…right?

What’s that you say?  Your female friends hate your girlfriend? They’re always telling you that she’s a bitch, you deserve better than her, that she’s not that pretty or smart or successful.  In short, they are really displeased in your choice of mate.   What gives?

Welcome to the wonderful world of estrogen.  While men are easy to read and wear their emotions on their sleeves, women are a bit tougher to figure out.   Try to stick with me here, okay?

Here are some possible reasons why your gal pals hate your new mate:

They are jealous

I have a story for everything.  Here’s another one, sad but true.  Jen and Tony had been best friends since high school.  They took all the honors classes together, helped each other with homework, were in the same clubs.  But they were both too shy to do anything about the fact they were crazy about each other.  Mostly because each one feared the other one would think they were nuts to want to ruin the friendship by dating.  Of course, since they didn’t ever admit this to each other, they went to college thinking that they were best friends and that was that.

They went to separate colleges, but kept in touch daily over email and IMs.  (This was back in the day before everybody had cell phones – I know, ancient history!)  Tony spent his nights fantasizing about what it would be like to get with Jen and Jen spent her nights wishing more guys were like Tony.  Crazy how dense people can be, isn’t it?

So one day, junior year, Tony gets a girlfriend.  She’s practically Jen’s twin – same build, same hair, same interests.  Tony thinks, “Wow, Jen is going to love Becky!  They’re so alike!”

But Jen hates Becky.  In fact, the more Jen hears about Becky, the more she gets angry.  She tries to pick at everything Becky does and convince Tony that she’s a horrible choice for a girlfriend.  The funny thing?  Jen doesn’t even realize she’s doing this because she likes Tony – this is just her instinct.   Her GUT tells her to do this.  Why?  Because her gut wants to be the girl in bed with Tony but she’s too dense to admit it.

Your girlfriend really is horrible for you

There’s another reason why your girl friends hate your girlfriend.  It’s actually based in reality, rather than pure guts and emotion.

That reason is this – your girlfriend is horrible and you need to dump her.

Girls know other girls.  So if you have gal pals who you know FOR SURE aren’t interested in your romantically, and they tell you that your girlfriend is bad news, 90% of the time you should believe them.

A quick list of good reasons to dump your new girlfriend:

• She’s dating you for the sex (it happens).
• She’s using you for a place to live.
• She’s using you for free dinners and activities.
• She’s a gold digger and will eventually leech your bank account.
• She’s using you to get back at another guy or girl.
• She’s using you to get access to someone in your social circle.
• She’s a dirty whore and you’ll get a gift that keeps on giving.

Listen to your girl friends, guys.   Here’s a flowchart:

When a guy says, “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing,” a woman can’t leave it be.  If he says, “Everything’s going to be okay,” she doesn’t believe him.   Because in her mind, it IS something.  It’s NEVER nothing.  And seriously, if we don’t come up with every possible route that our current situation could take in the future, we have no idea if everything will be okay in the end.  We want to play out all the possibilities in our minds and feel like we’re prepared for the worst, no matter what form it may take.

Part of this comes from the differences in male and female brains in the way that we build intimacy.  Psychologists have realized that men build intimacy with others through shared activities – thus, they feel closest to the people who they do things with.  Women build intimacy with others through sharing of important issues and problems in their lives – thus, they feel closest to the people with whom they share the most emotionally.

Put a man and a woman in a relationship.  As long as they’re doing things together and getting on fairly well, the man will assume that all is well, everything’s going to be okay.  Trouble brewing?  It’s okay, we’ll figure it out, the man thinks.  The woman, however, immediately wants to talk it over with her man.  She wants to go through the details, she wants to share with him and have him share with her.  When he refuses to listen or share his thoughts on the matter, she begins to get anxious and feel less intimately connected with him.

Weird, huh?

Our worrying is our way of trying to connect with you and build intimacy.  Sure, it’s annoying.  Sure, it’s a bit neurotic.  Sure, sometimes it’s borderline crazy.  But in the end, we do it because we care about you and we want to feel close to you.

What can you do to help us?

Listen.  I know this article is taking a kind of serious tone, but this is important, dangit!  The one thing you can do right now to make your woman worry less is to listen more.  Take time to sit down with no distractions and really hear her out when she talks about the things that worry her.  Don’t try to tell her that her fears are unfounded – if she feels them, they’re real.  Share with her any worries you’ve felt on the same subject so she knows you’re with her.  You “get it.”  Then come up with a few options together that will soothe her back into a sense of security and intimacy again.

Get your intimacy meter full and you’ll find that you get more of that OTHER intimacy, too!  Funny how that works, isn’t it?

So many guys have asked me, “What’s with girls dumping or disappearing after a third date?  Is there some sort of unspoken Girl Code about this?”  Well, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that there’s no Girl Code that mandates that dumping or disappearing from a new relationship should happen after date three.  The bad news – you really messed it up, boy.

But in order for me to explain this properly, we gotta back up to date one and do an autopsy of your dead relationship.  Actually, I can’t even call it a relationship.  It’s just a dead encounter of the non-sexual and non-relationship kind.  A DEotNSaNRK, if you will.

Date One:  Let’s Meet!

The purpose of a first date is to feel awkward.  Let’s face it, every single first date has a bit of awkwardness to it.  The key to a good first date is how quickly you can move past the awkward introductions and silences and into the talking and merriment.

Succeeding at Date One means you have done the following:

• Looked good
• Smelled good
• Didn’t creep her out
• Didn’t overstep your bounds
• Were interesting enough to merit seeing again

Congratulations!!  You’ve made it to date two!

Date Two:  Let’s Try This Again

That first date could have been a fluke.  The second date is to see if things continue on the same good note that the first date ended on.  You don’t necessarily need to step up your game – you just need to show that you’re exactly who you were the first time.

Succeeding at Date Two means you have done the following:

• Looked good (in different clothes!)
• Smelled good (yes, you’ve showered at least once more since meeting her!)
• Didn’t creep her out
• Didn’t overstep your bounds
• Moved at a speed that she was comfortable with
• Were interesting enough to merit seeing a third time

Now, by the end of date two, we’ve probably at least kissed.  Maybe made out a little.  Gotten to third base?  Heck, if you’re really lucky or she’s really adventurous, you may even have gotten laid.

Congratulations, you’ve made it to date three!

Date Three:  Things Might Get Serious

Here’s the tipping point.  By the time we’ve gotten to a third date, we’ve put the seal on liking you enough to say yes to seeing you again TWICE.  We really dig you.  There’s something about you that we really like.  So if you get axed after date three, it means that something came up that totally turned her off.

I polled my girlfriends, and here are some of the things they said were reasons they’ve axed a guy they thought they liked:

• “His apartment was filthy.”
• “His apartment was freaky hospital clean.”
• “It was clear he only had one pair of ‘good pants.’”
• “He was an AWFUL kisser and didn’t take direction well about his technique.”
• “He made an off-the-cuff remark that revealed he hated gay people.”
• “He proposed.  No, seriously.  He proposed.”
• “He hadn’t kissed me yet, so I figured he wasn’t that into me.”
• “He kept trying to get me in bed – I’m not that kind of girl!!!”
• “I thought his laugh would grow on me, but it just got more and more annoying.”
• “I found out he had a kid.  Ummmm, he never said that on his dating profile!”

Guys, the bottom line is this – if she dumps you on date three, then you did or said something that caused her to bolt.  Go back and analyze things.  Play CSI on your DEotNSaNRK.  Then leave a comment and speculate why you’re still single.

One the great Female Mysteries is why we make you wait for sex.  Here’s a list of the possible reasons:

1.         We’re not sure you’re worth it yet.

You’re iffy.  We’re honestly not sure if we want to keep you around and we know that as soon as you tap it, you’ll want to keep us.  The last thing we need is an abandoned puppy begging for sex.

2.         We’re at a vital number in our sexual career.

When I first became sexually active, I set a limit for myself.  I was going to find my husband by the time I got to sex partner #5.  I was really picky when it came to deciding who would be #5.  Then he turned out to be a total ass and dumped me for a floozy at his work.  So I said, “Well, ten is a nice number.”  I picked much better for #10, but ended up dumping him after a year.  Now, well, here’s hoping I find the one by 15.

3.         We’re currently being visited by Aunt Flo.

Also known as the monthly visitor, Aunt Flo makes us feel bloated, dirty (in a bad way), and just plain unsexy.  I like to refer to that time of the month as The Communist Invasion.  (There’s a Red Party in my pants.  Get it?)  Anyway, we may be pushing you away because we’d rather not paint the town red on our first romp.

4.         We have another iron in the fire.

Did you think we were just dating you?  Oh, sorry.  We didn’t have the exclusivity talk yet, so we assumed the game was still on.  We like you enough to keep dating you, but honestly, we’re not sure if we want to bonk you or that other guy.  It’s your brother?  Wow, we knew you looked alike…

5.         We’re not actually dating.

Are you sure we’re dating and not just cuddle buddies?  Be sure you’re on the right ladder before you assume that we’re going to bump uglies ever.  We really thought you knew that we were just friends!  Friends that spend lots of time together… oh, and that occasionally buy dinner for each other.  (Okay, you always pay.)  The snuggling?  We do that with all our friends.

6.         We’re going to dump you.

Sorry, but we’ve pretty much decided that you aren’t worth our time anymore.  There just hasn’t been a good time to tell you yet.  Yep, we’re totally aware that we’ve seen each other nearly every day for the past few weeks.  Yep, totally aware that you’ve probably dropped a few hundred dollars on food and activities.  Yep, totally aware that you’re falling harder for us every time we meet.  But we had to fully test drive you as a boyfriend before deciding if we wanted to commit for the long haul, and you just aren’t working out.  We’ll tell you – eventually.

…of course, there are tons of other reasons why your girl of choice is making you wait for sex.  But instead of asking us, why don’t you ask her?

I’m sure you’re pretty familiar with this scenario.   It’s bedtime and you and your sweetie hop beneath the sheets to snuggle.  Everything’s fine and good until you are attacked by her ice-cold feet.  “Ooooh,” she says, rubbing those frozen piggies all over you. “You’re so WARMMM! Why are you so warm?  I’m cold!”  Meanwhile you’re torn between wanting to get laid and wanting to kick her frozen ass right out of bed.

Ever wanted to know why women are so darn cold when you’re burning up in the exact same room, wearing similar clothing?  Well, there’s no definite answer, but there are several theories floating around that may interest you:

Women lose heat faster due to a higher ratio of skin surface area to body volume.

The bigger you are, the more heat you produce, but it disappears through your skin.  Since women are on the whole smaller than men, they lose heat faster.

Men have more muscle mass.

Muscles have blood vessels, blood vessels flow with delicious warm blood, thus, the more muscle, the more blood.  The more blood, the more warmth.

Women are built to keep buns warm in the oven.

There’s a neat process called vasoconstriction, by which our bodies cut off blood flow to the skin to keep internal organs and core temperature stable.  Women’s bodies do this at higher temperatures than men, probably as an evolutionary protection mechanism for unborn babies.

Menstruation causes a loss of body heat.

This one hasn’t really been proven, but there are people out there that claim that bleeding for a week (with the ensuing anemia) plus hormonal changes, makes us shivering bitches once a month.

Men have a higher metabolism.

You’ve heard the analogy – your metabolism is the fire burning in your body, fueling your cells.  Well, if you have a bigger engine, it’s going to put out more heat, right?

Women wear less clothing.

Ah, here’s Captain Obvious to the rescue.  Let’s take John and Sue, typical office monkeys.  It’s August and it’s pretty hot.  John’s business casual outfit involves khaki pants, and undershirt, and a short-sleeved polo shirt.  He wears socks and shoes.  Sue’s business casual outfit involves khaki pants, a sleeveless blouse, and an adorable pair of open-toed heels.  John’s got three extra layers of protection against the A/C blasting at AcmeCo:  an undershirt, socks, and closed-toed shoes.  Not to mention that his cotton blend polo is probably much warmer than her polyester blend blouse.

Eating habits can bring on the chill.

Think about how many times you have heard a woman in your office say, “I haven’t had a bite to eat all day.”  An under-fueled body is a cold body!

Caffeine and alcohol, the silent freezers.

You might think, “But I feel so warm when I drink coffee!”  or “There’s nothing like a shot of Captain to warm you up!”  But in fact, while alcohol and caffeine rush blood to the skin and make you feel warm initially, they actually suck the heat right out of you.  If your Ice Princess is a coffee hound (or a tequila guzzling floozy), this might be the cause of her frozen toesies.

Whatever the reason, it’s a problem that all men (and lesbians) have to deal with – cold feet, cold hands, cold noses, and cold asses.  But hey, you’re sharing a bed with a woman!!  Why are you complaining?

Flip-flops: We can get away with just basic black, but really, they’re so cheap, we might as well get them in every single color to coordinate with our outfits.

Dress sandals: These are necessary for summer weddings and other dress-up occasions in warm climates.  We can’t wear flip-flops, but we want to show off our adorable painted toenails.

Athletic sneakers: These are the sneakers we wear to the gym.  We may or may not have them in multiple colors to coordinate with our gym outfits.

Crappy sneakers: These are the sneakers we use for yard work or volunteering down at the local middle school doing landscaping.  Often they are old pairs of athletic sneakers.

Dressy sneakers: Totally not appropriate for athletic activities, but for those times we want to look sneaker-casual without wearing actual sneakers.

Classic flats: We have to have flats for occasions where we date men who are too short for us to be able to wear our heels.  (Short men everywhere are grateful that we provide this service!)

Mary Janes:  They’re adorable with their little cross strap and buckle.  A must-have for the school-girl look.

Kitten heels: These are those shoes with tiny heels.  Sometimes in style, sometimes not.  Need to keep them around to be ready for when they are in fashion.

Peep-toe heels:  Peep toe heels are great for Spring, when it’s not quite warm enough for open-toe shoes or dress sandals, but you still want to show off one toenail worth of polish.

Pointy-toed shoes:  Again, sometimes in style, sometimes not.  Gotta be prepared!

Square-toed shoes:  Ditto.  Did I mention that 75% of the shoes we own aren’t worn on a regular basis?

Short Boots:  Best in colors like black or brown, short boots are all the awesome of a boot without the full-calf commitment.

Tall Boots:  Tall can mean anywhere from knee to thigh.  Stripper boots, anyone?

Big goofy slippers: For those times we’re hanging around the house and want giant fluffy bunnies on our feet to cheer us up.

Bridesmaid shoes:  Every girl who has been a bridesmaid has at least one pair of ugly dyed shoes that she had to buy for the wedding and will never wear again.  You guys have it lucky – you can RENT your wedding outfits.

Now, if you take into consideration that most of the shoes listed above need to be had in several different colors.  After all, you can’t wear black shoes with a brown outfit or brown shoes with a black outfit.  White shoes are only appropriate at certain times of the year.  It’s a really messy system, if you take all of these factors into account.  It’s no wonder that some women own ten times as many shoes as their man!

Bottom line, guys.  If you find a woman who has less than twice the amount of shoes that you do, marry that girl.  You’ve found yourself one of the few sensible women (like me!) who have avoided the monster of shoe obsession.

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It started when you acquired copies of Playboy or Penthouse from your father, or your friend’s father.  You snuck them into your treehouse and you drooled all over the pages.

Then came the internet.  Oh, the glorious, glorious internet.  There were naked women everywhere, doing everything you could ever imagine them doing (and some things you wish you could forget having seen them do).

But the bottom line is this: you’ve been at the porn game for a while.

We ladies on the other hand, haven’t really felt the need to delve into porn.  For one, we were raised to think that someday our prince would come.  He’d sweep us off our feet, there’d be this romantic kiss, and then we’d cut to a scene with all of our little royal children scurrying around our mansion happily.  We grow up fantasizing about the storybook romance.  You grow up fantasizing about getting your hands on giant breasts.

So it makes perfect sense that while you grew up with porn, starting with just sneaking glances at softcore mags and slowly ramping up to utter debauchery on the internet, we ladies are still in the baby stages of erotic entertainment.

In other words, we’re not ready for what you consider to be “good porn.”  We pretty much think that your “good porn” is utter filth.

There is no good reason for that girl to be naked while wearing 7 inch glittery stripper heels.  There’s no good reason for her to be blindfolded and leaning over a couch.  And there’s certainly no good reason for her to be crying out in rapturous joy while being taken by a man she’s never met before.  It just doesn’t make sense.

Secondly, there’s absolutely no connection between the people on the screen. (Beyond the obvious bumping of uglies, of course.)

They don’t know each other, they barely talk to one another, and when things are done, there’s no happily ever after.  (No sir, a facial is NOT a happily ever after.)

Want your girl to watch porn with you?

Then you have to put yourself in the wayback machine and dial your tastes back to the stuff you enjoyed in middle school.  You know, before you knew the really raunchy stuff existed. If she’s still balking at the idea of porn videos, why not start with reading some erotica to each other?  There are plenty of websites where you can find erotica and if you look for the ones labeled “Romantic” you’ll get the type of stories that have the plot and connection that she craves along with the naughty bits to rev your engines.

If you want your woman to enjoy the same kind of porn you enjoy, you’ll have to hold her hand and take her on the journey that you made all those years ago.  Develop her tastes in the way yours were developed – except this time, you’ll know which websites you should avoid at all costs.  Happy surfing!

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Ever wonder why you’re always in the friend zone and never get the booty you deserve?  You can find all the answers in The Ladder Theory (http://www.laddertheory.com/).  But since you’re a busy guy, let me summarize this excellent piece of sociological work for you.

UPDATE 12/18:

My girl Jenna Riley has been blogging about how her current guy WAS actual able to escape the friend zone.  Check it out for some advice & tips.

The first tenet of The Ladder Theory is that whenever you meet someone new, you size them up and place them on your ladder.   Men rate women based mostly on their physical appearance and women rate men mostly on their wealth and status.  Ouch, right?  But seriously, it all boils down to the shallow roots of attraction.

Men have one ladder for all women they meet.  At the top of the ladder are the women he would actively love to have sex with.  Below them are the women he wouldn’t mind having sex with, followed by the ones he would have sex with while drunk and admit it.  At the bottom of the ladder are the women he’d have sex with while drunk and try to cover it up after the fact.  The bottom line:  men are only friends with women they would like to have sex with at some point.

Ladies who are reading this may be thinking, “No way!  I have tons of guy friends who don’t want to have sex with me.”

The writers of The Ladder Theory have a test for you to try out.  Next time you’re alone with that guy “friend,” excuse yourself to the bathroom, strip naked, and come back out to face him.  Tell him you want to have sex with him and see if he dares refuse you.

Women, on the other hand, have two ladders.  You could be on the real ladder – the ladder that is very similar to the men’s ladder.  Or you could be on the dreaded Friends Ladder, the men who she likes and keeps around for various reasons but would never sleep with under any circumstances.

Here’s the catch, guys.  You never know what ladder you’re on until you make a move on the girl.  If you make a move and you’re on the real ladder, then awesome!  You win!  If you make a move and you’re on the friends ladder, you’ll be kicked into the Abyss and have to deal with all the awkward feelings you’ve created by overstepping the bounds you didn’t know existed.  You lose.

This is even worse when you rise to the rank of Cuddle Bitch.

A Cuddle Bitch is a guy who is at the very top of a girl’s Friends Ladder.  He’s her best friend and she tells him everything.  They snuggle on the couch while watching movies.  She kisses him on the cheek when they part ways.  All this while the poor guy assumes that he’s on the real ladder and is mentally freaking out about when a good time to make a move would be.  (Sadly, never.  You are either Cuddle Bitch or you are kicked into the Abyss of awkwardness.)

So what can you do to avoid being on the Friends Ladder and get on the coveted Real Ladder?

My advice is to test the Ladder Theory immediately with new female friends.  Rather than waiting and building false intimacy by climbing the Friends Ladder, let your feelings be known.  Make a first move and if you get kicked, you get kicked.  Move on to the next girl and know that you’ve saved yourself  a lot of time and heartache. Check out The Ladder Theory at: http://www.laddertheory.com/

Your video game habit may be destroying your relationship bit by bit without you even realizing it.  (On the other hand, if you WANT to destroy your relationship, then keep on gaming hardcore until she leaves you!)

We’d rather you pay attention to us

Women are a bit like cats.  If you’ve ever been around a cat, you know that cats like to conveniently position themselves right in your line of sight.  They want to be sure you notice them, that you pet them.  If that involves sitting on your laptop, so be it.

Sometimes, we want attention.  We walk into the living room and see you, controller in hand, unblinking eyes riveted at the screen.  You’re fully absorbed.  We’re totally alone.

You’ve neglected some important things

Let’s face it, when you’re deep into a game and determined to win, there are some things that get neglected.  For example, you eat in front of the television and because you’re not paying attention, a good 20% of the food destined for your mouth ends up mashed into the sofa cushions or the carpet.  (No, the dog is not a viable vacuum cleaner.)

It’s all you talk about

We’d love to talk with you, but all you want to discuss is how kickass your last raid was and how you totally scored that broadsword you’ve been eyeing for months.  Um, yeah.  Unless we play the same game as you, we’re not going to feel connected to you hearing about all this game stuff.

We go to bed lonely and horny

As a former gamer widow myself, I can tell you that there were nights I TRIED to get my boyfriend pried away from his computer.  I’d walk into the room buck naked and attempt to convince him to at least have some fun with me for a half hour before I had to go to sleep.  But no, his MMORPG was more important.  His guild needed him.  He was the main tank, or whatever.   Meanwhile, I was going to bed alone and feeling bitter that I had to go to sleep horny.  When he came to bed at 3 am and tried to wake me for sex, I’d elbow him in the gut and go back to sleep.  Needless to say, we broke up several months later.

Your gaming could be destroying your relationship.  The only way to really know for sure is to ask your girlfriend how she feels about it.  Set date nights when you spend time together and fill up her tank with all the love she needs to get through a couple nights when you’re stabbing monsters or blowing up evil robots.   She’ll thank you for it.

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But hold up a second there cowboy. If you really want the inside story on this whole dating thing, you should be aware that the whole going-out-to-dinner thing is WAY overrated. Going out for some nice food and conversation is a fun thing to do with someone who’s already your girlfriend – i.e. when you’re already comfortable with each other. With a stranger, especially a hot one, it can be an excruciating experience. So in a way, ‘what not to do’ on a first date is to make it a ‘date’ at all!

• “Hey, I thought I’d do a little rollerblading tomorrow and then grab a burger – I know a great place. Care to tag along?” – YES
• “I’m going to check out a band tonight with a few friends. It’s going to be cool. You want in?” – YES
• “I would like to ask you out on a date that will involve two hours of trying to make conversation.” - NO

Either of the first two options above is great, because they throw off an image of you as a fun person who does fun stuff, which is very attractive. They also both involve an activity, so they avoid the whole having-to-keep-the-conversation-going thing that you get with a dinner date. And finally, saying “care to tag along?” or something similarly casual takes the pressure of the whole thing, so she’s more likely to agree to it in the first place.

If, however, you have committed to the traditional dinner date, despite all the best advice to the contrary: well, don’t say you weren’t warned!

Here are some things you need to avoid

#1: Allowing the conversation to flag

It’s pretty rare for two strangers to be able to converse for a solid hour over dinner without there being some awkward silences, which are death to ‘chemistry’. Perversely, it can be even harder to keep a conversation flowing when you really like someone. So what do you do about this?

Prepare! Read a newspaper; get acquainted with some current hot topics of conversation. Also, think about a couple of the coolest things you’ve done in your life, and work out how you could tell a great, funny story about them (a little embellishment is ok – never let the truth get in the way of a good story!).

#2: Challenging her beliefs

Now is not the time for a conversation about religion, politics, or which was the best movie out of the original Star Wars trilogy (actually you might get away with that one – everyone knows it’s The Empire Strikes Back). Keep it light, keep it funny, and keep it moving. There’ll be plenty of time for convincing her that Scientology is a cult when you’re going steady.

#3: Being too nice

You need to tease her a little. If you didn’t already know, this is basically what flirting is – gentle ribbing, done with a smile. It works because what it communicates is “I’m not so in awe of you that I can’t poke fun at you.” It also spices up the conversation and makes it a lot more interesting than just talking about your hobbies, your cat, and your family for hours.

Keep these tips in mind and you will have a much better chance of having a successful first date!

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