“…all he left us was alone…”

9♠

 

 

 

Some time ago, I briefly, vaguely, touched on the impact one’s parents has on future mate choice.

 

“Men date women much like their mothers.

Women date men much like their fathers (especially if they didn’t really have one but that’s for another day).”

 

Since I tacitly said I’d address my meaning later, I believe now is as good a time as any.

 

For whatever reason, the imprint a parent leaves on a child is frequently ignored in dating/mating discussions.

 

 

 

This has always puzzled me since it’s the first – and arguably most powerful – influence in one’s choices down the road.

 

Mothers/fathers provide the example – good or ill – for the romantic relationships in which we find ourselves.

 

They create the expectations we end up having.

 

The methods of communications we’ll anticipate.

 

The manners in which we’ll seek to be treated.

 

The punishment/reward systems to which we’ll respond.

 

So deeply does this initial imprinting affect us, it simply baffles me as to how it gets lost or glossed over in conversations.

 

 

 

Keep finding yourself with critical, unhappy, impossible to please women?

 

Look carefully at your mother.

 

Keep finding yourself with abusive, dismissive men?

 

Look to your father.

 

I guarantee you’ll spot more than you’d expect.

 

 

 

So powerful is this paradigm, so omnipresent, so all-encompassing, it takes conscious effort and action to notice it.

 

As the old saying goes:

 

A fish doesn’t know it’s wet.

 

And, as I mentioned earlier, an absentee father is no escape.

 

In fact, I posit that it’s even more impactful than one that is present.

 

 

 

As evidence, I offer just how pestilential absentee father epidemics are.

 

Once they get even the smallest foothold in a community, they spread like the most virulent of plagues.

 

Why?

 

I suggest a few reasons:

 

1} A present father can give looks at a spectrum of behaviors. Good and bad; positive and negative. An absentee one teaches only a single lesson: men are meant to breed and leave. Expect nothing but sperm. In fact, if a man stays around, he’s not a real man simply because men (in the girl’s experience) don’t stick around; only boys do.

 

2} An absentee father triggers the need to prove resilience in a massive – though negative – way. She needs to show she “doesn’t need a man”. She can handle life without such. Of course, this only opens the door to countless disasters but it’s too late by the time the error is realized. Additionally, later errors further trigger the need to prove resilience even more, thus digging an ever deeper hole.

 

3} The absence of a father causes her to default to her most basic programing of mate selection. She’ll choose the lowest, most easily read denominators: potential for violence, fierce independence, arrogance, et al. Now, this is not to say these things are not sought by perfectly healthy women. I’d be a fool and liar to suggest such thing. However, healthy women are infinitely more likely to seek those denominators with positive nuances that are missing in the cases of an unhealthy female search. If it helps, think of it as eating: dining from both dumpsters and restaurants will feed a person. But one is a much healthier choice than the other.

 

 

 

As a related side note, this leads me to a major reason I try to impart the lessons I do rather than simply teach pick-up lines and techniques; why I teach the physics, if you will, of it all rather than the “actionable advice” so often demanded.

 

But that’s for another day.

 

 

9♠

“As long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive…”

8♠

 

 

 

I confess, no one ever asks me to “smile more.”

 

Throughout my life, I’ve been described as “dark”, “brooding” and “intense”.

 

In fact, those who didn’t know me well have categorized me as villainous from the outset, seeing as I resemble the antagonist (far more than the protagonist) in most literature and film.

 

This caused me no end of frustration and consternation for decades.

 

Until, however – after a great deal of effort, I managed to put it to work for me in aid of an anti-hero/outlaw persona.

 

Thus, bringing a tremendous amount of peace to my daily existence.

 

Yet all of the above only increases my consternation when women complain about being posed the same request I mentioned in the opening line.

 

 

 

See, no one expects me to be happy.

 

And even fewer care if I am.

 

(Truth be told, those two facts form a bit of a viscous cycle if one considers them both for more than the briefest of moments.)

 

Why grow angry at being asked to “smile more”?

 

 

 

Now, I understand no one wants their mood dictated to them.

 

Nor does anyone want to be denied their sorrows, when they occur.

 

Agency of emotion is an important thing to any person, women especially, I’m sure.

 

Yet ire at such a request seems foolish to me, for a few reasons:

 

1} Few make the request of someone for whom they don’t care. So, at least mildly decent odds suggests they have concern for you.

 

2} Few make the request of someone for whom there is obvious reason to avoid doing so. So odds are they perceive life has been generous enough to give you reason to do such.

 

3} Few make the request of those with poor/weird/creepy smiles. So it’s likely they believe you’ve the looks to make it work.

 

 

 

I’m sure there will be those who feel my three reasons are insufficient or naive.

 

Perhaps there are even some women who feel it’s sexist to be asked such.

 

Which I’m compelled to say, may be correct.

 

But for the wrong reasons guessed.

 

 

 

See, what gets forgotten is a critical point of female mate value is their ⁂ resilience ⁂.

 

Perpetually scowling, frowning and other exhibitions of displeasure could very well indicate:

 

1} A lack of fortitude to deal with the suffering dealt by life.

 

2} A chronic state of dissatisfaction and, potentially, an inability to be pleased.

Frankly, I’d be hard pressed to come up with less desirable traits in a female companion for any man.

 

Which is very likely why so many men shun and bemoan the deluge of miserable-looking women they encounter with staggering frequency both online and in their daily lives.

 

It may also be why those very women seem to only spiral downward further and faster, the more they rise up against such sentiments.

 

Additionally, as the lyric I’ve chosen as this post’s title states and ⁂ any dog knows ⁂, just the ability to give love goes a surprisingly long way in female struggle for survival.

 

Thus, the suggestion to “smile more” is, when seen from this perspective, extremely good advice.

 

 

 

Of course, none of this is to condone disingenuousness.

 

Nor concealment of powerful, well-founded emotions.

 

Rather, to point out what is being conveyed.

 

And how the message is being received.

 

 

8♠

“The way that you treated me… I know I’m not to blame”

7♠

 

 

 

 
First thing tomorrow, I want you to go out and buy grape jelly.

 

Then send me a photo of it.

 

 

 

He thinks I’m joking.

 

Or crazy.

 

Or both.

 

When he called 20 minutes ago, asking advice regarding a spat he just had with a young lady, I’m certain this suggestion was nowhere among those he thought he’d receive.

 

 

 

“Wait. Are you serious?”, he asks.

 

I reply:

 

Very much so.

 

You told me your place is a mess and your roommate ate all the grape jelly you used for sandwiches.

 

Am I correct or did I mishear you?

 

“No, I said that. I mean, I said both things, yeah.”, he confesses – still somewhat confused.

 

I tell him:

 

Good.

 

That proves I’m listening instead of waiting to hear my own voice.

 

So do as I suggest, then clean your place the best you can.

 

For now, forget about her.

 

You have bigger problems.

 

For one, you’re out of jelly for your lunches this week.

 

For two, your place is a mess.

 

Don’t make her moods your third.

 

 

 

Once I clarify with those words, he chuckles a bit.

 

I imagine he’s sensing I may have purpose with my odd demand.

 

The next morning I awake to a picture message of grape jelly.

 

I respond with a simple thumbs up.

 

He goes on to let me know she sent him a message that she misses him.

 

I tell him:

 

It’s the jelly.

 

 

 

He laughs and writes “she could sense I bought jelly and conceded”.

 

I immediately let him know I’m not really joking.

 

I mention my post about women ⁂ ghosting ⁂ .

 

Then write:

 

It’s the jelly.

 

You were busy getting your shit together instead of putting her moods first.

 

 

 

A few minutes pass, then he closes the text exchange with exactly the following:

 

“You were right. But even if you were only half right or wrong, you still hedged your bets. Taking your advice was the best course of action regardless of outcome. My day has been productive and I wasted only a fraction of the time worrying/fuming…

So bravo. And thank you.”

 

7♠