The website is Startup Princess. My good friend (and boss, I guess)  Kelly runs the company, and for some reason she thinks about as highly of me as my mother does. It’s flattering… I just hope being featured on a Princess blog doesn’t ruin my game.

If you want to read the interview, click here.

On a completely different note, the dating advice article I wrote for the school paper on kissing this week is creating somewhat of a stir. Please read it. Pass it on… but only if you like it.

I’m currently in the middle of 2 or 3 different posts.  Until then, though, you are welcome to read the latest edition of my seemingly unending fountain of unsolicited dating advice. This one tackles the issue of how to be chivalrous.

Also, if you have 15 minutes, and sound, you need to watch this video. It blew my mind when I watched it. It was exactly what I needed to see, and was a total pick-me-up. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And… remember to validate.

Written by J. Davis.

Step 1) Be noticed. A guy won’t give you a second look if you don’t look like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  Men are like fish.  Two things grab their attention: food and pretty shiny things.

• Don’t eat.  Eating makes you fat and men get turned off when a woman is over 100 lbs.
• Wear lots of makeup.  Your natural beauty just doesn’t cut it.  Cover it up with enough blush, eye-liner, lipstick, and mascara that he won’t be able to recognize you after a dip in the pool.
• Speaking of pools.  Spend as much time there as possible in the smallest bikini you can find.  If you’ve got it flaunt it.  If you don’t, go to the pool until you develop a complex motivating enough for you to take step ‘bullet point 1’ seriously.  Also, the pool is the perfect place to meet good, wholesome guys who will respect you for you and not for your body.
• Tan Tan Tan…guys like girls who look like oompa-loompas.  The pool is not just a place to meet guys.  The sun and the tanning beds are your friends.  You should spend more time with them than be at places like school, church, or the library.  Besides, the guys at church are boring and the ones at the library are creepers.  Stay away!!!
• Appropriate apparel.  Don’t be a prude.  Girls who cover their bodies don’t get as much attention as girls who share their gift with others.  Besides, you don’t want to appear self-righteous.  Short skirts, tight and revealing shirts or anything that provokes a man’s desire to be WITH you or a woman’s desire to BE YOU is appropriate apparel.

Step 2) First impressions are VITAL.  Men, like fish, are easily spooked.

• Act brainless.  Men get discouraged when a woman has a brain that she uses intelligently.  Don’t push him away with your talk of the economy, religion, philosophy or your future ambitions.  Just smile a lot, giggle, and flirt uncontrollably.  If this bait doesn’t work, use the following backup plans:
• Damsel in distress.  Men like to be the heroes.  Appear weak and frail.  Create opportunities for men to come to your rescue.
• Be original.  Say things like, “I’m not like other girls.  My only friends are guys.”  Those are the words men love hearing.  They usually imply you are a very loveable person.
• Appear innocent.  No guy wants to date the girl with a past.  Configure your body like it’s a show but be angry at guys who gawk or whistle at your performance.  After all, the low-cut tank top was on sale, your mother bought it for you and it’s the only thing that fits.  You shouldn’t be judged for that.
• Shun commitment.  Phrases like, “I’m not looking for anything serious right now”, or “I just got out of a serious relationship and I’m not looking to settle down quite yet”, are the words men are hoping to hear from a woman.

Step 3) The together part.  You’ve caught him.  Now what?

• Be passive.  Wait for him to do everything.  Men don’t like proactive women.  Sit around your apartment or at the pool.  Read your magazines and fantasy vampire novels.  Watch reality television.  Spend at least five hours on facebook daily.  Men love to know where their women are at all times and they love knowing that their women are learning the newest and most effective weight loss strategies.
• Act out.  When things don’t go your way, cry.  It worked when you were little and it will certainly work now.
• Be emotional.  Nothing says living life to the fullest like getting a haircut, crying because it’s too short, taking it out on your boyfriend and blaming it on your period.  You two will savor the good moments more and you will come out stronger because of this.
• Create drama.  Keep it spicy and make him appreciate you.  Text other guys in front of him.  Hang out with x-boyfriends.  If he can’t trust you to be around other men then he’s not worth keeping around.
• Don’t communicate.  Talking is for couples who aren’t good at kissing.  Besides, if there’s an issue that needs to be resolved just wait till it’s forgotten.  It’s so much easier to ignore an issue like him watching the game too loud, not cleaning his dirty dishes, or having him explain the lipstick stain on his shirt.
• Manipulation.  It’s another gift women are naturally endowed with.  Don’t bury it.  Use it to your advantage.  Test his love by asking him if you look fat in a smaller sized outfit.  If he says yes, dump him.  If he says no, call him a liar and then dump him.

Step 4) The break up.  You’ve caught your fish.  The game is over.  Throw him back.

• Pre-emptive break up.  If you hear a rumor that he’s going to break up with you or you suspect he will soon, beat him to it.  You don’t want to be that person who when asked who broke up with who, you respond that it was “mutual.”  Everyone knows that the person who says it was mutual is the one who got dumped.  People don’t respect the loser in the relationship.  Be a winner, always.
• “Friends” During your break up, dull the pain by claiming you still want to be friends.  Whether your intentions are sincere matters little.  You’ll both cling on to hope, go through the standard six or seven break ups till finally you can’t stand to be around each other anymore.
• Don’t burn your bridges.  You may get lonely or want a shoulder to cry on later down the road.  Or you may want to use him to make a future boyfriend jealous.
• There are plenty of fish in the sea.  Don’t waste your time on this one.  There are always going to be bigger, prettier fish downstream that are wealthier, drive nicer cars and treat their mothers’ right.

Step 5) Repeat step one.

Blind Dates are Awkward

Often times when coming out of a relationship it’s can be a little difficult to get your awesome dating skills back up to snuff.  It is not uncommon for friends, family, religious leaders, roommates and many times complete strangers to pick up on your hopelessness and offer to set you up on a blind date with “the nicest girl” with the promise that  “you’re going to get along and have so much fun together” because “she’s so sweet and nice!”

BEWARE! Unless you would trust the person setting you up with the safety of your unborn children, or they have several full body photos for you to evaluate, you could be stepping into a very dangerous, very expensive trap. (Right now, 80% of the girls who are reading this are huffing and puffing and thinking I’m the most shallow man to walk the face of the earth. I don’t care. This needs to be said on behalf of single men everywhere.)

Ladies, let’s be honest. You can’t deny that the words “sweet” and “nice” are the words you use to describe your closest of friends* who never, ever seem to get asked out by anyone but the creepy guys… ever.  We know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to smuggle a pity date for your friend right past our instinctive Bad Date Warning System and into our day planner.  And don’t try to cover up that fact by telling us, “She’s really, um… cute,” when we ask if she’s attractive.  We see right through your facade.

As my good friend Missie said, “When friends set you up on blind dates, you get to see what they really think of you.” Now, before you start hating on me for being a shallow chauvinist who only dates girls for their looks, and hates your friends, stop. Rewind. Now rethink things a little bit.  Why do you really want to set me up with your friend? Is it because you think we’re a good match? Is it because you think we might really be attracted to each other? Or is it just to make your friend feel better by going out with a “nice guy” (which is probably how you described me to her when you came up with this brilliant little blind date idea)?

There is one simple test that I have proven to be effective when attempting to determine whether or not a setup is legitimate.  If the person lining you up is willing to pay for the date on the condition that if the date is successful (you want to take her out again), you will reimburse them, go for it.  This demonstrates sincerity and confidence in the liner-upper, and significantly low risk for those being set up. And that’s a win-win situation if you ask me. If I turn you down after you reject the above proposition for a blind date, don’t be mad. I’m not personally attacking your friend… I promise. I’m merely protecting my own self-interests.

* I wanted to put a disclaimer at the end of this post to make sure that you know that not all blind dates are bad, and not all nice girls are ugly.  I’ve had fun blind dates, and I’ve had not-so-fun blind dates with girls that were perfectly normal… they just lacked  chemistry. So, please don’t take offense and assume that every blind date is a pity date. I know they’re not. (But sometimes they are… and when they are, that’s bad.)

A week or so ago, some girl requested my Facebook friendship (as the girls are wont to do).  I accepted her humble request, because I never turn down a new member of the Big Bags Entourage.  I did, however, leave her a nice note informing her that I didn’t think that I had met her previously.  I continued, letting her know that until she could prove that we had in fact met, that I would not speak with her for my mother taught me not to talk to strangers.

Not two days later, the socially backward psychopath on the other end of the intertubes struck up a conversation with me. (I refuse to refer to this person as a ‘she’ because I would really prefer that it were some sort of sick dude than a sick chica.)  Said humanoid began the conversation saying that she only added me, “because I thought you were hott.”

Red flag.

Anyone who spells ‘hot’ with two ‘T’s’ is not for me. Period. End of story.

Even though ‘she’ was stupid, I was flattered.  I mean, come on, even if it was a dude, at least I could assume they thought I was sexy. And who doesn’t like to be sexy?

As we continued our conversation, I began to grow uneasy.  This ‘girl’ was most definitely not wasting any time on frivolities.  ‘She’ wanted to get right down to business… and before I knew it, I felt dirty.

I was obliged to immediately delete ‘her’ from my entourage, and begin warning my friends.  One friend of mine, a girl, said something that amused me after my relating of the above story.  She said, “Oh. I thought that stuff could only happen to a girl.”

Well, surprize! I guess the joke is on me.  They say it takes a real man to admit he’s been sexually harassed… and that real man is me. And I’m fairly certain I’m the alone in my awkwardness at this point.

On a brighter note, here’s a song that’s semi-about this experience… written by my good friend Chad. Ok, maybe it’s not about this experience, but it’s about girls on Facebook, and that’s almost the same.  Kind of like mad cows (disgruntled bovine) and mad cow disease (the fatal illness) are the same. Enjoy.

Ok, I changed my mind. It’s not the being single that is so terrible, it’s more the relentless, incessant barrage of dating train wrecks. I know it sounds weird coming from a dude, but bare with me.

Yesterday I was talking to a female friend of mine. She was telling me about how she had recently worked up the guts to ask out a dude, and how disappointed she was because she felt like the date wasn’t going to lead to anything.

“It was hard!” she said, “I had to get up the guts to ask him out, then I had to ask him out, then I had to actually plan something fun, and decide on what to eat and then make it all happen. The guys have it tougher than we think.”

I just laughed and rolled my eyes. Dang straight we have it tough, sista’.

Now, imagine doing all of that once a week. *Sigh Of Frustration/Embarassment* Not only do we have to continually be courageous and perseverant, spontaneous and rich, but we have to put up with girls like this. (You HAVE to click on that link and keep your speakers on. Not only is it one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever had the privilege of partaking of on the intertubes, but it’s a very accurate representation of a very large percentage of crazed females that I have had the pleasure of taking out.) It makes me want to jab a rusty spoon into my eye socket and rinse it out with lemon juice.

Tonight I watched a move called Bride Wars about two best friends who are basically forced into unwillingly sharing their perfect wedding day. The movie revolves around the attempted sabotage of each others wedding to avoid sharing the special day with one another. What ensues is the destruction of their friendship by constant and repetitive stabs in the back and low blows that make the Batman/Joker relationship look like a picnic in the park.

Of course, you know that the friendship will be salvaged in the end, but… BUT (big emphasis on the ‘but’) not before one of the girls breaks up with her fiance only moments before the wedding. And it’s not even the mean girl that kills it. It’s the one who starts out all nice an likable, but gets transformed into some crazed, vengeful beast due to the stresses of the wedding plotting (not planning… plotting) against her ex-bestie.

By the end of the movie, both girls are blissfully happy and in love, but nobody stops to think of that guy who had his future and self esteem completely demolished on the day of his wedding. Nobody ever says, “Hey, I wonder what happened to ole’ whats-his-face… think he ever got married?” Nope. He’s just supposed to play like it’s no big deal. Pick up where he left off and do it with a smile.

Our society is so messed up.

(Also, I’m not bitter. This was all purely an observation… and I’m a little bitter.)

This is the finger mustache.  Classy.

Also, it really has been a while since I posted anything of significance on this blog.  I’m not feeling incredibly jovial today, as I said goodbye to my little brother for two years.  He will be moving to Tampa, Florida to be a missionary for our church.

I’m excited and nervous for him at the same time.  I’ve been in a similar position, as I served a two year mission nearly 4 years ago in Santiago, Chile.  Saying goodbye is never easy, but I know that where he’s going he will learn to be a man and change people’s lives.

OK! Now that I’m done with that, I can stop being a downer, I can move on and share a story that I meant to write about weeks ago.

I hate being scared.  Really. I absolutely despise it.  I have a very vivid imagination which tends to get me into trouble in the scary type situations.  The body thrashes, and the voice squeals and people either get freaked out, annoyed or hit in the face. This is one of the main reasons I don’t like to walk alone at night or go camping… I invent monsters and crazy rapists who want to attack me in the night at the turn of every corner.

Naturally, with my fear of fear (is there even such a thing?) I’m not a huge fan of the frivolities that come along with Halloween.  I don’t mind dressing up, or eating candy.  Bobbing for apples is fine by me.  But, horror movies? I think I’ll pass.  And haunted houses?  I’d rather have a colonoscopy.  I hate being scared so much, in fact, that I’ve managed to avoid these things for my entire life.  I’m 24-years-old and have never seen a horror movie (besides Snow White… that Wicked Witch is scary) or been through a haunted house-that is, until a few weeks ago.

I consider myself to be a fairly stubborn and headstrong fellow, but I’m consistently amazed at how little effort it requires for a beautiful girl to convince me to do… well…. anything.  The last week of October was just such a circumstance.  My roommate and I were spending the evening with two wonderful young ladies when someone had the bright idea of going to the local ‘Scream Asylum.’

Naturally, I resisted the idea.  They persisted, and it took all of 2 minutes to convince me to grow a backbone and just do it.

One hour later, I had on a pair of wet pants, a hoarse voice and 3 friends with sore stomachs from laughing at my uncharacteristically foul language screamed at an incomprehensible high pitch.  As Jeff would say, I scream like a sissy-face-la-la-pants-bed-wetter.

There was one particular portion of this terrible, terrible place that really sent me over the top.  After passing by a semi-retarded clown in a wheelchair and a cheesy zombie with a chainsaw, we entered into a room filled with dismembered body parts hanging from the ceiling.  As we waded through the sea of limbs and torsos, squinting through the strobe light, my roommate stopped.

“Dude! Go!” I yelled with anxiety in my voice.  It was far too quiet, and eerie swinging limbs were everywhere.

“Just a sec,” he said without moving a muscle.

And that’s when I heard it.  It was quiet at first… until it got closer.

“Sooooo quiet.  Soooooooooo quiet,” rasped the voice.

I turned and saw a decapitated, bloodied corpse stammering towards me.  This is what I did (you really need to click that link to fully understand the situation), followed by a few expletives and a dead arm to my roommate.

I hated that haunted house.  But you know what? I’d do it all over again if she asked me to.  Man, I’m a sucker.

Normally the conversation starts off with a line like, “ARGH! Why are guys so dumb/such jerks/so confusing?”  Other times, we just skip right to the tears.  One way or another, though, the tears will come come… it’s just a matter of time.

Mr. Nice Guy is then permitted to put his arm around Ms. ‘Just Friends’, as he comforts her while carefully reinstating her self worth and confidence.  Most times he reassures her of how great and beautiful she is, and how most guys don’t deserve a girl like her.  He encourages her to go for someone who would treat her right (like, you know, someone who would put his arm around her when she’s not doing well to dry her tears, carefully reinstating her self worth and confidence…) like she deserves.

Ninety percent of the time, she leaves with a smile, dry eyes and is back with her craptastic ex-boyfriend within days… and she’s “happy as ever,” thus leaving Mr. Nice Guy with soggy shoulders and empty arms… and that’s where the name comes from, in case you hadn’t figured it out yet.

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

This hasn’t happened to me recently, but I am a firm believer that it’s very common for women to talk about what they ‘want’ in a man while simultaneously not giving that type a man a snowball’s chance in hell at dating them.

Guys get a lot of flack for being shallow and superficial when many girls are just as shallow and superficial… or even more so. It’s sad… and quite ironic. What ever happened to the real love where people recognized the good in each other and try to foster qualities that endure the test of time?

I think this quote sums it up pretty well: “All she wants is your money, and all you want is her body. What has love become?”

-Bags, sympathiser of the ‘old school’ love.

I got shot down for a blind date last night by a girl with whom I only spoke with for no more than one minute. Her roommate and my roommate are friends, and after our meeting suggested to the both of us that we go on a date.

Personally, I was all for it. She seemed nice. She also laughed, which means she had a personality and was not likely to be one of those bitter, man-hater BYU girls who gripe about every man under the sun who doesn’t give them a second glance (which is probably also every man under the sun) to their beastly, mannish, man-hating roommates… and she was cute.

However, I apparently did not live up to her standards. When asked if she’d be interested in a date – and mind you, this is one date – she told her roommate, “He seems like a guy that would be fun to hang out with, but I don’t think I could ever date someone like that.”

Classy.

I didn’t realize people that weren’t named God could cast judgment so quickly.

I wonder if it was the facial hair… Man, I should totally try out for the Rejection Olympics.