Would you date a stripper? On Dating (Ex-) Strippers & Channing Tatum

Strippers of Magic Mike. Actors from left: Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer.

I wouldn’t. I think. The thing is I’ve never met one. Honestly.

The whole stripper at a bachelorette party thing isn't my thing, and I fail to see the turn-on in paying someone to take their clothes of you. And no, I’m not fond of strip joints, whether they are for guys or girls.

But let’s say you or I met a stripper, at a strip club or not. What are the chances of the guy being a total hunk? Even if he is hunky, we’d still have “the number of female admirers” problem.

Yes, obviously personality and things in common matter more than looks, but how do you get to the stage with the problem stated above?

Would you really be happy about dating a guy whose job includes turning women on, who are throwing themselves at him? Yes, there should be trust and all that, but I think dating a stripper might be pushing your trusting limits a bit...

Feel free to share you stripper dating/not-dating thoughts and experiences.

Dating an ex-stripper: The Channing Tatum Example

But would you date an ex-stripper? Let’s say that he’s about your age, has done a bit of stripping for whatever reason and now he has no intention of looking back. 

What if he is nice, good-looking and seems to be a good date? What if...wait for it...he looks like Channing Tatum?

Image via seat42f.com

Yes, we are talking about Magic Mike. As fun, cool and gorgeous Mike (Channing Tatum) was, I could totally relate to why Brooke (Cody Horn) wasn’t willing to let her guard down around him.

·         Magic Mike movie spoilers ahead, though you saw it coming from the title

But when he quits, for her and for himself, she doesn’t mind getting together with him. And why not? Past is past; and a stripping job on one’s resume is not something you can’t get over. And we’re guessing this is what Jenna Dewan-Tatum feels like, since Magic Mike was inspired by Tatum’s experiences as a stripper. 

Yep, you read it correctly. He worked as a stripper.

And from the looks of it, Jenna is lucky. He’s great-looking, smart (have you looked at his movie resume/grosses and co-stars?), seems friendly, keeps good company (friends with Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and all .

I still don’t think we’d end up as lucky as Brooke (Cody Horn)’s character or Jenna though.

So would you date a stripper? An ex-stripper?

Or have you dated one?

When Age Differences Are OK: Inspired by Perception’s Daniel and Kate

I did two other posts (The husband is 11 years older than the wife! What an outrage, and Older Women dating Younger Men vs. Older Men Dating Younger Women) on this, but the rant back is on.

Because some people refuse to get it. Of course it is completely OK and natural to disagree, but finding it creepy or unlikely seems a bit over the top, since the couple they deem creepy is fictional, have only a 17-year-gap between them and well…we’ll get to the reasons why they make a good match.

Ask any woman whether she’d hook up with a guy she found really hot who was really into her. Let’s suppose he is smart, nice, gorgeous, exciting, interesting, and they have tons in common. And he’s not rich, neither is she.

Now tell her he’s 15 years older than her. And see how many women would say no. I know I wouldn’t.

In high school, we used to joke that Mel Gibson and Richard Gere would be very attractive when they got older. We were wrong about Gibson, but Gere...that man owns the description of aging gracefully.

And it is not to say I go for older guys as a rule or due to some deep Freudian issue. I have liked and found attractive tons of guys who are my age/a couple of years older/a couple of years younger.

Alex Pettyfer in I'm Number Four. Image via scifiscoop.com.

While I was watching I’m Number 4, I couldn’t believe Alex Pettyfer was born in 1990 (making him 6 years younger than me). He looked way older, and oozed a certain appeal baby-faced actors lacked. But winning over in the charm department was Timothy Olyphant, who tends to look younger than his years (despite being born in 1968.)

Timothy Olyphant. Ditch the greys, and he can easily play 30-somethings. Image via michaelmay.blogspot.com.

To me, it doesn’t make sense to complain about age differences within TV/movie pairings They happen quite often in real life too, so it is only art imitating life.

When I say Jon Bon Jovi is hot and some girls disagree with me, it is because they aren’t into blondes. I haven’t heard “Yuck, he is so old/(er).” from another female yet.

The Richard Gere-Winona Ryder pairing in Autumn in New York didn’t work, but it wasn’t because of the age difference. It was because the story was horrible. Besides, cheating on the supposed love of your life don’t belong in romantic dramas. Older or younger.

Now on to Perception, Eric McCormack’s Daniel & Rachael Leigh Cook’s Kate

Apparently some viewers find it “creepy” that Rachael Leigh Cook’s and Eric McCormack’s characters have romantic feelings for each other. OK, what’s not to get? The guy is gorgeous, and I don’t know which 49-year-olds they were looking at, but aside from Dylan McDermott and Tom Cruise, not many look like that! And it’s not just me.

Eric McCormack as Daniel and Rachel Leigh Cook as Rachel.Image via assignmentx.com.

During one recent interview, the male presenter asked McCormack: “Just in what attic is your painting aging?” 

Now, leaving aside from his looks, Daniel Pierce has an adorable style and brains, he is nice, unique and he cracks intricate cases. Kate (Rachel Leigh Cook) used to be his student, so there’s tons of respect/admiration going on. 

It’s about being a match on many levels.

I might very well end up with a 40something that remained single because he didn’t want kids- because I don’t want kids. It’s about what you want in life – and being in the same place.

Kate did date a guy (Jamie Bamber) 10 years younger than Daniel. Also cute, also a professor. He just wasn’t that interesting or attractive to her.

Jamie Bamber as Michael Hathaway.

So it’s all about the relationship feeling good and being fine. Are you both grown enough to know who you are and what you want? Do you like each other? Give it a go. Who the hell cares if there is some age difference?

And P.S. If Daniel Pierce asked me out, I’d jump at it.

So no, the writers aren’t being creepy. Or delusional. Or discriminative. They are just writing the obvious.
  

It might be a cliche that a former student would have a crush on a former professor, but it’d be a lot less believable if she didn’t. Especially if she wants someone unique, and really good-looking.

My Favorite Couples with Age Differences: Movies, TV Shows & Real Life:

(P.P.S The pairings include older women-younger men as well)

• Awake: Jason Isaacs (1963)-Laura Allen (1974)
• Perception: Eric McCormack (1963) – Rachel Leigh Cook (1979)
• *Lie to Me: Tim Roth (1961) – Kelli Williams (1970)

(*Though Roth's and Williams' characters never dated, it was often implied, and sometimes outright stated, that they were in love with each other) 

• The Vampire Diaries:Ian Somerhalder (1978)- Nina Dobrev (1989). They are also dating in real life.
• I Could Never BeYour Woman: Michelle Pfeiffer (1958)-PauL Rudd (1969)
• Bull Durham: Susan Sarandon (1946)- Kevin Costner (1955)
• Missing: *Ashley Judd (1968)- Sean Bean (1959)

(*Ashley Judd’s real life husband is 5 years younger than her.)

• The Island: Ewan McGregor(1971)-Scarlett Johansson (1984)
• *Liam Neeson and whoever you pair him up with. He looks good with any pretty actress you put him next to, probably because he looks great taking every single villain down in the films.

(*Neeson’s real life wife Natasha Richardson was 11 years younger than him, and they were married for 15 years – until she died in 2009.)

…..

The list goes on.

As long as there are on ulterior motives (money, status, career advancement, manipulation…) and no abuse of power/authority, and both sides are of legal age, you should just go with the flow and enjoy it.

But I am not without my own double-standards. I have to draw the line at having a generation in between. And by generation, I mean the age difference shouldn’t really be over 20. Especially after 25, if we are talking about serious relationships, it kind of makes the growing old together concept tricky, don't you think?

The Matthew Hussey Guide to Everything Dating

Matthew Hussey, for those late discoverers (like me), is a dating expert who coaches millions of women. Thousands at live events, millions online. And he really has the correct answer to everything. 

Now, don’t raise your eyebrows at the phrase “dating expert” or “dating coach.”  He knows his stuff, and has a knack of disclosing that knowledge in a very fun and sincere way.

And trust me, having only liked He’s Just Not That Into You (and What The Hell Is He Thinking for why he is not) as far as any dating tip (collection) is concerned, I am very picky. I’ve been there, done that, heard it all. Or so I thought.

I first heard about the dude through a Glamour article. The writer said that she was sent to the event to bust his bubble, but was so impressed by what she saw that she decided to write a piece about getting a guy in 7 days, with guidelines from Matthew Hussey of course.

Now, while it was a fun piece and made me wonder if the guy was nearly that good, it was just easier to assume the writer got lucky.

Nevertheless, I googled him and decided to check his website. It turned out he was a life coach, not just a dating coach. After watching one of his live events entirely, I decided that he was a damned good one at that. But more on that later.

His dating advice website Get the Guylooked decent enough in design, but even with all the credentials (he has been featured on NBC, CNN, The Independent…), I still thought he would be all hyped. Hell, I was ready to bail the moment I detected tips on game playing. Well, he did no such thing. (If anything, he is against game playing. And makes a point of showing why playing hard to get has never worked.)

So then I went on to watch the sales video of The Man Myth. Now, it is a sales page that actually sells. And what he offers is the video (online) of a live event where he covers a lot from meeting different men to scoring dates, from getting to see following dates to managing relationships. It also includes a 14-day free trial for the more detailed stuff. And it is $29.95.

So yes, I bought it. If it'd turned out to be disappointing, I would have had material to write for the blog. As it turned out, I got so much material for pretty much everything, including answers to any question I’ve ever had about dating and guys.

None of the links I used are affiliate links by the way. I just really liked what I saw.

Here’s some of the stuff I found out:

 *Why I attract so many guys I don’t want to attract (the one I was most curious about!)

*How that not-so-pretty girl could land that gorgeous, nice and successful guy

*Why taking risks is important

*Why you have to risk rejection, but how you can minimize the chances

*How to meet anyone

*How to make the first move without making it seem that way

*Why some things worked and many things didn’t.

*Men and women are from the same planet. We just have different languages.

*Why couples love hanging out with couples, and how it is not productive for the singles to socialize with them all the time

*How to make yourself understood without ever having to fight or losing your temper.

*Why the best-looking guys might not be the hardest to approach

*Why any of your excuses (your looks, age, location….you name it) are not valid. (and I believed I had some pretty good ones!)

…..and a whole lot more.

You might think you know the answers, but trust me, you don’t. Not for the most part. And even when you do know the answers, you learn about why you can’t seem to put that into practice, and how you can go about applying them with success.

And you know how I know that he’s right? Because I did some of the stuff he said in the past, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, and it all worked. I just didn’t do it enough.

His video is bound to kick your ass into gear. Because throughout, he proves that he knows what he’s doing over and over again. And it is so much fun. This is coming from someone who actively avoids any training/how-to videos. Seriously. They bore me. I would rather go through an e-book at my own speed, skipping if there is anything irrelevant or boring. Well, he doesn’t say anything irrelevant or boring. 

And he practices what he preaches, and he looks the part. He’s good-looking and very cute, confident but not arrogant, funny and blunt but never obnoxious. It sounds like the kind of guy you’d like to date, right? Someone who knows what they are doing, approachable and friendly.

Trust me, Matthew supports my line of thinking. Just listen to how he picked his fitness coach.

And the best part is? You don’t have to hire him as a life coach to learn a lot more than how to manage your dating life.

Just watch his event, and you can learn about how to:

-Be a great public speaker

-How to build your brand

-How to start and manage your own successful business

And if you are a blogger, you can learn about promotion, design, brand consistency, using video and so on. I should make a whole other post on this for my writing blog.

Bored with my praises? You don’t think he is worth it? Go try it, and we’ll talk then. 

He’s Just Not That Into You is a good resource. But it fails to tell you why he is not just that into you. And how he could have been.

And if you don’t want to spend $29.95 right away, just go through his blog posts, watch a couple of his videos. Trust me, you’ll want more. 

A Unique Way of Dealing with Romantic Rejection

Image via wellbeing.com.au.

Have you ever been rejected by someone you liked? If your answer is no, then you have either been really lucky, or you have dated below your league (and no, “your league” doesn’t just consist of looks.)

I’ve been rejected a couple of times. The first one was totally on me, since I saw it just a challenge to ask out a boy who I didn’t really know, and I did it during my ugly duckling phase.

Rejection can come in different forms. Sometimes it can be a surprised series of babbling to avoid a straight no answer and sometimes it can be the “but we’re friends!”route. Sometimes it’s all mixed signals, until you realize he’s just never been that into you and was just biding his time. But it happens.

So directly, I have been rejected twice. Indirectly, counting the mixed signals, and even my own backing down deciding that he really isn’t just that into me (and trust me, I was right pretty much every time), well…there has been a few.

It might suck, but the only explanation is that shit happens. Because guess what? I have rejected a lot of people. Not out of arrogance or anything, but we were either great friends or had nothing in common. But mostly because there was no attraction on my part or no meeting of the minds. We were just horrible fits.

Not everyone you fancy is going to like you back. Some people will like you a lot less or a lot more than you like them.

I have a couple of friends who have never been rejected: Either because they never put themselves out there, or they always dated people who they should have never dated.

So how do you deal with rejection?

     There’re many routes (they’re usually used together in varied orders.)

      

•  Bitch to your friends.
•  Eat lots of junk food, watch/listen to romantic stuff.
•  Distance yourself from anything remotely romantic.)  
•   Get drunk.
•   Flirt like hell with people who you find attractive, but couldn’t care less if nothing would happen (and coincidentally, something almost always happens.) Good for ego boost.
• Shop.
• Get a make-over.
• Hit the gym/dance floor- whatever fitness activity takes your fancy.,
• Get under somebody else.

But the truth is none of them help much at the end of the day. Because while your ego recovers, your pessimism/cynicism doesn’t.

Why can’t you just get lucky and find the person that you’re looking for-who also has been looking for you at a time when you are both ready and single?

A More Fun and Effective Way of Dealing with Rejection

      Well, the universe does work in mysterious ways so if you don’t want to stay depressed and/or settle (both options I personally hate), try listening to & reading rejections of others- and not just your friends’. People who got/get rejected in any area of life, and yet they’ve also had tons of success.   

     * Start with writers. Seriously. I’m a writer, and I put my work out there and I get rejected. I also get accepted, but I do get rejected. A lot. So I surround myself with stories of successful writers who have been rejected many times. 

      Some have gone on to become serial best-sellers. Some are highly accomplished non-fiction writers who still don’t always land the assignment. When you look at the numbers, my romantic rejections seem….very trivial. Let’s go over some rejected writers, just to give you an idea:

• John Grisham
• J.K. Rowling
• Stephen King
• George Orwell
• Jack Kerouac 
• Beatrix Potter 

No matter how talented (great/good-looking/nice) you are, you’ll get rejected. The person at the receiving end doesn’t perceive you as a good match. So you look for other who might be. We’re eliminating the extremely lucky ones who get a very good publishing deal very soon, just like we are eliminating the high school sweethearts who go on to marry, never fall out of love and don’t end up divorced. 

* Move on to actors. Many of the great roles that are associated with them didn’t come to them as a first choice, or they almost didn’t do it. 

Imagine Die Hard without Willis. I can’t, but apparently Arnold or Sly could have gotten it.
Now imagine Ghost without Patrick Swayze. Bruce Willis passed. So glad he did.

Mel Gibson almost didn’t play William Wallace in Braveheart, and he’d just have been director/producer-2 difficult jobs he nailed- but without him, the movie wouldn’t have been the same. 




* Dorothea Hurley almost didn’t marry Jon Bon Jovi. Now, I don’t know a lot of girls rejecting the guy-and you could have said she played hard to get, but she was already dating him from high school. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to be with him in the long run, him being a rocker and on the road and all.

-

Do you see where I am getting with this? In a world where pretty much everyone gets rejected or one reason or the other, there is no point in making it about you. One person will think you’re not good-looking (there are people calling Channing Tatumaverage/off-putting etc.), and one person will think you’re gorgeous (he was chosen the sexiest man alive by the People magazine.) And yeah, I’m choosing extreme examples on purpose. One person will think you are annoying, the other won’t be able to get enough of you. 

You’ll reject and get rejected and not just in dating. But when the right thing/person/project comes, you’ll be very happy and decide it was all worth it. So remember it is not you, it is not them. It’s just about abstract stuff like perception, taste, possibility and timing. 

If you still want to go get drunk, I can’t stop you. Just try not to make things worse by any drunk-dialing or ending up in jail.

P.S. In case you want to go the tradition route (of dealing with rejection) and get immersed in movies and songs, I’ll be helping you with suggestions in future posts. 

Why It is Awesome That Your Taste in Men Is Different from Your Friends'

My girl friends and I rarely have the same taste in men. Sure, we occasionally gush over the same celebrities (e.g. Hugh Jackman) but we hardly ever find a non-celebrity guy hot at the same time and we don’t simultaneously get attracted to him. 

One might be too  confident/not confident enough, nice/too nice, tall/short or slim/well-built,….etc. for the other. And this is great news for our friendships!

I do believe that good friends come before a boyfriend, especially if he is not the one. And let’s face it- “The One” won’t have problems with your friends, so let’s go with “good friends, male or female, come before boyfriends”.

Michael Trevino - Tyler from Vampire Diaries. 

Ian Somerhalder - Damon from The Vampire Diaries. Image via fanpop.com.

I might be one of the few fans of the series that thinks Tyler is hotter than Damon. But I have always found good boys hotter than the bad, and with the exception of season 1, Tyler has been a pretty impressive guy, and given my soft spot for Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who Michael Trevino reminds me of), it is no wonder I prefer one over the other. But hey - it is exactly the point- difference in tastes, whatever the reasons.

You might think that even though you are attracted to the same guy, your friendship is strong enough to survive, whether the guy of interest chooses one of you or not. But even though your friendship might come out of this situation unscratched, your ego might not. You might find yourself thinking “what does she have that I don’t?” or “She must be better/prettier/sexier/more interesting/more exciting….than me.”

As much as we appreciate the good/awesome/attractive qualities of our friends, we don’t exactly want to get a comparative evaluation- and of course this is if he picks your friend. 
Your friend might experience the same insecurities as you if the situation is reversed,  and even for the most non-jealous types (and I’m one of them – envying a woman for hooking up with the celebrity of your dreams (e.g. Josh Holloway) doesn’t count, things could get complicated, and I am honest enough to admit it. Well, at least to you and myself, that is.

Of course you might take the higher road and never let the guy know you are also interested, but that might not exactly make you feel better either. What if he is the one, and you let him get away? And this is real life, not a romantic comedy that I’d love. The right guy doesn’t take one look at you and realize you are “it.” And it also takes a helluva lot more than a look for you to notice the right person too. And it is OK. But realizing that you made a sacrifice, and your friend didn’t – and especially if you are the one making sacrifices and compromises more often in your friendship, the higher road might damage your friendship more than a direct competition would.

But if you have noticed, the situation where there is a subtle or a not-so-subtle competition between me and my friends is hypothetical. At least it has been hypothetical for me. Because it makes talking about guys a lot more fun. There is no risk for your ego or friendship. You can be very objective about the problems your friend is having in her relationship (or let’s say it is much easier to deem the guy a jack*** and support your friend 100%.)

However, like almost everything in life, there is a catch. When you don’t find the guy attractive/cute/nice/dateable at all, your friend might get offended and start getting extra defensive. Or she might feel discouraged and have a little less fun because you don’t see what she sees.

Now of course this situation has happened to me a lot. But hey, when this happens, I always remind to my friend that it is so much better that I get to see what she can’t, and that we won’t ever have to compete. And maybe it is a protective instinct on my end to keep our friendship as intact as ever, I try to see the good in the guy, so I can get excited when he is nice to her. Nobody enjoys a friend who keeps complaining about her relationship. But it also means I get to see what’s wrong with the guy even when he seems good in theory, or when she seems unreasonably smitten.

This works before they get together as well. Because hey, this is not The Vampire Diaries, and you are not Elena (i.e. Matt, Stefan, Damon- and on occasion, I suspect even Elijah.) Not every guy you have ever been interested in becomes smitten by you. 

Sometimes your crush is unreciprocated.  When this happens, it is so much easier to come to the rescue and help your friend get over her crush, or at least tone it down because you know why the guy is wrong for her or why he lacks so many things.

For instance, one of my best friends had a crush on this guy. I’ll admit, if I consider his looks objectively, he is good-looking. But knowing he was arrogant and overly confident, I didn’t even notice he could be considered attractive until my friend forced me to really look at him. But when I did, there was no attraction on my side, because arrogance in guys is a complete turn-off for me. And there is the thing that I like my guys taller than me. Hey, like Rachel said in Friends during a fight with Ross, size does matter. Of course she was talking about something else, but hey, the principle is the same.

So yes,  it might be less fun when your friends think your boyfriend is not at all that impressive or severely-flawed or vice versa, but it helps both sides remain objective, fully supportive and bring humor to the table when needed. 

So yes, I think that having totally different taste in men, when it comes guys in real life, is awesome. Don’t you?