What If Your Mate Could Read Your Thoughts?

On HBO's new vampire series "True Blood," the central figure, Sookie, claims the main reason she has trouble having a relationship with men is that she can read their minds.

And as she prances about wearing a tight t shirt and short shorts, the thoughts that she reads always pertain to sex. (Gee, I wonder why?) After all, how can she start a relationship with a guy when she can hear his lacivious musings about wanting "to rip off her shorts, and ........"

So now she is "dating" Vampire Bill, because she can't read the thoughts of a dead person.

But I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if she did finally meet and marry a normal guy. And after a few years of marriage she read his mind after they had just had an argument about taking out the garbage or her hubby wanting to play poker with his buddies instead of going to her best friend's wedding.

I wonder how long that relationship would last. Honestly now, how long would yours last if your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife could read your thoughts?

Just asking.

Do You Hide Behind Texting?

Increasingly, both sexes (but especially men) are using flirtatious text messages to hide their true thoughts.

Messages like "What ru doing?" or just a "Hey!" are being sent to girls and women to "test the waters." These messages might be sent within minutes after meeting at a bar or a party. If the recipient doesn't respond then the guy can just forget about his "prey," without feeling too rejected.

Even people in relationships are using flirtatious texts to try and figure out the state of the relationship without just coming out and asking.

Just what we need...another way for men and women to avoid real, honest communication!

(Check out my "The Truth About Dating" column this Friday in the Portsmouth Herald, Exeter News Letter, Hampton Union, and seacoastonline.com for more of my views on text messaging as a form of communication between men and women.)

Did Your Relationship & Your Portfolio Suffer This Week?

Have you been arguing or bickering with your boyfriend or husband this week...more than usual?

Have these spats often been about rather silly or trivial topics?

If so, I bet that at least one of you has money invested in the stock market. Am I right?

With this week's roller coaster ride on Wall Street, finances, which often are a source of disagreement among couples, have been keeping many people awake this week.

So what did you argue about the past few days? If you are a shopaholic and your credit card bills showed up, I am sure your "sweetie" was not thrilled with the amount due...that is if you showed him the statement.

This also was probably not a good week to mention that one of you thinks that it's time to paint the bedroom or repair the dilapidated front yard fence.

Perhaps one of you has a rather large wager on the Red Sox to win the AL East, and the excruciating 2-1 loss to Tampa Bay on Tuesday, followed by a 10-3 shellacking on Wednesday (the same day the market dropped 454 points) did not put the wagerer in a particularly good mood Thursday morning.

Anyway, if this has been a rough week for your relationship, perhaps it may be just a bit comforting to know that you are not alone.

Not at all.

TV Presents a New Set of Skinny Role Models

Well, a new batch of television series are being rolled out, and once again (at least on the shows I watch) there isn't an overweight woman to be seen in a leading role.

Actually there isn't even a woman with an average figure starring in any of the shows.

HBO's "True Blood" can't show star Anna Paquin enough walking around in a tight-fitting t-shirt and short shorts, and the star of Fox's "Fringe" is also a sexy, thin blonde.

Of course I don't watch the shows aimed at teen viewers. Although for old times sake I caught the first 15 minutes of the new "90210," and I was not surprised to see all the new N. Beverly High coeds looking as model-thin as possible. Even the "older women," including Jennie Garth reprising her role as Kelly Taylor and the new mom, played by former "Full House" mom Lori Laughlin looked thinner than they did over a decade ago.

So, once again TV is leading the way in promoting low self image and eating disorders among teen age girls and probably women of all ages!

Single Life After 9/11

The following are excerpts from a column I published last September, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11:

How single men and women reacted to the events of 9/11 and the weeks thereafter is symptomatic of major differences between men and women, and how they each deal with extreme adversity.

On that fateful Tuesday, shortly after the Twin Towers fell, the phones started ringing at my dating service (LunchDates).

Nearly all the calls were from women, canceling their dates. It was a Tuesday, and like most mid-week days we had probably arranged for 30 to 40 couples to meet in a nice restaurant for a "lunch date," either actually for lunch or for a drink or dinner after work.

By about 2 p.m. that day just about all the dates had been cancelled. After all, who could think about going on a date on Sept. 11, 2001? Single men, that's who.

When my counselors contacted the men who had dates scheduled for that day in order to cancel them, some of the men seemed taken aback. They had been looking forward to meeting a woman, and some of the men didn't understand the need for the cancellation. Moreover, some of the cancellations came at the very last minute, just as they were leaving their office and heading for the restaurant.

Furthermore, most of the women not only canceled their dates, they did not want to reschedule them, requesting that we place their membership "on hold." They were so distraught that they did not want to even think about meeting a man for the foreseeable future. But very few men wanted to freeze their memberships. Most wanted to reschedule their date for later that week.

Over the next several weeks, we observed several interesting trends. September and October were usually very busy months at my dating service. It was usually a time when far more women than men would join, as women tend to plan ahead, hoping to have a boyfriend to take to the office Xmas party or for New Year's Eve, while men often don't think about such things until just a few days in advance.

But that year things were 180 degrees different. For about six weeks following Sept. 11, 2001, only a handful of women contacted us. And far more men than usual called us and eventually joined.

Why was that? This is what single men and women told me. Basically during the weeks following 9/11, women were busy comforting and consoling each other. "I just don't want to sit home alone," one woman said, "so every night I either visit a friend or a relative."

From the very evening of Sept. 11 on, women made plans to get together with one another. They cried together and talked together. They had small intimate dinners together. But the last thing on their minds was joining a dating service, placing an ad on an Internet dating site, going out to singles events -- or meeting men in general.

For men the weeks following 9/11 were totally different. As I mentioned in a previous column, single men tend to only hang out with other single men for the following reasons: To watch sporting events, play sports, or to frequent bars to drink and (hopefully) meet women.

But when these guys went to bars in September and October 2001 there were no women in sight. It was as if single women had suddenly disappeared.

Over the 23 years that I ran a dating service, I hardly ever heard single men describe themselves as "lonely." Usually when they called, their first words would be something like "I'm not lonely, but I would like to meet a woman."

But during the weeks that followed 9/11, I received many calls from single men, blatantly admitting they were, in fact, "lonely." And considerably more men than women joined during this period.

Then, just as the calendar turned to November, more than six weeks after the attacks of 9/11, things began to change. Suddenly women members started unfreezing their memberships and single women started to call us again.

And things began to return to "normal," although normal was never the same for many of us.

Are You Saddened or Depressed Over Brady?

There are a lot of Patriots fans all over the country who are somewhat upset by the injury to Tom Brady that has knocked him out for the entire 2008 NFL season.

But here is a classic difference between men and women. I would guess that most female fans were saddened by the news. Then they went on with their normal business for the rest of the day.

What a lot of women don't realize is that their husbands and boyfriends are more than saddened. Some of them are downright depressed and will continue to be depressed over the coming days, weeks, and perhaps months. Don't be surprised if they become unusually irritable in the next few days.

For these guys yesterday was a tough work day, as many probably sat at their desk with thoughts of Brady being injured and laying on the turf being repeatedly replayed in their minds' eyes. I guarantee that their work performance suffered.

By the way, this is especially true of those Pats fans who had Tom Brady on their fantasty football team!

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

Today is Kickoff Sunday, the beginning of the National Football League season. It is a day fraught with danger for many relationshps. The following is an excerpt from a column I wrote three years ago, but it is still very relevant:

I think it was Spanky and Our Gang who first sang "Sunday Will Never Be The Same." Well, it’s September now, and for millions of men and women, that truth will definitely be evident for the next several months.

But for many couples, young and old, who spent their summer Sundays playfully hanging out at Hampton Beach or hiking through the White Mountains while listening to "their" song playing on their respective iPod, fall Sundays may prove to be the "Armageddon" of their relationship.

That is, for many, many, many men, once the NFL season kicks off, it’s farewell to romantic rendezvous and hello to a 2-foot space embedded on their favorite couch or recliner.And in 2005 (now 2008), the "call to the couch" resonates louder than ever.

Forget the fact that the Pats have won three out of the last five Super Bowls. What further motivates males today are several other factors:

· The incredible rise in popularity of Fantasy Football leagues, where even the least knowledgeable fan can be a general manager of his own team.

· The ability to legally bet on the outcome of football games through offshore Internet gambling sites. No longer does the man of the house have to deal with illicit bookmakers.

· And last, but far from least, is the growing popularity of home theater systems and games broadcast in HDTV. By the way, ladies, when your boyfriend or hubby said he wanted to spring for a 60-inch plasma TV with surround sound, he was lying when he claimed he wanted it to watch movies or (snicker) nature shows. He wanted it to watch football!

And so, as the clock approaches 1:05 p.m. every Sunday, don’t expect your man to be available for the rest of the day. For after the 1 p.m. game comes the 4 p.m. game, then the 7 p.m. highlight shows, and then the 8:30 Sunday night game.

Before you ladies start writing angry responses saying you "love" to watch the Patriots too (after all Tom Brady does have a cute dimple, doesn’t he?), it’s just not the same. Yes, more women in New England have become sports fans, jumping on the Red Sox and Patriots championship "bandwagons."

But few women really and truly understand the pull that sports has for many men. And that pull is never stronger than on Sundays during the football season. The fact is (and I know this is a real generalization that does not hold for all couples) sports means to (many, but not all) men what relationships mean to women! Think about it.

Labels: fall, football. relationships
draft
9/6/08
by Steve Penner
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My New Blog

After all these years I have finally started a blog. Keep posted, I'll be writing some interesting stuff!