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Aug 2012 13

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Rydell

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.


[Rydell in Changing Seasons]

Q: Do you have advice for me about how to make the first move (make contact) and let a nice girl know that I really like her. I’m a little bit unsure because I’m in a wheelchair. She’s not. I just don’t want her to reject me right away only because I’m in a wheelchair. Can you give me advise on how to make a good first impression?

A: Well my advice to you is don’t go into this looking at the end result. Don’t focus on that fact you want a relationship from this girl, but instead break it down. First just make contact and strike up a conversation. Let that be your first goal. ‘Cause if it doesn’t go any farther than that, then there’s no disappointment and no expectations from her on your side.

Then look at building a casual acquaintance, which has the potential in time to grow into a friendship with this girl and build on that. As you and her become more comfortable with each other, you can get to know her as a person and vice versa, and see if you really want something more. If so, then you already laid the groundwork for a solid relationship.

As far as making initial contact with her, just be yourself, confidence is a must. If you don’t feel it, fake it. Be the smart, witty, charming, funny person you have inside and let it show. If you don’t think of yourself as being at a disadvantage compared to other guys, then she wont see that either. Go into it thinking you’re the greatest guy out there, and she will see that. And honestly, if she can’t overlook some metal between your legs, then she isn’t someone worthy of your time!

Good luck and keep me posted on it!

<3 Rydell

***

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

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Aug 2012 10

by Nicole Powers

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.


[Kurosune in Apollo]

This week Kurosune tells us why she’s drawn to SG’s Hentai Group.

Members: 1,804 / Comments: 8,517

WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: What’s not to like about a group that discusses tentacles, furries, chicks growing massive dicks (stay away from Bible Black – it’s NOT for the faint of heart), bukkake, maids who punish their male employers in acts of BDSM, anti-demon slaying ninjas who wind up the prisoners of giant orges…or even just the adorable, moe-like girl who is bold enough to make the move and give up her cherished virginity to the wonderful, dreamy, all-round good guy in school who just happens to be her second period math teacher.

DISCUSSION TIP: We loooooove pictures of your particular “yum” – and remember, you ARE in a group that discusses yaoi (boy x boy), yuri (girl x girl) and furries. My personal motto is that you should never “yuck” someone’s “yum.” Don’t be shy (you’re among freaky friends!). Participate often, don’t be an asshole, and everyone should get along just fine. We especially love the ladies here. Contrary to popular belief, women watch hentai too. We love it!

BMOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: Hands down, it’s a tie between the “Favorite Images” and “What’s Your Favorite Hentai Artist.” I ALWAYS love reading those. Hentai is really visual, so pictures posted (be they silly, hot, funny, disturbing or whatever) usually manage to brighten someone’s day. And I love seeing what hentai people love. My faves are, hands down, Taimanin Asagi, Stringendo & Accelerando, and Sensual Pornograph – my first and favorite yaoi!!!

BEST RANDOM QUOTE: “Tentacles? In MY vagina???”

WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: It’s a private group, so you have to request to join. Only those who have at least some blog/comment activity will be allowed in, but basically anyone who jumps in pure joy at the words “hentai,” “yaoi,” “yuri,” “bukkake,” or “virgins in high school uniforms” is welcome. 


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Aug 2012 09

by Laurelin

“Those guys, they just want to fuck you,” Jason had said, his finger jabbing into my shoulder again and again. I was so mad I could have broken it clean off.

“You don’t even know them,” I hissed back, making him even angrier. He scared me when he was angry, but he never hit me, although as the years went by I would come to find out that he would hit others that came after me. But even standing my ground he scared me; he had this power over me and for some strange reason, I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. He kept me close, like a dog chained in a dirt yard on a run, allowed to run sometimes but ultimately, never allowed to leave the yard.

He made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world, and I remember thinking that I could die right there in his arms and be happy with everything I never did. But there was always the issue of my friends. While I was in college I became closer with all the men in the fraternity up the street, some even more so than my own sorority sisters. In the beginning of my relationship they were happy for me – I talked about Jason and I glowed, and they were shocked that someone had finally tamed me. Jason didn’t feel the same way about the guys I called my brothers. He knew how wild we all were, and he was convinced they all had ulterior motives.

“Those guys are NOT your friends, Laurelin. They want to have sex with you. Get it through your head, you are NOT spending anymore time with them,” he had said, and while I always fought back I eventually quieted, and instead of driving back home I always stayed with Jason. Soon my friends started calling, each call or text making Jason angry. They missed me, was I ever coming home? Why was I ignoring their calls? When could they meet Jason? But he wouldn’t meet them; a firm believer that guys and girls could never be just friends.

In the end, Jason didn’t last, thank god. When I finally broke away from him my friends were so glad, and I saw what it was like when a relationship takes over and a girl turns a blind eye to friendships in favor of a man. All these years later these boys are still my brothers, platonic, the best friends I have ever had through thick and thin, and Jason’s name hardly ever crosses my lips.

One of my closest friends in Boston is also a guy; he’s usually the first person I talk to in the morning and the last person I talk to at night before I fall asleep around 5 AM. We go to dinner, get drinks, go to movies, he thinks my last boyfriend was the dumbest guy on the face of the planet and when I was having trouble getting over it no one helped like he did:

“Laurelin, the kid is a loser. Do you really want people meeting your guys to be like, ‘Man, that chick is the coolest girl ever, but her boyfriend is a fucking tool.’ Stop crying, Jesus, pull it together.”

My friends and co-workers seem to think otherwise.

“You’re going to marry him,” they tease, and I think of Jason, his mouth set in a line, always so angry at the preposterous idea that not every guy just wants to bang me. I’ve quit trying to explain to everyone that sometimes, just sometimes…we really are just friends.

[..]

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Aug 2012 08

by Darrah de jour

I recently got a call from an ex-boyfriend (can I even call him that?) that I had dated for about one month a couple years ago. It would have been more brief, except that he was in Africa on a mission for three weeks, and when he returned, we broke up. Before he left, we met, and had sex. Well, we met, talked, then decided to hop in the sack. Unfortunately for me, he was inexperienced and believing virtue withstood the test of a woman’s sexual needs and intimate desires, he failed to satisfy even my most basic requisites. Like, giving me even a single orgasm after about four times doing the horizontal mambo.

Many times before meeting the chap, I’ve jokingly spouted, “Virgins are prude.” Not so much in an attempt to hurl insults at virgins or the born-again chaste, more to express my belief that America’s obsession with purity serves nobody. Sure, it’s great to not contract an STD from unprotected sex. Sure, it’s important not to wonder who the babydaddy is. Yes, preserving your reputation protects your quality of life and peace of mind. But, having safe, consensual, adult sex with another respectful, cool and hip person who knows their way around a bedroom, makes the above not such an issue. And that’s my point. In this obsession with purity, we’ve undermined youth’s right to knowledge about safe and enjoyable sex. We’ve imposed an unfair and derogatory scarlet “A” on every girl or woman who claims her equal right to enjoyable, safe sex. And, we’ve bastardized men’s ability to truly connect intimately with their partner, by promoting endless erections and Superman like abilities under the sheets.

Having an experiential personality, I often do searches on the Internet that are cringe-worthy the next day. The other night, I was reading a forum where teenage girls (around sixteen) to twenty-somethings talked openly about engaging in sexual activity with their boyfriends. Some of them were pregnant. Over and over, they spoke of being unable to voice that what he was doing was hurting them. Their boyfriends were *hurting* their vaginas, and they didn’t say anything. My initial response was sadness. Then a sort of outrage. These girls and women were asking each other what to do with their sore labias and swollen vaginal canals, which had tiny cuts in them from being fingered too vigorously. Without a doubt, each one echoed the last one’s sentiment: I didn’t say anything. And, now I’m in pain. What should I do? Do I have an infection? What’s wrong with me?

I could empathize with their frustrations and inability to speak up though. I remember being fifteen and dating a skater boy who went to my high school. I was working part-time as an assistant manager at a candle store in the mall, and sometimes, when I opened at 10 AM on a Saturday, I’d know he had broken into the mall after hours and stopped by because M&Ms were tossed into one of the candleholders atop the glass display. He wanted to have sex, and he hung around me every second to groom me to make this happen. He was rough with me. He kissed me hard. In public. His tongue whipping in my mouth like an angry reptile. He would stand over me while I sat, cross-legged at parties, smoking Camel Lights, and bend my head back, then jam his tongue down my throat for a few moments. Afterward, he would walk away. I was “his” and he wanted everybody to know it. Why didn’t I say anything? What was OK about this scenario? Appealing, even? Yes, he was cute. But not that cute.

He started fingering me a lot. A lot a lot. And, I admit, I liked it. It was my first time, and it happened innocently enough. One day we were walking around the mall, and he stopped at these gray double doors. “What’s this?” I asked. “Here, I’ll show you.” We went inside the long hallway, which was starkly illuminated by florescent overhead lights. He said to sit down. I did. He sat down beside me. He began kissing me, and then laid his body over mine. He moved half his body — the lower half – to the side and unbuttoned my jeans. He stuck his finger inside me. I remember wondering if his hands were clean, and feeling the tightness of my vagina around his one thick finger. It kind of hurt. And I felt kind of duped by the whole thing. For some reason, to this day, I remember that his body being half on and half off felt manipulative, and that he’d pre-planned this whole journey, and how objectified I felt. I felt like nothing, and something, but that bad kinda something. Like, one of the many girls he’d collected. The girls that contributed to the bad reputation that preceded him — and that had attracted me. I was now both confused, turned on, and repulsed by it. He stopped suddenly, and told me to get up. I got dressed, and we left. “Did I do something wrong?” I wondered.

We broke up after a couple more incidences. Like the one where he skateboarded over to my parents’ house when they were out of town, and tried to stick his penis inside me. We had both ditched school to meet at home and make out, but when he arrived — half hour after the planned meeting time – he seemed distant and aloof. Like he’d missed out on a party to be there with me. He hated school, so why did he care if we missed a class or two? When we were upstairs, he sat on my sister’s bed. I told him so. He didn’t care. “We can’t make out on my sister’s bed!” I implored, half-kidding, half-serious. “How weird,” I thought. He didn’t understand why, or care really. We made out, and he kept taking his dick out of his boxer shorts, and I kept moving away and saying no. Finally he jumped up. “Fine!” My vagina was unsheathed by panties, as he’d been fingering me again. He looked at my mess of curly reddish-brown pubic hair with contempt. I didn’t know if he didn’t like my vagina or my pubic hair, or was mad at it because he couldn’t get inside.

He bolted downstairs, and stopped in front of the TV. Something was on that he liked. He began fingering me again when I appeared. I let him for a second, then offered him some homemade fudge my mom made before leaving on vacation. He declined, then left.

We finally broke up after he had used me as a scapegoat to trick his mom out of twenty bucks to buy weed. And because all his friends knew I wouldn’t give it up. I was fifteen, and being me, I had already set a “losing my virginity” date. Eighteen years old.

Even though all this happened many years ago, I vividly recall there were times when I didn’t want him to touch me. Like out at the railroad tracks, with all his friends within earshot. His hands sooty with mud from the tracks and the park we had to cross through to get to the secret hangout. But I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more: the fact that his friends saw me as just another one of Ray’s girls, or the fact that he always stopped suddenly, after jerking his hand up my skirt — almost just to see if I’d let him. Our encounters never resulted in an orgasm. I never had one, nor gave him one. I never touched his penis; having only seen it when he pulled it out on my sister’s bed while trying to shove it inside me without any kind of conversation, whatsoever. When he decided we were done, he’d bark at me to get dressed, never waiting quite long enough for me to snap that last snap, or zip my zipper. He was always leaving me standing alone, struggling, racing to meet up with my boyfriend, who said he loved me but did nothing that resembled it.

Perhaps our friends on the east (my old stomping grounds) have the right idea. And not just when it comes to Dunkin’ Donuts blueberry muffins. According to USA Today, Boston’s Public Health Commission partnered with local social service agencies to erect a Break-Up Summit for teens. Nationwide, the $18 million program aims to educate youth on how to prevent dating violence and how to communicate more effectively and kindly (ie; no severing romantic ties publicly via social networks), while helping give young people the skills to cope with the downsides to embarrassing or hurtful dating experiences, like depression and low self-esteem, which can lead to further educational and social problems if left unchecked.

As of late, I’ve used a type of rationale that is helpful when choosing my next dance partner. My internal checklist is as follows:

  • 1. Do I trust them to be discreet and not to tell anybody?
  • 2. Do I think they’ll treat my body with the utmost respect, and value my orgasm as much, if not more, than theirs?
  • 3. Afterwards will I feel A-OK in my skin?

If the answer is no to any of the above, then I shouldn’t let them inside me. Easy peasy. Better not to bargain or barter with your most prized possession – yourself.

In terms of learning how to better converse with your sexual partners and to get down to the nitty-gritty regarding burning questions (or symptoms) – at any age – be it Plan B instructions to viability of sperm, I find the young adult site Scarleteen to be a wealth of resources. Finally, let’s honor that tender, lush land that resides in all of us…under the pink.

Darrah is a freelance journalist and consultant, with a focus on sensuality, environmentalism, and fearless women in the media. She appears as a “Woman on the Street” on The Conversation. Her lifestyle writing and celebrity interviews have appeared in Marie Claire, Esquire and W, among others. She contributes author and filmmaker interviews to The Rumpus. Darrah’s “Red, White and Femme” columns for SuicideGirls taks a fresh look at females in America. She also co-hosts SG Radio when her schedule allows. She lives in LA with her doggie Oscar Wilde. Subscribe to her blog at Darrahdejour.com/, and friend her on Facebook and Twitter.

Photos: Mikey B and Maryalena Salman

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Aug 2012 06

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Jeckyl

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.


[Jeckyl in Abnormal Behavior]

Q: My girlfriend and I recently moved in together and everything was wonderful. Then, just over a month ago, a close friend of hers passed away. Since then, she has been sending slightly mixed signals that she wants us to some day get engaged and that she loves me and doesn’t want to lose me. However, she is nowhere near as affectionate as she used to be and is very irritable. I have tried talking to her about it, but it gets turned around and made into my fault. Is this the grief she is going through talking? Should I be worried that she is going to leave or that I’m not enough for her anymore?

Scared Lover from South Africa

A: First of all, my deepest condolences. I can’t imagine the pain and confusion you’re both experiencing right now.Grief is a complicated process and, after just a month, I’m afraid to say she’s barely scraped the tip of the iceberg here. You need to be patient. Death is a hard pill to swallow and she really needs you to be strong for her during this time. She is going to be extremely emotionally confused and you just need to go with it. Laugh with her when she’s happy, comfort her when she’s sad, and don’t expect her to make any sense for a while.


Her on-and-off behavior towards you may be just another way that she’s experiencing grieving. She’s realizing how short life is, so she wants to make that commitment. But she’s also experiencing the pain of losing someone so she’s likely terrified of going through it again. This could explain her bouts of coldness. Give her a few months to somewhat heal before having any kind of major relationship-changing discussion with her. She’s really not in any position to be making life-altering decisions right now.


I understand that her grief is taking a strain on you, and my heart really does go out to you, but you need to try and keep it together, for her sake. This really isn’t the best time to be confrontational. They say sometimes you have to put up with the rain in order to truly appreciate the rainbow, take this as a test of the strength of your relationship. If you can make it through this, you can make it through anything. And, honestly, the best thing you can do for her right now is to treat her the same way you always have, let her know she’s loved and that she isn’t alone.


How you proceed after this speed-bump is up to you, but I sincerely hope that your relationship manages to weather this storm intact.

Best of luck to both of you.

Jeckyl

***

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

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Jul 2012 31

by Brad Warner

Last week I saw the movie Kumare. It’s a tremendously important film that I really hope gets a lot of notice. But it’s a movie that will be widely misunderstood. Take, for example, the review in the June 29th issue of Entertainment Weekly. They say:

American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi adopted the singsong Indian accent of his elders, grew his hair long, posed as a guru, and found followers in Phoenix. And while he was at it, he kept cameras rolling to make this dubious Borat-esque documentary. Gandhi tries to dodge criticism of his mocking scam by rationalizing that even a phony wise man can offer real solace. Besides, he says, he learned something about sincerity — not to mention the value of film festivals as fertile ground for publicity stunts.

Now, I like Entertainment Weekly. I’m even a subscriber. But I’m not at all surprised that they were unable to grasp the point of this movie. As they say, this is a movie about a guy of Indian descent who posed as a guru and filmed it. But what Vikram Gandhi did was not in any way a “mocking scam” nor is this film at all “Borat-esque.” As Borat, Sasha Baron Cohen played his character and the reactions it got for laughs. And while there are plenty of funny moments in Kumare, Vikram is dealing with a much more serious and important subject. But it’s a subject that I doubt the writers at Entertainment Weekly have much close contact with and so perhaps I can forgive them for completely missing the point.

As I’ve often written in this blog and in my books, I am highly uncomfortable in my Buddhist robes. Even though I am entitled to wear the golden colored sash (called an o-kesa) of a so-called “Zen Master,” I rarely take the damned thing out of the box it lives in, in the bottom of my closet. This is because as soon as you put something like that on a certain segment of the people you meet start reacting to you in ways that I find highly bizarre and off-putting.

Uniforms are powerful and significant. This is why the police, our “boys in blue,” dress in special clothes. It’s why the President of the United States always has a red tie. It’s why priests of all religions dress up in funny outfits. People really respond to that stuff.

Vikram had a serious interest in why certain well-heeled middle-class Americans are so easily drawn to pretty much anyone with a funny accent who puts on a set of robes. His first idea was to make a documentary film about actual gurus. But what he found disgusted and deeply disturbed him. He uses a few of the interviews he conducted for this unfinished project in the early part of the movie. And some of them are really chilling.

The one that bugged me most was Bhagavan Das who says, “If I was a twenty year old girl, I would love hanging out with me. What could be more fabulous than having sex with a really spiritual mystical person?” Vkram cuts this together with shots of a slightly spaced out but very attractive young blonde who says of Bhagavan Das, “He’s the new teacher of this age, of this world. He’s someone who has the answer, I believe.” Yep. And the answer is in his pants.

Bhagavan Das, in case you were wondering, is an old teacher of Ram Dass, the guy who wrote Be Here Now, and has been milking his association with Ram Dass for the past forty years (he even titled his own book It’s Here Now (Are You?)). He was a hippie who went to India and became a yogi then made a lot of famous friends including Jimi Hendrix. Which is fine. But I saw him in that video and it’s hard to imagine sex with a dude that hairy would be all that fabulous for a twenty-year old girl.

I don’t want to draw this into yet another of my rants about the matter of spiritual teachers who sleep with their students. I wrote two books that go deeply into that subject. But it’s just one of the things that drove Vkram to undertake the important social experiment he documents in this film.

By putting on some orange robes and imitating his grandmother’s Indian accent and mannerisms, Vkram discovered that there are people out there who are willing to believe just about any damned thing as long as it’s spoken by someone who appears to represent some kind of mystical spiritual tradition from the mysterious East. He has them doing air guitar moves and getting little penises drawn on their foreheads. Not only that, he tells them straight up that the thing he’s drawing on their foreheads is a dick and they still let him do it.

These are not dumb people either. They are intelligent, educated and sincere. Nor does Vkram try to make them look like fools. Over and over again he takes pains to point out that pretty much anyone could potentially fall for this kind of thing if they were seeking “The Answer” outside of themselves.

But as the guru Sri Kumare, Vkram has a message. And his message is that the answer is always within each of us. That we do not need to seek it in someone else. He intends to prove that by first luring his followers in with the scam of the guru Sri Kumare and then revealing to them that he’s really just a guy from New Jersey. I won’t give away the ending. But suffice it to say, it’s pretty intense.

The thing is, though, as Entertainment Weekly failed to understand in spite of saying it in their review, “even a phony wise man can offer real solace.” Sri Kumare, phony as he is, ends up doing his followers some actual good. That’s because Vikram, the man inside the Sri Kumare guise, is at heart a good guy who truly does want to help — even if that wasn’t what he initially set out to do. He’s not trying to scam these people. He’s trying to make a very important point. Sure he’s also trying to get a hit movie out of it. And I really hope his movie is a hit because a lot of people need to see this film.

It’s going to upset a certain segment of the audience who will see themselves in Sri Kumare’s followers and feel that they’re being played for fools. And you know what? It ought to upset them. That is precisely the point. But this is going to make it tough for Vkram to get the film seen by the people who most need to see it. It would be sad if the only people who get into the film are those who see Sri Kumare’s followers as a bunch of idiots and who mistakenly believe they’re above all that.

As for me, who very definitely is one of the people who needed to see this movie, it’s got me thinking again about the whole matter of spiritual uniforms and the role of the teacher in the spiritual quest. It’s true that the answer is within each and every one of us. But it’s also true that most of us need someone else to help us see that. The film Kumare demonstrates this in a very concrete — and highly entertaining — way.

The question it raises for me is this; Does it really even matter if the teacher has any sort of grounding? Can anyone at all put on some robes and, if he or she is at least a decent person, act as a guide for others? Why should I insist that anyone I would pass my lineage on to be extremely balanced before I give them the paperwork that lets them wear one of those silly golden colored sashes? My tentative answer is, on the one hand pretty much anyone who is even just a bit balanced can help others find balance. But such a person could only help their followers to a limited degree.

Also, as Vikram in the guise of the guru Kumare discovered, putting on those robe can make you act differently. When people start to trust in you, as they trusted in the phony Sri Kumare, any decent person will feel the need to try and be worthy of that trust. This may be why Dogen extolled the virtues of wearing the o-kesa, calling it “the great robe of liberation.”

But those robes can also be a dangerous weapon. Putting on the robe may make a decent person inclined to act more decently. But a less decent person can use its mojo to get all kinds of things like money and sex and power. The movie Kumare only hints at the extent to which one can abuse such power. But the real world provides plenty of examples.

Yeah. I’m talking to you, Bhagavan Das.

***

Brad Warner is the author of Sex, Sin and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between as well as Hardcore Zen, Sit Down and Shut Up! and Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff that you can click here to see. You can also buy T-shirts and hoodies based on his books, and the new CD by his band Zero Defex now!

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Jul 2012 30

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Rin

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.


[Rin in Voyeur]

Q: I’ll just jump right into it. I’m 24 and single, have been my entire life. It’s definitely not by choice, just a long running series of me being an idiot, and saying the wrong thing at the right time.

Given, I am a nerd, always have been and always will be. But unlike the stereotype, I do have social graces. I can get along with pretty much anyone, short of them just generally being an asshole. It’s not the fear of rejection either, I’ve overcome that a while ago. I just have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I’m too impatient and can be over-bearing at times, which I’m trying to work on. I’m not an ugly guy by any means, I’m fairly average, and have a pretty awesome beard. I guess my question is: How do I garner interest? How do I get a girl to be interested in me?

The overwhelming lack of response most of the time is disheartening (does that even make sense?). I won’t whine about the “friend zone” either, because it doesn’t really exist; I believe if something’s there it could still happen, it’s just another meek, nerd stereotype that doesn’t lend itself to me. What do I do, hell, where should I even be looking? I appreciate any advice you can give me.

A: It sounds like you’re doing okay in some aspects of dating –– you’re not afraid of rejection, you get along with lots of different types of people, and you’ve got a beard (extra points!). It also really helps that you’re self aware enough to realize some stuff about you that might be a barrier to getting close to the ladies.

Sure, some people like intense dudes, but for many of us it’s a huge turnoff, so working really hard on improving your patience and intensity level should really help you connect with the girls you’re interested in. Ladies generally like to be pursued, but if you push too hard it’s easy for us to get scared off. Take it easy, and trust that your natural charm & good qualities are shining through.

How often do you meet new people? Are you often exposed to new ladies at friends’ parties, work, sports clubs or anywhere else? If not, you may want to try internet dating? It’s kind of nutty, on one hand, but I’ve found it an incredible way to meet people and practice my social skills. I’ve had the best and worst dates because of random dating sites! I definitely recommend this. You may not meet your dream girl, but you will probably have a lot of experiences that help hone your romantic senses. Internet dating is also great because you can find people who you connect with (on paper) and display yourself in a very straightforward way that makes it clear what you’re into.

When you’re interested in a lady, ask her questions about her likes and life. Don’t go on and on about yourself, and remember, coming on hard with too many compliments can seem insincere/strange. Cultivate a wide variety of interests. Not only does that help when you’re feeling bummed about not having a ladyfriend (it keeps you busy with things you’re really into), but it helps to give you avenues to meet new people. If you’re super boring, it’s more difficult to attract people to you.

Ask her out on a date, but not something typical like dinner and a movie. Some ideas: visit an aquarium, play bingo, go for a walk/hike somewhere nice, go to a botanical garden, plan a picnic, play darts/pool/bowling/laser tag, go to an old-school arcade, visit a planetarium, go to an author reading or lecture series at a bookstore, library or university, etc.

Hopefully this helps and you soon find yourself having lots of fun dates!

Best wishes on your quest for love.

Rin

***

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com