the 'nice guy' and the 'not-the-right-guy-for-me guy' compared

This theory of mine came to fruition this summer out of my struggle with these two types of guys. Guys don't nicely fit into one category or the other, so bear with me. I'm also not suggesting all guys are summed up by these two groupings. I just chose to compare one to the other.

First, the nice guy... He establishes a friendship first. He's respectful of women. He doesn't idealize you, he doesn't value your physical attributes over your intellectual assets. He'll never ogle you.

Second, the not-the-right-guy-for-me guy. He's not necessarily a bad guy, he's just not the right one, for whatever reason. He is very clear in his motives; friendship is not what he's after. He will idealize your physical attributes till the sun goes down, and he's not shy about vocalizing that. Respect may be present with this guy, but it's not at all the same kind of respect the nice guy has. The NTRGFM guy, if he has respect, it's more of an idealized thing - he has you on a pedestal. This guy will not try to get to know you in order to figure out who you are as a whole. He wants to keep you at a distance so whatever it is that makes you so ideal STAYS ideal.

So here's the dilemma: assuming that you have finally, after years of anguish, finally gotten to the point of considering the nice guy as a potential significant other...assuming this, the nice guy will not pursue! The nice guy, and for reasons I have not yet figured out, will not ask you out. If he does, he's all timid about it, and by the look on his face, he's non-verbally telling you he believes you'll say no, so go right ahead and dash his hopes. That, or he asks and then downplays the date. (I once had a 'date' with a nice guy - afternoon coffee - and he brought a friend. I felt so defeated that there had to be a chaperone involved!)

The NTRGFM guy, on the other hand, ogles and ogles. He may not be outright asking for a date, but everything about his interactions with you are obvious that he's pursuing. He's relentless. He's persistent. He doesn't give up no matter how many times you blow him off.

The thing that stinks is, you KNOW the latter is not right for you. You KNOW it, and you blow the guy off, but by being persistent, he gets stuck in your head. After a while, you start doubting yourself. Maybe you were being too harsh in your judgement of him. Maybe, since this is really the only guy pursuing you, this is what you should take. And you may be lonely. So all of a sudden, even though you know this is not the right guy, in your weakness, you've been worn down. He makes you feel beautiful. The nice guy, after lots of time (you definitely have to be dating the nice guy for a WHILE first), makes you feel cute. But cute is just so.....girl, not woman.

Why can't the nice guy be more persistent? Why can't he pursue more confidently? What is holding him back from making the first move?

It's so frustrating really, to be in the position of wanting the nice guy, but not ever getting him because the nice guy doesn't want to ruin the friendship, or risk rejection, or whatever it is. To top it off, I'm not a pursuer. I've never asked a guy out, and never plan to. Initiative from the guy is important to me. Even if I were a pursuer, nice guys get a little freaked out by that. So there's no winning anyway you go about it.

What's the solution to this mess?

Am I the only one freaking out here??

What I want to know is how all my friends who've already turned the dreaded age of thirty did it so well. No one seemed to be afraid of it or even broke out into hives. I looked back in my journal the other day to an entry at the beginning of 2004, already dreading this birthday. I've been mourning my twenties for an entire year. Am I the only one that is freaked out about this?

What is there to celebrate? That I'm officially and unequivocally an adult, and perhaps the most boring of all the ages? People usually turn 'old' in their thirties. This is the decade when women stop caring about the way they look, and get stuck wearing floral jumpers and dresses that fit like sacks. They wear sweatshirts with kitties playing with balls of yarn, and their hair goes shapeless and gray.

I don't want this. I don't want to be vain either, but small floral patterns and kitties -- ick. Maybe I'll be lucky and I WILL get eaten by a shark in a couple weeks!!

I just wish I could skip directly to my forties. Women in their forties seem to have a lot more wisdom, and be much more sure of themselves. Forget 'thirty and flirty and thriving'. I'll gladly leave this decade for someone else to contend with.

I made another blog...

Ok, so in the high school realm, they call these 'live journals' rather than blogs. They are the most technologically advanced generation, so why can't they use the most techie terminology? I'm working on them...

http://www.livejournal.com/users/chicossonolor/1919.html

my fifth grade teacher may have been right

Well after dark one night when I was in the fifth grade, on the bus ride back from a skating party, two friends and I were sitting together talking. What we were talking about I don't remember. But what I do remember was what my teacher, sitting in the seat in front of us, said to us. Everything about that moment made my little fifth grade self know that this sagely advice was something I should remember, and it was forever inked onto my brain.

She turned backwards in her seat, and looking deeply at us said that boys wouldn't be interested in us like they would other girls. She said that they didn't value intelligence as much as appearance. She wanted us to be prepared for the cold, cruel world of relating to men.

And so it was, I had to learn to relate to boys not based as much on who I was as what I looked like. Flirting was a must (what is flirting but acting all fake just to attract a guy?!). The only acceptable way brains could be conveyed to boys was through wit and sarcasm, the universal language.

I read the article "Men Just Want Mommy" in the New York Times today. The article reports a study that was recently done in England found that, "smart men with demanding jobs would rather have old-fashioned wives, like their mums, than equals. The study found that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to get married, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise."

So basically, if you're a smartie and a woman, your only hope for marriage is brain damage that lessens your intelligence, making you more desirable to men.

Look! Carrie Fisher, a timeless sex symbol for my male counterparts when she played Princess Leia in Star Wars, agrees! The irony, that SHE, of ALL of us, would have dating woes! Here's what Carrie says, quoted in the same article: "I gave up on dating powerful men because they wanted to date women in the service professions. So I decided to date guys in the service professions. But then I found out that kings want to be treated like kings, and consorts want to be treated like kings, too."

See, looking with realism at the facts is frustrating. And the more we show our frustration, the more we're labeled angry feminists or a dozen other such things. Why does it have to be this way?!!

Creativity in Survival

The first night of our ice-induced power outage I decided to stay home for the adventure of it. I had over thirty candles lit, and the oven provided a little heat while I roasted a turkey I'd been thawing. I used borrowed coolers to pack up the contents of my fridge, then the coolers lived in my car for the next few days. I was afraid someone in my neighborhood would steal them from my front porch, and also feared how using my porch as a makeshift fridge might shift my placement on the white trash continuum.

When I awoke the next morning, cold and migrainey, the adventure ceased to be fun. My cold bed wasn't terribly inviting, and the world outside of my bed was even more cruel. Getting ready for work by candlelight wasn't amusing either. That was it! I was abandoning ship and staying elsewhere until power was restored.

Lunch was great though that day at work. I just went out to my car, grabbed some turkey and a jar of fancy mustard, and voile! Instant meal!

It was fun to see how other people survived the blackout too. One of my friends used his camp stove to reheat some chili. He used a meat tenderizer to grind coffee beans then brewed it in a percolator on the camp stove.

Other people brought their essential little devices to work to charge, and took showers at church or friends' houses, and the fireplace became their oven/heat source/entertainment.

Craziness! Thank God for electricity!!

My First BlogPost!!

Ahh, I've entered the blogosphere! How exciting.

This morning, due to an unexpected power outage from an ice storm, I didn't wake up until 9am. Usually at work by this time, I grabbed my phone and called work to explain. You know when you just wake up, but you're not fully awake yet, and your conversational filters haven't kicked in? Yeah, I realized after hanging up with the receptionist that I should have waited a few minutes before dialing.

I got ready as fast as I could without power and drove as quickly as I could to work. When I got there, the receptionist told me that before I'd called, she thought I was already there since she'd seen my car outside. See, just yesterday a girl started working here who drives the same car as me. Yesterday I thought this would result in a bitter, all-out car turf war. Today....a George Costanza plan started forming. If they THINK I'm at work because they see my CAR outside, I can work it so I rarely come into the OFFICE!! This is GENIUS!

Ok, so I'm watching far too much Seinfeld these days. But there still may be something to this plan...