Leon Scott Baxter's Blog, page 11

No More Fun-Loving!

So, you’re looking for a significant other. You’ve gone out on blind dates, met through church, done the whole bar scene, still nothing has stuck. So, you try online dating. You look through the profiles and what’s the phrase that appears most often? “Fun-loving”! I have a problem with “fun-loving” and I implore you never to use it when creating y0ur own online dating profile or describing yourself in any situation for that matter: dating profile, job application, obituary. 

“Fun-loving” is meaningless. Every single human being on earth is fun loving, so are many animals like dogs, dolphins and pigs. If you describe yourself as “fun loving” simply you are simply saying that you love fun… Duh! Who doesn’t like fun? Now, your idea of fun may be different from the next person’s, but by definition, if it’s fun in your eyes, you are going to be enjoying it. You can’t say, “Wow, that was fun, but it was horrible.” You just can’t. I mean, I guess you can, but if you do you are not qite stable. You will not go on another date. You will not get the job. And, no one is coming to your funeral.

 If you claim that you never have fun, nor that you love anything, then of course you can’t be fun loving. So, you wouldn’t call yourself that. Everyone else loves something (it’s probably something they consider fun) and/or they have fun (and they probably love it). So, that’s the rest of the human population. Therefore, unless you are Ebinezer Scrooge, Gargamel from The Smurfs or Kim Jong Un (well, I guess he has fun hanging out with Dennis Rodman, so he doesn’t count), you are fun-loving! So, don’t state it in your profile. It’s like saying, “I blink every few seconds,” or “Every night I fall asleep.” We know it. You love fn. I love fun. We all love fun. Enough already about loving-fun. 

If you want to go anywhere near this off-limits subject, tell them what is fun to you: playing basketball, watching rom-coms, sipping margaritas on the beach, hanging with former NBA stars, whatever. And, whatever you do, don’t tell us you love doing it. We know this already…it’s fun!

Hold Her Hand at a baseball Game

When I was a high school senior, I started dating a young lady a few years younger than I was. She was great, funny, out-going and cute. I enjoyed my time with her immensely, but the thing was, I wasn’t sure how my peers would react to her since she was younger than the rest of us. Should that really have mattered? No. But, for my teen mind it did.

So, whenever it was just the two of us, we’d be close and hold hands and the like. Yet, I specifically recall when we went to a baseball game. We sat together, but I left a little space between our legs as we sat on the bleachers and I didn’t hold her hand. I didn’t think she’d think anything about it…but she did. She pulled me aside and asked why I treated her so differently when we were around my friends and asked if I was ashamed of her. 

What a jerk I’d been. I didn’t know she had noticed and, besides, why should I have cared what others thought about her. I really liked her and so great qualities in her. I apologized to her, grabbed her hand and headed back to the game, proudly displaying the young woman I was enamored with. We broke up a few months later, but what I learned from that relationship is to always be proud to be seen with my partner. If they are good enough to be my partner, they are good enough for the world to know that I have chosen them.

I write this little story because I was reminded of it when I read this article about ten things happy couples do (“Be proud to be seen with your partner” is number ten). Take a look at the piece and see if you are doing these ten things. If not, what changes do you need to make?

Dating Rut!

I get this all the time: “We don’t go on any fun dates. All she wants to do is stay home and watch Netflix.” “All he wants to do is order take out and have sex.” The whole date thing can get played out. You’ve got dinner out. You’ve got the movies. Maybe you hit a concert or an amusement park now and again, but those take time and money. After awhile, after you have been in a committed, long-term relationship, the effort that goes into dates can start to wane and you find yourselves in the dating-humdrum-slump.

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I always try to give couples new ideas: take a class, start a garden, go rock climbing or take a hike, wine taste, hit the beach, people watch at an antique gallery. But, the reality is that dates are hits or misses depending upon who’s going on them. So, the list I just gave may be exactly what one couple needs to get their dating juices flowing again, yet another couple may find these boring and lacking oomph, whereas a third couple may like a few, but turn their nose at the others. So, when I work with a couple, I like to talk with them and find out who they are and what kind of people each of them is to help come up with a list of great date ideas.

Another place you can go is this new service called Date Nite Box, and they do just that. They interview you, find what you are into, and they arrange dates for you. It’s a very cool service and they can save you tons of time, effort as well as money. You can also Google “Date Ideas” and get lists upon lists, and sift through them picking out the ones that work for you and your partner. I just stumbled across this short article that I like about date ideas. Check it out and see if anything strikes a chord.

Old Man Loves Love

There comes a certain time in life when you get old enough that you just stop moving with the times. I look at my grandma and she still wears her green polyester suit from the sixties. My great uncle refuses to get a flat screen TV. Actually, his TV not only is this bulky box, but it’s still black and white. My aunt Celia refuses to use a cell phone (“Who needs to keep a phone in their pocket?”). Guess I’m starting to fall into this category, because I won’t do Pinterest. It’s not that I’m opposed to the social network site. I’ve tried. I just don’t “get it”. My wife does, though, but not me. 

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As I understand, Pinterest has pins or posts or boards about just about anything and everything, including love. I’m sure there’s a bunch of great info there that I would benefit from, but because I am becoming my grandfather, I have not been able to take advantage of the site. The good news is that others have, and 100BestDatingSites.org has a terrific list of 101 best pinners who love to pin about love. So, from an old man who loves love to you, I offer this link full of more love info than you can shake a stick out if you don’t take any wooden nickels, twenty-three skidoo.

Cupid Guinea Pigs

You’re looking for love so you sign up for an online dating site that promises to match you up with like-minded individuals. You try one date and then another and they just don’t seem to pan out. You can’t blame the service you’re paying for, can you?  They can do their best to try to match you based on the profile you have submitted, but you can’t find chemistry on a profile page. I mean, there’s only so much the dating site can do, right? Well, what if there really was more that they could do? What if they didn’t match you to the best of their ability… on purpose? Not only that, what if they purposely matched you inaccurately as an experiment… and you paid to be the unknowing guinea pig. Well, that’s just what OkCupid did with loads of their members.

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In one experiment, they told pairs that they were 90% matches, when in fact they were only 30% matched. They also told compatible couples that they were actually incompatible. The truth is that the experiments had very intereseting results. OKCupid learned that if people were told they were good mathces (even if they weren’t, they sent more messages to one another). They learned that good matches that were told they weren’t, connected less often. People tended to rate others better with profiles without text. And, if pictures were removed, people tended to respond more than those with pics.

All great info for the company to have at their disposal and also interesting for us to know about how we choose partners. But, OKCupid members didn’t sign up for that. They wanted dates, not to become lab rats. The company falls back on its privacy policy which states that it may use a members information for research and analysis. But, using information is very different than fabricating situations and matters of the heart that are not valid, isn’t it? I think that OKCupid should have gotten a couple thousand members and asked if they could experiment on them for a month, not knowing when a mathc was valid or not, and throw them an extra three months of the service for their time.

The way they did this really is wrong if you ask me. Members may have found “the one” only to discover it was a fraudulent profile. But, even worse, they may have missed “the one” because OKCupid was using them for their experiment. Your thoughts?

 

Date Nite Box

Gotta love this! Date Nite Box is this new company that takes the guess work out of date nights and gives you and your partner what you want at an incredible price!

So, these guys came to me and gave me a chance to try out their service. I figured, for the sake of love, I’d give ‘er a whirl. You get your own personal concierge. Mine was Jessica. She starts by asking me about what kinds of things my partner and I enjoy doing on dates, what we don’t like, and what we might want to try. It takes about 15 minutes, but Jessica creates a file for me and my wife in which to build our date. She finds out our budget and gets to work.

What Jessica and her team do next is create a date based on the budget we’ve provided, the distance we are willing to travel, and the activities we spoke of. Because the premise of the company is based on Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages, the box we received in the mail included conversation cards, coupons to fill out for one another, and “Spice It Up” goodies for a little “after date fun” (you do not have to accept any of these extras but they come at no additional charge).

I gave Jessica a budget of $149. She set us up with a seafood dinner, a cruise with drinks, and a custom couple photo on slate for a total $147 if I put it together myself. But, here’s the good part, if I let her make the arrangements, she upgrades all of these for a $282 value ($100 for dinner instead of $40 and a much bigger photo) for only $150.

I was a bit skeptical at first. How can she get me almost twice the value for a few dollars more. Apparently her team scours the internet for deals and coupons and they have partnered with some businesses to get deals we normal-folk can’t reach.

If Date Nite Box does the work for you; they send you the vouchers, the box with goodies and even directions to each location from your home. It’s ideal for couples who are sick of the same-ole each month. 

Date Nite Box is going to let you try their service for free, like they did for me. This offer is good until August 31, 2014. So, if you are like me, you’ll want to jump on this right away, while the service is “on the house”.

Just click here and and fill out the info on the bottom right side of the page. Where it asks for your Gift Code and Referred By, use “D315” and “Leon Scott Baxter” so they know you get the free offer until August 31st. Then download your gift card, and enjoy your date!

Help

Attraction

I have a brand new favorite TV show, Brain Games on the National Geographic Channel. It’s been on for a few seasons, but I just discovered it this week. If you are interested in the way the brain works, you’ll love this interactive show where you get to be a part of the experiments and learn how the brain works.

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I watched the episode called “Law of Attraction” yesterday. It was interesting to learn that we are attracted to one another not because we are looking specifically at eyes or lips or some unique features. Instead, according to scientists, it’s not about the individual features, but the ratio of those features compared to one another. Apparently the brain is looking for what’s called the Golden Ratio when looking for attraction in a partner because that signals a healthy mate. As well as the Golden Ratio we also look for symmetry within the face, which indicates good genes. All of this takes place in the part of the brain called the amygdala.

The thing is, this is all based on first impressions. You see someone walking down the street or meet them for the first time at a party, this is what determines if you are attracted to them or not. 

What I wanted to know about is how attraction builds after knowing someone. When I was in high school, there was a young lady who wanted to go out on a date with me. I didn’t really know her, but I didn’t find her very attractive. Maybe her face wasn’t symmetrical or she didn’t meet the Golden Ratio. She wasn’t unattractive by any means, but I really wasn’t drawn to her. Turns out, my good buddy started dating her best friend and they wanted us all to go out on a double date. So, I went for my buddy’s sake, and started to get to know this young lady.

She was smart, and funny and charming and by the end of the night, she was also very attractive. We actually dated for a few months after that first date. 

Then, in college there was a beautiful, tall, blonde coed that was living on my dorm floor. She was so gorgeous I was intimidated to even talk to her. As I got to know her throughout the year, I learned she was a smoker. She swore a lot. She was a heavy drinker. She bad-mouthed other people. None of these traits appealed to me. And, here’s the weird thing, she was no longer attractive to me. It wasn’t that I just didn’t like her. Her face, the same face I was intimidated by, no longer looked attractive.

What that tells me is that we are drawn to one another by symmetry and the Golden Ratio, but we stay with one another based on who we are, our morals, traits and personalities. So, yes, we want to attract a partner with our looks, but no matter how we look, we won’t hold them if we can’t connect. And, sure, you may say, “If I don’t look good, how will I ever have the chance to hold someone?” Put your best face forward, but don’t forget friends and double dates.

Can a Good Relationship Teach You Anything?

According to this article, When You’re in a Good Relationship, You Learn These 10 Things. I know that I have learned a lot about myself, my wife and about life in general being in this relationship for a quat=rter of a century. Some of the things you will see are no surprise, like how to trust and forgiveness, but there are some points that might be hard to accept. They are about our weaknesses. If you can’t accept them, maybe your relationship has not quite met that plateau yet, and if it has, you have to suck it up and admit you are not perfect (hard for some of us). My take away from this piece is that a misunderstanding is bound to happen, and I can’t let it take away from the love I have for my wife. Accept the misunderstanding and move on to the happy place once again, quickly and effectively.

©iStockphoto.com:Eva-Katalin

Can 36 Questions Bring You Closer?

PsychologyToday.com posted a piece that claims to help you “(g)et to know someone and create a sense of intimacy, in as little as an hour.” It’s a set of 36 questions created to be the catalyst for deep conversation. Really, I can get closer to my wife in just forty-five minutes? Thought I’d give it a go.

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I was surprised because some of the questions really elicited a long, deep response from the two of us. There were things on there that we really hadn’t talked about before like, “Of anyone in the world, who would we want as a dinner guest?” and “As a 90-year old, would you prefer having the mind or the body of a 30 year old?”

Yet, many of the questions just weren’t for a married couple who have communicated for over a quarter of a century: “What does friendship mean to you?” or “What roles do love and affection play in your life?”

It reminded me of he book, The Book of Questions, which was originally published in 1987. Same thing with this list, some good questions, others that I might just pass over.

All in all, it was a decent activity. On a scale of one through ten, I’d give it a six. Yet, if my wife and I were just dating or had been newly married, I think this list of questions would really have scored higher. Take a look at it. Set aside forty-five minutes or so. Print up the piece. Get comfy and ask away.