How to Make [Smart] Friends and Influence [Worthwhile] People

WHERE TO FIND THE TRUE LOVE.

Hello, everybody out there in Sexland! How was your weekend? Mine was phenomenal. No. Seriously. I am not even being a little bit hyperbolic. Transcendent. Maybe I’ll tell you all about it sometime. Or, maybe I won’t. More than likely, those of you who care enough to suss out what’s going on in my little life will be able to do so. Anywho…

                You may remember that on Friday, we talked about the pleasures and the pitfalls, the why’s and the how’s, the what’s and the who’s of Snarkiness. Now, on this slushy Monday in Maine, I present to you…the Wheres.

Here is the question again, edited slightly to keep the ol’ word count down:  

Any advice on where a smart, snarky single girl can meet a smart, snarky single guy… Smart, snarky girl's friends are mostly married/in relationships, done with the singles scene and therefore not available to serve as "pack-safety" on bar/club outings.

And here is the answerer’s answer:

As Phil Collins once said, whilst clumsily attempting to channel Diana Ross singing the words of Lamont Dozier- “You Can’t Hurry Love/ You’ll just have to wait.”

And this, dear friend, is the harsh truth. BUT…

While you are waiting in the waiting room of True Love that is life, there are many things out there in the world to keep you marginally amused like so many crusty back issues of Sports Illustrated. One of these things is…meeting people. Which was what you wanted to know about. Yikes.

Sooo. I guess the advice that I will advise you with here is: although your friends are generally married and in relationships they are still your best bet as an ersatz dating service.

Look at it this way: your friends are your friends for a reason. You trust them, and you enjoy their company. The people that they spend time with are likely to be the sort of people you, too would like to spend time with. And, yes. I am aware that many of these people you meet through your married/relationshipped friends will also be married and in relationships.

But, as you network outwards, making friends of friends into friends…you will know more people. And, eventually, you will find that perfect snarkster to snark about with.

If your married and partnered friends REALLY don’t go out, however, this can slow down the process of meeting people a little more than might be bearable. If this is the case, you will need to find the most suitable single friend you have, and turn them into your PARTNER IN CRIME. This person doesn’t need to be your soul mate, or even someone you have all that much in common with. All they need to be is single, and willing to go out with you. You should choose the gender/sexuality of this person carefully. I recommend choosing someone of the same sexual orientation, if for no other reason than the social science of the gay/lesbian bar is so different from that of the straight bar. Whether you choose a female or male depends on how tight a filter you want over who you meet. As a female, choosing a male partner will lessen the number of men who approach you. A female buddy will increase the number of men, but with the greater numbers will come a greater percentage of douchebags and pervs.

As for where to go, keep it simple: avoid meat markets, dance nights and places that have live music. Find places that are well populated but reasonably quiet- smart people like to talk to each other before they get naked together in the hot tub.

Yep. It’s all that simple. And that frustrating. Be discerning, but keep an open mind. And DON’T WORRY. You’ll figure it out, because you’re a smarty.

And how do I know you’re a smarty? Because you read this blog- Sex With Me is Rad: “The blog that truly, sincerely believes with its entire little binary heart that someday love will find you, etc. etc”  

ON SNARK

HELLO AND WELCOME TO YOU

On this Snowy Friday edition of (addition to?) SEX WITH ME IS RAD: “What’s a snarky single gal to do?

This one is another two-parter. This is because you, my dear readers, ask complex questions that deserve in depth answers. Like me, you are as repulsively intelligent as you are engagingly neurotic.  

The first part of the question reads like this:

Any advice on where a smart, snarky single girl can meet a smart, snarky single guy

OK. Let’s hold the phone here and address your first issue, which is the “snarkiness.”

To [somewhat clumsily] paraphrase the famous poet Steven Morrissey: “[Snarkiness] is nice/but [Snarkiness] can stop you/from doing all the [people] in life you’d like to.”

Before you, the sassy single gal, can even decide where to search for a sassy single guy, you need to take stock of just how snarky you are and how that sarcastic demeanor of yours comes across to others.

This is where things get tough, and this is a very real, often unaddressed reason that so many smartypantses have trouble in the realm of the romantic:

SNARKASM IS NOT AS SEXY AS YOU WOULD LIKE TO THINK IT IS. Now, I’m hardly advocating for you dumbing yourself down- in fact, some of us are honest to God incapable of such things. But, I guarantee you that, at best, the depth of your wit is going to be lost on a new acquaintance. At worst, what seems “snarky” to you, might just come across as “cutting” to another party. The best way to avoid this pitfall is to play it safe. Try to listen more than you talk. Believe me- smart people can smell intelligence. Start with the best approximation of small talk you can muster- and then work your way up to the jokes and the banter. Personally, I like to ask questions and give prompts that indicate I at least have a general idea what the fuck the other person is talking about. A good initial conversation can be as simple as the following:

            ME: So, what do you do for work?

            GIRL: Oh, um. Actually, I answer calls for the local suicide hotline…

ME: (affecting engagedness and degree of surprise) Ah, so, do you really talk people off of ledges? Like, literally?

Note how I am not necessarily being funny, or particularly sarcastic…I’m just trying to come off as canny and interested. Note also that I said I was “affecting” interest. That doesn’t mean I’m necessarily being insincere, I’m just stressing the importance of adopting the appropriate body language to accompany my words. One of the reasons intelligent people have trouble interacting with others stems from a general inability to express themselves physically. This is a problem I have been working on myself recently. If one appears to be stuck in one’s head, one tends to come across as cold, and being witty and even downright amusing can make one seem more intimidating.

So, there’s a little tangent/caveat for you- I’ll get to the meat of the question which is where and how to meet these elusive intelligent creatures who company we all covet so on Monday.

Until then: All the best from SEX WITH ME IS RAD: “The Blog that will never give you up, nor will it let you down (although it may answer your inquiries somewhat tangentially from time to time)”

BLUE MONDAY.

WORKING THE KINKS OUT...

HELLO AND WELCOME To the first of (hopefully) many “Blue” Monday installments of SEX WITH ME IS RAD- “the Love Blog That Loves You Back!”

That’s right, gangsters, I am about to embark on my first foray into the seamy underbelly of the human heart commonly known as the human crotch.

The question for this extra special Blue Monday edition reads as follows: How do I get a nice boy who just wants to hold hands and make love to tie me up and spank me?

DAMN! Good Question, Filthy Dude(tte)!

Ok. Well, you have a nice boy. Good for you. But he seems to be a bit ‘Nilla. This is less good for you- you have chosen the sex equivalent of the cookie equivalent of the Necco wafer. Some part of you may think:  why do they even make people this way anymore? But they do, and you like him for whatever reason. You probably even like him because of the outside potential that you can corrupt him and turn him into, at the very least, a Mint Milano.

(Cookie Metaphor. . .OVER).

The real problem here isn’t that you want to do anything outlandish. The problem is that you may have someone who is inherently incompatible with you, sexually speaking. When you take someone who is naturally submissive, and ask them to be dominant, there’s just no getting around the fact that you are, in fact, the dominant one in the relationship.

Which means that you need to ask yourself: why do I like being tied up and spanked so much? If it’s simply because you like the sensation of being tied up and spanked, your problem is easily solved- you simply train your nice boy to pretend to dominate you. You start out slow and work the bondage routine into the bonding.

In this scenario, You and Mr. Love-Makey are role playing in the most literal sense of the word. He is no more your dominator than he would be Minnie Mouse in a catholic school girl uniform if that’s what you guys were into.  

If what you really need from bondage play is the feeling of being dominated, you are in for a much trickier search for sexual gratification.  Simply finding some nice boy and telling him to tell you what to do to you isn’t gonna cut it- what you need to look for, dear asker of sex questions, is the mythical “gentleman on the streets/freak in the sheets.”  This is a boy who seems nice and submissive…until the bedroom door closes. These types exist, but they are very difficult to identify. This is because kinks are elusive qualities. They tend to dwell in the nether regions of the consciousness and often lie dormant and even undetected.  And people lie about them, both negatively and positively.  

And,  as much as I like to think I can read people like so many graphic novels, people’s true sexual proclivities  are, sadly,  a mystery until you actually, um… proclive with them. So what does that leave us with? Love. Yup. Once again, I find myself advocating for True Love, because if you find true love, the worst case scenario is you’re just that much less likely to care that nice boy’s mouth isn’t as commandingly filthy as you might like it to be. Best case scenario- you unleash his inner freak and he will soon master the fine art of telling you exactly how you want your ass to be smacked. Either way- training and perseverance are key. That, and taking all the other ass numbingly fantastic advice I have given you in the past. And…IN THE FUTURE!

Until then, I wish you the best of sexual luck from SEX WITH ME IS RAD- “The blog that says as much as it cares...which is more than you think!”

THE SCHEDULE

Hey all- 

So for the time being, SEX WITH ME IS RAD will be published twice weekly: Monday and Friday, with the occasional guest column on Wednesdays.

That is all. Keep the questions a comin'

A FEW WORDS ABOUT FIRST DATES

As promised, I will now be providing, for your very own edification, an answer to a question...because that's totally why I am here.

The question reads as follows: What are some good meeting-up places [for a first date]? 

Ah, yes, a first date question. Funny thing: I saw recently not one, but TWO standup routines that included bits about first dates, specifically coffee dates. One was by Chelsea Handler, and one was by some Other Dude.

I forget what Chelsea Handler had to say about the issue, which is too bad, because she is boning 50 Cent these days, so she must be doing something...right? Wrong? Who are we to judge? 

The Other Dude had a decent point. Basically, his bit had to do with the fact that coffee can have an adverse effect on one's...attractiveness. It makes your breath bad, it makes you jittery, and potentially gassy to boot. the easy remedy to this is to not drink it. Many COFFEE DRINKING ESTABLISHMENTS are in fact rather deceptively named in that they also serve non coffee beverages. They sometimes serve things that are not beverages at all- i.e pastries, bagels, napkins, etc. If worse comes to worst, one can always stack creamers on top of each other.   

All of this brings us to my point which is that the obvious answer is to GO TO A COFFEE DRINKING ESTABLISHMENT. The stand-ups were making fun of coffee dates for a reason, which is that coffee houses are tailor made for first dates.

This is for the following reasons:

1) They are public. This is common sense health and safety stuff, particularly in the age of the internet, where so many dates are essentially blind. Public places are simply way less rape-y than non public places. 

2) They are neutral. The quality of a relationship is predicated on a healthy balance of power, and although very few (if any) relationships can actually boast a perfect power equilibrium, on a first date it's definitely best to keep things on as even a keel as possible.

3) The exits are clearly marked. This is true, not only in a literal, physical sense, but in a temporal one. The amount of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee is both finite...and manipulable. So, date goes well, you nurse the coffee, maybe even order a second cup (provided you are willing to risk the aforementioned jitters etc.) and things can take longer. If things aren’t working out, you can always drink faster.

It’s also worth noting that all of the reasons stated above make Coffee places ideal for meetings with ex girlfriends and people you went to high school with.

A slightly more interesting alternative to the Coffee imbibement palace might be a Breakfast date. I am a proponent of breakfast dates for much the same reason I advocate for Coffee Emporiums- no pressure, low risk of being murdered. Everybody wins.

Honestly, unless you really have a bead on the person you are arranging the first date with, it’s best to avoid anything too self consciously romantic or precious. That kind of thing sort of works on TV, and it might even help you kindle a puppy love style romance with the person, but in the long run, I think it’s best to keep things basic.

BONUS QUESTION/PIECE OF ADVICE: It is acceptable to fuck on the first date if and only if your date ends before 1PM. The way I see it, if you can have sex with a relative stranger at 10 in the morning, you are either both so hopelessly attracted to each other or so irredeemably horny that you might as well go for it.

           

Sexual Advisement for Those Truly in Need- THIS MEANS YOU!!!

Hello, Everybody!

This is the first installment of my new Sexual Advisory Web Blog, entitled "Sex with Me is Rad!"

In this here blog, I will be fielding questions from curious parties that pertain to matters of sex, romance, and the human condition in general. Honestly, you're better off asking about the latter two topics, in which I am an expert- leave the medical stuff to that adorable Dr. Drew fellow.

So, let the questioning commence- you can ask questions of me either via this blog on the comments or via email at sexwithmeisrad@gmail.com