The Mystical and the Pragmatic

storm clouds in sky
Looking down on you from Heaven.

“My husband and your wife wanted us to be together…” – My Dad’s girlfriend on how and why she and my Dad got together.

I remember talking to my Dad a little while ago, and we got on the subject of his new girlfriend. Now by new, I mean that she and my Dad have been seeing each other for about a year now and she is the first woman that he took a shine to since my Mother died.

My Dad’s girlfriend is a year younger than my Dad, so she will be 69 in September. She’s been widowed not once, but twice. One of her husband’s died several years ago due to health complications and her last boyfriend before my Dad died from a heart attack after he had just finished shoveling snow during a winter storm a few years ago.

I joked with my Dad and told him that he needs to stay away from her since she is a “black widow” as she tends to kill the men that she is with. I don’t honestly think that she is killing the men in her life, since she isn’t receiving any sort of death benefits, especially from the last guy, but then again, I guess time will tell. Maybe she is killing them. Maybe they died to get away from her. Maybe it’s a series of unfortunate events. I tend to believe the latter.

I remember talking to my Dad, not only about her, but also about the strong possibility that there is no afterlife and therefore, there is no heaven or hell except what we make for ourselves here during our lives. He tends to agree with me. Both my Father and I aren’t “spiritual people” in the sense of believing that we have “souls” and that we go on with some form of existence after death. We’re both pretty pragmatic in that sense. Show me empirical proof of an afterlife and I’ll gladly change my mind. Until then, nah.

My Dad’s current girlfriend told him the quote that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, and from what I can tell, she firmly believes it. She honestly believes that her dead husband and my dead Mother got together wherever dead people go and decided that her and my Father needed to be together. That’s her story and she’s sticking to it.

I find it funny, not only because I don’t believe in all of that stuff, but also because I do believe in the power of proximity and “social game.” One of the things that my Dad’s current girlfriend tends to overlook or completely ignore is that they both run in the same social circles. They both share the same circle of friends and everyone there knows everybody else. All of their mutual friends practically pushed the two of them together, and why not? They are both single, they are both in reasonably good shape and health, and they both share a lot of the same values and goals. They have a lot of the same interests and have many things in common.

To me, it’s a no-brainer. He’s looking for company, she’s looking for company, they both like the same shit, why not? While it’s not the life I would choose for myself, he likes her, she likes him and they both like doing a lot of the same things together, so go for it.

It’s funny to me that women in general tend to put so many things in life out to “fate,” “God,” “the Universe,” and even “Karma.” It’s funny to me because if they only knew. If they only knew that I planned the date down to some of the most minute details and the only truly random variable was which woman was going to show up. Will it be this woman? Or will it be a different woman? Either way I’m going to go here, eat this, drink that, go see this, and then ultimately go do that.

Then again, maybe they do know, and they just don’t want to actually “see it” and admit to it. And why would they? Once you’ve seen how the magic trick is done and you realize just how simple it really is, all of the magic is gone.

Rian Stone had a great answer to a question on Twitter a little while ago. The question was: “Men, what’s one of the ways in your realm where she can earn sex with you?”

Rian answered: “Be available.”

Beautiful, simple, and to the point.

It’s not much different from “the other side” as well. A lot of guys talk about their game and how they dress and how they look and their wealth and what interesting and cool lines they used on a woman.

What if most of the time it was because you were the “right guy at the right place at the right time” though? It honestly didn’t have much to do with you except that you were there, you were available, and you didn’t step on your own dick?

Guys, let’s be honest with ourselves. We aren’t the Casnova’s that we think we are and that we want women and other men to believe us to be. We ain’t shit, and that’s okay.

We are opportunists.

We learn to recognize that she’s interested and we ideally strike while the iron is hot. We learn to give her the show without revealing the man behind the curtain. And ultimately we learn how to do this while keeping our fucking mouths shut so that we don’t give her a reason to not fuck us.

So when you are out with a woman and she’s waxing poetically about the sun and the stars aligning and that it was the Universe that brought you two together, you know in your own mind, that no, it wasn’t Karma. It was you setting the stage and dealing with the details and the logistics. All she needed to do was show up.

But you tell her with a twinkle in your eye, “I know right?! We were meant to be. It was fate.”

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What Online Dating Body Types Mean in 2020

three women s doing exercises
This is “Thin” or “Athletic.”

I wrote a post about an experience I had with a friend of mine while at a couple of bars, and today I want to expand on that with some other observations and information.

The last time that I had seriously done “the bar thing” was over 20 years ago. Probably closer to 23 years ago. I started going back to the bar in late 2019/early 2020 before the pandemic hit and put that on pause. The bar I would go to had an eclectic mix of people and a wide demographic of ages.

Everything from the early 20-somethings up to the early to mid 60-somethings if I had to guess, was there. I’ll be honest and say right now that guessing someone’s age has never been my biggest strength. So there was roughly an equal ratio of men to women and the age groups were pretty much all represented at this particular bar.

The last bar that I went to though, the age demographic was almost entirely the early to mid 20-somethings. There might have been a few in their late 20’s and a very, very small handful of people in their early 30’s. Definitely what you would call the “college crowd.” And then there was me and my buddy, the two “old” guys in the bar.

I’ll be honest when I say I was a little hesitant to going to this particular bar. My buddy told me about it as he had been there a few times before and he really enjoyed it. “Lot’s of eye candy” as he put it. I was hesitant because I remember what it was like being in my mid 20’s and there was always “that one creepy old guy in the bar.” Everybody would look at him and roll their eyes and wrinkle their noses up at him. Girls would laugh and not in a good way. That guy was tolerated at best and pitied and avoided at worst. I definitely did not want to be “that guy.”

As things would have it though, I didn’t have to worry about it. Everyone was very friendly with me. I can see why for some of it. The bar was happy for the patronage and when you’re the “new guy” everybody is interested in you to one degree or another. Whether it’s intrasexual competition from the other guys in the bar, or it’s the possibility of an encounter with the women, you’re being sized up. Especially when you’re new.

Nobody had an issue with my buddy and me being there and honestly I didn’t care. Being comfortable in your own skin will do that. A couple of beers doesn’t hurt either.

So here’s what I’ve observed and don’t worry, I’m going to take these observations and apply them to online dating because they are applicable:

  1. Men and women as a whole are fatter now than 20 years ago. Applying this to online dating means that the category of “Average” today isn’t what “Average” of yesterday was. Average from 20 years ago meant that you were neither thin or fat. You were just, average. Kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. Average from yesterday doesn’t exist today, not anymore. Average today means you are fat. You may not be obese or morbidly obese, but you are fat. Think 20 pounds plus. There literally wasn’t any women that were like 5 pounds overweight. They were either thin (which I’ll get to next) or they were 20+ overweight.
  2. Thin women still exist. Most of the guys were thinner and in better shape than the women as well, compared to 20 years ago. Thank god for thin women since this happens to be my personal preference. There were plenty of skinny girls there, plenty of “eye candy” for me to see. I’ve seen plenty of women that would describe themselves as thin in online dating as well, they just aren’t the majority anymore.
  3. Athletic as a type definitely exists. I would consider it a “sub-category” to thin. The only major difference to me at least, is that athletic women tend to have more muscle definition and tend to be more toned. Otherwise they are thin, hence the “sub-category” classification.
  4. Lots and lots of tattoos on everybody for the most part. I have a lot of tattoos but the younger crowd is either giving me a run for my money or they have me beat hands down. Nothing wrong with this per se, just an observation. The women and the men who had no visible tattoos tended to stand out, that’s how many people have tattoos in the bar today.

I made a tweet a few days ago that has summed up my experience when it comes to online dating and “body types” or “body descriptions:”

Average = Fat

A Few Extra Pounds = Fat

Curvy = Really Fat

BBW = Really Fat with an extra dose of attitude

Thin = Thin (but only if there is a fully body shot, otherwise = Fat)

Athletic (see Thin)

This may be hilarious to some degree, but it’s true unfortunately. I’ve encountered far too many women who say they are “average” when it comes to their body type and I have to admit that it’s my fault for not actually seeing them that way. That’s because I was holding on to what “average” was 20 years ago. Average today is overweight. Curvy used to be what Madonna was back when she did “Lucky Star.” Think hourglass. Curvy today is obese. A few extra pounds 20 years ago, was a tiny bit of a tummy. A few extra pounds today is 20 pounds overweight. Not obese and definitely not morbidly obese, but definitely pushing into obese territory.

The one that I have the most conflict with today is Athletic. Athletic to me and probably to most guys is a person who has low body fat and has muscle definition and tone. I’ve seen women who say they are “athletic” and sure they are in a selfie pic at some gym somewhere, wearing a yoga top and yoga pants, but they are far from having an athletic body. A muffin top body isn’t athletic. Nor should counting that one time you went hiking over a year ago count as athletic. That’s why I say, full body shots in the pictures or they are fat.

I’m not saying any of this as a condemnation of women being overweight. I’ve dated plenty of women over the years who genuinely were “a few extra pounds.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But “a few extra pounds” was just that. 5 or 10 extra pounds at the most.

If we are going to keep the body types “honest” with today’s standards and averages, there should be only 2 choices with one possible sub-category:

Thin or fat. There’s no need to have an “average” category anymore since “average” as it once was doesn’t exist. The sub-category would be “athletic” and that would only be applicable if you were actually “thin” first.

There’s no need for a “curvy,” “a few extra pounds,” or “BBW” anymore, since it’s all basically just one degree of fat or another. Actually, I’ll take that back. There should still be a BBW category. That’s because most of the women that I have encountered that identify as “BBW” also tend to be the most entitled and have the most bitter of attitudes. At least the bigger girls who didn’t consider themselves to be BBW had more pleasant demeanors and personalities.

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You Might Be Full Of Shit

man with megaphone pointing

I had a brief but interesting conversation with a good friend of mine on Twitter recently. The actual conversation itself isn’t really what this post is about, so I’m not going to go into the details of that conversation, other than to say that the conversation was the catalyst for this post. So BullRush, if you are reading this, you sparked this. And thank you.

A lot of people do a lot of talking on the internet. Nothing new here, that’s been going on since the internet first became a thing. What’s really fun and interesting to me though is learning about what people want you to believe about them.

Some people are very short and to the point. Some people take long breaks from the internet, or at least social media, and some practically live on social media.

It’s that last group that interests me the most.

Guys on social media on a near 24/7 basis. Yes, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but not much. Guys constantly running their mouths about whatever the topic may be, and the fun thing is, the guy will inevitably make whatever the conversation is about him.

He may have started the conversation with a tweet, or he may have replied to someone else’s tweet, but he will inevitably try and make that conversation about him.

The places he’s been. The things that he has done. The people that he has met or that he knows (in real life too!)

There’s at least one term for this type of individual. It’s the Know-It-All. Whatever you have done, he’s done it many times and often better than you. You own a brand new car? He owns one too, only his is more expensive and has more bells and whistles.

You got with a woman? Dude, he bangs 9’s and 10’s on the regular.

You just got a raise at your job? Dude, he’s been making six figures since he was eighteen.

You got into a fight with your childhood best friend when you were 12? Dude, this guy has been shot, stabbed, mugged, hanged, and jumped more times than he can count. And this was all earlier this week.

Hold my beer, indeed.

Am I exaggerating a little bit? Of course. But the point is, there’s only so much time in the day. We all have 24 hours in a day and we all have to sleep, eat, shit, shower, fuck, and do whatever else it is that we do in that 24 hour time frame.

How can somebody get shot, stabbed, win a gold medal, get a huge pay raise, get the girls, buy 3 houses on 3 different continents, eat, tuck their children into bed at night and read them a bedtime story, and then make love to his wife before running off to “Save the West?”

He can’t.

It’s all bullshit.

You want to know if somebody is “the real deal” or not? How often are they on social media? If they are constantly running their mouths at all hours of the day and night, I can pretty much guarantee you that they haven’t done half the shit that they have claimed they have done. And that’s because when did they find the time to do all of that shit all the while posting constantly on social media?

You can’t be in two places at the same time. Sorry, you just can’t.

I’ve met a lot of people over the years and some of them have witnessed a lot of harrowing things. The thing is, they don’t usually like talking about those harrowing things. They would rather be done with them and put those things behind them. Most of my Father’s friends served in Vietnam. They’ve got the physical and mental scars to prove it and none of them want to talk about it and “relive the glory days” because the war for them wasn’t glorious. One of my Father’s friends has a crater in his lower back the size of a grapefruit. He got that scar from grenade shrapnel. I only found that out from talking to my Dad about it. The guy himself didn’t talk about it.

That same guy died about a year ago. From what I know, he had nightmares about the war from the time he was in it up to the day that he died. The only person that really knew what went down in Vietnam besides the man himself and his fellow soldiers that were there, was his now widow. I only know that he talked to her about it because I asked her, “Did he ever tell you what he witnessed?” And her answer was only 3 words.

“Yes he did.” And she didn’t say anything else about it.

I have a feeling even she didn’t get the whole story about what happened. He gave her enough so that when his PTSD kicked in it wouldn’t drive her crazy and send her running. And to give her credit, she stayed with him right up until the day that he died.

Guys bragging about their exploits, whatever they may be, are doing just that. Bragging. Guys that go on social media constantly and are constantly running their mouths truly only know how to do one thing: Run their mouths on social media.

You want to get a better idea of who may actually be legitimate and who is full of shit? Look and see how often they are on social media and what do they talk about. Do they have something to say about every topic under the sun? Are they the “James Bond hard to kill” guys? Are they constantly running their mouths? If so, you may have just encountered a Know-It-All. At the very least you’re dealing with a bullshitter. Act accordingly.

Ask yourselves one easy question:

“When does this guy find the time to do all of this shit and post on social media?”

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