Wow, I had no idea how much buzz my last dating advice article generated. I was flooded with well over 250 emails, some good, some bad. It seems as if a good majority of the women agreed with more than a few of my pet peeves, and some of the guys as well. Some of the replies broke my article down, point by point. While I appreciate the thoroughness of these types of emails, they really didn’t speak to my particular and “off” sense of humor…
This is why I give you: Mike D.
Mike sent me an email complaining about how “women nowadays are too picky and have unrealistic expectations of the men they are looking for”. His email was long, and at times ranting. For some strange reason his email made me stop and question myself for a minute: “Do I as a female, have unrealistic expectations of the men that I date?”
Do females in this day and age have unrealistic expectations of the men we date as compared to how it was when our parents were dating? My mom once told me that “back in the day”, a “fella” would walk over to a girl in a poodle skirt and ask her out to an ice cream social. Two months later, BAM. Married with 10 kids, a job in the Aerospace industry and a Brady Bunch station wagon…… If some random guy walked up to me in the street and asked me if I “wanted to go get a hot fudge sunday”, I would probably kick him square in the family jewels and call the cops.
What has become of society?
Why have we become a society that places so must distrust in strangers? What happened to the good old days when you knew the names of everyone on your block and society overall seemed like a nicer place to be? I am 30 years old (give or take a year or two….mostly “take”) and old enough to remember part of the 70’s and how things were different back then. Are other 30 year olds out there experiencing the same things I am? What is your take on all of this?
While I pontificate further on the above pontifications, I would like to reprint part of the email (with his permission) that Mike sent to me. He did his own “top 10” list and dared me to reprint it.
Here ya go Mike:
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….to the girl who made the “top 10 reasons why I won’t call a guy back after the first date” post, I just wanted to say that I think you are being nit picky and unrealistic. There is a reason why women like you can’t get a date….you fly off the handle at the smallest things and wind up going off the deep end for no reason at all. So I was a few minutes late for a date…is that any reason for you to not call me back? Let’s talk about the things that females do that make guys not want to call them back after the first date:
1. Your looked NOTHING like your picture on your online dating profile.
If the girl has some sort of weird camera angle in her online dating pictures, guys: turn and run. There is usually a good reason why a girls pictures look like Pablo Picasso arose from the dead, bought a cheap $25 digital camera and decided to experiment with photography. I am not trying to be mean here, it’s just that everyone in life has different preferences in the opposite sex. As cheap and shallow as it may seem, I want to have a fairly good idea of what you look like before we go out. Still think I’m being mean? Look at it this way: If you were in line behind me at the grocery store and we made eye contact and you found yourself not physically attracted to me, would you be inclined to carry on a conversation with me and give me your phone number at the end? It works both ways, sweetheart.
2. Yack yack yack
Is there anything more rude than answering your cell phone and yacking away with your girlfriend while out on a date? I understand if your Aunt Martha fell down a flight of stairs and forget to recharge the batteries in her life-alert bracelet and she just happened to be carrying her new iPhone in her pocket with your number on speed dial….I really do. But when your girlfriend calls you in the middle of our date and you start blabbing away about what you did last night for more than 5 minutes, I find myself slowly reaching into my pocket to fake a phone call from my Uncle John who happened to fall down a flight of stairs with his discharged life-alert bracelet and his new iPhone…
3. I am not sure whether to buy you dinner or ask your hourly rate.
I realize you may have certain “assets” on your body. Most women do. And being a guy, I do like eye candy. But if I am looking for a potential relationship out of you….there is nothing that will make me turn tail and run than if you come dressed with your boobs half hanging out in a short miniskirt and flirt with every guy that you see. (prolonged eye contact with other males does indeed constitute “flirting”). I realize that I may have broken the “guy code” here by telling women to cover up, but it is not what it seems. When guys (at least me and my friends) are looking for a potential relationship with a female we are interested in, we want to know (or at least think) that our girl is as pure as the driven snow when she is out in public.
4. Say you, Say me, Say it for always, that’s the way it should be…
If during the course of normal conversation the lyrics to the above Lionel Richie song start popping into my mind, I find myself looking for any excuse to end the date. I am not a male model, but I do realize that some women find me pretty attractive/borderline “good looking”. If while talking to me your eye gaze starts suggesting that I should don a 1980’s JerryCurl and neon Miami Vice overcoat and get down on my knees and start singing you a ballad, I’m outta there man. Read this article and hit “crtl” “f” on your keyboard and enter in “eye contact” to take you to the part of the article that dictates how proper eye contact should happen. Great, now I got that stupid song stuck in my head.
5. Pull my finger…
I am sorry, I realize that ladies do act like ladies most all of the time. But if you accidentally “let one go” and it is audible enough to ring the bell on the church 5 miles away….that just killed it. I realize that accidents do happen, but…..still. You might be able to salvage the date if there is a dog nearby and you deftly try to blame it on the dog. I am a big 3 Stooges fan, so the comedic value just might outweigh the shock value. A perfectly executed “Curly Shuffle” afterwards will result in bonus points.
6. I’m feelin’ it, you facial expressions and body language show otherwise, but deep down inside, you really are.
Guys are not mind readers. When I go out on a first date with a girl, I am a little bit nervous. Even though I can cover it up really well, I am most likely walking on broken eggshells until I find that comfort zone. During the course of the date I try to watch a girl’s facial expressions and body language to get a guage on whether or not I might get rejected if I ask her out on a second date. If I am not getting any perceivable signs that she is interested, chances are I won’t call you back or write you another email. I hate getting rejected and probably most guys do too. I have had more than a few girls call me back after I neglected to call them back after the first date, telling me how big of an “a-hole” I was for “leading them on”. Well if they had shown me some sign (any sign !!) that they were in the least bit interested in me, then I would have. Guys fear rejection too, ladies.
7. I just wasn’t feeling it
I really can’t break this one down any further. I am sure this goes both-ways without saying. If I am “not feeling it”, I will not lead you on, and you will know that it just isn’t happening for me. I would only hope that you have the same courtesy to do that to me instead of leading me on.
8. Red Flags
I am writing this “top 10” list from the perspective of a guy who is looking for a relationship. If I was looking for anything else, I would probably not be as picky. I look for little “red flags” in women that suggest certain things/traits that I am not looking for. It’s a scientific fact that some women lie. I don’t know why this is, nor do I know the name of the scientist that made this incredible discovery. You will have to trust me on this one. So when I am out on a date, I purposely ask carefully worded questions during the course of normal conversation. If something isn’t adding up, I will slowly but surely zone in on the area that I don’t like, which brings us to reason #9:
9. Rule of 3
I am probably going to get shot by the “man counsel” for giving out this little gem, but a general rule of thumb (intelligent discretion must be applied) is that you take the amount of men that a girl says she has slept with, and multiply it by 3. I realize that there may be other formulas for this one….but my hippie community college professor once told me to stick with the rule of 3. Why am I telling you this? Because when I am looking for a relationship with a girl, I don’t want to know how many men you slept with (but i do). Does this make sense to you ladies? If not, then my work here is done.
We now come to the final (and most important) reason why men never call women back after the first date. This will undoubtably go down in history and will make me untold millions of dollars and I will be featured on Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer.
The last and most important reason why men don’t call women back after the first date:
10. There was a good football game on t.v. the next day and we plain forgot.
To the author/owner of this website, I can only give you one piece of advice here. You need to lower your standards, sweetheart.
To all the women who are wondering why a guy never called them back, I have just one piece of advice: FORGET ABOUT IT. There is a reason (be it good/bad or otherwise) why the guy didn’t call you back. Maybe he didn’t like you, maybe he did like you and is too shy to call you back, maybe he lost his cellphone that had your number on it. Whatever the reason, he isn’t calling you back. Get over it and move on. There are WAY too many proverbial fish in the sea to get all worried and bent out of shape because a guy didn’t call you back. I can’t even begin to count how many women in my life haven’t called me back. It’s just the name of the dating game and the nature of the beast. Cry yourself a river then build a bridge and get over it.