a tree.
By the way, you don’t mention whether this traveling and meeting in different cities means that in addition to different affection timing, that you and Speed Racer are also doing a long distance thing. If that’s true, the BSG doesn’t have a lot of hope for your future with SR, since managing variations in expectations is tough at close range. Trying to do it long distance is a recipe for frustration.
~BSG~
Dear Bitter Single Guy: My boyfriend just asked me to move up with him when he moves to Vermont. I knew he was going there for school for a while now and got used to the idea, but now a friend of his is thinking of moving up there as well. My beau says that if we both raise enough money to help cover rent, we can live up there for a year easily. I have a month to decide if I want to go, if my boyfriend’s friend and the friend’s girlfriend decide to move as well. I love the idea of being able to see him more often while he goes to a school that he loves, but I just can’t see me moving up with him. One reason is that we are just eighteen. Yes, he will be nineteen by the time this happens, but that still is young. He’s been mistaken as being older and is complimented on how he is so mature and responsible he is. He may be older than his age, but I’m not.
I just got used to living away from home and my family and I don’t think I will be completely confident in my survival skills for a long time. I also am going to college now with almost wholly on scholar ships and state aid and would still do so if I stayed at the school I am at now. I don’t know how I will pay to transfer and go to another school. I have also made friends at my school that I don’t want to lose, which is a big thing for me. I am sure I will find some in Vermont if I do move, but I think I would feel as if I left my new friends behind. So, BSG, what do you think? Should I decide to go? Is it selfish of me not to completely jump on this opportunity or is it selfish on my boyfriend’s part to think I should? Maybe I am worrying about this to much…
Thank you for taking you time to read this and I hope that is not to long. ~On the Border~
Dear OTB: The Bitter Single Guy appreciates that, at the tender age of 18, you’re giving this so much thought. That said, the BSG was pretty sure he knew his answer before he finished reading your letter.
Don’t go. All your reasons for not going are good ones: your age, his age, your friends, your scholarship, the living arrangement. The reasons for going seem to be limited to “because he asked”.
You, your boyfriend, the friend and the friend’s girlfriend all living together while you all get settled in school, with friends, and as room-mates for the very first time is a clear recipe for disaster to the BSG.
Get ready for your boyfriend to dump you if you say you won’t move, but the BSG can say with 100% certainty that if he actually dumps you because you won’t move, the relationship wouldn’t have survived the move anyway. ~BSG~
Dear Bitter Single Guy: I’m a 16 year old girl, and I know that high school is tough for everyone but these last three years I’ve been very sick with constant pain and have not been able to go to school very much if at all. Thus, my peers have adhered to the “out of sight, out of mind” aphorism as well as most of my “friends”. Now once I am better and am doing normal things, it will get easier, but what can I do to experience social interactions of a relatively normal caliber? Thank you for time. ~Longing For a Life~
Dear LFL: The first thing the Bitter Single Guy has to say is that normal interactions in high school are probably pretty rare given the degree of weirdness that rules most high school social situations.
The BSG’s best recommendations for engaging normally in high school are:
Good luck and stay healthy, LFL.
Loading ...