Attacking Life with Comedic Jaws of Sarcasm. Recovering Dating & Relationship Blogger - Made it to Step 12 When I Got Married.

What Have You Done For Me Lately, Part Deux

It’s “What has Velvet learned about dating” week over here and we’ve got our next installment. You might want to grab a snack because we’re going to be here for a few minutes and you’re going to participate in the class discussion. Ready?

This is exponentially more important in D.C. because people are in love with their jobs here for some stupid reason.

A man’s profession is very very important in decoding how he will treat you. Let’s take a look at some various professions and what you can determine from each.

  1. Lawyer
    Likes to argue. Will never let you win an argument. Will resort to confusing justifications to trick you into believing he is right. Compromise is not a word he knows well because any sort of compromise means that he lost. Losing is not in his nature.
  2. Salesman
    Look, this ain’t no Willy Loman type of salesman to which I’m referring. His title will be something important sounding like “Pharmaceutical Consultant,” “East Coast Account Executive” or “Surgery Specialist.” Sounds important but really isn’t. Basically if his title can be dumbed down to being in his car all day gathering road rage while he “calls on” clients, and his clients are doctors to whom he brings lunches and other goodies, then he’s a salesman. And a salesman, ladies, will tell you anything you want to hear just to get what he wants. For him, it’s all about making the sale. And goodwill won’t last long with him – it’s always going to be “Yeah, well what have you done for me lately?”
  3. Entrepreneur
    La Zipcode had an email from a man on match who “owned his own business.” Listen up: This is not necessarily a claim to fame. Do not pursue this man because you think he has endless supplies of money and vacation time to take you to Paris. The man who owns his own business (and works alone) most likely does so because he hates working with, for and beside others. He cannot get along well with people, and thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Thinking you are smarter than everyone else is much different from thinking other people are stupid. Other people are stupid, I agree that that’s true. But most of us are not so arrogant that we actually believe we’re the supreme of the smarts. There is a giant exception to this rule. If he has employees, and he treats them well (i.e., does not refer to them as a “stupid son of a bitch” daily) then you’re okay. Starting your own business isn’t necessarily a sign of antisocial behaviors if you employ and play nice with others. But if he has no employees? Get out of there faster than Britney turned white trash.
  4. Cop
    Good lord do I even need to go here? Cops are arrogant assholes on major power trips. Bossy and self-important, you’ll never have any fun in this relationship because it will always be about his job job job. His job will always take precedence over yours because sitting in the cruiser eating a powdered, strawberry filled while watching the Picadilly Cafeteria across the street for any suspicious activity from the Blue Hairs is way more demanding than anything you could possibly spend your day doing. The only upside here is that he has handcuffs, but it’s not enough of an upside when you can buy pretty much anything you might want, here.
  5. Military, ex-Military
    Run. Run as fast as you can. These dudes are fucking scary. They like order, routine, and think nothing of waking up at 4 a.m. and expecting you to as well. Something happens to our boys when they enter the military – they get that training to hunt and kill and it makes something in their head snap. Laid-back military refugees are hard to find. Most of them are wound tighter than the rubber bands around Star Jones’ stomach.

What professions did I miss?

Why don’t you take a bathroom break and when we come back I’ll finish it up.

Online Dating:

Men describe themselves as better looking than they usually are. Women describe themselves as worse looking than they usually are. To us, “a few extra pounds” means just that: five extra pounds. If we were 10 extra pounds, we would, in the spirit of honesty, describe ourselves as curvy. Men? Yeah. Anywhere from 5’2 98 lbs to 6’5 550 lbs they think is “average.”

The premise of online dating is that you answer a bunch of questions for both yourself as well as your potential mate, spin the wheel and start bidding. These websites seem to be set up for failure. If I took the people in my life who were great boyfriends, fun to be around and passed my sniff test, most of them would not fit into the little prescribed box of qualities I would select.

My first boyfriend was a smoker. I would “never” date a smoker. But I did. For six years. Mr. X has been married before. While this doesn’t necessarily rule someone out for me, there’s clearly baggage there that I’d rather not deal with. But in both cases, it just worked out to become a wonderful relationship. If I used an online questionnaire to weed people out, I would have never met the loves of my life. So you have to think outside the box, and you have to test and jump out of your comfort zone.

Since these sites continue to include generic profile questions, I would like to make a suggestion to them. The world would be much happier if they included a section on teeth with a picture of his chompers required. I would like for this section to include information about the color of teeth, as well as how straight they are. There are a lot of bad teeth online. Just sayin!

In fact, all online dating questionnaires should be destroyed. In their place, I’d like to suggest the following:

1) Please submit a letter of recommendation from your dentist with full dental impressions.
2) Who is your last ex-girlfriend and what is her phone number so she can be called in as a reference? Yes, I think you’re lying when you say she was crazy.
3) What is your propensity to be psycho, scale of 1-10; 10 being the most psycho? (Add 4 to his answer.)
4) How big is your penis? If you lied about the above and I get far enough with you to find out otherwise, you will live to regret it. So now is your last chance. How big is your penis?
5) Do you have any gifts that keep on giving?
6)Do you now or have you ever lived in a trailer park?

Any others?

Those questions would save a lot of women, a lot of heartache. Myself included. Though, as I said to Mr. X the other night:

“I would take 20 more bad relationships to get to this one again.”

And he said, “Well, lucky for us, you don’t have to.”

Good luck girls!

13 Comments

  1. Mr. X

    “I would end up with someone older than me by more than a few years”. How nice.

  2. Velvet

    God damned it you are such a baby! I stepped out of my little box I drew for myself and look how nice it worked out. Well, until 2 seconds before you left this comment!!! You are, in fact, more than a few years older than me, where “few” equals more than 2 but less than or equal to five.

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070122182811AAIgODV

    http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/a_few.htm

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cry+baby

  3. Mr. X

    Edgy – adj : being in a tense state [syn: high-strung, highly strung, in suspense, jittery, jumpy, nervy, overstrung, restive, uptight]

    Spanking – n : the act of slapping on the buttocks; “he gave the ass a good spanking”

  4. Velvet

    Promises Promises.

    http://www.bdsmstore.com/productcart/pc/product171.asp

  5. Stoic

    Wow, Velvet’s not playing around with those toys.

  6. wildbill

    You know when you should start talking about “the big things”? When you realize that this person is “the One” and you know that they feel the same way. You must also consider: What if the physical connection were severed from this relationship. Chould you still love/cuddle/by Intimate with him/her? Many folks forget that sex isn’t the height of Intimacy, only it’s expression

  7. wildbill

    I also wonder if you used the computer’s remove and replace function, men for women, would your post be equally true? Don’t women do equally reprehensible (if not the same) things that men do? Lie (about their age, etc…) mislead, exaggerate, withhold? and, after sleeping on it I would like to change my post above slightly. Perhaps you should feel someone out about their feelings, if the issue (children) is going to be a deal-breaker. NOT on the first date, mind you but you should keep that in mind, if you want to develop a relationship with them. Folks can change their mind about things, in light of different circumstances but it’s Wrong to keep at it if you can’t find a way clear to be together… Just Sayin’

  8. Phil

    I have a rule: I will not impregnate you on the first date.

  9. BatesHorn

    I do think you really hit at something about the formulaic questions and their complete inability to account for chemistry. When the chemistry is right (and healthy, as you’ve noted), little things like prior relationthips or whatever don’t seem to matter.

  10. Shannon

    I think it’s incredible important to discuss long-term compatibility.

    I agree with Velvet’s pointthat you have to allow for changes – context is all, and people compromise in various ways to keep a relationship going. And people do change their minds about marriage, kids, lifestyles, etc. But you also have to make room for people to NOT change. You have to take them as they are.

    Example: I want kids. If I am involved with a man who adamantly does not want children, or who is the indecisive type who will dither for a decade and consign me to fertility treatment hell, I will break off the relationship. B
    Because I’m not going to get what I want, and I’m just going to wind up a bitter, seething and lonely pile of resentment. It’s far better to be alone.

    And it’s disrespectful to the guy – I wouldn’t hang around a relationship hoping for a man to change, because then I’m implying there’s something wrong with him. There isn’t, we just want different things. I wouldn’t want to be with a guy who sat around waiting for me to change, either.

    And I know there are no guarantees in life – I could meet the perfect guy, then find out we can’t have children. Either of us could get hit by Bob Novak’s Little Dread Corvette and die. Or I could wind up single forever. And I’d survive any of those things.

    But why would I stay in a relationship that I know cannot be sustained, and if it can be, only by soul-killing sacrifices that will make one or both of us miserable?

    So, not on the first date, but I do ask about values, goals, dreams, family, etc. It’s an ongoing conversation, and I’d rather really know the guy for who he is, and not who I’d like him to be in five years. And if I know there’s no long-term potential, I get out before I get resentful.

  11. bejeweled

    The peanut gallery says: Amen wildbill. Amen!!!!

  12. Washington Cube

    You told me that, Phil, and look at the mess we are in.

  13. Rachelle

    Great post Velvet!! Looks like a pretty comprehensive list, but I would also add doctor as a profession to look out for. The God complex can be unbearable. As can being made to listen to never-ending medical stories, heavy with jargon that may as well not even be English. And I’m supposed to act like I care?!

    And although I’ve never personally dated one, I know that investment bankers/traders can be scary.

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