Do you like to celebrate Valentine’s Day?
I’ll go have a little dinner with my wife, but not much more than that. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife, but sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze because Valentine’s Day is sorta forced.
Valentine’s Day reminds me of this study done on monkeys. It might be a little off but bare with me because I’m paraphrasing something my friend told me.
Researchers took a monkey and gave him a treat every 8th time he pulled a lever. After a while the monkey stopped pulling the lever because he got bored. They did the same thing with another monkey but randomized when he got the treat (it wasn’t every 8th time). That monkey kept pulling the lever for way longer because he didn’t know when it was coming next (kind of sounds like slot machines haha).
Basically, when it’ predictable, it is not as enjoyable. I’ve never liked Valentine’s Day for that reason.
Dear Elle,
I’m a college student studying architecture. For the last year, I have been so stressed out with the workload that I completely let go of my body and health. I’m estimating that I’ll need about 4 months recovery time from all the laziness, smoking and drinking that hacks at my body. Girls have seriously lost interest in me and I feel like I have lost confidence and motivation in myself. When I had a girlfriend, I was so motivated to take care of myself but now I am in this difficult situation where I don’t have a girlfriend because I don’t take care of myself and I can’t motivate myself to do so without some female figure in my life. At this point, should I just sit out of the game and focus on rebuilding myself before even thinking about girls? Or maybe there are spots other than bars/clubs/my male infested school/etc where I can meet girls and just talk to them and use my charm instead of my usually stunning good looks :P
Much love,
Dazed and Confused Danny
Danny,
Not all girls are shallow. If you can charm them, you should, by all reasons charm them.
But, if you don’t feel confident in yourself because of your appearance, then there’s not a lot of point in trying. I’d say, confidence is more important than a really amazing body. But it’s not about being a confident dickwad, it’s about being a confident gentleman.
As far as places to meet women? Um. Everywhere? Need I mention my match.com debacle?
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If you would like to ask Elle a question about dating, relationships or something else ridiculously interesting, send an email to askelle@ploomy.com.
Elle Chyun is a dancer and arts collaborator living in NYC. She’s a graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and currently dances with cakefaceart.com and robot hands. She likes vodka, shoes, and sarcasm.
My GF and I have been going out for almost a year, and we’ve spent the holidays together, met each others families, I’ve even helped her stepdad build a downstairs living space. I get along with her fam and she’s the same way with mine. We enjoy lots of the same likes and dislikes, so doing stuff around town and at our houses is easy and fun for both of us. But she has a busy schedule that she talks about and prevents us from hanging out some of the time, which doesn’t bother me cause I have a deadly schedule anyways lol.
A week ago, we broke up because she said she doesn’t need a boyfriend right now but she still wants to be friends and still wants me to stay in contact. Which kinda just blind sighted me. I mean I leave for boot camp in a few months (which she said she didn’t mind when I asked her when we first started dating) and her brother leaves 10 days before I do (for two years), and her step brothers are moving out in a week or two so she’s the only one in the house besides her parents during the summer and new school year (I don’t live with them).
I really care for her and before this relationship I was just a bad person who slept around and didn’t feel good about myself, but a little bit before I met her I changed my life in a positive way. Then decided to make a good healthy relationship with her (we worked together before I went back to school). I’m pretty smart and do lots of activities but I don’t know what I should do. I still text and message her like everyday. What should I do? (sorry it was long thnx 4 reading). JR
Dear JR,
Unfortunately, some relationships have a one sided shelf life. You probably wanted to go on with this girl forever… and she really didn’t feel the same. Mutual break ups are hard enough, but feeling like you’ve been dumped sucks big time. You constantly feel like you could really change their mind about dumping you if they’d just listen…
I think that women always have the problem of controlling themselves after a break up. We restrain ourselves from calling the other person so that we don’t sound like sociopaths. If you’re keeping busy in other ways, keep your hands off your phone. If she wants to talk she’ll contact you. It sounds ridiculous, but sometimes blatantly ignoring another person after a break up reminds them what it’s like to be without you. Which, you pray, means that they will come back to you. So, keep your fingers crossed, your hands clasped together in a permanent praying pose, and hope for the best.
And seriously, if it doesn’t work out, it’ll be okay. Really.
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If you would like to ask Elle a question about dating, relationships or something else ridiculously interesting, send an email to askelle@ploomy.com.
Elle Chyun is a dancer and arts collaborator living in NYC. She’s a graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and currently dances with cakefaceart.com and robot hands. She likes vodka, shoes, and sarcasm.
This guest post is from Chris Schonberger, Editor-in-Chief of Gradspot.com. He has never actually hooked up with a co-worker, but he once received unprompted relationship advice from three middle-age women during his days as an intern.
A Practical Guide to Office Romance
So, you’ve managed to buck the odds and land yourself a new job in this tanking economy. Excited to hook up with all your officemates? You should be. But you need to tread carefully—no matter how “progressive” companies claim to be, some HR departments will still come down on you like a ton of bricks if they think you’re using the terms “spread” and “sheets” in a context that doesn’t involve Excel.
That said, the taboo of the office romance is fading to some extent. Yes, there was a time when a little cubicle copulation was considered anathema to a successful career. “Business and pleasure don’t mix,” said the conventional wisdom. “Sex in the office is harassment, even if it’s consensual.” But while many people profess a “don’t deuce where you eat” philosophy with regards to getting it cracking in the workplace, the stats show that at least 40% of workers have tried it.
Young people are working longer hours, and as the work-life balance shifts further toward the “work is life” end of the spectrum, the office has become the new bar (with the only difference being that you have to wear headphones when you listen to “Living on a Prayer”). Before you dive in head first, consider a few crucial questions: Will an “affair de cubicle” alienate you from the rest of the office? Will your suit accommodate a surreptitious Texas tuck when the CEO rounds the corner? Do you really have no other prospects?
If you do decide to play with fire, here are the different scenarios you might run into:
Dating an equal. If you are dating another newb, it’s mostly up to the two of you to decide if competing for the same promotions, raises, and projects will breed ill will. Most other people won’t care as long as there’s not too much repulsive canoodling in the break room. However, think about your work-life balance—at the end of the day the last thing you want is a reminder of work, even if that reminder has boobs.
Dating a superior. When the boardroom becomes the boudoir, you’d better make sure you’re not the one under the table on all fours (unless you’re plugging in the projector). Let’s be blunt: sexing your boss is almost always a bad idea. Even if you successfully pull off an unethical plan to get ahead through sexual favors, the rumor mill is quick to spot an unjust promotion. If you really “like” your boss, check your feelings to make sure they are genuine. Then check his or her hand for a wedding ring. Then quit the job and get it cracking.
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Dear Elle,
Right now I have a girlfriend. She’s fun but last week I realized that I like her friend more. I’m pretty sure that her friend likes me too. We have more in common, and have the same sense of humor. Am I allowed to break up with my girlfriend to pursue her friend? What should I do?
JS
Dear JS,
If one of your friends’ girlfriends was into you, would you want her to break up with your friend and then start canoodling with you? In communicable disease land, this sounds like a bad idea. I think there are some exceptions, say for instance, if you and your girlfriend are mutually not that interested in each other, and you haven’t slept together. I mean, do you think that the other girl wants sloppy seconds? Okay, well, maybe she does… but do you want to be the man doling out sloppy seconds?
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If you would like to ask Elle a question about dating, relationships or something else ridiculously interesting, send an email to askelle@ploomy.com.
Elle Chyun is a dancer and arts collaborator living in NYC. She’s a graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and currently dances with cakefaceart.com and robot hands. She likes vodka, shoes, and sarcasm.
Dear Elle,
Why don’t girls like beer?
-J
Dear J,
Why don’t girls like beer? Because we can’t pee standing up, and the instances in which only beer is provided, are instances where a toilet isn’t a given accessory. For example: tailgates, camping, and bonfires. A man must have had the stupid idea of lugging a 30 pack into the woods for these events. No woman would ever think, “I want to get drunk in the woods, lets bring alcohol with the lowest alcohol percentage and largest liquid volume.
Besides the fact that beer = overactive bladder syndrome, I like to reserve beer for activities like eating wings and at the end of multiple rounds of liquor. I think other women do this as well. It’s not that we don’t like beer (although, some do). it’s just that beer isn’t our stand by. Plus, there are other things to consider, like looking classy. Nothing screams “trashy” like seeing a woman in a formal dress swigging out of a beer bottle (or two). The answer here is really sort of – it’s not that we don’t like beer, it’s that we only like it sometimes. As I’m sure you know, women are fickle.
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If you would like to ask Elle a question about dating, relationships or something else ridiculously interesting, send an email to askelle@ploomy.com.
Elle Chyun is a dancer and arts collaborator living in NYC. She’s a graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and currently dances with cakefaceart.com and robot hands. She likes vodka, shoes, and sarcasm.
Why don’t women like the word “moist”? I have yet to meet a girl that doesn’t gag in their mouth at the word’s mention. What makes “wet” so much better? And while we’re at it, why do so few girls like jazz? No girl has ever professed anything more than a mild tolerance for it, and, when given the option of a, lets sat for example, tapas or jazz club date, they always choose tapas. An ex girlfriend once went to a club with me almost as a favor, that’s it. Explain.
-Hector
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Dear Elle,
Recently, my girlfriend broke up with me. we’ve been together for a year, and I wasn’t really expecting it, so I think that she’s been talking to someone else. When I asked her, she said no, but she wants to see other people. I don’t think she means it. Can I get her back?
From Ted
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Dear Elle,
I’ve been going out on some dates with this one guy. He has great taste in restaurants. On the second date, he made one too many jokes about me having his children, and told me about Googling third grade crushes. I had a really interesting Valentine’s Day with him. We had a fancy dinner, and I was going to invite him home with me, but he seemed really freaked out when I went to kiss him, and told me he was “very slow” and “old fashioned.” But on the flip side of that, nearly every conversation we’ve had in the two weeks that I’ve known him has somehow led to his feelings on BABIES. What am I supposed to do ?
-V
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Dear Elle,
Me and my friend were discussing the other day, what dictates girl’s trends in underwear? I remember from like 2003-2006, thongs were everywhere, and girls would be at the club or the library and they’d bend down just a little and plop, thong smile. But now, not so much. Is it that girls are wearing pants higher or thongs lower? But even when we’ve had the chance to “unwrap presents”, we noticed its more boy shortish things these days. Why is that? And can the thong come back?-Blurnandez
Dear Blurnandez,
I would first like to thank you for leaving the word “panty” out of this conversation. Nothing disgusts me more than hearing the word “panty”, and repeating it back to someone makes me gag.
In my opinion, the thong hasn’t gone anywhere. But its prevalence has declined after we all discovered the phenomena of the Read the rest of this article »
