posted by dan @ 7:19 AM
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Two charming women dressed as dalmations, are there another 99 roaming around somewhere? 
posted by dan @ 4:37 AM
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Reports have been circulating that Jessica Simpson, the woman who's weak attempts at imitating both Daisy Duke and Nancy Sinatra underscore the vapidness of retread entertainment, has resorted to online dating. Theoretically, she enjoys it because guys will be attracted to just her personality without noticing that perfect figure and generically attractive face. But, seriously, personality? Is that something she's been hiding from us all these years?
posted by dan @ 8:18 AM
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posted by dan @ 11:06 AM
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posted by dan @ 7:54 PM
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I pointed to the Ladies Home Journal article, describing it as a look inside the other team's playbook. But, as surrendertoit points out in a comment, men use pretty much the same tool kit. She says:
Speaking of which, can I get a deal on some Terry Prachett books?
I don't find this is about the other team's playbook. Men use their skills to get things as well.
I worked in a bookstore for years, with more male customers. Many of them flirted with me, but not often to get a date, more often to get a deal. Reading SF books and comics gets expensive. Sigh.
I have male friends who flirt and put on puppy-dog eyes for(most recently) grocery checkout staff, dentist technicians and their co-workers to get things they want.
posted by dan @ 8:17 PM
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posted by dan @ 9:04 AM
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This article is by a woman, Katherine Nguyen, who has fun with the whole "sexy, scary, scanty halloween" premise. She admits to having done it herself, though she has since progressed to:
For Halloween last year I found this fabulously hideous dress at a thrift store, obviously some unfortunate soul's prom dress from the 1960s or '70s. It was powder blue, pleated and made me look like a giant jellyfish.
Some of the actual costumes she describes:
Among the notable offerings this year: There's Sexy Sherlock Holmes, which comes with a dangerously short houndstooth-check skirt, matching cape and hat and even a magnifying glass.
Then there's Sexy Tin Man Girl, a silver vinyl bustier-mini dress with a matching pointy hat. Oh, and there's even a "Sexatary" costume with a midriff-baring halter with a short tie and an itsy-bitsy skirt. I suppose the eyeglasses nail home the "secretary" part of the oh-so-clever disguise.
My personal favorites? A three-way tie between Sexy Pizza Delivery Girl, which comes with a pizza-box prop (alas, it was deemed too hot to show in our family paper); Sexy Executioner, which comes with a hooded mask, faux-leather booty shorts but no ax; and "Ella Mental Adult," which actually consists of a straitjacket minidress with restraints.
Then there are the ones she suggests at the end:
•Sexy Grandma in a droopy leather bustier. Totally.
•Sexy Zombie (with chunks of flesh falling off the face). In a bikini. On roller skates.
•Sexy Clown. In a vinyl skirt. Because seriously, what's hotter than a big red foam nose and rainbow Afro wig?
posted by dan @ 4:11 AM
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posted by dan @ 4:54 AM
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For grown-ups, a Halloween costume is already a conversation piece. If it's clever, it begs explanation. If mundane, there is still a question "so, do you like Pirates?" We've taken the trouble to be something else, and the occassion gives people permission to ask what we are and why. Even that lame standby, dressing like yourself but implying that your normal clothes mean something else, is a good conversation starter. I.e., "yes, I'm actually a Cylon Skin Job, passing as human."
There's also the textual version of a costume. One example was sent in by commentor Kuz, t-shirts that generically indicate sexiness.
posted by dan @ 5:27 AM
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According to a study, reported here, men and women are paying attention to each other's behavior during the scary parts of a horror movie. The men are disappointed if their dates don't cringe, while the women want their men to be manly.
He studied the behaviors of 233 college students at horror movies, gauging their etiquette and expectations. The more traditional the roles during horrific moments, the better the relationship, he found.
"Guys didn't like it when their date was unafraid, and girls didn't like it when their dates were scared," Mr. Harris said.
posted by dan @ 7:50 PM
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Back when I was in the kind of relationship where you socialize with other units as one unit, I remember going through adventures similar to what this writer talks about. It is an awkward feeling:
We went to a couples' bowling event, but the requirement for excessive interaction with other couples made it eerily similar to the dating events I used to go to. I asked the same circle of questions - "What do you do? Where do you live? What's your name again?" - except this time I was doing this pseudo-flirting with guys. Guys already in relationships, no less.
posted by dan @ 6:59 AM
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I've been sitting on this New York Times article about dressing like a slut for Halloween, trying to decide what best to say about it. But one of my favorite blogs, Will Fernia's Clicked, jumped on it. Will raises the following questions on his blog:
Does it mean anything that for many women, dressing up means dressing sexy?
Do we need a Sexy Dress-up Day so Halloween can go back to being scary dress-up day?
Is it fair to infer that women who dress provocatively on Halloween really wish they could dress that way all the time? (Or the reverse, shouldn't a woman be able to dress provocatively one day a year on a day when fantasy dress is allowed, without having to suffer insinuations of sluttiness?
Why don't men dress sexy on Halloween?
posted by dan @ 8:07 PM
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Some holidays are for lovers, some for families, and some are just for shopping. For flirting, there is only one holiday, and that's coming. We're going to do a few stories on this, cover the Drag Races in DC, and post photos of crazy flirty costumes we find in Georgetown and Adams Morgan. If you have any ideas or comments about flirting, costumes, and Halloween, let me know.
posted by dan @ 12:46 PM
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Apparently internet dating works. Sometimes. One friend has actually found a cool girlfriend after registering for Match.com on this very page. (over to the right, down a bit, where it says Free Trial). But I always fear the worst, and experiences like those listed in this article reinforce that fear.
"One guy used a picture of Ray Lewis," the football player, she said. When she called him on it, he denied. "He said 'No, no, that's me.' " He sent her a note later telling her his real pictures were now on his profile, but she had moved on.
Or this:
There was one girl who I met for a date, and it turned out she had lied about her name, and her age, and her job," he said.
posted by dan @ 9:27 PM
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"I lie and tell them, 'I will marry you as soon as I know you more. We need to know each other more. We should go and hang out for a while,' " Taleb says.
"It's not easy to make the girl trust you," he says. "Sometimes it takes months."
While the women are getting cynical:
And the guys are already treating the women they meet online like the kind of girl you don't take home to mother:"I'm 29 and I'm afraid I will be single for the rest of my life," she says.
She says she recognizes the dangers in meeting men online. "First, they are all liars and they seek sex only," she says.
"I'm not against finding my wife through the Internet, but the problem is with our traditions," he says. "What shall I tell my parents when they ask me where I found her? They will not let me get married in this way."
posted by dan @ 12:06 PM
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We are all a little weird. Well, maybe not those nearly perfect happy people who go straight from high-school popularity to productive marraige without a whiff of self-doubt or anxiety. But those people are probably Cylon Skin Jobs.
The rest of us have at least one habit that someone somewhere, probably sitting at the table next to us, has described as a deal-breaker. On the other hand, if you followed that person for a month or so, you would probably see the karmic irony: they are now dating someone with the very same habit, and they now think it's cute. "He's so hopeless, he wears red pants and a checkered flannel shirt."
So do you lead with those things? Like, sure, I tell women I watch Battlestar Gallactica because it's important. But say I also listen to ABBA on my iPod? (not saying I do, or anything). Is that just way over the edge? Worse then Duran Duran? What if I could swear that I didn't ever like ABBA, and really hated them when it was important that we all hated ABBA? And then, hypothetically, an ex insisted that, no, ABBA really has this great vocal quality?
posted by dan @ 5:20 PM
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According to this research, which was reported on Slate's Human Nature blog, women dress up when they are at peak fertility. While most women upgraded their existing style, some went to extremes:
In one extreme example, the student wore loose-fitting jeans and clunky boots in her lowfertility photo and a skirt and cardigan during ovulation.
posted by dan @ 10:35 AM
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Accidental connections are rising with the advent of those hands free cell-phone thingies. You can walk down the street, lost in your conversation, and suddenly find yourself nodding intensly at someone. That person, who may not have noticed the slim wire, nods back or even says hi.
posted by dan @ 6:31 PM
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A Canadian Blogger, Surrender to it, commented on my last post. She points out in the comment section that:
All true. Still, the guy I linked to was trying to convince us that certain "chick-flicks" were really good movies for guys. And, while Princess Bride is actually pretty good, he is seriously trying to sell us on Titanic! That's the equivalent of a smart, fun woman who, after falling way too far for some guy shows up at girls night out and tells her friends that, really, they could learn to love The Three Stooges.
posted by dan @ 8:17 PM
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The new poster came out awesome. If you like DC at all, if you love sex-scandals, if you can appreciate how closely power and corruption are sleeping to each other, then you'll love the poster too. But, instead of pushing it tonight, I have to pause because, well, guys can become totally pathetic in a relationship. Especially if they are more into the other person than the other person is into them. There are three stages of Patheticness:
1) Simply pathetic. This is when the guy, shrugging his shoulders, does what she wants, goes where she wants, changes his behavior to make her happier. He doesn't always like it, but he seems powerless to resist.
2) Hopelessly pathetic. Not only does he do what she says, he likes what she likes. If she takes Yoga, he takes Yoga. And, whenever she is around, he'll tell you he really likes it, that he would have found it, soon enough, without her.
3) Spineless, hopeless oozing pool of non-manliness. The last stage is where the guy not only likes what he's told, be begins to evangelize his friends, even when she is not around. Witness this list of supposedly guy-safe movies:
10 . Interview with the Vampire (1994)
9. A League of Their Own (1992)
8. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
7. Titanic (1997)6. Annie Hall (1977)
5. The Wedding Singer (1998)4. The Princess Bride (1987)3. Bull Durham (1988)2. As Good as it Gets (1997)1. When Harry Met Sally (1989)
The writer is obviously well into the third stage.
posted by dan @ 9:01 PM
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The New York Times reports on research into the benefits of holding hands. The writer seems pretty much in favor of it:
To hold someone's hand is to offer them affection, protection or comfort. It is a way to communicate that you are off the market. Practically speaking, it is an efficient way to squeeze through a crowd without losing your partner. People do it during vigils, marches, weddings and funerals.
Holding hands has, apparently, gained some general immunity from the normal complaints about Public Displays of Affection. On the other hand, it is, for a lot of people, less casual than sex:
Among more than a half-dozen students at the University of Maine, there seemed to be two universal truths: that hand-holding is the least nauseating public display of affection and that holding hands has become more significant than other seemingly deeper expressions of love and romance.
The only alarming thing was the way they did the study. All the research seems to come from a combination of bondage and electro-shock, which was only applied to the women:
The wives were put inside an M.R.I. machine and were told they were to receive mild electric shocks to an ankle. Brain images showed that regions of the women's brains that had been activated in anticipation of pain and that were associated with negative emotions decreased when their husbands reached into the machine.
posted by dan @ 9:00 PM
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| The Sims 2: Flirting Trailer demonstrates how Sims flirt. Maybe this is the answer we've all been looking for. Bring out that inner Monkey!!!! | |
posted by dan @ 8:03 PM
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I remember flirting with a female cop, not knowing what she did. Even after finding out, I didn't make any handcuff jokes, and didn't even think of using the line:
"Why don't you take me off to jail?"
This guy did. Two hours later, after a fight assaulting someone with a brick, stealing a car, running from the police, and being chased down by a police dog named Jango, he looked up at the cop who'd chased him down and recognized her.
"Are you the cop I ran from?" ... "I was the one who was flirting with you earlier and said 'take me to jail."'
This time, the officer complied with the request.
The man was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, fleeing and outstanding warrants.
posted by dan @ 7:28 PM
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Flirting is the primary focus. Maybe a little dating, a touch of sex, a hint at the world of relationships. But really, it's about flirting. Adventures and anecdotes, stories and advice. Flirting as an art unto itself.
