Carnatic

Well enotalone does have a facility that directs you to relevant threads... as for CutiePa2T referring to herself as a little girl and using very juvenile spelling... I don't know, she does generally seem a bit 'young for her age' not gonna jump to any conclusions though and say she isn't 17, or isn't a real person. People do really spell like that and 17 isn't so old that you would've grown out of it.

does he know you're 17, cos quite often it's diffult to tell? Either way it won't make him a paedophile... you may be young but you have reached sexual maturity and you are of legal age (probably, depends what country you are in I suppose)... paedophiles have a fetish for yound children prior to reaching sexual maturity. Still there are other social issues with a 23 year old guy dating a 17 year old girl... it's stigmatised, and words like 'cradle-snatcher' may be used... I think he'd maybe be seen as sleazy rather than perverted. So while he isn't a paedophile or anything, I'd advise extreme caution and say it would be better to stick to guys closer to your own age.

She says she has an inferiority complex, she never said it was because he was mistreating her. If he is then yeah you can do better than that, and dump him, if not then how long have you been with him? Could it just be the effects of being 1) in love and 2) having low confidence... I don't have any experience with love admittedly but I'm pretty sure that this is how I'd feel if I ever had a girlfriend. So if he is a good guy then you have to tell him you feel this way... so that he knows to put extra effort into making you feel a million dollars If he's so good then the fact he chose you above all the other girls must make you feel pretty special aye?

I think the main thing is that there are all manners of people and personal preferences. Guys should just do what they are happy with, because there will be girls out their who like that. You don't have to fall into a pigeonhole either, you can mix and match between metrosexuality and masculinity to your hearts content. And to want to have a particular look to have to want to influence your appearance, so even the manly man sometimes looks like a manly man because that is the look he is going for, and sometimes these men even spend as much time as the metrosexual trying to perfect that look. But yeah just do what you are happy with. I'm happy to take fashion advice from friends who are fashion designers, wearing colour co-ordinated clothes, scarves and the like, but I wouldn't want to shave my body, I seldom even shave my face, I have gone clean shaven on occasion but all my friends, male and female alike tell me it doesn't suit me and to grow back the stubble. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Hey Hey! I think you're mixing me up with someone else, I didn't say any of those things, can you please read my posts before you go about attacking me over them. I said guys should be confident and the nice guys often make the mistake of assuming you have to be a jerk to be confident. I also agreed partly with CamGuy's idea that men are made to feel ashamed of being men sometimes these days. I did not say, nor do I agree with, any of the things you have put in speech marks and I did not say confidence was exclusive to men and I did not say all women like a man who stands up for himself. I am sick to death of trying to put forward a balanced view and then being portrayed as an extreme of one camp and crucified. I've had it with this thread.

I like a girl who looks comfortable, casual and stylish Were you banned from watching Persil adverts as a child Dako?

I don't think he meant that charges for rape were trumped up, I think he meant that things that aren't rape can be trumped up to be rape. It's similar to the stories you hear about guys in a office who smile, say hello, maybe flirt with a girl in the office they like and find themselves being accused of sexual harassment... this is fairly rare but thanks to the media it is reported as hype and it puts men on the defensive. But can we please move away from this sort of deep nitpicking of one comment... it threatens to derail the thread.

This is exactly what I was talking about... all Camguy did was say, effectively to be yourself and treat yourself with as much respect as you treat your partner... but because he was coming from a standpoint that advocated confidence CG and Shysoul immediately jump on him and argue that you should be yourself and treat women with respect and confidence won't take you all the way. If you'd actually taken the time to read Camguy's pot you'd see he wan't even saying anything you disagree with. This is what i meant by 'Nice Guy Syndrome' (hadn't heard of Dr Glover so I had given it a different definition), when you see words like 'confident' and 'assertive' and assume the guy is promoting a male dominated world and encouraging other guys to be jerks... you even seem to accuse him of stating that 'date rape and sexual harassment by men, is not their fault', and I'm sorry CG that you had to go through something terrible but nowhere did CamGuy try to defend rapists.

you might want to post this in a new thread of your own rather than at the end of someone else's.

Hello. I made a post a few days ago that was deleted... possibly because I agreed with someone who criticised a certain someone else... anyway, that was only at the start of my post... I believe the rest of my post was relevant and non-controversial. So here it is again. sorry about this, I don't think the topic has moved on so far this isn't still relevant. 'I think the thread has been a very good one so far though. I agree with what tylerdurden said about some advice being taken out of context (or in some cases, in my opinion, overstepping the mark a little), and I think this is actually a major issue in 'nice-guy syndrome' like as I said before where many nice-guys are led to believe they ever have to be a jerk or they can't be confident. I remember a discussion I had on a thread I posted once about how to actually make sometime of a proactive move towards getting a phone number or something when I'm talking/flirting with a girl. Diggitydog posted some valid advice referring to a mate of his who was a jerk, but had confidence... because of the way the world is, maybe Diggity's mate was the only person he knew with the confidence we could use as an example... and he was a jerk, Diggity certainly wasn't saying 'be like the jerk' and he pointed this out when challenged, but that's certainly the way people took it, with people saying 'how can you hold this guy up as an example'. The point was, in many cases the jerks have something the nice guy doesn't, confidence, that is why we always see the jerks with the girls.. we aren't to know they can never keep th girl long term the nice guy with 'nice-guy syndrome' just assumes that you have to be a jerk to get the girl, and if he doesn't like the idea of that he will often respond by not allowing himself to be confident. If the nice guy could have this confidence though, the jerk wouldn't stand much of a chance, he'd be limited to those girls who are attracted to 'jerks' and he wouldn't like it. Problem is, whenever someone posts something advising guys to be confident (I'll admit sometimes they say one or two things that overstep the mark, or unintentionaly use words like dominate when they don't really mean the guy has to control the girl) everyone takes is as advice that you have to be a jerk and immediately respond by saying it is bad advice and advising people to ignore it. So, like I ended my last post... it is possible to be confident, outgoing and independent but still a nice guy.'

where did my post go?

It is a common misconception that girls love a b**tard, but still there is a reason why nice guys are so often led to believe that they are destined to finish last and which time after time many people on this forum like to pretend doesn't exist. Confidence, the jerks are usually confident, that is why they are jerks, yes as you all say they may be a little confused but not always, and even if they are confused, still... they are confident. Girls do like confidence and sometimes they are attracted to a confident guy who is a jerk, short term, before they realise he is a jerk and the relationship has no future (or maybe sometimes they are only after the short term). Either way it is easy to get the confidence mixed up with the fact he is a jerk and assume a nice guy can't be confident and can't be attractive in the same way. The mistake nice but shy guys make is to either take up the jerk as a role model and be just like him, instead of just learning from the few confident things he does do right; or go the other way and decide they don't want to be a jerk and thereforeeee behave like they don't want to be confident, because it's almost as if being confident makes you a jerk. The moral of the story is... you can be both confident, outgoing, independent and still be nice.

It sounds like you have to convince your mother too then. I would imagine that she doesn't want him to move out beacuse then she would be in the house on her own.

Lily, you should be aware that men have different reactions to a girl's virginity and a positive reaction isn't always a good one for the girl... sometimes guys like virgins for less respectful reasons, there is sort of a scale of reaction. There are guys who will value and respect your virginity and admire you for waiting for the right person. There are guys who will value more the fact that you haven't had a string of relationships leading upto them, they'll feel special at being the first, this is a slightly more self-centred view on it. Being a virgin myself, I fall between these first two. But then there are also guys who will see the fact you are a virgin as a good thing because they want to have sex with a virgin, 'sex with a virgin is better' and all that. So be careful, if a guy reacts positively to you being a virgin it isn't always because of the first reason I listed. And I wish you the best of luck with your dates, I hope it builds confidence cos guys like me are relying on girls like you to have the confidence we don't

By the way tyler, I think 'a few glasses of wine on weekends' It taking it a bit far with showing how addictions start, that little alcohol won't get you addicted. You have to be drinking serious amounts of alcohol through choice before you get get physically addicted. Just don't choose to go over the safe limit and you'll be fine.

I know... that's the point I was making though. That you said you aren't required to divulge the contents of your heart and Hennypenny didn't say you didn't tell the truth or relationships were built from intrigue and guessing. The point was that the two sides on this board approached dating in the same way just about, it was just when words like 'game' were used that it sounded less romatic and trusting.

But Carnelian what you just said about not wearing your heart on your sleeve, and being open but not vulnerable is exactly what hennypenny is talking about. Not many people approach dating by going up to a person they see and they like and saying 'I love you, will you go out with me' if you do that you leave yourself open to getting hurt. But neither should you deliberately hold your feelings back becuase you believe doing this makes the other person more interested... It is all about getting a little and giving a little. You show them part of how interested you are in them, if they respond by giving you a little back and showing that they are interested in you then you should show a little more interest. There is an understanding that if someone doesn't do anything to show they are interested in you then you don't do anything to show you are interested in them. Of course someone then has to make the first move and show something, but they won't show it all in one go. This gradual building up of openness is also a gradual building up of trust and it is how people in a forming relationship learn to trust eachother, in lots of little increments where you are expected to share the trust equally. If one person invests all their trust in the other from the start by blurting out 'I love you' before the other has even expressed any interest then the other person doesn't feel the need to invest any trust unless of course they also fell instantly in love... which is fairly rare. So the relationship will be off to a bad start. It is much better to share, and I think that it is this sharing and trusting which the 'game' is all about.

Don't worry it's perfectly normal, I'm 23, I've been at university for 5 years, surrounded by gorgeous girls. I didn't get my first kiss till after I was 21, I didn't then get my second kiss till I was almost 23. Neither of them were really what I wanted either, or with girls I fancied. I'm still a virgin, I don't have any difficulty talking to girls and being outgoing. I'm fairly open with my mates about my lack of experience, in that if someone asks when was my last girlfriend I simply say 'never' and though people often appear surprised nobody reacts by treating me as through I'm not normal. So while I often feel lonely I don't really have anything to complain about, I have a great social life and hopefully, one day a girl will take a shine to me, and if not, then that's just the way life is.

I think people say they disagree with it because they don't like the principle of it being like that. Looking through advice given to people who are dating I don't see many people saying you should make every feeling you have towards them clear from day one, so in a roundabout way people are agreeing with what you just said, it's just that when you actually come out and say it like that it sounds too callous and takes the romance out of the quest for true love. Which is alright I guess. If there's a girl I like I want her to be wondering about whether I like her back, that curousity keeps things going and keeps it interesting. I just don't often look at the big picture like you just did.

It is now so easy to get weed though that it may as well be legal, I know at least 30 people who could get me some if i asked them. Weed is endemic within the student culture so as a result I have known 100s of people who smoke weed regularly and have done for the last few years and hardly any of those have moved onto harder drugs.

Interesting viewpoint, but to go back to something you said earler, one of the arguments for legalising weed is that it will stop weed users being exposed to harder drugs, because if there is no risk in selling it openly then more people who aren't involved in hard drugs will be selling it like just average users, and even some shops so people won't have to go to drug dealers to get it.

sounds like someone had a great time

lol, I have low expectations. I don't really envision getting more than one sign. Thanks for the advice anyway, I know.

We don't know just yet, it might be... you've certainly nothing to lose by going for it and making a move.

That's great news. I hope things continue to go so well, and it's heartening to see arguments that guys can be nice and still get the girl be vindicated Thanks