I Had a Nice Time And Other Lies...: How to find love & sh*t like that (17 page)
Read I Had a Nice Time And Other Lies...: How to find love & sh*t like that Online
Authors: The Betches
There’s really no point to go into very specific advice with case by case scenarios because there is one overarching rule that applies to almost every single situation when playing the New Game. It’s called: Hold the Fuck Back.
Did he text you that he thinks you looked cute today and you so badly want to tell him
OMG I saw you looking at me you looked so cute too do you wanna come over? I’ll cook you dinner and we can call my mom and tell her we’re getting so close!!!
No, bitch. Hold the fuck back. Text him back:
Well thanks. I mayyy have noticed you looking cute today, too.
Did he follow you on Instagram and you so badly want to like all of his pictures and comment on every single one of them with the boy/girl kissy-face emojis or inside jokes? No, bitch. Hold the fuck back. This is the lowest form of flirting, equivalent to a Facebook friend request. Would you comment on his pics there and message him a
thanks for accepting
?? NO, you wouldn’t, because you’re sane.
Did he invite you to his frat party or a friend’s pregame and you so badly want to come alone, buy the most expensive bottle of wine the liquor store has in stock, stand by his side all night, and bring a large bag containing all your sleepover essentials because you assume you’re going to cuddle tonight? NO, BITCH. Hold the fuck back. Show up with two friends and talk to other people until he comes over. And bring vodka.
While resisting showing outward affection slash borderline obsession at the beginning of a relationship is important, it’s equally important to resist inward tendencies, too. This is where Emotional Masturbation comes in, and this is also where it stops. An occasional fantasy about a hot guy staring at you in a subway or a casual daydream of a lower-middle-class-but-at-least-you’ll-have-a-happy-life with your gorgeous Starbucks barista are okay in theory, imagining how cute a
guy with whom you’ve been on three dates is going to look changing the diaper of your firstborn is totally crazy. The barista doesn’t fucking care if you’re crazy, he’s still going to make you your trenta iced coffee. The guy you’re dating, however, will dump you the moment he even senses you’re becoming too obsessed. Keep the fantasies to a minimum and your reality in check before you emotionally masturbate yourself off the relationship deep end.
Shit Crazy Bitches Do: Send Unwarranted Heartfelt Messages
Shit like
thinking about you, can’t wait to see you, wish you were here
are all normal to send to your boyfriend, but not to someone whom you want to be your boyfriend. Your boyfriend will respond,
Can’t wait to see you, too, babe.
A man who is not yet your boyfriend will reply,
Lol same
or
Who’s this?
or he’ll simply say nothing. Holding back your emotions via text before commitment or his initiation is key to keeping the relationship and flirtation on course. It keeps you mysterious. It keeps him guessing. It keeps you in the Game.
The vice versa applies here as well. Imagine a bro drunkenly texts you
I miss you I can’t stop thinking about you
after you’ve only gone out with him twice. You’d laugh, show all your friends, say
whooaaa stalker
to your bestie, and then show the texts to everyone you know for the entire week afterward. While your ego is glowing, you’re totally going to
move on from that weirdo because too much too soon is disastrous. So, next time you want to text him
miss you cutie,
imagine him showing your text to all his friends and them all laughing at you for days.
This is all not to say that you should be an emotionless robot when dating. Just the opposite, actually. Be funny, cute, flirty, sexy (not to be confused with sexty). Be yourself. Just don’t be your craziest self. He has a lifetime to hang out with that girl once he’s like, totally fallen in love with you. It’s all just a matter of when to show him all your sides. He won’t be able to get to know that funny cute flirty sexy betch if he sees the oversharing, too-eager girl first. Remember: If you show him all your cards before the Game ends, how will you ever win?
Do I Get My Besties Involved?
It’s best not to get your friends too involved in your relationship too early. Sure, you may have the urge to set your friends up with his friends so the two of you have more reasons to hang out, but you are not an official couple yet and intertwining your worlds too soon could make it awkward if shit doesn’t work out. Limit the friend intermingling to bringing your besties to his pregame and keep your worlds relatively separate until you’ve discussed that you guys plan on making this a long-term thing. Don’t let your friends friend him or get otherwise involved in his world. It may scare him off; as with most other stuff in early dating, let him take the lead.
When you’re in the “casual dating” stage of seeing a guy, it’s easy to ignore red flags in favor of your own fantasies. But overlooking things you know to be warning signs can result in you getting deeper into a situation with someone who may or may not be a commitment-phobic narcissistic psychopath, a.k.a., Mr. Big from
Sex and the City
or Scott Disick.
Many guys seem normal at first until you find out they’re compulsive liars or misogynists, but the good thing about allowing the realization to break through in the early stages is that the stakes are still low enough to get out before he ruins your self-esteem and life. Here are some examples of the types of guys that could fuck up your mental space so much that you find yourself drunk-crying at a bar or worse, questioning your own sanity and hotness.
“So, I assume you’ve come here to make arrangements. But unfortunately, I don’t fuck losers.”
—Kathryn Merteuil,
Cruel Intentions
Some men lie. A lot. They lie about how tall they are, how they think you look in that dress, their feelings for you, going out with their friends when they’re really on a date, fucking other people, etc. Some guys lie just to get out of an uncomfortable situation or to spare themselves the awkwardness of telling you how they really feel. There’s a word for these men
and, as much as we hate to use it, it’s the only fitting word: Pussies. A man who cannot grow the balls to at least tell you to your face that he “didn’t have sex with that girl” or “
accidentally
liked all his ex’s profile pictures” is not a real man. He’s a boy who is scared of facing his problems head-on and not someone you should continue to deal with. If he’s lying to you in the beginning of your courtship, he will definitely lie—and lie bigger—once you two are committed. Relationships are built on trust, and you cannot trust this guy for shit. Time to run.
“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.”
—Barbara Bush
This guy cannot help but try to have his cake and eat it, too. There are some men who simply feel hemmed in regularly fucking any fewer than three women at a time. When you try to call him out on this behavior or ask why he takes two days to return a text, he will try to turn the tables and call you “clingy” or “psycho.” When you break up with him because he won’t commit, he’ll text you at two a.m. hoping you’re drunk and tell you he misses you only to fall back into the same evasive pattern of assholedom the next day. His ego feeds off of any attention you give him so he’ll try to milk that attention for all it’s worth given the slightest opening.
He is a narcissist and has deeply rooted issues involving his inability to care about the feelings of anyone besides himself. Best to block his number, he is bad news and extremely toxic.
From the way this guy talks about you and your future, you’d think you were married by now. He is constantly complimenting you and saying extremely nice shit to you, but here’s the catch: His actions don’t reflect the talk. Despite texting you daily, he never asks you to hang out. On occasion he’ll ask you to come over and watch a movie or catch up, but he never puts any real effort into your dates. He considers himself a “nice guy” because he speaks respectfully to you, but he never follows this up with any actions of importance. This guy is the worst kind of time-waster and it’s up to you to dodge his manipulative words and cut the shit. Next!
“Actions defined a man; words were a fart in the wind.”
—Mario Puzo
If you encounter any of these guys, it’s time to run. If a guy has committed any of these crimes he’s committed the ultimate sin: He made you waste two to six nights out on him. Drop him like the fly he is and make room in your life for quality men who put in the time and effort to show you how amazing they know you are.
Inspirational Fictional Betch: Belle
Gaston:
It’s not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting
ideas,
and
thinking
. . .
Belle was a hot nerd who loved reading and didn’t give a fuck about guys. All she cared about was like, her library card and her dad. Lame, but whatever. For some reason, hot jock Gaston was really into her whole virgin vibe and was trying to wife her up. Belle wasn’t an idiot, though, and knew that if she married Gaston he would treat her like shit. Eventually she decided to accept a date with the Beast who, although ugly-hot instead of hot-hot, was rich as fuck and had some pretty good game. If Belle can get over the whole “my boyfriend got me to date him by kidnapping my dad and holding him ransom and then locking me as a hostage in his house” thing, you can probably have a pretty nice life with an ugly-hot bro once you get to know him and he proves he’s going to treat you right. Hell, he might even be so happy to be with someone out of his league that he buys you a whole library and some antique clocks and shit. Moral of the story: Don’t discount nice, rich, fugly dudes. Also, you’re much more likely to meet a guy while actively doing shit you care about than hanging out at taverns with hot assholes.
Dealbreakers from a Guy’s Perspective by Head Pro
Hey girl, let’s talk. This stage of the relationship, the part where you’re “not like, technically a thing, but it’s definitely going somewhere” is the dealbreaker-iest level in the video game of dating for guys. Hell, for some guys, the very state of having an almost girlfriend is itself a dealbreaker, but those guys are damaged souls and not worth fretting over. For everyone else, here are some traps to avoid if you want a shot at that sweet, sweet “girlfriend” label.
Texting/snapchatting all the fucking time:
Girl, I spend like, two nights with you every week. Can a man live?
Getting weirdly, irrationally jealous:
It’s one thing if you see me out somewhere talking to another girl and casually ask who she was the next time we hang out. It’s a whole other thing, when confronted with this situation, to physically put yourself between us, literally pee on me and shout “we’re sleeping together” while maintaining eye contact with the other woman. THAT’S MY FUCKING BOSS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??
Trying to make him jealous to “tip the scales”:
I get it. Some guys refuse to get off the pot, but you’re 100 percent sure that there’s no shitting going on. In that instance, you
might be tempted to flirt obviously with other guys in his field of vision in order to make him “see what he’s missing.” Don’t. Sure, it
could
work, if the guy you’re dealing with is a spineless weenie. But if you’re dating a quality dude, all he’s going to do is feel hurt, get pissed, and flip it back on you. In that case, all you’ll have done is waste a substantial amount of time and an incalculable amount of emotional energy.
Pressuring him to meet your parents:
Point-blank, if there’s no
explicitly stated
exclusivity, nobody needs to meet your parents, your cousins, or your fucking high school history teacher. It’s the same mentality as the above dealbreaker:
If I foist [milestone] upon him, he’ll come around.
That’s not how it works. Throwing an infant into a pool won’t turn it into the next Michael Phelps.
Getting all stalkerish on social media:
The girls explain this in greater detail elsewhere, but at no point do you and a guy need to get all that cozy on social media. That’s especially true at this fragile stage, where you might feel tempted to insert yourself into his virtual life so other people know you exist. Do not do this. People will be like,
Haha Jake, who’s this girl commenting on your mom’s birthday Facebook post?
and you’re not going to like his answer.
Inviting yourself everywhere:
Sure, at this point you might be in a place where your dates/hangouts are implied, which is great. You meet for drinks every Wednesday and Friday,
spend your Saturdays together, etc. However, don’t get into the habit of inviting yourself along every time he mentions an activity on his calendar. He’ll feel obligated to include you, and obligation is what you feel for your dentist, not for your almost girlfriend. Just because he’s going to crush brews with his bros on Sunday, it doesn’t mean he’ll forget about you.
Getting hit by a bus:
Sorry, we can’t wife you up if you’re dead.