Personal/Dating: Stay strong in the face of…..Jeremy Renner?

Let’s talk about dating. Don’t ask me why that just sounded like we were going to talk about sex in a really awkward sixth grade sort of way. Is it just me or was that conversation totally redundant? I mean, really. It was just like an hour of awkwardness that was so so unnecessary.

My friend is on a break. She’s on a dating break, which can be good. She’s focusing on her career and aspirations and her family and her friends. By friends I mean me. I think this is an underrated idea, the idea of not dating. For myself, I know that sometimes in the past, you date someone just to be nice. It’s called the pity date. Or you date them because you think you can fix them or that they will get better with time. To all that I say: It won’t happen. If you aren’t panting and humping their leg like a dog in heat, I say don’t go there. Usually when I did something like pity dating, I regretted it almost immediately.

But, while I have no problem turning down dates (I may or not be called the date terminator by some of my friends), I don’t deny that it’s not always easy. As my friend has been telling me, sometimes the opposite sex manages to just be so damn tempting you literally have to close your eyes. I can sympathize with this. I mean Richard Armitage should be instant prof that this is so.

*closes eyes* Hide your amazing sideburns. I can’t take it.
As an aside, I will just take this moment to say that I liked Richard Armitage long before it was cool. Yes, think back to 2005 and North and South. I was a fan. When all you people see the Hobbit, you will understand.

So in honor of the things that men somehow manage to do right, despite their general ineptness at understanding the opposite, I will post five things that make men hard to resist.

1. Smiling

Okay, I apologize. I meant to find an attractive man smiling. I did not mean to find Italian actor Raoul Bova smiling WITHOUT a shirt while holding an adorable dog. IN the water.
Yes, I can give you a second to recover.

The little buggers do it at the most unexpected of times, don’t they? Just as you think they’re awful and don’t want to ever see them ever again, they smile. It doesn’t even have to be AT you. Just a smile and suddenly you give them a second look. To be fair, I assume this works both ways. Actually, I know it works both ways. But still.

2. Being unexpectedly kind

This technique has been used many times. Mostly when they think you’re about to break up with them. And it does usually add a couple weeks to a failing relationship. They’ll start doing kind things or just start opening their eyes and stop buying you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when they know you’re allergic to peanut butter.

It’s kind of a lazy idea, however, because what happened to just being nice all the time? Can’t men just plan on general upkeep of niceness. Or is that just too hard to manage?

3. Chivalry

Oh, you have such nice…….chain mail. Actually it’s kind of uncomfortable. Can I stop clinging to you now? Is that okay?

Feminists were, for some reason, sure that opening the car door was tantamount to degrading male chauvinist behavior of the worst order. Don’t ask me why. It’s totally swung the other way nowadays. If you wait for them to open a door, be it car, regular, or the hatch to your time travel machine, you’ll be waiting forever. Sometimes they’ll wonder what’s happened to you and look confused when you’re still outside. I’ve seen guys who don’t even do that hold the door over the shoulder until you can grab it thing.

If men realized how valuable this is, maybe there would be less war in the world. I don’t think it’s belittling and I’m pretty far to the feminist side. Me and Susan B. Anthony are thick as thieves.

4. Holding a sentient conversation.

We’re girls. We like to talk. We aren’t necessarily creatures of sight. We aren’t motivated totally by what we see, unlike most men. So, therefore the most obvious way to attract our attention would be to appeal to our feelings and our mind, right? This is obviously why we come across all those guys trying to have discussions about books and the meaning of lift. And not stupid inane conversations about video games we’ve never played in our life.

I can see that if you’re talking to someone who also likes video games. But,generally that’s not the case. We see your eyes glass over when we start talking about shoes but you don’t see us complaining about how much you play video games. We have a higher tolerance for talking about something that makes no sense to us, I guess. But, hey, it should work both ways.

If a man can talk real fancy, believe me, we’re halfway to the aisle. Or whatever other rectangular thing you’d like to steer us to.

5. Looking good in a certain light?

“Yeah, have a nice day……..woah! Wait. Stop. Back up. Freeze.”

The other day, I was driving across states and I stopped for lunch at some little cafe. I remember ordering a scone and a coffee and settling down for a little break with a good book. I remember sitting next to someone. He didn’t seem to be that remarkable. I read my book for about a half an hour. Just as he stood up to leave, I looked up and some really bad lighting made him look distinctly like Jeremy Renner. It didn’t last. He quickly turned back to normal but it was very unsettling. If they can look like Jeremy Renner, what can’t they do? It’s like unfair mind control.

As TotallyIrresistable mentioned when I mentioned when I brought up this conundrum, at least I didn’t run into a Johnny Depp look-alike, who then left with his Gisele Bundchen look-alike girlfriend like she did. Point taken, TotallyIrresistable, point taken.

Here’s looking at you.

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