So, I tuned into Fox’s premiere of “More To Love,” a reality dating show for the “traditionally built.” To be honest, I mean, other than a few pounds, it basically replicates “The Bachelor.” Luke Conley, 26, is Mr. Eligible, a real-estate broker weighing in at 330-pounds who is looking for love. And his choice picks? Women with some meat on their bones. This all leads me to believe there will be some unamusing twist at the end and everyone will exclaim in unison, “I can’t believe this!”
But, this isn’t about him or his to-be blushing bride. This is about Facebook and the general public. I know – no connection, right?
Well, within five minutes of the show airing I saw at least 10 people on my Facebook feed page lending their statuses to quote a “fact” aired on the show, as if to prove some shocking point:
“The average woman on reality television is a size 2. The average woman in the U.S. is a size 12. So what’s so real about reality television?”
Um, the answer is nothing is real about reality television – and waistlines are the smallest issue of them all (pun intended). That’s why we like it.
My friends thought this was such a great line that maybe they forget to realize this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a picture painted that isn’t necessarily real by the media. Take for example “reality” in a way magazines portray it. They flood us with advertisements showcasing women who make even Nicole Richie feel fat.
But let’s take it back to reality shows, since this is what seems to have them all on a hang up.
First things first, I’ll admit it. I’m not innocent. I watch television reality shows and love them – unconditionally. But they don’t portray my reality in any way, shape or form.
We don’t watch reality television to see reality. We watch it to escape our own reality.
Only a minuscule percentage of the population has millions to blow at a couture boutique, or have had eight kids and a nasty divorce in the public eye. But us, as the working majority, have enough common sense to watch this, laugh a little and keep living our perfectly happy lives.
So please, let’s not look at this new show, “More To Love,” as a saving grace. It’s not. It’s another reality show with a twist. It’s not there to make women in the U.S. feel great about themselves – because for every show such as this, there are five more in the works with the next Lauren Conrad signing up for it as we speak.
You, as a beautiful, curvy woman don’t need to watch a reality show to prove that you’re fabulous.
You just need you. You don’t live in Heidi Pratt’s world, and believe me – she could never survive in yours.
I won’t lie to you. A (very) large contributing factor to me choosing a life in journalism was watching my first Superman movie. Here is Lois Lane, a successful female journalist eventually falling for Superman, by far the best super hero America, and I’d put money that even the world, has ever seen.
Writing has always been my passion. But when you top that off with the possibility to date a super hero? Hook, line and sinker – I was sold.
But the real-life newsroom is a much different place than in the movies. Someone I care about a lot told me recently, “That’s why they make movies – because that stuff could never happen in real life. This way, you can at least live it out for the two hours of the film.”
He was right.
Sometimes it’s hard to get everything you want, and even harder to be satisfied with what you have.
I’ve always been very independent. I have a few close friends that I rely on, but I’ve never been one to ask for much – instead I’m much more willing to give.
I have a great family and my own apartment, I’ve worked hard to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree and am working towards a great career.
So, why do I feel like I’m missing something?
Many say that even the strongest woman sometimes feels the need to be rescued from her ordinary life. But my life is not an ordinary one. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s one of the least ordinary out there. Furthermore, I don’t believe that anyone needs to be rescued from their own life – it’s yours, ultimately you’re in control and can only save yourself.
I have a different take on this.
Woman are raised to believe that they need to nurture something. We’re given baby dolls as toys and taught how to feed them, change their diapers and fix their hair. Boys are given G.I. Joes and other action figures that they’re taught to fight and wage war with – not too much sensitivity there.
Then, when we get older, we replace dolls with boyfriends and care for them as best we can. We feel the need to make sure they’re comfortable, picking up after them, cooking for them and making sure they’re happy. I’m not saying that boyfriends don’t care for us, but our nurturing gene takes hold here – it’s almost primitive.
So, many of us fall for the wrong guys just to be able to have someone to take care of. I can hear some of my ultra-feminist friends scoffing at this post right now. But it’s true.
We try to fill that void with a person who we’re not sure will feel the same way towards us. But it’s always a chance we’re willing to take.
Back to Lois Lane and Superman. You thought I’d almost forgotten to tie this back in, right?
As most of us know, the relationship between Lois Lane and Superman was actually a love triangle between the two and Clark Kent. Clark, with no backbone, couldn’t quite win Lois over. But she fell hard for Superman, not because of his powers, but because of his attitude and confident personality. Despite all of their obstacles, he took care of her and he could make her feel like, just for a moment, she could let her guard down.
So, while it’s not the rescuing that woman are after, it may be the ability to let our guard down and just be ourselves around someone we want to care for. No games, no gimmicks. Just you and me.
But, the question now is: How long should a girl chase after her Superman knowing all the risks?
Body language has been used for hundreds of years to attract the perfect partner. Being able to tame the language, however, has become something I’ve been only beginning to master during the last, oh, three months of my 22-year existence.
So, let me pass on my very trivial, most likely in-need-of-tweeking advice. And if you have any pointers, don’t be greedy – share it. We all need help in this department.
Keep your eye on the prize
Eye contact is huge when initiating anything with someone. Holding eye contact, however, can be hard. And if it’s held too long at first, it’s extremely creepy. Mastering the amount of time to look someone in the eye can be tough. So, my best advice? Do what’s comfortable. You can do a whole lot of flirting using your eyes alone. The other side of the coin is you can do a whole lot of shutting out with them as well.
When on a date, although it may be tempting to constantly look past the person you’re with to see who’s coming into the door, who’s walking by the table, or to watch just how cheesy the waiter is being with the other table, avoid it. This will send a lack of interest signal to your date. So, if you really are uninterested, by all means – keep those eyes wandering. It may save you the awkwardness of having to find an excuse to high-tail it out of there.
Give ‘em a hand
Even without a touch, hands can send really powerful messages. There are countless ways to show that that you’re interested in someone with your hands. Keeping them loose and unclenched shows that you’re an open, happy person.
While I was in undergrad, I was a server. One thing that some servers do is touch their guest to get a bigger tip.
Doubtful?
Studies have shown that touching someone, even a quick pat, creates a much more personal connection. And for a server, a bigger tip because now the customer feels like they’re not only a patron, but a friend.
By creating that connection, you show that you’re interested and comfortable enough to touch and be touched.
Walk tall
Your posture is one of the most telling signs of how you feel. Being slouched over with your head down, as your passive-aggressive, yet loving mother has pointed out in the past, shows you have no confidence. Also, the arm crossing? That’s got to go.
Understandably it’s easy to do this. Sometimes it’s just a comfortable position, especially when you don’t know what to do with your arms. But, when you cross your arms you’re sending the signal that you’re shutting people out and seem uninterested. As stated above, if this is your intent, then by all means, keep it up.
A little extra, on me
You’ll know things are going well when you start to mirror each other’s body language and gestures – it shows that you guys are reading eacho ther’s body language, and, in turn responding to it.
Don’t tease with body language by offering any more than you plan on following through with – trust me, this will get ugly.
If you’re doing all you can and s/he’s not responding: abort mission immediately.
Following the person around all night trying to perfect your non-verbal skills will not ultimately pay off. Persistence, in this case, is not a winner. I actually believe it’s called stalking. Move on.
And if all else fails? Get a t-shirt that reads “Single & Ready To Mingle.” At this point, it couldn’t hurt.
Before one of my close friends met her long-term boyfriend, her friends were going through this phase which was basically, ‘let’s set her up with anyone we know.’
This, my friends, is how the following story was born.
My friend met a guy at a bar when she went out with a few friends from work. He had seemed nice enough, so she decided to give it a go and take up his offer to go on a date.
He called her soon after to let her know the date was a surprise – and leaves the conversation with a simple question: “What sandwich do you like most?”
She replied that anything was fine – which was a lie – but she was put on the spot. Even though she felt no initial attraction, she thought, “What the hell, I’m single, why not?”
So, on cue, the guy shows up at my friend’s house in a white tank top. Correction: short white tank top, leaving some of his stomach exposed. My friend, being sweet and very unlike me, still decided to go on the date after realizing she was most likely going out with the male version of Britney Spears.
They get into the car and arrive at a duck pond where she used to go when she was a little girl and play. With a grand hooray, the guy pulls out a red and white checkered table cloth. To my friend’s horror, she discovered they were going on a picnic – which she later realized was what the sandwich question was about.
“Imagine us sitting on this blanket. He’s on one side and I’m scrunched in a corner on the other side,” she said. “The sandwich he picked for me was some kind of huge Italian Lovers thing because it had all the meats, dressings, the WORKS – what happened to turkey? Lisa, we looked like we were straight off an episode of NEXT.”
To make matters worse for my dear friend, people were walking by, pointing them out as she tried to conquer this enormous sandwich and saying, “Awww, how cute!” This, she let me know with the utmost seriousness, was not cute.
See, the problem was while this guy was nice enough, my friend never had any real feelings for him and now he had placed her in such a publicly couple position. Also, the teeny-tiny white tank top probably wasn’t helping the cause.
Halfway through the date, the poor guy decided to keep it going and took the “next time we’re together” plunge.
“He starts suggesting other things we can do together, like go to a jazz concert,” she said. “To which I answered in the most evasive way possible, like, ‘Oh, my uncle is a jazz musician.’”
Finally, my friend who is always genuinely honest, had had enough. She looked past her four pound sandwich, around the tank top, over the next date question and said what was on her mind.
She explained that she appreciated all the effort that he had put into the date, but she really only felt a friend vibe. While that might have sufficed for many, it seemed to not exactly kick in – so she took a better approach.
“Then I dropped, “‘I’m sorry, I’m just not really attracted to you,’” she said. “Blame it on the religious reading of “He’s Just Not That Into You,” or the fact that that I’d never really had to remotely reject anyone before, but at least I was honest.”
And the date capper? After my friend had been honest – which was the best move possible – the guy decided to just be himself.
He pulled out a cigarette and said, “Well, I wasn’t going to smoke in front of you before, but I guess I can now.”
And she agreed.
“I was glad and thought, ‘You smoke that cigarette, buddy,’” she said. “At least one of us should be comfortable in this situation.”
Most of the guys I know love sports. They also love ladies. However, when you combine the both of best worlds it can at times leave one feeling neglected. And no, gentlemen, I’m not talking about your beloved Mets feeling neglected by any possible winning streak known to man lately.
If your lady has played three sports in college, enjoys a past-time of arguing whether Jason Kidd is worth anything anymore or can shoot out A-Rod’s stats over the past five years faster than ESPN.com, this post isn’t for you. Maybe next time.
First things first – start slow. Don’t become the equivalent of the overbearing father who enrolls his four-year-old son in a six-week football boot camp “just for fun.” If you want your lady to enjoy any sport, she has to understand it first. But you can kill that enjoyment right off the bat if you cram it down her throat.
And by starting slow, I really mean starting at the very basics. Take baseball for example. While it may be second nature to you that four balls equal a walk or that there are three outs in an inning, it may not be to her. Don’t skip the bare bones to any sport. Assume she’s never even heard the name “baseball” and start from there.
Another helpful way to keep her interested is to break from pure sports talk at times. Interject colorful stories about people that aren’t necessarily the key players in the game. For example, you could explain how Joe Morgan is a God-awful announcer who is also a complete sell out with his bobble head dolls. What’s up Joe? ESPN turn off the spigot on that big paycheck you didn’t deserve to begin with?
Find something that she likes about any of the sports you’re interested in. It’ll help you both enjoy it. And remember, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something about the game that you’d enjoy with your buddies. Maybe she just likes going to Madison Square Garden and being in the middle of all the energy of the screaming fans. Or, maybe she enjoys the gift shop – whatever it is, don’t take it for granted. At least you have her there with a smile on her face. Buckets!
Lastly, make sure you reciprocate. She’s taking the time out to learn about something you love to be closer to you. Find something that she’s interested in and make the first move to get involved. This will score some definite points with her and lowers the change that you’ll get stuck at her weekly book club meeting. How about dancing? Ladies love a man who can move on the dance floor.
Imagine this: A relationship that has everything – the dates, the long talks, the kisses, the food sharing, the late nights and the early mornings, all without a glitch. Well, one glitch. The fact that it isn’t a relationship.
After a completely and utterly informal survey amongst my closest friends, I’ve discovered that these are happening more and more often lately. People are becoming connected to one another – much past that of a hook up – yet are hesitant to define it.
Could it be that as we grow older, we’re more scared to jump into a relationship than we were back in our glory days of high school or college? That we’re scared to let someone in and shake up the person we’ve just learned that we are?
It’s hard to say – especially being on the younger side of this phenomenon. But I will say this, sometimes, things are better left unsaid. Why fix something if it isn’t broken?
I say this almost to convince myself, as I am one of the few who still believe that something is legitimate if and only if it has a title. You can walk away and never respond to someone who wasn’t your boyfriend without feeling absolutely terrible regardless of what you‘ve invested. But, if there’s a definition of the relationship, it makes cutting ties a little harder. On the plus side, it also makes the bond that you two share a little stronger and definitely much, much sweeter.
So erase the what if’s, the how come’s and the what now’s and just take the plunge. It’s worth it.
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Body language has been used for hundreds of years to attract the perfect partner. Being able to tame the language, however, has become something I’ve been only beginning to master during the last, oh, three months of my 22-year existence.
Before one of my close friends met her long-term boyfriend, her friends were going through this phase which was basically, ‘let’s set her up with anyone we know.’
Most of the guys I know love sports. They also love ladies. However, when you combine the both of best worlds it can at times leave one feeling neglected. And no, gentlemen, I’m not talking about your beloved Mets feeling neglected by any possible winning streak known to man lately.
Imagine this: A relationship that has everything – the dates, the long talks, the kisses, the food sharing, the late nights and the early mornings, all without a glitch. Well, one glitch. The fact that it isn’t a relationship.
