It seems that almost everything on television these days is reality entertainment. While most of it is completely unwatchable (Jersey Shore and Housewives from Anywhere), there are a few that some of us can’t stop watching (even though we wish we could.) For me, it’s The Bachelor. I’ve been watching this insipid show from the very first season and the inevitable spin-offs like The Bachelorette and Bachelor Pad. I can’t help myself and the only explanation that seems to make sense is the escapism of watching 25 women and one jackass make fools of themselves every Monday night.
Maybe it makes me feel better about me or perhaps it’s the only way I stay connected to pop culture considering the rest of my life is filled with homeschooling, gardening, moon-shining, writing, and other 18th century pastimes. Mostly though, I have a desire to reach through the screen and grab these women by the forearms and shake them. It’s no wonder they’re all single. Almost every one of them make the most common and most avoidable mistakes while trying to land a man. Yes, I’ve made them, you’ve made them…who hasn’t? But the question is, why do women continue to make the same blunders that only provoke men to run away screaming? Sisters, learn from others’ experience! The following are 10 solid ways to lose a man.
10. Drink too much
Alcohol is not your friend in a first-impression situation. On The Bachelor, the production staff liquors up a room full of women to see the fun that will ensue. Alcohol is the most important set requirement on The Bachelor. Many contestants have reported that the first cocktail party is longer than 5 hours with no food and nothing to drink but booze. This combination leads to the explosive moments we love to hate including the over-emotional break-downs and cat fights. Without the influence of the demon rum, it would be a much more boring affair. If at all avoidable, do not drink on a first date! First of all, you may not know enough about your date to know if you can trust him in a situation when you are intoxicated. Also, drunk girls are annoying. They do things like repeat themselves and tuck their dress into their underwear on a trip to the bathroom. While memorable, this is not the impression you want to leave with your date (or on YouTube).
More important than impressing your date, however, is staying alive and unmolested. Know your limits with alcohol, don’t go out on an empty stomach, and drink plenty of water. Not only will you be more fun to be around sober, you’ll also be at less risk of getting into a dangerous situation that could have been avoided. That last sentence is going to get me into trouble with faux feminists who believe even drunk girls should be safe from rape. If only we lived in such a world — but we don’t and your chances of getting home safely decrease with each drink you take. Predators target drunk girls. Period. Don’t be a victim. (See the unfortunate fate of Natalee Holloway.)
9. Use cheesy gimmicks (poems, raps, riding in on horseback, hokey gifts with his name in macrame, etc.)
It’s important to note that men aren’t 12-year-old girls. What might be fun and cute at a slumber party in junior high will simply seem like crazy girl-crap to a guy. I’m talking about the weird mating habits of girls in their 20s who treat a date like an event complete with take-home favors. On each season of The Bachelor a girl will show up with a gimmicky gift or original rap song (sigh).
Love is like disease, always spreading,
You can get it from a friend, you can get it at a wedding.
It sometimes happens when you least expect it,
And before you know it, you’re one of the infected.
Wait, is she talking about herpes? Better avoid this one. Next up, a hat the size of Kentucky. Awkward!
The hat is a disaster that screams, “I need attention and I’ll go to any lengths to get it, including stage a break-in at your house and dance on a table at a wedding in front of your mother in a dress three sizes too small.” Even if all that is true about you, don’t advertise it with crazy headgear! That’s the kind of stuff you should keep squashed away somewhere until it’s too late and he’s hooked you work through it. Also, a smart woman would rethink that neckline. There aren’t many men (off the Jersey Shore) who would feel comfortable escorting half-exposed breasts around town while enduring wolf-whistles and wading through gapers-delays. Speaking of traffic jams, using equestrian transportation to impress is also risky considering said horse might pee (or worse) on your date.
If you absolutely have to do something to impress your date, spring for professional sports tickets and not fopsy poetry you wrote while listening to Justin Beiber.
8. Hide the existence of your kids
Hopefully it’s only reality show contestants who conceal children from their dates and not normal women. Almost every woman with a child who goes on The Bachelor always waits for the “right moment” to tell the big secret. Unfortunately, the right moment is the very minute you meet someone and should show up in approximately the second sentence. “Hi, I’m Marci. I practice law and I have a 3-year-old son.” It’s that easy.
If you even consider lying or leaving out the fact that you have a precious child at home you need therapy. It isn’t recommended that you share every detail of your life, especially on a first date, but not disclosing a child is fraud. It’s better to find out immediately, preferably before you even schedule a date, that your potential mate hates kids. Hopefully, you are the type of person who puts their child’s needs and welfare above your desire to split a bloomin’ onion with some dude at Chili’s. If you do make the mistake of dropping the “oh, and by the way I have a child” news several dates in, don’t be surprised if you never hear from him again. The sad part is, he might have loved children but simply didn’t like dishonesty and misrepresentation.
7. Talk endlessly about past relationships
Much of leaving a good first impression depends on things you don’t say. This obviously doesn’t apply to important things like the last item (children) but to things that just don’t matter to your date. If you spend a half hour running down the last 5 relationships you’ve had, and how awful they all were to you, your potential Mr. Forever is going to think you’re Miss Never. Don’t, under any circumstances, show him a text from your ex that says, “Welcome to Dumpsville, population you.” Showing a man your last boyfriend had no respect for you isn’t a smart move. By all means, learn from your past mistakes but start a new relationship with a clean slate and don’t bring up painful or private memories that have no place or purpose in the present. Concentrate on getting to know the person across the table from you and try to listen more than you talk. Everyone loves to talk about their favorite subject: themselves. Give your date the opportunity to do so and you’ll leave him wanting more.
6. Talk about babies
Unless you’ve got your date wrapped around your finger and trailing after you with his tongue hanging out (see Bachelor Ben and Courtney the model with the personality disorder), do not ever say, “We would make cute babies.” This will make your date jump up from the table, run out of the restaurant, and leave you to find your own way home. It isn’t that men don’t want babies but they certainly don’t want to think about babies or references to marriage when they first meet you. They need to know if they can like you before they can think about mortgages and college tuition because those are the only things men see when they hear “marriage” and “babies.” (Mr. Fox, who is Daddy Of The Year material, still counts our children by how many weddings he’s going to have to pay for. His reluctance to consider an additional child revolves around the likelihood that he’ll have to pay for yet another wedding. For real.)
5. Talk about other women
Every season on The Bachelor there is a woman which every other woman hates. Each time the she-devil bewitches the Bachelor while the other women steam quietly (or not-so-quietly) about her insincerity and general psychosis. Usually, one brave soul will try to save the Bachelor from his stupidity and tell him that one of these things is not like the others but it always backfires. Men don’t like girl-drama. It confuses them. When they have a problem with another guy they might punch each other in the face and then go for a beer but they don’t obsess. Whether it’s a girl you both know or one in the restaurant that brings out the cattiness, keep the claws in. Talking trash about other girls shows a jealous streak and jealous girls do things like slash tires and boil bunnies. No one wants that.
4. Hop in the sack too fast
There are several schools of thought on this topic but I’m 100% certain that spending the night with a guy who is about to spend the night with two other girls is a monumentally stupid idea. The overnight portion of The Bachelor is always mind-numbing. Three girls, who just spent the last few weeks watching the object of their affection make out with tons of other girls happily skip off to a “fantasy suite” with a guy they’ve known for 6 whole weeks. It’s absurd and…unsanitary. I keep waiting for just one girl to point out the folly of leaping into bed with someone who is obviously sleeping with other people, but no one ever does. This silliness spills over into actual reality and women are giving it away like it’s on blue light special at Kmart. What you do with your body is your business, but if you want a relationship to last longer than a few minutes in a motel you should consider putting a higher value on yourself. If that sounds like something your grandmother would say, feel free to ignore it, but consider, Still-Single-at-35, was your grandmother married? A man might marry you in spite of the fact you slept with him too soon, but no decent man ever dumped a girl for waiting. This is also a good way to judge the character of the man you’re dating. If he’s only in it for sex, you’ll find out soon enough and have the ability to move on without drama or an itchy undercarriage.
3. Lie about who you are
It never fails that girls will lie and say they love rock climbing, zip-lining, fishing, sporting, or any number of things when they’re trying to land an athletic Bachelor. Then, when faced with actually doing any of those things they freak out and need a Xanax just to hang. If cliff diving is something that is important to a man and he wants someone to jump with, don’t lie and say you’re into it when you’re not. Give him the opportunity to go find someone who will enjoy it instead. It’s the right thing to do. That doesn’t mean that every jock needs an Amazonian girlfriend either. Some guys prefer doing that stuff with the boys so just be honest and tell him you’d rather drive nails up your arm than go skydiving. He might surprise you and think it’s cute and endearing.
2. Manipulate him.
Worst 2 moments on this season’s Bachelor so far: Courtney (the model who desperately wants you to know she’s a model) knows she’s going to be in the final two but fakes insecurity to get a rose on a date and to make the other girls cry. It works. Later on, Courtney (the model sociopath) breaks the rules, shows up at Ben’s room after hours, and entices him into the ocean…naked. Not only enforcing stereotypes that men are ruled by their dumbsticks, she goes a long way toward solidifying the popular belief that models are evil. (I’m looking at you, Giselle.) Manipulating a man through tears, lies, cleavage, or otherwise is foul play. Just because men aren’t as smart (emotionally) as women doesn’t mean we should abuse that power.* This includes pouting when he wants to go out with his friends, withholding affection to get your way, and misrepresenting your true intentions.
*Don’t send me emails or nasty comments about how men are not emotionally dumb. You are, but you’re better at math, so we’re even.
1. Stalk him.
Every woman has a closet somewhere deep inside her where the crazy is locked up. You know it, I know it, and the producers of The Bachelor certainly know it. They pry the door open with an alcohol crowbar and enrage the beast inside with whispered paranoid suggestions which results in an on-camera melt-down that ignites the ratings. You, however, should only open the cuckoo closet on girls’ nights with no men anywhere. That’s when you shake up a few cosmos and pull out your inner mental patient and let her go wild theorizing about every fear and obsession that might plague you. Afterwards, you push her back where she belongs and bar the door. You don’t let her check his collar for lipstick or go through his wallet looking for phone numbers, text him every 5 minutes while he’s out with the guys, or drive past his house and write down license plate numbers in the driveway. You don’t let her freak out and call him 800 times if he doesn’t call you after a date. You get a hobby. If he doesn’t call, forget him and move on. Do not waste your time stalking a guy for any reason. You will end up with a broken heart and a restraining order.
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Dating these days can’t be easy, and I’m thrilled I’m not still wading through it, but by avoiding these simple mistakes you can avoid much of the drama and maybe even find love.
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