Dear Susan,
I’m a 21 year-old college student, so I’m completely immersed in the hookup culture. Like many girls I know, I’ve been hurt by a number of jerks and players that I dated. A while back, I decided to stick to nice guys, but it’s very difficult to trust anyone. I can’t stand the idea [...]
Tags: anticipation, bad boys, breakup, college, commitment, communication, confidence, date, dating, drama, feelings, friend, friend zone, friendship, girl, girls, guy, having sex, heartbreak, honest, hookup, hookup culture, intimacy, jerks, love, mature, nice guys, player, players, power, relationship, respect, strategy, text, women
A few years ago I posed a hypothetical question to my niece, then about 15:
Q: There are two men who love you and want to marry you.
The first guy is a successful lawyer, drives a BMW, is handsome, kind, and worships the ground you walk on. But well, he is perhaps just a bit dull. [...]
Tags: attachment, blue eyes, bmw, compromise, date, dating, graduate student, guy, guys, head over heels, hypothetical question, ideal, intimacy, Intimacy lite, jared leto, longish hair, love, men, Mr. Right, musician, old ford, regret, rejection, relationship, relationships, respect, romantic, self-esteem, singer songwriter, strategies, success, two men, weak in the knees, wobbly wheel
“You’re hot then you’re cold
You’re yes then you’re no
You’re in and you’re out
You’re up and you’re down
Someone call the doctor
Got a case of love bipolar
Stuck on a rollercoaster
Can’t get off this ride”
Katy Perry, Hot N Cold
I want to write about integrity, but I don’t know what it is. Sure, I have a sense of what [...]
Tags: beer emotions, drama, drunk, emotions, ex, honest, honesty, integrity, jealousy, Katy Perry, love, making drama, men, mixed message, open, relationship, relationships, respect, sex, sober, strategies, stuff, TA, text, trust, wit
This is NOT a post about those three little words. This is a post about what women need to hear waaaayyy before that. This is a post for men, about women. If you’re one of my women readers, please use the comments below to add anything you’d like to say. And email this to any [...]
Tags: blow job, crush, emo, ex, freckles, girl, girls, guy, guys, hanging out, hos, IM, love, men, respect, romantic, romantic moments, sex, sigmund freud, smart, smile, TA, talk, text, three little words, tits and ass, weekend, wit, women
“I have no power. Why should she have the upper hand? Once in my life I would like the upper hand. I have no hand. No hand at all. She has the hand. I have no hand.”
George
“We all want the hand. Hand is tough to get.”
Jerry
Willard Waller was a sociologist who coined the phrase [...]
Tags: boyfriend, college, commitment, crush, date, dating, drama, dumped, ego, emo, ex, flirt, friend, friendship, girl, girlfriend, girls, guy, guys, hard to get, health, honest, hook up, hooking up, hookup, hookup culture, hot, IM, independent, jerks, kiss, lies, MBA, media, men, party, plan, power, random, relationship, relationships, respect, romantic, scene, sex, slow, smart, strategy, success, supply and demand, TA, touch, wasting time, wit, women
Posted by Susan Walsh on Jun 23, 2009 in
Hooking Up Realities,
Personal Development
“Instead of fulfilling the promise of infinite orgasmic bliss, sex in the America of the feminine mystique is becoming a strangely joyless national compulsion, if not a contemptuous mockery.”
Betty Friedan
US feminist (1921 – 2006)
Many young women feel guilty and unsuccessful when they are unable to embrace a steady diet of casual sex. Perceiving hooking up [...]
Tags: casual sex, college, free love, having sex, hooking up, hookup, hookup culture, love, marriage, media, nuts, orgasm, porn, power, relationship, relationships, respect, romantic, sex, sexual revolution, slut, support
I found this bit of humor at Buzzfeed, but I suspect know that many guys would call it 100% accurate. We call them jerks and douchebags, but we go for them anyway, don’t we? If we didn’t they’d be forced to stop acting so nasty to get laid. Do we force nice guys into last [...]
Tags: arrogance, bad boys, challenge, confidence, connection, date, dating, douche, douchebag, dumped, guys, humor, jerks, love, male, mystery, nice guys, plan, player, relationships, respect, self-esteem, Selfish Prick, strategy, success
Posted by Susan Walsh on Jun 9, 2009 in
Relationship Strategies
Jane Austen understood everything about the human heart. That’s an astonishing accomplishment for a woman who died a virgin at 41. Lauren Henderson, a novelist who attended Cambridge University in England and wrote her dissertation on the courtship rituals in Jane Austen, has gathered JA’s wisdom, and added some of her own, into Jane Austen’s [...]
Tags: advice, attraction, chase, dating, desperation, Elizabeth Bennett, Emma, flirt, friendship, guy, guys, heart, honest, humor, Jane Austen, love, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Right, open, Persuasion, player, Pride and Prejudice, relationship material, respect, self-esteem, Sense and Sensibility, sex, spontaneous, trust, virgin, wit
Posted by Susan Walsh on May 26, 2009 in
Relationship Strategies
“In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death.”
Sam Llewelyn
I spent my holiday weekend digging holes. I am a gardener, and every year on Memorial Day I plant, and weed, and water, and generally launch my garden for the summer. I confess I feel sheepish admitting this, because I fear you [...]
Tags: beauty, beautyrelationships, Boston, crush, drama, fall in love, garden, gardening, getting what you want, love, mature, plant, respect, success, survival, three strike rule, ultimatum, weeds