Putting the effort in

If you want a girl to find you attractive you have to put some effort in. I don’t mean change your image as I always think you should be yourself and not change to what you think the girl may like. Also if you change your image the girl will eventually work out that you are a fake so long term it won’t work out.

Girls are always putting effort in to their appearance regardless of whether they are trying to attract someone or not and I think that boys need to adopt this attitude as well. You never know when you might meet the one so you should always be looking your best.

I’m not saying you have to go extreme but just take some time considering what you are going to wear don’t just throw any old thing on. Find out what styles and colours work for you. Basics make sure your clothes are washed and ironed if needed.

Do something with your hair, style it or try another haircut. Make sure you are smelling good, try a face moisturiser. Yes all of this is a lot of effort but these things could make all the difference. Its a dog eat dog world out there and appearances do mean a lot so make sure you make one that counts.

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The more I see the less I like

Sometimes you can love someone from afar but then when you get to spend time with them your feelings change for them. Their beauty doesn’t change and you are still attracted to them but by spending time in each others company you start to think that it wouldn’t work and in turn your feelings change.

This can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. You may think well I am glad I got to know them first before asking them out and that you have saved yourself from getting in a relationship with someone you don’t actually like in that way but on the other hand you may think to yourself that you should have asked her out before you got to know so at least you would have gone out with them.

If the girl doesn’t know you are interested in them and you create a situation where you are around each other a lot like a work colleague, classmate etc. you can find out what the person is like. Sometimes this takes time but the more the person becomes at ease with you the more you will find out about them. Also if you spend enough time with them you will find the true person as if they are putting on a façade they can’t keep that up all the time.

In this process sometimes you will realise you aren’t in love with the person any more or it may just happen organically without you realising. Remember just because you are attracted physically to someone it doesn’t always mean you will be attracted to their personality.

Giving up can sometimes work

Now it is not always the way to win a girls heart but it can sometimes work. Sometimes if you are trying too hard to impress it may put a girl off but if you were just being yourself and not trying to win them over they may start to like you.

If a girl knows you are trying to impress them it may scare them off before they get to know the real you. When a girl knows this it can make conversation between you awkward and limit the chances you have of winning their heart.

As likeable person you will sometimes come off better if you aren’t actually trying at all. This will make you more natural and less intimidating to the girl you have been trying to chat up.

If you have been trying hard to win a girl over for sometime and then you stop the girl may miss this attention and realise that they do want to be with you. If they weren’t aware that you were trying to chat them up and then you stop they then may realise what you were trying to do and work out that you like them.

If all else fails this is always worth a shot, what have you got to lose. It’s the no effort solution which can sometimes hit gold.

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Competition

It’s always the most annoying feeling when you like this beautiful girl but then you notice you have competition. If the girl is good looking there are always going to be other people that want to go her regardless of whether you can easily spot that or not. Some of your competition will be blatantly obvious to see but some won’t.

If you have competition you need to step your game up. You need to make sure they choose you and not the other person. However you need to be careful how you do this as if the girl you like doesn’t like competitive guys and she sees you competing with another guy she may choose neither of you.

The one thing you need to do is not let this make you go in to your shell. With some people if they like a girl but see competition will back away in the fear of losing out. They will start thinking they have no chance and that the girl is more likely to choose the other guy. If you want the girl you have to be brave and not look at how good the competition is but look at how good you are, what your selling points are and what makes you different.

Make sure you don’t get paranoid about competition. Some guys may talk to the girl you like but just be friends and have no interest in the girl so be careful not to treat every other man as competition. A lot of the time boys talking to girls can mean they really like them but on the flipside there are many occasions where they just ant to be friends.

Make sure that competition that brings out the best in you and not the worst. Just concentrate on yourself and your relationship with the girl. Remember competition is a good thing as it proves that the girl you like is an attractive girl and that she is worth fighting for.

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Making Excuses

When you realise you really like someone you will make up any excuse to go and see them, spend time with them or to just be in the same place that they are. Instead of just bumping in to them in the course of the week you are now actively trying to construe reasons to have to go and speak to them or spend time with them. If you are in school or wok with the person you like you will in your average day cross paths but if you like them you can’t leave anything to chance and you want to spend more time with them than you normally would in the day.

The problem comes when you start running out of reasons or your reasons start to become more far fetched as it may let your secret out of the bag as the other person may twig that you like them or will just start thinking it is weird or start asking you questions about it. It becomes really obvious in an office place when you have been working with this person for sometime but then realise you like them and then start spending more time with them so people can see a clear behavioural change.

Saying all this you may want the person you like to realise you are spending more time with them because you like them and if this is your plan then doing this is a good idea. If however you want to be a bit more discreet you have to play it cool and not go over to see them as much.

In my own personal experience I think you need a happy medium. If you hide away in your room all day then the person you like will never get the chance to get to know you or go out with you so to win the lottery you have to buy a ticket and get yourself in the game. By this I mean making sure they know who you are and know what you are like but whatever you do don’t over do it as if you do you may come across as a freak or a bit of a stalker which no girl or boy likes.


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Out of the Blue

What do you do when you get a text out of the blue from an old girlfriend? What does it mean? What do they want? All these questions were running through my head today when it happened.

Since the break up I have not seen or heard from her and that was two years ago. It was one of those how are you? Text messages. Now if I don’t reply it’s a bit mean but if I do reply it may get her hopes up that I might want to go back out with her when I really don’t. Is she still single? If I tell her I’m single will she start coming on to me.

The reason I ended it in the first place was because she was more in to me than I was of her and I always find those relationships unfair. It is too easy to lead someone on or take advantage of the situation if the other person is more in to you than you are of them but it will only end in heartbreak for the other person. If in a relationship one person is more to the other person then its not going to work, a relationship has to be about mutual feelings.

If I met her again I don’t think I would suddenly fall more in love with her than I did the first time and I wouldn’t want to get her hopes up as that would be cruel. Now I know that I am single and desperately looking for love but that doesn’t mean I am going to settle for a girl or a relationship where I know I’m just settling and not really experiencing love to the full.

So although it is very mean I think the best thing in the long run for both of us is to not text back. Even if she thinks bad of me for not texting back or if her only motive was to be friends, I don’t to run the risk.

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Date Venues

It’s not like I am in a stage at the moment with the girl I like to ask her out on a date but when I do pluck up the courage where do I suggest we go and what do I suggest we do.

The first approach is the casual approach. Inviting her out for coffee would fit in to this category or inviting her for a drink at the local pub. Nobody has to spend much money, it’s sociable and you can stay as long as you like. The problem is if you use the casual approach the girl may think I am boring or not that interested in her as I didn’t push the boat out.

The next approach is the formal approach. Nothing says you love a girl like taking them for a meal in a flash restaurant or a picnic in a nice location. The problem with this approach as the girl may think it is a bit too much too soon. Add to this it is hard to make conversation and eat at the same time.

Then you have the activity date. This is where you think of something you can both go and do. This is good for showing your spontaneous and adventurous side. However this is fraught with problems as if you pick an activity that she doesn’t like or if you pick an activity which gives little time for talking to each other then it might not go down well.

The first date sets the tone for a relationship so you have to get it right, do you play safe or do you take a risk. My advice would be to do your research, find out what she likes and doesn’t like but then be prepared to take a risk as that is what love is all about.

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Striking up Conversation

I always find this the hardest thing to do when I like a girl. If I don’t like a girl I could chat to them until the cows come home but as soon as I like them its like my brain switches off.

Normally the girls I like I would have no reason in my day to talk to them which makes things even harder. If you don’t normally speak to someone or appear to have no reason to speak to a certain person then striking up a conversation with them is going to be very awkward.

Its datings version of cold calling. You don’t know what their interests are, you don’t know what they do, you may not even know their name and they might not know yours. To add to this you will have built this moment up in your head for so long that you are over complicating things and making yourself nervous to the point that you have probably been trying for day to go up to talk to her but chickened out at last minute.

If you are a pro you would have done your research on the girl so you have something to talk to them about but you have to be careful as if you seem to know too much about them for no reason they may get freaked out.

Remember with striking up a conversation timing is everything. You want to make a good first impression so try and choose a time and situation where the person has time to talk to you as there is nothing worse than someone bothering you when you are busy or you are in a rush.

Just remember every conversation starts with one simple word - Hello. After that you are on your own I’m afraid but remember to be yourself and to try and grab their attention if you can do that you are on the right track.

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The Friendship Zone

I have been in this zone so many times in my life and it is the worst place to be. This is when you really like a girl and have spent a lot of time getting to know her without making your intentions clear so she just views as a friend and would never consider anything more.

This is such a frustrating place to be because once you are in it, it is very hard to get out. The only reason you put the effort in was because you wanted to go out with them not because you wanted to be their friend. Once you are in this zone you are stuck as you don’t want to be seen as the bad guy and break off the friendship but being friends with them just make it even harder to deal with as you know you will never be going out with them.

I hate that soul destroying moment when you ask a girl out and they say they just want to be friends. Do they really want to be friends? Are they just saying that as a nice way of saying no?

So a word of warning if you are trying to win a girl over try and make your intentions clear without being obvious and don’t spend forever developing the friendship without asking the question. The longer you drag out the friendship building phase the more problems that can happen. If you do this the girl may think that you are not interested in them and do really just want to be friends or they may find someone else as you have taken so long getting your act together.

There may be some rare occasions where people have managed to successfully break the friendship zone and change somones mind but I think these are few and far between.


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Having a Type

When you are trying to matchmake for a single friend a normal question that will come up is what is your type? Or if you are out with a bunch of other single guys the topic of conversation may come on to it. Myself personally I have never known how to answer this question.

I once tried to have a think to myself and work out if I did have a type and I couldn’t work it out as there are lots of different looks that like. I then wondered if anybody does truly have a type? I know some of my friends have been out with similar girls but I think having a type if you do have a type is so limiting.

My previous girlfriends have been a mixed batch of looks and personalities. I don’t think there is any one type of look or personality that I am drawn to. If you are only ever looking for one type of girl you are going to miss a lot of lovely people who could have been the one.

I now try not to think about types and just let my heart decide. Over the year my heart has picked out an eclectic mix of girls and if I had have had a type I wouldn’t have ever been blessed with the memories I have. I for one don’t want to ever miss the girl who could be the one.

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Telling your friends

When you love someone you sometimes have the compulsion to tell your friends or you will be the opposite and not want to tell a soul. Doing either can be good or bad for different reasons.

If you tell a friend they are going to give you all kinds of advice and make all sorts of comments. The friend could make you believe that the person loves you when they may not or they might convince that they don’t love you when they do. When you are speaking to a friend you are inclined to believe what they say so if what they are saying isn’t true it can really mess with your head.

When you are in love with someone it is good to get an outsiders opinion as when you are in love someone you don’t always think clearly. So telling no one is not always the best way forward especially if you are in need of advice or are going about things in the wrong way.

If you do ask for advice take it on board but think before you do anything about the advice. Try not to tell too many people or you will be even more confused and conflicted as different people may try to give you completely different advice.

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Giving off the Signals

I have blogged about reading the signals but to me right now what is important is giving off the signals. How do you show someone you are interested in them without having to spell out that you love them?

Just because you think you are being obvious in the ways that you are trying to give off the signals the other person may be oblivious to them. If you go the other way and you are too obvious it might scare the person you like off. How to walk the tightrope of being subtle but letting the other person know?

This is the situation I currently find myself in. There is this girl that I love and am trying my best to show her that I love her but I don’t know if she recognises this. I don’t want to start going over the top if she has already figured it out but if she is oblivious I want to do something more to show her. If only I could get inside her head for one moment to see what she is thinking.

If she has already realised what I am doing is her non response to it a sign she doesn’t like me or a sign that I should keep on trying? I just don’t know, it is all so confusing. Here is me over analysing every little detail and she may not even realise what is going on.

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Not Rushing In

At the moment there is a girl I love with all my heart, but she doesn’t know it. I speak to her most days but I have no clue if she likes me or not. I keep thinking to myself should I just come out and say how I am feeling to her or will that scare her off?

Should I first be laying the groundwork and building up a friendship first before saying anything? I just don’t know what the best course of action is. At the moment in my head I think everyday that I don’t tell her how I feel is wasted as if she liked me we would be together and the quicker I tell her the more time I will be going out with her for.

However the flipside of that is if I do tell her and she isn’t quite in the same place I may scare her off for good whereas if I had waited she may have one day grew to like me. I think she likes me but I have no reason to be certain so I don’t know what to do?

Either way its not good as if I wait a few months and ask her out and she says yes then I will always be thinking I should have done this months ago but if I ask her and she says no I will have blown my chance forever. I would rather keep trying to make her like me and live in a world where I can think that she likes me rather than knowing she doesn’t like me. That’s just a personal thing some people may want to know right away so they can move on but this is one dream I want to hold on to for a long as I can so I think I am going to make the hard decision and wait as much as it is killing me inside.

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Trying not to be too obvious

One of the biggest problems I find when I am attracted to somebody is trying not to be too obvious. If you want someone to go out with you, you have to show them at you are interested but it is a fine line between that and being too obvious which can make a girl run a million miles.

If you want a relationship with someone you need to do the ground work and build their trust as a friend first which you won’t be able to do if you come across as too obviously in love with them.

The other problem comes is if you are trying to build a relationship with someone at school or at work then the people around you like your friends will be able to spot it and may start teasing you about it or making things very difficult. Trying to chat a girl up is hard enough without your friends making things harder. The other problem comes is when people tell the girl you are interested in that you love them then it may destroy that friendship you have been building.

Like I said earlier though it’s a fine line as if you don’t show the girl you are interested in them then you may spend ages before asking them out or the girl may think that you just wan to be friends.

The worst case scenario is when the girl finds out you are interested in them but they aren’t interested in you and it’s either a work colleague or a schoolmate. As after this has happened you may try to avoid them at all costs, the relationship between you may get weird or you had to do a bit of self preservation and just laugh it off saying that you weren’t in to them and that people were just making it up which will hurt on the inside.

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Being Obsessed

When you fall in love with someone it is very hard not to be obsessed with them. You spend every waking moment thinking of them and when you fall asleep you dream about them.

The problem is when obsession starts to cross over in to stalker behaviour. This is when you work out their daily routine and make sure your paths cross. When you have a photo of them saved as your desktop wallpaper or when their facebook profile page is your homepage.

It’s hard when you first fall in love with someone not to go a little crazy but you have to keep yourself in check as this behaviour is not healthy. What you need to remember is that you are in love with the person you see but until you get to know them you can’t get carried away.

Just because you like what you see the person maybe a completely different person behind closed doors and they may just act differently when they are at work or at school. The person you are in love with may have a partner so this is something you need to find out right away. When you get to know the person your personalities might not match and so on and so on.

If you are in love with them and you know they are in love with you then be obsessed but until then deep breaths and take things slowly ok.

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Reading the Signs

One of the hardest things to do is to read the signs that someone may be in to you or not. This can be especially hard if you really like the person as your love for them can easily cloud your judgement. If this is the case you may read too much in to things or see things that aren’t actually there.

There are so many books and internet sites on reading the signs that someone of the opposite sex may be interested in you but it my experience I don’t think any of them actually help you. What some people think is being flirty may just be someone trying to be friendly and vice versa. Not everyone is the same!

I think boys in general are terrible at thinking a girl is interested in them when they actually aren’t and opposite side I think girls sometimes read too much in to what a boy does.

You get two breeds of people when it comes to flirting. One breed are people that like attention and flirt with members of the opposite sex without actually liking them. The other is the breed that people think are flirting when they aren’t intending to and would be mortified if anybody thought that they were.

I think it is very easy to get carried away trying to read the signs that someone is interested in you. The best piece of advice is to not rush in when you think someone is giving you the signs but to actually hold fire and see if anything else happens or if that isn’t happening to talk to the person. I think you can work out a lot more from conversation than you can trying to guess the signs that someone is in to you.

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Love has strange timing

I have noticed in my life that I have found love or fallen in love with someone at times where I wasn’t looking for it, wasn’t ready for it or at times where it should have been the last thing on my mind. That’s the thing with love it rarely comes at the perfect time for you.

Sometimes I feel like the kid off the Love Actually film. Where he is in such a sad place in his life but falls in love with the new girl at school. He knows he is sad and should be sad for the situation around him but can’t help but be infatuated with the girl at school. Regardless of how dark or sad your life may be you can’t control how your heart feels. If you do fall in love with someone whilst you are in this situation you shouldn’t feel bad about it and try and push the feelings away, you should embrace those feelings. Falling in love isn’t a bad thing and you can still be upset and feel for a sad situation around you whilst also being in love with someone, it doesn’t make you a bad person.

Never consume your life with waiting for or searching for love but always be ready for it when it comes. Just because things may be bad in life don’t make yourself unavailable or close yourself off from others who may love you or people that you love. Sometimes the best relationships and the best partners come along when you least expect it.

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Jealousy when you are single

Jealousy in relationships is quite common but it is also very common in single people. It’s like when your friends have a girlfriend or a boyfriend and you don’t, you feel happy for your friend but at the same time you are jealous that you don’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. You think why have they got someone and not me?

It is also hard when you are single and you really love someone but that person already has a partner. Even though that person loves there partner and that they don’t know that you love them you feel jealous of that persons other half. You think to yourself why are they going out with that person? And you think you would be much better for them.

I’ve been there before and it is such a hard place to be. You have all these unreasonable feelings of jealousy that you can’t tell anyone else about and with no way of stopping feeling like that. You just have to keep believing that your time will come and that if it is meant to be it will work out. Instead of spending time being jealous of your friends who have partners invest time in trying to find a partner of your own.

It’s hard to stop feeling jealous of someone that is going out with the person you think is the love of your life but you have to try. Try being happy that the person you love is happy and go out and see if there somebody else out there which you feel the same about as I believe on most occasions that there is more than one girl out there that could be your ideal partner.

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What Your Other Half Should Be

After my last post about settling I thought I would post about what you should see in your other half and what life with them should be like.

If you have truly found the one I believe this is how you should feel:

When you pick up your phone to see it is them calling you should have butterflies.

When you are walking down the street holding their hand you should feel like you are walking on air.

Every time you see them you should feel like you did the first time you laid eyes on them.

You should have to pinch yourself everyday just to believe that you get to share your life with that person.

If you don’t feel these things then it isn’t worth it to me. Love is something that should be enjoyed to its maximum, it is not worth investing the emotional energy in love if it doesn’t make you feel like this. Everyone deserves to and should experience in this in a relationship. If you feel these ways about your partner and they feel they same about you, you should have the most amazing relationship.

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Settling

Why is that so many people just settle in love?

I see so many of my friends and people around me just settling for their other half because they want to be in a relationship, they don’t want to be alone, or just because they are too lazy to go out and see what there is around. Some people I know are going out with their other half just because their other half asked them out and because they couldn’t say no or just loved the fact that someone asked them out without loving the person that was asking.

A key thing to remember is if someone asks you out you can always say no. Although it may hurt the persons feelings that person that is asking you deserves to be in a relationship with someone who loves them wholeheartedly so by saying yes you are only hurting them in the long term. Never confuse the feeling of happiness of someone finding you attractive with loving the person that finds you attractive.

Some people find someone to go out with just because that’s what all their friends are doing and don’t want to be the only one without a partner. This is when it’s a case of anyone will do just so you are not the odd one out as in your head going out with someone you aren’t in love with seems better than being the odd one out.

The problem comes when you have settled for your other half and its now five years down the line and you have got married and/or had kids and you realise this is the rest of your life now. Even if you don’t do the marriage or kids thing the longer you get in to the relationship the more depressed with it you can get. You get to a point when you are not even making an effort with your relationship anymore as you don’t care for it which is not fair on you or your partner.

The older people get the more worried they get about growing old alone so the more likely they are just to settle for someone, anyone, just so they don’t have to be alone and they don’t feel they can be picky as the clock is ticking and another opportunity may not come their way.

The key thing to remember is the most amazing girl in the world very rarely just falls in to your life. If you want to be in love and with an amazing girl where you have to pinch yourself everyday to believe you are going out with them, you have to put in the hard work. You have to be proactive and get out there and never settle until you find her.

I think people settling is a big shame as in love it should never be a case of settling. You should be with your partner because you love them and be besotted by them everyday.

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Being the only single person in your social circle

Why is it when you get to your mid/late twenties all your friends have a girlfriend, fiancé, partner or wife? When you meet up with your close circle of friends this fact is drummed home as you feel like a spare wheel and a bit inferior as you aren’t with anyone. Now I helped match make for most of my friends so I have only got myself to blame really but having spent so much time matchmaking for other people I forgot about myself until I realised there was no one left for me.

Why is it that other people find it easier to meet women and talk to women than me? When your weekly routine consists of getting up, going to work, then going off to do charity work and doing some work on the side to afford the mortgage before getting in late to go to bed to do it all over again how do you meet people? All the social things you do revolve around your social circle who normally just want to go to someone’s house or do something where meeting people isn’t the priority so meeting someone comes near on impossible. Then if you do go and do something where you can meet people like going to a pub you have no wingman or singleton in the group of your friends who may be going to meet someone so it feels too awkward for you to try and meet someone so you just end up staying with your group of friends. There is nothing worse than trying to chat up a girl when your friends are in earshot as just knowing that makes you all self conscious and if they are like my mates they will try and embarrass you either intentionally or unintentionally so trying to meet someone when your friends are around is not an option.

You then have the bright spark of asking your male friends other halves if they have single friends but you are never in a one on one situation with them where you feel comfortable doing that so you just chicken out. If you do get the courage to take this step you are then admitting to that person that you can’t find a girl yourself and they then may tell their partner (your friend) about it so it becomes social suicide. If they do keep it in confidence and do have a single friend you then have to play the lottery of what you could be set up with. When you get to your late twenties for many people there is normally a reason why they are single but as the saying goes beggars can’t be choosers. On top of this if the blind date thing doesn’t work out whenever you see your friend and her partner they are going to be asking about it and how it went.

If you are starting to feel like a third wheel at social gatherings you may then start to shy away from going out with your friends to avoid that feeling so now not only are you feeling down that your single but it is affecting you having fun with your friends.

Why is there no place for men in their mid twenties to meet women which doesn’t involve a bar or a nightclub. For those of us that actually want to get to know someone first and to do so without having ten pints of alcohol where is there? Answers on a postcard please.

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The Cruellest Things in Love

In love you can’t help who your heart falls in love with. You know when you first see that girl in the hallway at school, on the bus to work or that new girl who has just started working in your office. You don’t know them, you don’t know their name you haven’t even said hi, you don’t even know if they have noticed you but still unexplainably you love them. It’s like there is no other female in the world and it’s her you want to be with and nobody else. Your mind starts working at a million miles an hour picturing what you would be like together and before you even know it you are thinking about kids and marriage in your head.

The cruel fact of life however is that you can’t make that person love you back. How much you love this person makes no difference, regardless if you love them a bit or a lot it won’t make them love you back. If they don’t love you back you can’t then just turn off your feelings for them and your wasted heart will keep loving them. You can keep trying to work on them and see if one day they will love you but this can be a battle that you won’t win or if you do get them to start a relationship with you it may not be because they love you like you love them.

If only life were that simple that whoever you fell in love with would love you back. In films and stories the media try and convince you that an ordinary person can win the love of the most amazingly beautiful person in the world but unfortunately real life isn’t always like that. Sometimes you can eventually move on over time and get the person you love out of your head but this can be a long road and for some they may never be able to do it.

The big problem comes when you convince yourself that the person you have your heart on does love you or could love you when that person has done nothing to suggest that. When you read too much in to things that they have done or said. There are some cruel people who if they know that they love you will string you along and make you believe that they love you but luckily in life these are the minority.

The key thing to remember is to not rush in to things and let your mind get away from you which is easier said than done I know but if you can it will save you some pain and heartache later. Although at the moment it may feel like this person was the only one, somewhere down the line there will be others.

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