I liked that this one is neither pejorative and mocking, nor engaging in apology-gymnastics to excuse creeptastic behavior. If we could all be firm and frank without being mean, the world would be a better place.
Very good, very clear. I'd like to talk more about these things. I hope the 99.95% of hubski users that are male are on board with understanding gender issues that women might perceive. My general feeling is that many of the men on hubski are awesome. Unfortunately there is no opportunity to ask their wives. Unless their wives are on Hubski???? Quite a few of the men here have children from 0 to 10 years old and they are very involved in their upbringing and care. thenewgreen will turn off his computer in a heartbeat to go tobogganning with his daughter. They are probably "men who get it" (get it from a woman's point of view: a woman who is actively engaged in having a flourishing life). I was impressed by the criteria posted here: “Men who get it” share some of the following characteristics and actions: They are full life partners, playing an equal role in parenting and the home
They speak out against sexism
They are aware of gender stereotypes and are not constrained by them
They mentor and advocate for women
They promote women to join men in leadership positions because they know it makes good business sense
They intentionally create gender-balanced teams and workplaces for better performance
They find creative ways to keep and promote women who take career breaks
They are prepared to step off the career ladder and take the lead in parenting
They want to be included in the conversation about gender equity
They are cool, 21st century men who want women to be themselves and bring something additive and different to the table. Should I make this a separate post? What do you think?
So much has to do with familiarity. I was raised in a family of smart and capable women. My grandmother was the director for La Casa, a shelter for women that leave abusive situations and need a safe place in transition. From a young age I heard about how some men were horrible in the ways they treated their families and I knew I'd never be one of them. I also heard of the courageous women that fled these men in hopes of providing a better life for their children. I also happen to be very attracted to strong, intelligent and capable women. I found a great companion in my wife and lucky for me, strong intelligent and capable doesn't have to come at the expense of physical beauty.
My wife is a Doctor, a one time chief resident, a former hospice end of life caregiver, a former teacher at a juvenile detention center, a mentor, a mother (damn good one) and a huge fan of music. She's the person I first play any new song for and the first to hear my podcasts. She's also the most critical of my work and is open and honest in her reception of it. -This is invaluable. There's nobody's opinion I hold in higher regard. You ask if she's on Hubski. She hasn't been in a very long time but she lurks it :) Being a good and attentive father isn't something I do out of obligation, I do it because I enjoy it. It's the most fun thing I've ever done. Hearing your child tell you, in an unsolicited occurrence, that they "love you" is the most rewarding thing I've ever experienced. Sledding with my daughter, coloring with her, singing songs and playing "house" are things I feel fortunate to be able to do. Also, from a professional standpoint one of the most capable leaders I've had in my business life was a woman. I learned a lot from her and I have modeled much of my approach to my work after her example. She's just one of many capable leaders that I've had that happen to be female. Generally speaking, I can't imagine ever thinking that anyone is any less or more capable than I am based on gender. Just makes no sense to me. Now that I am the father of a daughter it REALLY makes no sense to me. aside: Had a NYE party and a friend that has a son was over. I told him that we were considering having another baby and he said "cool, maybe you could have a boy" and my response was "why?"
I have to disagree about this not being mocking, as I think it is just a tad. Although the author begins by distancing herself from the Nice Guys of OKC behavior, she does talk down to the reader, assuming the reader is a 'nice guy that just doesn't get it'. Personally, I think it's unfair to classify people in this way. There is truth to the cliché, but there is also a danger of belittling someone and assuming too much about their intentions. I have known people that knew each other for quite some time in a platonic relationship before they formed a romantic one. I'm sure that at one point before this change there were some unrequited emotions. People are complicated, and so are romantic feelings. There's nothing wrong for a man or a woman to be attracted to a friend. It happens all the time. Asymmetric attraction is a fact of life, and I would guess that most of the 'nice guys' do in fact get it. That said, I am not a woman, and I know that I cannot appreciate the other end of this equation. Of course, creepiness should not be tolerated, and respect is the basis of friendship. But, do these points need to be framed in this cliché? IMO it's not entirely constructive. I don't see many 'nice guys that don't get it' genuinely benefiting from this post. It seems in part to be a cathartic exercise.
Present-eqdw is mostly rehabilitated in this regard, but past-eqdw was pretty 'nice guy'. And if past-eqdw had read this, he would only be more upset and more confused. First off, he would read this in an mocking tone. Maybe it wasn't intended that way. Maybe nobody else would read it that way. But knowing that he was in the target audience, he would take this super personally. Secondly, and this is really the crux of the issue > So when I tell you that I’m not going to shag you, it’s not because I don’t fancy a shag, it’s because I don’t fancy you. This is something that past-eqdw fundamentally didn't understand. Something that I feel most writing on the subject of nice guys misses: past-eqdw thought he was doing everything right. Past-eqdw was following the script laid out for him. Past-eqdw was trying to be a good, upright, laudable person by the standards he was raised by. Past-eqdw was implicitly promised by his role models, social peers, church groups, parents, schoolmates, etc., that these things are the good desirable things that you do to be a good, desirable relationship partner. What he wasn't told was that these are mostly aspirational, not descriptive: Everyone says this but when it comes down to it most of attraction is post-hoc-justified monkey brains. Maybe normal people understand this, but past-eqdw, with his overly scrupulous and slightly autistic brain, didn't pick up on this. He just assumed that when people say "I want X and Y and Z", that if he was X and Y and Z, he would be someone people want. Maybe other people didn't have this experience, but one of the reasons that writing about nice guys like this post are so upsetting to people like past-eqdw, is that past-eqdw was told by virtually everyone around him that "everyone wants a good partner" and so if you are good, you will be wanted. I was raised, both explicitly by my parents and implicitly by the people around me, to honestly and truly believe that people want nice people, and when you're in that mindset, and you find out that not only do most people not want you even though you're nice, but people start writing blog posts mocking you for thinking this, it's not only upsetting, it's confusing. When all you need is someone to say "so, everything everyone told you is wrong", but nobody will tell you that, how else are you supposed to understand the constant mockery of nice guys. Seriously, if I could go back in time and rescue past-eqdw earlier, one super easy intervention would be "hey fatass, lose some weight". Turns out most of those rejections from the past were pretty much entirely based on looks. It would have been really helpful to know that, instead of trying to figure it out while everyone (friends, family, past dates, future dates) loudly denied it. It took losing 35 lbs to figure this out. Finally, I think there is a disconnect in understanding when people talk about nice guys acting like they 'deserve' sex. The overwhelming majority opinion from bloggers like OP is "nice guy gets upset when I won't sleep with him. Clearly he is an entitled jackass". I believe the reality, for most nice guys, is more like what is laid out in this blog post, in section 2. As a guy, who is sincerely acting nice, who is working under false assumptions, and who has no way of calibrating these assumptions because socialization and sexuality are complicated and people aren't self aware and can't think clearly about it, this is what it looks like. It looks like a guy, trying his best to be a good and desirable person, constantly failing, while Henry has no problem collecting wives despite beating them all until they divorce. Present-eqdw understands that this is most likely that Henry is just more attractive and more charismatic than he is. Past-eqdw didn't realize this. Past-eqdw just sees an abusive asshole having great success in romantic endeavours, while he himself tries his best, does what everyone says he should, and fails. And then he gets yelled at for being upset and confused at this turn of events. ---- Summary: The entire nice guy phenomenon is entirely a function of multiple groups of people being confused, ill informed, and shouting past each other. Anything that smells remotely like mockery is making this worse. ---- Edit: I didn't mention this, because to me it's implied, but it might not come across: Just as past-eqdw had a fundamentally broken understanding of these dynamics, I think most of the women who are upset about / writing about this also have a fundamentally broken understanding of the guys involved. The misunderstandings are not all one sided.
Great post! Online dating in general sometimes unfairly gets a bad wrap, but most people don't realize that over 40% of new relationships world-wide are started ONLINE! There are a lot of good paid sites, and a few great free ones if you know where to look. For those who are more interested in Asian singles, the best truly free site we've found is www.Filipino4U.com There are also some good paid sites like Match or eHarmony if you are willing to pay monthly fees.
KB, you and I are NEVER going to agree on gender issues (and yet, I'm miles closer to you than to Warlizard, and somehow the both of you are among my favorite Internet people) but I think you missed the point: The genuinely nice guy isn't having less sex, he's spending less time pursuing people who do NOT want to have sex with him. He is off to the races with the next prospect, not pestering a woman who has no urge to fuck him. And maybe, because he IS off to pursue someone who is more interested, he can really be a friend of the woman who said no--because he understands that just because he converses with her does not mean she is his only sexual prospect or even a sexual prospect at all, and if he enjoys the conversing he can keep doing that while pursuing sex elsewhere. The arsehole is the one having less sex, as far as I can tell, because he keeps chasing the "no." Unless we're assuming the arsehole is also a serial rapist, in which case he doesn't even really belong in the comparison because this isn't about rape, it's about guys who overinvest in friendships they don't want and become angry when an unwanted friendship doesn't turn into a wanted sexual liaison. I also disagree that you can't ask for sex from someone without radically altering the relationship. I have multiple male friends who I know are sexually interested and would be up for it if I was, but they're dating people, I'm dating people, and we're friends and that friendship hasn't really changed when it went from "Yeah I know you would fuck me but you haven't said so" to "It's on the table that if we're ever both single at the same time, we could fuck." I have a lot of hangups, like everyone else, but being unable to discuss sex isn't one of them, as you may have noticed. The people I choose for friends have a lot of issues, like everyone else, but being unable to express their feelings about a friendship isn't one of them. I do not think I'm leading on a handful of "nice guys" -- I think we've established boundaries and lines of communication that would allow them to back away from the friendship if they didn't want it in the absence of sex. Not to mention that they, genuinely nice guys, ARE getting sex, from their girlfriends, who are aware that they have female friends who if they were single they wouldn't decline sex with. When people are able to discuss sex like it is--an ideally mutually agreeable activity, which either party has every right to decline--they don't get so freaked out by one refusal or obsessed over one potential partner. There's a lot more I'd like to respond to here, but I have a busted furnace and have to wrap up, so I'll leave it with one more point: The scarcity of sex is not responsible for nice guy syndrome. Even if prostitution were legal and fully available, or if there were a designated everyone-fucker in every bar who would literally fuck anyone, anyone at all, some males would become obsessed with a single, uninterested woman and pursue her while whining about how they're so damn NICE, even as they totally not nicely pester a woman for sex after she's refused time and time again. It's not about sex, even though sex is what makes it so complicated. It's about overinvesting and underdisclosing. It's about maintaining a friendship when you want anything but, and then having too much into that friendship to risk losing it all by being blunt about the fact that you can't keep spending all this time on her if she's never going to be your romantic partner. It's like the homebuyer who buys the gorgeous lemon with the fly-by-night contractor and instead of cutting his losses and moving, pours every dime he has into proving he's really made a GOOD investment by somehow saving the crumbling foundation and the leaky roof and holding the house long enough to turn a profit. A 19th-century southern politician, whose name escapes me at the moment, advised young campaigners that the most important thing to do was to ask for a dime for their campaign from every supporter at every stop on their speaking tour of their district. Not because they needed those dimes, although they did. Because "those hardscrabble farmers who pinch every penny will never, ever admit they made a poor investment, so once you've got a dime you know you have their vote this year, next year, and forever." People hate to admit they've made a poor investment, especially if it was an investment they could ill-afford. So, no matter how much free, easy sex he got, the guy with "nice guy syndrome" would still be chasing the girl he'd spent six months attempting to court while never coming out and saying that he didn't really want to continue the friendship unless it became romantic -- especially if he's one of the guys who doesn't conversate with his male friends, doesn't do "friend" things as women do them. Then the friendship has been an investment he can ill afford, and he starts treating a person who has invested equally in the friendship (but was more easily able to afford it) as a target to acquire no matter what it takes, rather than admitting he's made a poor investment beyond his means.
You're the one who declared sex transactional -- I'm only trying to describe it in your language. Your first response makes the following statements as if fact: * Men do not want to have intimate, conversational platonic friendships for their own sake, whereas women do. (I would challenge this one on the basis of "individuals vary more than groups vary," but I think you would agree but stipulate that we should discuss the majority when discussing the aggregate, so I skipped it. The guy I'm dating has more close, intimate, conversational platonic friendships than I do, though.) * Sex IS transactional. (I don't necessarily challenge this one in the way you use transactional although I agree that it is NOT transactional in the way the blogger uses it, e.g., there is no amount of friendship-investment that has "paid off" the cost of sex and now you are owed sex.) I accepted your two statements because from past conversations I think we generally agree on most of the premise, although we would frame it differently, and proceeded to discuss the matter from a transactional perspective accepting both these statements as fact even though I could quibble on minor details of both. So your criticism of my transactional analogies is merely criticism of the parameters you set for the conversation and I accepted -- therefore I will discard it in responding to your rebuttal. >This isn't a gender issue. This is a relationship issue. It is a gender issue because it is an issue men bring to the table and place on the shoulders of women in every conversation about relationships, masculinity, patriarchy, and society. Men consistently demand that women solve what they perceive as women's "problem with nice guys" before men will acknowledge that being a bad person isn't a good trait. It is not a matter of opinion that online dating is something an attractive woman literally cannot experience without receiving vitriolic, profane diatribes about what a cunt she is for not liking a nice guy like this SO SO NICE guy calling her a cunt. Men have negative relationship experiences, but in the aggregate, accepting that exceptions exist, nice-guy issues are an issue of men pursuing women in unacceptably aggressive ways and then complaining that they did not get what they wanted because they are so nice. >I fathered a kid with someone who didn't want to have sex with me when we met. And Al Roker caught his wife by stocking her apartment with food while housesitting for her after she'd "friend-zoned" him, but that doesn't mean much other than that there are success stories out there presenting enough variable reinforcement to convince men who are less attractive, less savvy, or simply pursuing a woman less interested that they, too, will eventually marry the woman currently turning them down. >Presumes these activities are mutually exclusive, as if one can't be bummed about being friend-zoned by one girl while also banging another. Negative. He can be bummed--but still valuing the friendship enough to keep up with it without being a jackass about it--while banging someone else. It's much less likely he'll be a non-jackass if he's bummed and sees the person who bummed him out as his only possible sexual prospect. >Then your relationships are shallow. Sorry, I know that sounds harsh. It is nonetheless true. Bullshit. I'd accept if you stated that this indicates that the way I see sex is shallow, because I certainly don't view it as the earthshattering be-all and end-all to human intercourse that some people do. The relationships that do or don't generate sex, on the other hand, aren't. If a heterosexual male and a heterosexual female are platonic friends for a long enough time, there is likely to come a phase of the friendship where one or both are sexually attracted. You either deal with that as a game changer or as something that's just part of choosing to have attractive opposite-sex friends. It's shallow to let something as normal and expected as sexual attraction ruin a friendship. >You keep coming back to this "if you're asking for sex from me you aren't asking for sex from anyone else" canard that has no basis in the discussion at hand. Strawman -- didn't say that, didn't imply it, don't know why you inferred it. >My objection to the article is that it claims to present "hard truths" when in fact it simply obfuscates the problem further while also conveniently absolving the author in particular (and - the root of my objection - women in general) of any mis-steps or wrongdoing. The audience is men. One could suggest the author write a follow-up post giving advice to women or talking about her own relationship mistakes. This post is intended to give advice specifically to men who are unhappy because they believe they are "friend-zoned" for being "nice guys." This is not a problem for which women are at fault. Individual women can and do behave badly, but in the aggregate, this is a massive issue with dating today and is the fault of men who are unable to be clear about their desires and expectations, unable to evaluate their own appeal, and unable to moderate their emotional investments appropriately. > I can't be the only guy in the world to have friend-zoned women. I don't pretend for a moment I'm doing anything but. I also don't act as if the women I've friendzoned could do anything about it, and I don't pretend they're idiots or unworthy for being upset over the outcome. Sure, I've been so-called-friend-zoned, and my guy friends have been on that side of it, too. But you notice how women get upset over this individual guy who won't fuck me, while men end up believing that all women just hate "nice guys" and love "assholes." There's a female equivalent to this, too: The woman who doesn't hold up her end of the relationship other than being attractive, and then goes "men are shallow and just want a dumb blonde with fake tits!" when her boyfriend dumps her after she ages or otherwise becomes less attractive. Because she 1) chose a guy who didn't expect anything of her besides being attractive and 2) then proceeded to become less attractive without adding anything to what she offered to the relationship, she draws the conclusion that all men are shallow, not the conclusion, "If I want a relationship based on more than looks, I can't expect my looks to be a get out of jail free card for any and all bad relationship behavior." I could write thousands of words on that one, too, but that isn't the topic at hand. The topic at hand is male responses to female rejection, which are often uniquely vitriolic and generalized toward all women, and on the specific, incorrect theme that women just don't want a nice partner and would prefer an asshole. >I'm not sure what your point is but it's pretty clear we've struck a nerve. Recognize that you're essentially saying "even in a world where you can buy cars on Craigslist for $100 some asshole is still going to want to drive a Ferrari." I'm not sure what's so clear about that? You know me, you know that I use colorful rhetoric on pretty much every subject. I have no issue related to this in my life right now, and the last similar situation I was involved in was a long time ago and I was the one being rejected. I woke up, browsed the Web in bed, noticed my furnace was broken, typed some stuff on Hubski, tried the furnace guy again, yadda yadda. I mean, I can't convince you with words on a screen not to make assumptions about my emotional state, but if my word counts for anything with you, you're incorrect. I am passionate about relationship issues, as you know. I work with victims of domestic violence and other crimes, as you know. I am interested in gender and sexuality in general, as you know. Of course this topic elicits a high word count and colorful metaphors from me. The rest of your rebuttal is based on my transactional analogies, which, as stated, are made to work within your framework established in your statement that sex IS transactional, so I'll leave that alone except for this one piece: >The issue at hand is not "I've invested 70% of my available free time in you, I deserve a shag" the issue at hand is "I am more emotionally invested in our relationship than you are and resent that you cannot adequately explain why." I think you're making two erroneous assumptions here: 1) That so-called-nice-guys DON'T think that way. They do, and I've heard them complain exactly in those terms: "It wouldn't cost her anything to just have sex with me once in a while, and I've spent hours listening to her problems in the last week alone. She has sex with guys she meets at the bar, why wouldn't she just have sex with me now and then?" If that sounds a bit pathetic, it's because it is, but I assure you, there are literally millions of men in the US alone who think exactly that way. 2) That emotional investment requires sexual attraction. He's emotionally invested and sexually attracted. She's just emotionally invested. The friendship might be important enough to her that she'd turn down sex with an attractive crush if she knew it would hurt the friend, so her emotional investment in the platonic friend is GREATER than her emotional investment in a sexual attraction.
You seem remarkably unwilling to admit that men can be at fault in their own problems. I don't think I'm the one whose nerves were touched here... And yes, in the situation of being "friend-zoned," women--who typically have more readily available sexual options than men--tend to blame the individual, while men blame the entire gender. This isn't because men are bad people, it's because that's what happens in the real world for a whole variety of reasons that you're not willing to accept as remotely valid unless they're "because women are at fault for men being angry at them."
Strawman again, you know perfectly well that I like men just fine, including you, despite our massive areas of contention on gender and relationships. Humans are pigs and men are human, and in this particular situation, some men behave piggishly. There are other situations where men, in the aggregate, tend to behave well and women behave piggishly; I mentioned one. The fact of the matter is that enough people who are involved in dating of the "social media generation" are assholes that it has become impossible to be female and use any online dating site without encountering profanity, vitriol, and even threats simply for not being interested in someone--often someone you've never met--sexually. If you don't believe me, make a female profile, ignore all incoming messages, and count how long it takes for no response whatsoever to make someone so angry they blast you and call you a stuck-up bitch or something of that sort for not replying to them. You don't have to take any positive action whatsoever to engage the wrath of a "Nice Guy." You just have to NOT be lining up to have sex with him. These are a small number of men and a small percentage of men. Most men are not like them. Unfortunately, these few men, who are NOT nice at all but are convinced that they are, are so extremely vocal about how nice they are and what bitches women are for hating them for their alleged niceness that they are dominating the discourse about online dating. Not because there are so many of them, but because those there are happen to be incredibly prolific, vocal, and entitled, to such a degree that they put people off platonic opposite-sex friendships entirely and put people off online dating entirely. I genuinely do understand that it is obnoxious as fuck to keep hearing the same criticisms over and over of your gender. I feel that way about some legitimate complaints about groups I'm a part of, specifically women and white people. To that extent, I sympathize with your feelings, and I'm even getting a little sick of the thing where every feminist blogger and every sex blogger has to have a "nice guys aren't nice" post. I like this one because it's balanced. It's neither apologizing for creepy douchebags nor stating that they're bad people--you're inferring that. It states that they're at fault for their problems, because they are. Being at fault in one's own problems does not a bad person make, it makes an at-fault person who has the capacity to change their behavior and thereby solve their own problem. ETA: I suppose this discussion is over considering that KB chose to respond with a two-word email: "Fuck Off."
Honestly I'm disapointed because i felt kleinbloo was THE person to debate you, when you two debated i felt like i learned something, both of you are intelligent, with good points respectively. Now that the posts are deleted i feel like something is lost in the discussion really. And although you counter-pointed his points, i don't feel like he was wrong per se, but i can respect that it takes a lot of time to dissect part by part when discussing such things. It was highly interesting, and thought provoking, and all around awesome, but alas, i respect his decision to withdraw, but I can't help but feel discussions like these add to my intelligence nonetheless. Anyways good debate. Cheers on that, because thats what i came to hubski for (thought provoking debates) discussions such as this one. Either way i'm subscribed to both of you and hope to see more debate in the future etc etc. :D
"if they’re nice enough to women and tick a set of chivalry boxes, that woman is not just bound to shag them but – to a certain extent at least – obliged to" I'd be more worried about the guys who actually pull this off, than the guys who fail. Or actually the sorry part is the girls who are suckers for this. My female friends seem to be suckers quite often. One of them just got back to her dickish ex because "he's changed". One started dating a guy because "he is just so nice". Few months into that relationship she was sexually very dissatisfied, troubled by his jealousy and trying to cope with some violence by him. And those are just few examples. I asked the latter why she is doing this and she replied "He is nice guy and I don't know when I'm going to have next chance". Next chances would be plenty if these girls would advance guys for a change. Being asked out by a girl changed my perception somewhat. I've always been able to accept honest no, but it gives certain perspective to be asked out by someone who you're not interested in any way. This is actually is my all around solution to most problems regarding sexes. These problems are often driven by stereotypes that guys advance girls and girls try to look pretty in order to be advanced. Lose-lose situation.
I don't mean to be rude, but is English a second language for you? If so it's much better than my French/Arabic/German/Spanish (I can order food in all those, but that's about it) but I still am having a little trouble understanding what you mean by "advanced." Do you mean like "make a romantic advance," or like "promote?" In any case, on the subject of girls asking guys out, I always advise that when talking to girls who are having trouble meeting someone. You get a much better-quality dating pool of guys when you ask them than waiting for them to approach you.
You're not rude at all. I meant a romantic advance. It's kind of unfair to give me any easy points because I'm not native speaker. I've seen native speakers churn out worse English than what I usually do. And Hubski has this handy correction thing too. And I advice it too all the time. Let's keep up the good work!
You get a much better-quality dating pool of guys when you ask them than waiting for them to approach you.
-That sounds like really great advice for a number of reasons. I know that I would have been really flattered if that had ever happened. -It sort of did happen with my wife.
Women sometimes do this thing where they meet an acquaintance, think he's cute, and find opportunities to hang out with him, watch him, and evaluate him as a potential mate. Then presto, by the time they're done evaluating him, he's become integrated into their social group too closely for the girl to be comfortable asking him out because it'd now be awkward if he rejected her and all her friends found out. It's kind of the female equivalent of the stereotype-based-in-fact where men see a beautiful girl and immediately talk themselves into thinking she's out of their league and it'd be the end of the world to get humiliated by a rejection from her, so they might as well not even say two words to her and just keep standing over here awkwardly in this corner. The annoying thing about the female version is, 99% of the time, the acquaintance-level guy would have accepted a date or at least been totally cordial and flattered if he did have to turn the girl's offer down, and if he then became a friend, it wouldn't be awkward at all--it'd have been just part of the story of how he became a member of the social group.
I agree with everything you wrote there. I've experienced these things. Good perceptions. My wife would never admit to "asking me out", and she's right she didn't literally ask me out. I had a friend from high school named Shannon that was friends with my wife. Shannon had a revelation that I would be the perfect match for her friend "J". I was working at a restaurant at the time and they stopped in unbeknownst to me and "scoped me out". Later that week Shannon called me and asked if I would go on a blind date with her friend? -I politely declined. Then one day Shannon walked in to the restaurant with a gorgeous girl at her side. When the girl at her side was looking away I whispered to Shannon "is that the girl"? She whispered back "yes". My face lit up and I whispered "I'm in" and gave a thumbs up. They sat at the bar. We had "strolling minstrels", a violinist and a guitarist and they agreed to come up behind the girls at the bar and after I shook "J"'s hand start playing "It's now or never". -It was full on cheese, but funny and somewhat endearing. I asked her out. Best first date ever and we've never looked back. But really... she asked me out first. Just indirectly.
Good, but I liked this article a little better. http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2012/12/note-nice-g...