Dumping...dun, dun, dunnnn. (bring on the waterworks! lots of ice cream too!)

This topic came up a couple weeks ago at school, because apparently it was a health class assignment to write about how you’d want to be dumped or something? I personally have never been officially dumped, but I’ve never really been in much of a relationship before either. I do, however, know how I’d want to be dumped and how I would dump someone else.

Unless you’re in a messed up relationship, I would expect you can tell when a breakup is about to happen. Maybe things aren’t going well, or you never really talk or the fabulosity that your relationship once was isn’t there anymore. If that was the case, I’d say it’d be a “mutual breakup.” Some dispute that such a thing actually exists, but I believe it’s 100% possible. This would be my ideal breakup: sitting down and talking, and coming to the conclusion that you’re just not right for eachother. Sure it will be hard and there will be tears but it’s all on good terms.

But ideal breakups don’t always happen. In our imperfect world, things happen. Like, maybe you and your sig. other get into a huge fight, and one person screams “IT’S OVER!!” (like they do in movies) and you cry and wallow in anger and self-pity. Once you get over the initial shock, closure is totally necessary. You have to decide to move on without the anger emotion clouding your thoughts.

If your sig. other cheats on you, I guess it’s up to you to decide on giving second chances or not. On principle, I would say no way in hell do they deserve a second chance, but at the same time, I would totally probably give one anyway. It’s probably bad. But what can I say?

Anyway. I would prefer to be dumped in person. I would also prefer to dump someone else in person. It’s just so much more real, not to mention respectful. Over the phone is the tiniest step down from in person, so if you’re going to do that, why not just take the extra ounce of effort and meet them face to face? The worst ways to dump are facebook, email and texting. Texting is just a huge slap in the face. Like could you please care enough to at least dump me in person? And facebook. If you want your breakup all over the internet, be my guest and let everyone see the comment that ends your relationship. My problem with email is that the time you send the email and the time it’s received do not coincide at all. So when you’re done with the relationship, they don’t know it yet, and that’s just weird. Finally, there’s AIM. I know it’s not the best way, but sometimes it’s the only way. Maybe it’s impersonal, but it’s a way to get all your thoughts and feelings out at once, with an immediate response. In person, you can’t say everything at once. Emotions and the person’s response could totally inhibit that.

When I was talking about this a couple weeks ago, I was asked what I would actually say. It all depends on how the person reacts. But I’d start with, “I think we should break up.” Simple as that. But then, one of the guys I was talking to said that saying “I think” would be unfair, because they could say “I think we should stay together” and they couldn’t really have their wish. If I were to break up with someone, there is no way that I would let myself be convinced to change my mind. I would go in with the intention of breaking up and come out of it newly single, without a doubt. I also don’t think I could ever break up impulsively; I don’t trust myself enough to do that. I’d be afraid of regretting my decision later.

If I were to be dumped, I’d want the reason to be sincere and a good one. I’d want the person to be sensitive and caring about it. But then again, if the reason was jerky and stupid, I’d have a better reason to hate the guy. But in all honesty, I wouldn’t want to hate the guy. Which brings me to my next and final topic....

Staying friends after the breakup. It’s possible, it really is. But I think it’s more likely if the two of you were friends before the relationship. If you guys met and immediately started dating, it’d be harder to be friends afterwards since you were never friend before. I hate the idea that a relationship, something that is good, can potentially end something like a friendship. Of course, it takes time after a breakup to be friends again, but if you let the hard feelings and awkwardness subside, it can happen.

So I lied. I just thought of one more little thing. Never regret a relationship you were in. For that matter, never regret anything. But seriously, if you had never been in that relationship, no matter how good or bad it was, you wouldn’t be the same person you are after the fact. Just sayin’.

What happens when you get dumped!? Oh no!

How to dump someone. If you were being dumped, what kinds of things would piss you off, what kinds of things would you prefer (AIM vs in person vs phone, etc), is it possible to still be friends, where would you do it? At their house or on a date?

So, we’re back, finally. This weekly blogging thing is much easier. But now we basically never update. Anyway, back to the updating.

So, that’s the topic up there at the top, it’s a good question, and one which I’m sure many people have asked themselves. So, I guess I’ll just answer the questions that are posed in the topic:

So, what things would I prefer and what don’t I like about getting dumped? Well, if you’re going to dump someone the best way to do it, in my mind is in person, in a neutral place that doesn’t make the situation awkward. Like, you can’t do it in a place that neither of you can leave; therefore, no dumping your significant other on a boat. You get the idea. If both of you have ways of leaving with little attention brought to the fact that you’re leaving then that is best possible situation, at least in my mind. This is of course only really important for breaking up when you either want to remain friends (which I’ll talk about later) or you just don’t want to make a scene. So, like the topic says, you don’t want to have to break up with someone at their house, it puts one person on the defensive anyway, because they don’t live there, and if they are the one being broken up with then they have to leave their now exes house. And that’s just awkward. The only time it might be acceptable to break up with someone at their house is if the person doing the breaking up is leaving and breaks up with the person who lives in the house. That way there is already a leaving motion and it can be continued and not awkward, or at least not as bad. But really, anything that involves the two of you alone, like a date or at a house is a bad idea.

That doesn’t mean though that breaking up should be public, but you shouldn’t be so alone that you both can’t run off to your respective friends, or at least other people. So, you can’t break up while you’re on a date, or really right after one, unless it went badly, then it can happen. But if you break up after a date that seems to go well the dumpee is going to feel really bad. Basically you don’t want to give false hope when you’re on the verge of breaking up. In theory, perfectly, both parties should know it is coming and understand where it is coming from. This of course doesn’t always happen. This is why when you are dumping someone, or even if you are being dumped, you want to talk about it with the other person. Don’t just let it happen and then later wonder what was wrong. If you don’t know, ask about it. Because if you understand what was wrong you can either fix it for yourself and future relationships, or just know and not have to wonder about it forever.

So, I basically covered how to break up, whether in person or on the phone or online. The best way is definitely in person. Though, that can depend on how the person is going to react of course. A phone could be easier just because it can provide more distance. But, I think that generally breaking up should be done in person, face to face, so that you can actually talk about what happened or whatever.

So, finally, is it possible to still be friends. Well, I’d say it is. I’m best friends with one girl who broke up with me and good friends with another. Of course, I’ve also dated one person three times and so we broke up, and then got back together about a year later, and then the same thing happened again. But, we remained friends through all of that so I don’t think you can say it can’t be done. But, depending on the relationship itself, as well as the previous connection before the relationship started it could affect how well exes can still be friends. If the relationship was something that involved a lot of friends like activity, then eventually I think that the couple can be friends. Not immediately of course. You do need some time apart just to not make it really weird. But, you can go about your normal business pretty easily and still be friends with the person after a break up in that case. But, if the relationship was mostly based on relationship type things, going on dating and being all lovey and stuff, then it’s much harder to be friends. So, basically, if you’re friends with your significant other outside of dating them, then yeah, you’ll probably be able to still be friends, otherwise it’s a lot harder.

So, I think that’s enough about that. I need to go to sleep, I have work in the morning.

Ladder Theory! Yay climbing?

So, ladder theory. Now, I’ve known about, or at least I read the website that April posted, a couple of years ago. So I know all about ladder theory, at least in theory. Haha

Anyway, ladder theory is basically a way to look at how both men and women look at and judge people they are attracted to. I’d suggest reading the site posted on April’s post because I don’t want to explain it all.

So, ladder theory in my opinion has both its strong points and its faults. On the surface it seems to me to be a pretty sound idea. People place other people on “ladders” in rank order depending on how much they are attracted to the person. Or really how much the person wants to have sex with the person they are judging. Of course, judging from April and my posts a while ago, sex isn’t the only thing on guy’s minds, or on a girl’s. So, that’s problem number one with ladder theory. I do have to say though, that the general idea, that people either consciously or subconsciously place others on ladders in their minds based on the amount they want to have sex with them is interesting. I think, while all of ladder theory might not be totally correct, parts of it can certainly be truthful.

Some more faults of ladder theory: The pie charts depicting the ways that men and women place people on the ladder. Now, I don’t know if that is entirely true. I think that for me, where I’m not trying to have sex with every woman I meet, makes things different for the chart of how I place people on the ladder. But in the “real world” I don’t know how that is going to actually work out really in terms of attraction. I do think though that there is a definite way that both guys and girls size up other people they meet and then they place them on a ladder. Now, this criterion might change for each person, and that would actually make a lot of sense instead of it being a blanket percentage for each sex with what they find attractive.

Now, they way that the website further breaks down how women find men attractive seems to me, from a male standpoint to be somewhat true. While possibly not always true, I don’t think that money and power are really the only things going for guys, granted, I think it’s pretty accurate a lot of the time. But, in general it isn’t the only thing, not truly. Maybe outwardly it is, but a lot of the time it really isn’t that important and the girl actually likes the guy based on his personality and not because he has 13 cars and 20 million dollars of cash to spend on her.

I do agree though with the way that the attraction category of the woman’s pie chart is broken down. I think that definitely the things that are described do play a role. But, I also think that it isn’t entirely true because, like I said, it isn’t like women don’t care about a guy’s personality. Now, I know with some girls that those factors do play into the girl finding the guy attractive, but the actual want to be with the guy, and date him or whatever isn’t caused by this. It’s caused by other things than just him being rich and being “cool.” Now, granted, this is only for so many girls that I know. I’m sure that a lot of people fit the stereotype.

In terms of the ladders and how they work, I agree with them, as I said before. I think that in terms of the guy’s ladder, it’s pretty accurate. But there are of course factors into how the guy is going to approach the women on his ladder, because he might know that someone of them definitely aren’t going to want him and still be high on his ladder. I know this happens with me.

The way the woman’s ladder is set up is also in my mind pretty try. The two ladder idea, with one being a “friend zone” type idea. I think this is pretty true. Now, maybe, again it doesn’t apply to everyone, but, generally I think that the idea that there are two separate ladders for a lot of girls is true. I don’t know if I think that you are immediately put on one or the other when you first meet someone, but I do think that it is very hard to move from friend’s ladder to attraction ladder.

The last point and one of the last parts of the website, deals with women not being able to be friends with guys. I think that is this false for a number of reasons. Well, actually, it could be true for a lot of people. But, for me at least the three things that are listed as having to be true for guys to be friends with girls don’t really work. I am neither gay, not attracted to some of my female friends, or placing other real people way above many of them on my “ladder.” I think this comes down to me not being a mindless sex wanting robot. And since I’m not that, I can balance my attraction for a girl with my friendship with her. Now, granted, as the website suggests, I’d probably totally have sex with a lot of my friends who are girls if it was totally not strings attached. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be friends with them in any way. Because unless they’re offering, I know better than to cross that line because I’m not stupid.

Ok, so this is a really super long post. Almost a thousand words, which is pretty sweet. But, I think I’m going to finish up because I’ve pretty much exhausted my brain of ideas about the topic. But, I’m sure I’ll think of something else once I actually read April’s post.

Check this out: The Ladder Theory

One of my friends pointed out this website to me:
Ladder Theory

If you go through and read the whole thing, it brings up some interesting points. I don’t really agree with most of them.

First, it says that the thing women care about most in a man is money/power. And that we say we care about sense of humor/sensitivity/intelligence/etc but we actually don’t. That’s retarded. Of course there are women who will marry someone for his money, but they’re what we call golddiggers. I don’t believe that women care more about wealth than personality. It’s kind of insulting and full of crap.

It also says: “A guy who is a complete asshole to a woman seems to somehow look better to them.” Again, not true. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. I think I speak for both sexes when I say that attraction to one’s personality makes them more physically attractive.

I think a lot of the arguments this website makes come from women who are unsure of what they want and probably somewhat immature. Like, that women want a guy who deals drugs because he’s more interesting? I mean, sure once in a while, we can date “bad boys.” But in the end, we’re going to find someone who isn’t screwed up. I think it takes a certain level of maturity to realize that “exciting” boyfriends aren’t actually that great.

Well. In going through this website more, I realize it’s more about who you’ll have sex with as opposed to be in a relationship with. So the whole theory is based on a rating system which differs between the sexes, and when you see someone, you rate them, and the higher their rating, the higher they are on the ladder. The higher they are on the ladder, the more you want to have sex with them....What a dumb theory.

But anyway, it goes on to talk about women and how we have not one, but two ladders. One is for guys who are just friends who will never “get to have sex with her.” And if a guy is on the friends ladder, but doesn’t know it, and he makes a move on the girl, she’ll shut him down. I kind of can’t argue with this one. There are just some guys that aren’t dateable. And Duncan and I have discussed this before, though not necessarily on the blog. It’s called the “friend zone” and it just means that that level of attraction is not there. I guess it does suck if you like someone and they don’t see you as more than a friend or brother/sister type.

The website says that if a girl says any of the following to a guy, he should realize he’s on the friend ladder: “You’re like a brother to me,” “You’re like a big teddy bear,” “I feel like I can talk to you about anything,” “You’re so nice,” and “Can you help me with my homework?” The first two, I agree with. Obviously, a girl isn’t going to date her brother/brother-like figure. The rest don’t mean anything. I don’t see how they give any clue as to whether a guy is in the “friend zone” or not.

This Ladder Theory also states that women cannot have guy friends. WHAT A LIE. I would die if I didn’t have guy friends. It does qualify the argument by saying:
There are exactly 3 cases whereby a guy and a girl can be friends:
1. The guy is gay
2. The guy does not find you attractive
3. The guy already has a woman much higher than you on the ladder
Pick a guy who does not meet any of the criterion on the above list that you think is your friend. Then ask yourself this question: If you were both alone at his place one night, and you excused yourself to the bathroom and came out naked and asked him to have sex with you would he:
1. Tell you he doesn't want to risk the beautiful friendship you have created with messy physical entanglements.
2. Comply.

This website is ridiculously and obnoxiously hilarious. But I still think there are times when the guy can be straight, single and find a girl attractive, but not be attracted to her. Like, to the point where having sex would just be awkward. So, I’m officially completely disagreeing with this theory.

I think this is enough talk about the Ladder Theory for one night. There’s a TON of stuff on the website we could talk about, and we probably will at some point.

Prommmmm-oh-omm-oh-ommmm...??

Prom is a huge deal. I don’t really know why, but it just is. And part of prom is getting dates.

Duncan basically said everything already.

I don’t know how I feel about getting a date for the sake of getting a date. That seems like you’re using the person just to go to prom and have some arm candy. But then again, I can’t blame people who do that, because I would do it too. Though I wouldn’t go with someone I wasn’t gonna have fun with. But I would also probably have fun with almost anyone. But for those people who don’t have a certain person in mind, should they even care about getting a date? What happened to all those uplifting pep talks (thank you duncan) about going stag and being independent and all that good stuff? No one wants to do that. I think I’d rather skip prom than go alone. If everyone else has dates, what are you supposed to do by yourself?

I think the best thing to do for prom is to go as friends. That way, you don’t have to worry about what the other person wants from you and you can have a good time. You’re also not obligated to spend the whole time with your date.

I would imagine it’s really awkward if you get asked by someone who likes you that you don’t like back. If they expect you to fall in love with them by the end of prom night, you’re just not going to have a good time. Unless you actually do fall in love with them.

I think it’s stupid to ask someone to prom because you want to go out with them eventually. Prom askings go on waaaaay before the actual dance; what if you don’t like them anymore by prom night? Unless you’re the kind of person who likes the same person for years and years, which I most certainly am not.

But for those who are hopeful enough to believe that a miracle will happen because of prom night regarding you and your date, I can’t help but root for you. It’d be like a movie!!! :] But I imagine prom as, like, a Cinderella type ball where you wear a pretty gown and get swept off your feet by a dashing prince (haha) and the whole night is very fairy-tale like and fantastic.

If you’re planning on “making a move” ( to use Duncan’s words) on prom night, though, I think that’s a little crazy. Make your move before prom and then just enjoy yourself on prom night. Don’t wait for one night just because it’s a crazy insane high school dance. If you want something to happen, make it happen now. The fact that prom is weeks away is just an excuse for you to postpone a bold and probably scary move. Some may argue that asking someone to prom is a bold and scary move, and maybe it is, but it doesn’t accomplish much. All you’re doing is asking a question and hoping they answer correctly. There’s no further interaction other than limo planning and apparel matching.

That’s probably off-topic. Duncan is yelling at me to wrap up, and I probably should. The point is, in ten or twenty years, it’s not going to matter who you took, what you did, if you got the girl (or guy) but whether you had a good time. So just set that as your goal, and you’re golden.