A Few Things I've Learned About Dating

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Good In The Sack Defined

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about lovers who were fantastic in the sack and what made them stand out.  Maybe it’s because the last two I’ve experienced left me a bit unsatisfied, for lack of a better word.  I know that sounds a bit harsh but perhaps I’ve reached a level of maturity where quality truly does matter more than quantity.  Although it makes for fun conversation with my married guy friends to brag about racking up numbers, it just doesn’t cut it for me, these days.  No, you’re not taking away my man card either.  What I’m trying to say is that, from a pure sex perspective, I want my partner to bring something to the party beyond her vagina.  I want to have my socks at least jostled, if not rocked, when I get into the sack.  Let’s face it, life’s too short to spend a bunch of time playing the game to find out he or she is a dud in bed.

What makes a woman good in the sack, to me?  (Obviously, the following babble will apply only to me but perhaps others will find insight from the points I’ll make)  After giving the topic some thought, I’ve come up with the following list (guys love lists!).  The best lovers I’ve experienced all have certain traits in common.  Some are amazing for different reasons than others.  But they all possess two or more of the below attributes in spades, along with a healthy ‘competency’ in the remaining areas.    

So, in no particular order…

1 – A willingness to be slutty – If you’ve read my previous entry on sluts, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.  Some of my most memorable encounters have been with women who allow themselves to embrace their slutty side.  They unapologetically need to be fucked and get off in as many ways as possible.  I’m not looking for a complete slut, per se, but things like dropping to your knees and taking me in your mouth, while standing on the deck, is always a nice surprise.  Tell me to fuck you like a dirty slut from time to time.  Beg me to pull out and shoot my hot cum all over your ass, tits, face, or belly.  Skip the underwear, occasionally, when we go to dinner; then tell me about it at the restaurant.  And let’s face it, what guy (other than the insecure ones) doesn’t get turned on watching a woman bring herself off for him? 

2 – Be open to new experiences – this is kind of a follow-on to number 1, particularly if you’re a slut in training.  The hottest example (those who have read previous posts might remember this one) I can offer is with a lover who I asked, while she had me in her mouth, ‘do you want to touch yourself while you’re sucking my cock?’  She reached back and began to play with her clit and orgasmed almost immediately.  Then she asked me if I’d like for her to move so I could have a better view of her touching herself.  Yes please!  One of the reasons the experience was so hot was that, afterward, she shared that she had never done anything like that for another partner and found the act very exciting.  In fact, she yelled at me for exposing her to the variation; ‘Every time I think about doing that to you, I wind up having to pull out my vibrator!’

My point is that the great thing about sex is it’s an experience that evolves the more you do it.  Or at least it should!  Doing the same thing, the same way, over and over, rarely holds my attention. 

3 – Tell me what you want – This is probably the one trait that stands above the others as a turn on, for me.  It’s an attribute that is shared by all the women who have rocked my world in the sack.  To be sure, I’m not saying I want someone who will guide me through the entire process like a rookie.  I think I’ve graduated beyond ‘insert Tab A into Slot B.  And trust me, I’ll figure out rather quickly how my partner’s wired (i.e. does she respond more to stimulation of her clit or g-spot).  What I’m referring to are things that even the more attentive men might miss or not be comfortable initiating.  Two examples that remain prominent in my ‘damn, that was hot’ memory happened to occur with the same woman.

The first might seem a bit tame, but it should be taken in context.  After our second date, she came back to my place for some high quality making out.  I really liked this woman and, surprising as this may sound, I’m somewhat old fashioned during the ‘getting to know you’ phase of what seems to be a genuine romantic relationship.  She didn’t strike me as being the kind of girl who would appreciate being pawed on the second date, so I was sticking to the kissing agenda.  Turns out she wanted to be pawed and let me know by grabbing my hand and placing it on one of her breasts.  I know it sounds silly but I found that to be pretty stimulating.  And a good time was had by all.

The other example is quite a bit hotter.  I’ll recount the entire evening at some point but the highlight was her telling me that watching a guy stroke his hard cock until it exploded turned her on.  She asked if I would do that for her and cum all over her tits.  Sure, it was hot…damn it was hot, but that act was not something I would typically suggest to a partner.  So, had she not asked, her lovely breasts would have remained unglazed and her fantasy wouldn’t have been made into reality.

4 – Take an active role – One of the things I pride myself on, is the skill to ensure sex with me is more of an experience than a standalone act.  Kind of like Disney World, but with sex toys.  Not going to go into details beyond that it’s about setting the right mood for the direction the evening’s play is going to take, usually keying off my partner’s vibes prior to the funky stuff.  I’m a Type A and very competitive, so my goal is to make my partner remember me with the right amount of dampness.  Physically, I’ll work my ass off to insure she walks away with a bit of stiffness in her thighs.  That being said, it’s nice, to occasionally not be the one to take the lead.  Even nicer is to ensure I get to cum, from time to time.  Yes, a guy just said that and this is not an alternate universe. 

You see, after 45 minutes of proper thrusting, one’s johnsonrod tends to become desensitized.  Plus, by that point, I’m hitting the wall, in terms of general stamina.  Throw in more than one partner who could be referred to as ‘gushers’ (where friction becomes almost non-existent), then add certain women’s tendency to buck their hips when they orgasm, and you wind up having a coronary before you have one of your own.  Again, I’m all about pleasing my partner but, if we’ve had sex half a dozen times and I haven’t had an orgasm, I’m probably gonna lose some interest.  Yeah, it’s nice to hear ‘you’ve screwed me into a catatonic state’ or ‘I think you broke me’ but, for cryin’ out loud, suck it up and finish me off once in a while!

5 – The right amount of submissiveness – Being a Type A personality, both in and out of the bedroom, it follows that I appreciate when my partner is on the submissive side.  Surprisingly, this isn’t as important as I’d initially thought.  In fact, there is such a thing as a partner being too submissive for me.  Exhibit A would be a woman I dated for a year or so.  She was incredibly sub in the sack.  It seemed that no matter what I envisioned in terms of dominating her, she would get more excited.  Tie her to the bed and violate her in nasty ways?  She was in.  Inflict pain and humiliation?  She’d be first in line.  You’d think that having what I would consider the ultimate fuck toy would be awesome.  And it was, for a while.  But I ultimately hit the realization, much like in some of the other examples, that I was doing all the work, all the time.  It seemed that there was more ‘doing to her’ than ‘doing things to each other’.  Sure, I pride myself on putting in the effort blah, blah, blah.  But, if I’m the only one putting in any effort in the bedroom, you’d better start putting effort elsewhere, like cleaning my kitchen.  Yes, that was a chauvinistic comment and I’ll own it.

6 – A Connection – Yep, it helps to respect the person you’re about to get naked with.  To want to spend time with them beyond the bedroom.  It makes you want to put the effort into making the experience as gratifying for both parties as possible.  Respect is so key for me, in terms of sleeping with someone.  As I told a woman I was dating, I truly can’t treat a woman like a whore unless I respect her. 

Respect builds trust and trust is crucial toward trying things that push your partner’s comfort envelope.  Without it, how can you ever expect him/her to live out your fantasy of having sex dressed as Rocky and Bullwinkle, while riding a unicycle through an actuarial convention?  It just isn’t gonna happen, no matter how you attempt to convince your partner how hot it would be. 

So, that’s my list.  Sure, there are other things that are nice to have, like your partner being vocal (but don’t blow out my eardrums while my head is next to yours!), but those are the attributes that I’ve found rock my world.

Which begs the question to my readers – what do you find to be world rocking in a partner?  I’d enjoy hearing what others find to be complete turn-ons.

Abandonment Issues - I Knew You'd Leave Me

Dating in your 40’s.  I’ve hit the point where I consider a root canal, followed by forced viewing of every Donald Trump speech to be preferable.  I’m literally exhausted by the process and becoming more disheartened by the day.  My fugue of futility comes from a realization I had a few weeks ago.  I used to bemoan that I wound up dating all the loons.  I did this quietly, because falling for loons says as much about you as it does the loons.  However, it’s become clear to me that the reason I wind up dating so many broken women is because 90% of all women are broken.  (It follows that 90% of single men in their 40’s are broken, but because I don’t date them, I have no firsthand knowledge.)  

Today’s installment of depression is brought to you by abandonment issues.  Can you say abandonment issues, boys and girls?  Sure, I knew you could. 

You see, the last two women I found myself absolutely smitten by were also affected by abandonment issues.  Unlike some other mental health issues, such as my personal fav borderline personality disorder, abandonment issues don’t always ‘suck you in’ on their own.  In fact, I’ve become quite adept at recognizing when I’m being sucked in and go through sort of a mental checklist with each woman I meet.  Does she only want to talk about me?  Has she not shared anything about her past?  Am I being positioned as the man who will save her from her horrible life?  For the record, ‘yes’ to any of these questions is not a good thing.  In many cases, abandonment issues won’t trip the typical alarms up front, which makes them that much more painful when they do show up. 

I’ll skip how abandonment issues tend to develop, because you’ve got the internet, and go straight to how they suck, at least for me.  Abandonment issues (AI) are essentially the fear of being abandoned.  While it may seem counter intuitive, those with AI will often push those they’ve come to care about away.  It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.  When they successfully push, they can scream (to themselves) ‘see, I knew he’d leave me!’  AI can cause other issues in relationships, but unlike some other mental health issues, they aren’t usually as terminal to that relationship.  It’s that pushing away that has killed two potentially special relationships for me in the past two months because I’ve fallen for the trap.

Worth noting is that in my 40’s, I can count the number of truly special connections I’ve had on one hand.  Even my now-ex-wife didn’t fall into that category.  Chalk some of that up to my own fear of intimacy (which I skipped blogging about).  But nonetheless, it’s an incredibly rare occurrence for me.  Therefore, when one goes to hell in a hand basket, it tends to leave a mark.  What’s strange is two of those have happened in the past three months. 

Late summer, I met someone who ticked every one of my boxes and it felt as though the heavens opened up.  She was the only woman I’ve ever met who I could see spending the rest of my life with.  Having not known her that long, whether I wanted to remained to be seen.  She seemed to share my feelings and the time we spent together was positively bliss.  Then came the pushing away.  As I was scared to death over beginning to fall for someone at all, I panicked, fell into her trap, and abandoned her.  After a few days, I began to recognize her abandonment issues (I’ve seen them before and diagnosed women before their therapists have) and tried to work things out with her.  But another fun part of AI is that once you’re labelled as a flight risk, you’ll never be allowed back into her heart.  So, I was fucked and left beating my head against the wall.

The most recent instance was just this morning.  Similar to the above except not quite as intense; but incredibly special nonetheless.  Just as before, I fell into her trap of pushing me away.  What makes me want to kick myself repeatedly is that I recognized her AI before and as she pushed me away.  You see, her MO of communication was identical to the woman above and there were clues within that pattern.  For example, despite the euphoria shared when together, communication is all but absent in between dates.  No, neither was screwing someone else; each had other commitments that absolutely precluded that.  See above comment about being pushed away.  I knew what was happening and resolved I wouldn’t fall into her trap.  Unfortunately, this one threw in an extra push that caused me to give in and abandon her.  Mother fucker…  While it doesn’t make the situation smart any less, at I’ve learned to not even bother trying to work things out.  So, this time, I’ve gone straight to head banging and muttering softly to myself. 

Crap Parents - The Sequel

In reading some of the comments to my Crap Parents blog post (Thank You!), a few parenting stories of my own have popped back into my head.  I’ll admit that the memories are somewhat bittersweet, as I no longer have contact with the step kids I grew to love as my own.  Distance and a vindictive ex-wife, unfortunately, were enough to seal that fate. 

Anyway, I thought I’d share some real world examples of my own on how not being afraid to be a hard ass as a parent, can be a good thing.  Both stories involve my step-daughter; the one with screaming ADHD and resulting impulse control issues.  Keep in mind, particularly for the second story, that I was known as the hard ass of the two parental figures in her life. 

One Saturday afternoon, I was alone in the house with my daughter.  She was planning to head to a music festival and was eagerly waiting for one of her friends to pick her up.  I knew she was excited about the concert, having mentioned it several times during the previous week.  At some point, my attention was drawn to noise coming from the street / cul de sac in front of our home.  Looking out, I saw a worn out Chrysler minivan attempting to do donuts.  I called up to my daughter and asked if that was her friend.  She said that wasn’t his car to which I responded that it had better not be because there was no way my daughter, step or otherwise, was riding with that idiot.  I was also pretty angry because we lived in a rather nice neighborhood; yes, part of it was being a snob but a larger part was because there were small children present. 

The next thing I knew, you guessed it, the minivan pulled into our driveway and honked the horn.  I reminded my daughter of the time honored father’s code of ‘if you honk your horn in my driveway, you’d better be dropping off a package because you ain’t picking up my daughter’, and made it very clear she was not riding with this moron.  She was not so happy but said she’d tell her friend she wasn’t going.  The next thing I know, the aforementioned friends (another friend had tagged along) were on my back deck, where I was smoking a cigar (still not sure what I ever saw in those things).  In a respectful tone, he asked why I wouldn’t allow my daughter to go with him.  After I laid out the reasons, he proceeded to explain to me why I was wrong.  To this day, I’m quite proud of myself for not having two bodies to bury in the back yard.  However, after about two minutes of discourse between the two of us, I informed him his departure would be a wise move.  A strange teenager telling a man he was dumb in his own home is tantamount to asking to have the living daylights beaten out of him. 

Numb nuts finally left and my daughter sequestered herself into her room.  Much as I wanted to just let things lie, I decided a good father would chat with his daughter about the event.  Knowing how much she was looking forward to the concert, I knew I’d be facing the untamed wrath of a teenage girl.  I knocked on her door and walked in.

Before I even got two words out of my mouth, my daughter jumped up and threw her arms around me.  With tears in her eyes, she told me how grateful she was to have me as her dad.  That she’d never had anyone she could count on to protect her until I came along.  To say I was shocked would be an understatement.  That moment still brings a tear to my eyes.

The other story I’d like to share happened about six months after their mother and I separated.  I was chatting with my step daughter and she told me how much she missed me.  She said that she missed the structure I brought as a parent.  This shocked me a bit and I jokingly reminded her of her and her brother’s comments about my being the hard ass parent.  And then she said something I’ll never forget, so long as I live.  ‘You were firm, but you were fair, and we always knew you loved us.’  Wow, pretty powerful stuff, at least for me.

Beyond recounting seemingly self-serving stories, my point is that kids need a healthy, repeat healthy, structure during their formative years.  Regardless of how much they fight it sometimes, they crave structure; they appreciate it.  Honestly, it’s sometimes easier to let things slide.  You think ‘I just don’t feel like dealing with the drama right now.  I’ll deal with it later.’  If you’re not prepared to enforce your rules, then don’t set them.

At the risk of going into full babble mode, I’ll share one more story.  I was with a female friend recently.  Her son had his three cousins staying with her for a few nights over the holidays, so there were four pre-teen boys in the house.  They were typical rambunctious kids and a lot of fun.  At 8:45 pm, she announced that lights out would be at 9:00.  9:00 came and went with no effect on the mayhem upstairs.  At 9:15, I reminded her of her lights out time.  She responded that they were just being boys and I shouldn’t be such a hard ass.  She completely missed the point!  I had no issue with the boys having fun.  What I had an issue with was her drawing a line in the sand and walking away from it.

You might read this and think I ran my home like Army basic training.  You’d be wrong.  I didn’t have rules for everything; trust me, I’ve seen the damage that can do to kids.  Rules and limits were in place where it made sense.  When rules were broken, there were consequences commensurate with the importance of the rule.  Those consequences were consistent and uniformly enforced.

Crap Parents

I’ve noticed a recurring theme with a number of women I’ve met recently that both irritates and scares me.  Being the blunt person I am, I’ll come out and say it; they’re crap parents.  Before I head down the path, let me provide some context.  First, I make no claims to be an expert on parenting.  However, I do have experience with my (former) step kids in raising them from preteens to majority.  One was ADHD as well as the ‘black’ child of a BPD mother.  For reasons that will become obvious later, I’ll also mention that I was an only child and ADHD myself, before anyone knew what ADHD was.  I’ve done a fair amount of reading on ADHD kids as well, so I’m pretty in tune with the condition.

So, what makes some of the women I’ve met crap parents?  A few things, actually.  First, comes the irritating part.  It seems that the ones with kids who have behavior problems (and there seem to be more than I’d thought there would be out there) are the ones who want absolutely no input from anyone else on attempting to modify that behavior.  They discount any knowledge you might have gained by raising your own kids and are often combative when you try to share some of that knowledge.  One of my favorites was with a woman I was dating who couldn’t get her 12 year old son ready for school without having to yell at him multiple times for each step.  Get up, brush your teeth, get dressed, etc.  The kid would stop after each step and wander into space.  When I told her that something needed to be done to get his act together, she replied ‘that’s how teenagers are but you wouldn’t know anything about that.’  Uh, yeah, I’ve got no experience with teenagers, particularly those two who ran around my house and were getting themselves to school way before age 12…what was I thinking? 

As you can imagine, regardless of how compatible you might be with someone, it’s a bit difficult to respect them when they tell you to butt out, that they know how to parent their kids.  Then those same kids have a meltdown and tell their mother they hate her, for no apparent reason, ten minutes later.  Yeah, you’ve got it well in hand, ‘mom’.

From my perspective, the common thread in most of the poorly behaving children, is lack of consequences and boundaries.  Certain behavior is par for the course with kids.  Messy rooms, some whining, sneaking cookies, etc.  Obviously, it shouldn’t be encouraged but you have to roll with that stuff and not harp on it.   Hell, it’ll kill you if you don’t learn to pick your battles.  I’m a big fan of the 7 positive comments to each negative; I saw great results when I consciously incorporated that into my own interactions with my step kids.  

However, there are behaviors that cross a boundary into completely unacceptable behavior.  Meltdowns, mouthing off to parents (hell, anyone really), stealing, etc. Yet, I see parents letting these behaviors occur and excuse it as their kids ‘expressing themselves’ or some other bullshit.  ‘We need to find a positive reward system for their good behavior.’  Yeah, that’s worked great so far!  If you allow a child to get away with this behavior without appropriate consequences, you’re teaching them that it’s okay.  Furthermore, what do kids do best?  They push boundaries.

A friend of mine is the perfect example of this.  Over the course of the three years I’ve known her, I’ve observed her son’s behavior progress from bad to worse.  He’s never had any compunction over having a meltdown in front of me, over something trivial like not being able to take his tablet to bed (which should never even be considered, IMO).  Nor has he shown any hesitance to mouth off to me, although he tends to do that once he’s mostly up the stairs.  In general, he’s a spoiled little brat.  Never have I seen any consequences dished out for the bad behavior; only excuses of how he’s ADHD and unable to control his impulses.  Well, sure enough, a few weeks ago, he went off (again, over something trivial) and out it came…’Fuck you!’  Surely, there were consequences for this outburst.  Nope.  Nor were there any for him attempting to physically take something she had confiscated in a rare instance of attempted punishment.

The bottom line is that a parent treats mouthing off / defiant insubordination the same as the child having a dirty room, how is the child expected to differentiate between the two?   If the child doesn’t learn boundaries from his/her parents, then those parents have failed.  End of story.

And this leads me to what will likely be a controversial assertion; that single women are at somewhat of a disadvantage in raising kids.  Be very clear that I’m not saying they’re not good parents but just at a disadvantage.  The advantage of having a father in the house is that it brings the ‘nuclear option’ to the table.  For example, you can imagine being an only child, I was pretty spoiled.  And my ADHD could have meant trouble with my poor impulse control.  However, I knew there were boundaries on what I could spout off to my parents.  I also knew that, if I exceeded them, my father would kick the shit out of me.  As a result, I never told my parents to go screw themselves or anything of the sort.  And to be clear, my father never kicked the shit out of me or anything close.

My step daughter was screaming ADHD; her therapist told me she was the most impulsive person she’d ever met.  Understandably, there were unpleasant encounters from time to time.  Only a matter of time before I received a ‘fuck you’ right?  Or maybe from my step son, asserting his manhood.  Nope, there were clear boundaries in place so that both kids knew exactly how the script would read. 

‘Blah, blah, blah, fuck you….hey, how’d I get on the floor?’ 

I don’t doubt for a second that many readers had the same dynamic in their homes growing up. 

And it was a universal truth both for me growing up, as well as for my step kids.  If you laid a hand on your mother, you’d be visiting the ER. 

Wow, threatening your kids with violence; how horrible!  Funny thing is I don’t recall my father ever threatening to beat the hell out of me.  I know I never threatened my kids.  It was just a given that crossing certain lines would not be tolerated.  And, to be clear, the only physical punishment I got from my dad were limited to a few well deserved spankings.  Furthermore, I never raised a hand to either of my children.  Much like maintaining a nuclear weapons arsenal, just having the capability and willingness to use it ensured I never had to. 

Back to my assertion.  Unfortunately, the threat of physical consequences to a teenage boy from a 5’4” mom just won’t be as much of a deterrent as from a man.  So, single mothers have to be even more resourceful and, quite frankly, more vigilant in establishing and enforcing clear boundaries.  And they must do so much earlier, when they are still physically imposing to their demon offspring.