Broken Wisdom It may not be perfect, but It's better than your advice

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: The Fair Trade Act

Unfair trade leads to no deal at all

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

There is one major area of relationships that I have not yet talked about in these posts.  Sex.  In many relationships sex is the driving force that keeps everything together.  We all know that sex is extremely powerful.  Great sex can make a great relationship even stronger, but it can also prolong the existence of bad relationships.  We will focus on why great sex can be a bad thing for bad relationships another time, but for now we are going to focus on one of the steps necessary to accomplish great sex.  I refer to it as The Fair Trade Act.

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: The Oatmeal Principle

It doesn't get any better than this...or does it?

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

I'm going to jump right into a story with this one.

Imagine you are a kid again, growing up in a carefree atmosphere where everything is still provided for you. Every Sunday morning you wake up to your mom making you a nice hot bowl of oatmeal. She adds a little brown sugar and a little maple syrup to make it taste just right. You love Sunday mornings because you absolutely love this oatmeal. You can't imagine anything that could possibly be better than that incredibly amazing bowl of deliciousness that awaits you. For three years you are convinced that the best thing in the world is that bowl of oatmeal and you can't possibly imagine anything that could be any better.

One day your mom decides to switch things up a bit. She recently bought those packets of oatmeal with the little pieces of fruit mixed in. At first you refuse to acknowledge its existence, but since she is your mother and you can't waste food you finally give in and try it.

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: The Principle of Least Importance

A common side effect of the Unimportant

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

If you have ever gotten into a fight with your significant other you will probably understand why this is so important.  This idea is pretty simple, but absolutely critical to understand if you want to have a happy and healthy relationship.
The least important things are actually the most important things, precisely because they seem so unimportant. This is most easily observed in the information a couple shares with each other. I'm going to get into an example right away with this one and then go into more depth afterward.

A friend recently came to me with this predicament.

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: The Interview

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

The Interview is a rather simple concept that describes one of the first encounters you may have with a possible partner. This is also sometimes called The Retro-Active First Date for reasons that will become apparent shortly.

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: Equality

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

Without Equality in a relationship you have got nothing and the relationship is doomed to fail.

There are many ways to disrupt this equality, yet there is no way to fix it once it has been destroyed. If you and your partner are not capable of making sacrifices for each other then you should just end it now, because you are doomed to fail anyway. If one of you tries to test the other in some way to see how and when they will react or one of you is keeping secrets because the other one "doesn't need to know" then you should just end it now because you have shifted the balance of power in the relationship and it has once again become doomed to fail.

I can go on and on with examples of how you can tip the scales and ruin your relationship, but you should really be focusing on the fact that once it happens you should just end the relationship, because it is DOOMED TO FAIL! Equality is one of the most important aspects of a relationship, without it you have nothing.

Thoughts?  Opinions?  Leave a comment below!

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating Advice: The Insider Perspective

They can't see the whole picture when looking from the inside either

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

The Insider Perspective is pretty easy to understand, and is mostly useful for keeping yourself from looking like an idiot. Here is an example:

A guy and a girl study together every week for their chemistry class. They have pretty pleasant conversation while studying and tend to throw a few jokes back and forth. The guy begins to think that his study buddy might want to be something more than just buddies, so he asks her out to dinner. She says "no" and explains how she only thinks of him as a friend. The guy is pretty embarrassed now to the point where they don't study together anymore and things have been awkward between them ever since.

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: Where your advice comes from

Be careful where your advice comes from

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

Parents always tell their children not to "take candy from strangers." Everyone knows the reasoning behind this, you never know who this person could be and they may have malicious intentions. If we knew who everyone was and what they wanted parents could say "Don't take candy from drug dealers and child molesters", but in the case of the children we don't have that luxury. Fortunately for the adults, we do. But instead of candy, we have to worry about where our advice comes from.

Ladies, have you ever heard a group of guys giving each other advice about what to do when it comes to a girl that one of them likes? Do you remember how stupid you thought they sounded and how they obviously had no idea how women work? Of course you have, and if those guys were lucky you stepped in and gave them a more accurate perspective. This is a rather coded example of where to not get your advice.

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: Retention Vs. Acquisition

Is this and example Acquisition or Retention?

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

The theory of Retention Vs. Acquisition can be best explained through a quick story. I'll describe two different guys, you decide which one you feel is more "valuable" than the other and then I'll tell you which one I believe is more "valuable" and why.

Guy1 is pretty outgoing and loves to party. It seems like every time you go out to a party with him he picks up a new girl and you have no idea how he does it. The next day she is gone and you never see her again. This goes on for the entire year and Guy1 is pretty happy with himself.

You’re Doing it Wrong, Dating advice: The Superman and Louis Lane Principle

This is part of my push to educate people in the ways of intelligent dating and is an aspect of the system of advice I affectionately refer to as "Get Picky."

Louis Lane is in love with Superman and sees him as the perfect yet unattainable man. He has super strength, is super fast, has fantastic hair and never lies. Other than a steady income, what more could you ask for right? Well Louis is so focused on the unattainable man that she doesn't see that Clark Kent is also the perfect man. Since we all know that they are the same person we know that he too has the strength, speed, and strong moral values of Superman, he even has that steady income we mentioned earlier. Clark doesn't stand a chance against someone as flashy as Superman (maybe that is that why so many Affliction shirts are shiny?) and is thus all but ignored by Louis.

Real life reflects this remarkably often. The perfect man or woman could be standing right in front of you, but you never notice them because someone flashier is always there to distract you from what you really want.

How many "Clark Kent"s have you missed out on because you saw Superman flying by?

Thoughts?  Opinions?  Leave a comment below!