From YourTango

Is there such a thing as ‘The Nice Guy Curse’? Is it even possible to be too nice? Men, the world over, have wondered why women continually pass up the quintessential nice guy who is loving, caring, giving, supportive, accommodating, faithful and head-over-heels in love with them.In the initial stage of a relationship there are many men who try really hard to make women happy.

In fact, they often bend over backwards to accomplish this task. If and when they enter into a deeper level of commitment, they often take things a step further. They begin to put their partner ahead of everyone and everything else in their lives.  While this may seem to accomplish the goal of making her happy, it actually does the complete opposite.If and when she actually becomes the most important thing in his life, she’ll start to lose her attraction for him. In fact, if he centers his life around her, it will actually drive her away.

She’ll start to resent the fact that his life revolves around hers and she’ll begin to lose respect for him as a man when he keeps adjusting to her every whim. Over time, the attraction she once had will slowly disintegrate until it is no more. While women do not possess an ‘attraction kill switch’, slowly but surely they begin to realize that something is different. Something is missing. What was once something has become nothing.

At this point, the ‘Nice Guy Curse’ has reared its ugly head. In his attempt to find out what went wrong, he is met with frustration and disappointment. Why? Simply put, women often have a hard time articulating the shift in their emotions, because it’s just a feeling they get. They really don’t know how to put it into words. The feeling is either there or it’s not.

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From YourTango

So, you are dating a guy, and it’s the crucial first few weeks.  You really like this guy, and you are wondering what you can do (or avoid doing) to keep this relationship going and not scare him away.

The truth is there are certain things that women can do that will scare men away everysingle time.  Don’t sabotage a potentially great relationship that could have gone somewhere by scaring a man off right at the beginning.

So here are 6 dating behaviors guaranteed to scare men off that all women should avoid:

1. Trash Talking Your Ex.  Don’t ever trash an ex boyfriend in front of a guy you’re dating.  I don’t care if you’re on your first date or on your fifteenth date with a guy, don’t ever trash talk your ex.  Your ex is somebody you dated, invited into your life, and with whom you spent a lot of time.  So don’t talk negatively about your ex in any way, because what a guy thinks when you do this is that if he ever becomes your ex that you are going to trash talk him the same way.  So, when a man asks you about your ex, the only thing you should say is “We are no longer together.  It was a great relationship while it lasted, and I learned a lot.”  That’s it.

Read more at YourTango

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With the growth of relationship experts and advice, it’s quite rare that you will find that the tips doled out are catering to the do’s-and-don’ts of men. Women are told what to expect, how to behave, what to say and when to say it in order to keep a man, but men are told very little if anything at all. And ladies, we know, relationships are work and call for the full participation of both parties. It is not only up to women to be the keepers of knowledge of what makes love and relationships work, while the men get to run around doing what ever tickles their fancy.

So, to help balance all of this information, I present to you seven things men should refrain from doing to keep the attention of the women they want in the “courting” phase. These are matters that women tend to discuss amongst themselves, but I think it best that we allow the men a chance to learn of these nasty habits in order to prevent any possible love mishaps.

firstwivesworld.com

You know the saying, “The best way to get over an old man is with a new one.” But are you a Rebound Queen, getting back in the dating game prematurely before you’ve had a chance to get over a heartbreak? While you may want to get on with life and get past the pain, that could spell trouble for anyone who comes in your path and becomes your next victim. Is it all fair in love and war, or should you be considerate of those who are looking for a real relationship? We’ve all been there – we’ve had our hearts broken…and we’ve broken a couple ourselves. Are we all rebounding from someone or are we carrying emotional baggage? If you’re not sure, here’s how to tell if your simply a man-eater, or a Rebound Queen.

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The [black] internets were quietly murmuring at the recent revelation that Jay-Z allegedly orders for women at restaurants. The discussion came about after he and author Zadie Smith met for lunch. Last week, she published her piece on the rapper/mogul in The New York Times. Folks were questioning whether or not the move was sexist or sexay. After reading the article, it didn’t seem like he ordered for her; but rather suggested what he thought she might like and she obliged. Either way the incident got us ladies in the office talking about whether a man ordering for us constitutes a red flag. Most of us were in agreement that this is a warning sign that this controlling behavior would likely show up in other facets of the relationship. Probably not a good look.

But then I started thinking about the instances in which I would want a man to take control. Admittedly, my dating experiences have been limited to say the least; but I’ve dealt with enough men to realize that when it comes to the planning and execution of dates, I’d like for a man to take care of that. Now, I don’t mean that he never consults me, or that I never come up with my own suggestions for our outings; but for the most part I want to know that a man I’m seeing is putting thought into the time we spend together. It doesn’t mean that the plans have to be extravagant or involve a whole lot of money. But in general, I’d like to avoid a conversation that goes something like this:

Him: You trying to hang out this weekend?

Me: Yeah, that would be good. I’m free. What do you want to do?

Him: I don’t know. It’s whatever you want to do.

*Sigh* No boo. While I appreciate, the initiative you took in making sure we spend time together, the follow through with some type of plan is not only appreciated, it’s a turn on. A man with a plan, even if it’s something as simple as a date, is appealing. I’m something like a feminist; but this is something that I want you to take care of. And perhaps, the fact that I am a feminist/womanist with a hectic schedule and several commitments is the reason why, when it comes to the romantic recreational, I want to sit back, relax and let you take the reins.

This is just my opinion. But as always, this is a place for discussion. When you’re dating someone, would you rather plan the dates or do you want him to handle that? How do things work out in your own relationships, who plans?

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Gawker is known for all things hilarious, weird and absurd, and one of their posts today shared a real-life situation that shed some light on the cruel yet amusing world of dating in the city.

The satirical site posted text messages between Candice, a 31-year-old woman, and a lawyer she met at a bar. After going out on a date to watch The Avengers, Candice expressed to him that she wasn’t interested in getting to know him further. He obviously took it hard. He sent a follow up text to his buddy explaining what happened the previous night. Peep the exchanges below:

We have to laugh at the fact that he questioned her taste in men just because he didn’t deem her to be a supermodel. We also have to laugh at the long text he sent to his friend. Do guys send each other long text messages like this nowadays? Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s the era of the bromance.

In any case, here’s a question I want to pose to you Noirettes. If you were Candice, what would you say in your response to his last text?

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Dating in college is a slightly different ball game, especially nowadays with the saturation of technology. It seems like people are more connected yet further apart.

Currently I’m a junior in college and maneuvering around in the dating world can be a little stressful. College isn’t like high school. You’re dealing with a different group of people, hopefully a more mature group. A lot of the relationships people have in college end up being their first truly serious “adult” relationship. In many cases it could be the person they end up marrying and spending the rest of their lives with.

Yet at the same time, college (besides getting an education of course) is a time to have fun and live your life. You’re only 18, 19, 20, 21 so why try and settle down so early? You have the rest of your 20s and 30s to find a “soul mate”.

However dating can still be fun, so here are some tips for all you college readers out there…

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by Marissa Ellis

Dating is not for everyone. The thought of meeting someone, going out on a series of interviews dates, with the pressure linging overhead of figuring things out within a matter of a few months is enough to turn someone like me off from the whole game. Am I supposed to know within three months whether I want to invest in another soul, make future life plans with him and enter into a sexual relationship? Yeah, I guess so. Most people follow that scenario faithfully.

Although it does leave me with limited options, I opt to know someone as a friend first. Basically, that eliminates the chances of me meeting someone at a random place. In the past, I have met people at work and through friends. In a work setting, you have the chance to communicate with somoene as a colleague. And when meeting someone through a friend, it’s much easier to strike up a casual friendship. I take commitment very seriously which is why I don’t like leaving things up to chance if I can help it. And by help it, I mean getting to know the other person very well before I enter into a pact to love and nurture him. As friends, you get to know the person without the facades; you get to know the person for who they are and not what they’re trying to impress you with.

Ironically enough, I first met my current boyfriend at a bar. We went out on a few dates before I decided that I wasn’t interested enough or comfortable enough to pursue it further. After all, when someone else is paying the bill for all your get-to-know-each-other excursions, it just adds to the uncomfortable pressure of figuring things out fast. Once I told him that I wasn’t sure about dating, he wanted to remain friends. And that we did, for a whole year before we decided to try dating again. During that platonic time, I got to know him as a person and really became attracted to him without any external pressures.

As much as I’m celebrating the friends first approach, I know it’s not for everyone. What works for you? Have you ever successfully enforced the friends first rule? Or do you prefer the straight-up approach to dating?

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Funny, we have all these relationship experts contributing to our site that can build you up and knock your relationship issues down with the quickness. Yet and still,  I would rather pose the question, the one mentioned in the title above, to you–our faithful readers.

If you ask me, I would say, probably about two to three dates works fine for me to figure out what I’m thinking about a guy: if I like him, or if I would rather forget him. If you ask my mother, well, you need to give these things time. Time? I don’t know about anybody else, but I work a demanding job (that I love, don’t get it twisted) and so at the end of the day, my time isn’t something I’m really feeling like wasting on any ‘ol body. But my mother says she wasn’t necessarily a fan of my father when they first met (when I asked if she liked him she made that noise that kind of says, “HELL NO”), and it took a while for her to warm up to him–a good number of dates.

They’ve been married more than 25 years now. Hmmm. I could have this whole dating thing wrong if they’re still strong after all these years and went through a string of less than memorable dates to get to this point.

So let me breakdown my situation: I guess you could say I’ve been seeing a guy for about a month now. We’re not booed up, just going on a few dates, talking back and forth–the usual. In fact, we’re far from being “booed up.” In reality, I’m reluctantly keeping this thing going. A few weeks ago, the young man, who is nice and pretty cute, told me he liked me, and that he wanted to see more of me. MORE? Hell, I was struggling to get to our dates on time. I was honest with him (after he revealed his feelings to me) in the fact that I didn’t think we were compatible. Why? We had been spending too much time talking about him during our dates, and not talking about anything with depth any other time we would talk. His messages weren’t met with excitement by me, but by a long breath-y sigh. And after he gave me inaccurate directions to one of our date spots and then tried to play victim when I looked frustrated, I was pretty much as snarl-faced as I could get.  After I told him the “real deal, ” he played it cool, and I was home free.

But when I broke this down to my mother, she made me feel bad ya’ll. She said to me that you might not necessarily “like” someone just from sitting and eating dinner with them a couple of times–you don’t really know them yet. I was pretty much told that I could be missing out on something good. (*sigh*)

Like something out of a movie, although I told him I wasn’t interested before, he contacted me a couple of days after I talked to my mom just to see how I had been. One thing led to another (get your mind out of the gutter) and we’re supposed to meet up again soon. Yay. So I’ve “kind of” taken her advice and decided to try and be more open about him. But could she be wrong? She might be, because we started chatting again about three weeks ago, and I STILL haven’t met up with him since. Here’s why:

I think in a world where people are working multiple jobs, have major responsibilities and get about half of the designated eight hours of sleep every night, time is for sure, of the essence. So that’s why I’m having second thoughts about my situation. I personally think that you don’t have to feel butterflies in your stomach, or need to break out in Tears for Fears’ “I Choose You” when you think about a new guy you’re dating. I get that. But if you, like me, would rather kick it with friends or sit in the house with a comfy heated blanket and marvel at old The Wire episodes as opposed to sitting in a bar with a guy you truly aren’t in to like that, then that should be a sign. I would have no qualms with spending hours chatting over drinks with a guy I was excited about, but if not, then I’d rather keep those hours. I might give this guy one more date, but after that, I can’t do any more if I’m still not feeling anything. A sistah doesn’t have to feel like “Oh Happy Day!” about a guy up front, but I should be feeling something. Right? Why waste my time and his?

So I ask again, in this big ‘ol dating world with prospects all around (not necessarily the greatest of prospects though), how many dates does it take for you to figure out if you want to keep seeing a guy? If he’s worth the time?

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