13. If he works and never takes vacation…

If he works and never takes vacations then it is probably best not to get involved with this guy. After all, why would you want to fall in love with a guy who loves his job more than anything else? As we discussed earlier, do you really want to work at prying him away from what he loves most in this world?

If he doesn’t take vacations then this is an obvious sign that he is a workaholic. In some societies this is a desirable quality. I bet if you had the power to build your very own society or community then you would probably want lots of workaholics around. After all, they do the heavy lifting (they might literally carry heavy stuff around all day or they may do so professionally or analytically – the lawyers, doctors, bankers). The former will probably be too tired and worn out from their all day exercise and punishing schedule to pay you much attention once they find a few minutes or days away from work. In fact, I’ve known some movers who, when not working, can sleep straight for an entire day or two without ever dreaming of flying to Paris or Budapest. Regarding the latter, you will never be the primary love of his life because, well, he is probably the first love of his life (unless he loves work just a little more than he loves himself).

But assuming you are not building your own society (although he may be trying to build a virtual one himself – beware!) then you should discard any illusions you have with being able to change this type of guy. Some guys just love to work. Work defines who they are, delineates who they will interact with and leaves them feeling fulfilled. The prospect of them eating lunch and dinner at their desk every day for the next thirty or forty years doesn’t scare them, it thrills them. Does it excite you? I didn’t think so.

Of course, this post only applies to guys who work. If he is unemployed and doesn’t take vacations you have a whole boatload of other problems.

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12. If he is already seeing someone else…

If he is already seeing someone else, for heaven’s sake don’t go for him.

It is truly remarkable how many girls go after guys who are already attached. Remarkable and sad. Remarkable because they think all their problems would be solved if only they could pry some guy away from his current partner. Sad because these girls tie their emotional well-being, their future and their sense of self exclusively to their current circumstances.

It is cliché to say that there are a lot of fish in the world. If we are talking about fish, there aren’t. Prices for fresh fish are going through the roof. If you’ve had sushi in the last few years you’ve probably seen that price increase and I don’t have to tell you about it. Lack of supply, increase in demand and all that. If we are talking about guys, there is no problem with supply and there are lots more of them out there. Luckily, humans increase their numbers at an alarming rate. For the environment this is bad. For a girl looking for a guy this is good.

Girls go after guys who are attached because they know another girl has already done her research. The tough work has already been done by someone else — why not just sweep in and enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor. The problem is that if you do somehow coax him to leave his current girl for you, who’s to say that he won’t leave you at some point in the future? Any possibility of you trusting him in the future has already been compromised by your own actions. That’s a shame, isn’t it? So, even if you do convince a guy who you know to leave his girl for you, while you may think you are solving your problems in the short term you are not helping yourself in the long term.

A more fundamental problem is that these girls are short sighted in another way — she looks for prospective guys based only on her current circumstances. She looks at her friends, sees who they are dating and decides that those guys are the limits of her options. To a rational person this makes no sense. There are millions of guys in America alone. There are billions across the whole world. Guess what…many of them are single! Why do certain girls just try to poach guys who are dating other girls? Because it is the easy thing to do.

It is far easier to continue hanging out with the same people (and trying to steal their guys from behind their backs) than it is to go out and meet completely new people. Yet this is what must be done. It is far healthier to get out there, join a club, join an organization or start your own, join a sports league, talk to strangers in the subway or on the street. Meet people in random and interesting ways. At first it will be difficult but in the long run well worth it. I should add on this last point: if you are younger you can get away with this. If you are older you may look crazy, and while certain guys go for craziness, you probably wouldn’t want to go for them.

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11. If he has been a contestant on a reality show…

 

If he has been a contestant on a reality show it is important to ask which one. If he was on Hell’s Kitchen you cannot be interested. This is a firm rule. If he was on another show that requires a discernable skill (Project Runway (assuming he is not into other guys), Top Chef, etc.) or is based on self-improvement (Biggest Loser) then there remains a possibility that he could be a keeper.

Let’s first dispense with contestants from Hell’s Kitchen. Have you seen this show? If your answer is Hell No, then good for you. This is the one where Gordon Ramsay (who is actually a remarkably impressive guy and chef, although how he found his way onto this show remains a mystery) barks and scowls at contestants who are vying to become a chef in one of his dozen restaurants. If he screamed and carried on in his own special way with capable aspiring chefs your heart would go out to them. Who hasn’t been at the bottom of an organization and worked hard to prove to their superiors that they were worthy? It is easy to empathize with guys at the bottom. But these guys are not just hopeless, they do not even understand they are hopeless. This leads to an important rule.

When you encounter a guy who has a startling inability to look within himself, avoid him at all costs. When they have these qualities and show them off to the world on a tv show, stay far far away. There may be a temptation that you take a guy like this under your wing and transform him. Sometimes fictional characters in movies take on a challenge like this with moderate success.  Heck, each week Gordon Ramsay takes on this challenge (no doubt getting paid handsomely for the pleasure) with a dozen guys who have little ability or desire to improve. Keep in mind that even though he is one of the foremost chef in the world and is a willing and able teacher, he is unable to transform these guys into chefs.

Contestants on other reality shows who have a discernable skill are a different breed. They have a skill! They may be good at what they do or even outstanding and likely have the tools to have a normal life, and this is good. However, presumably one reason they are on tv is that they want to be famous and this can be bad. There is a chance that guys with a skill might want to be famous not just for the sake of being famous, but to make the world a better place. And this is good. You’ll have to discover their motivations yourself.

Contestants who are on shows geared toward their own self-improvement seem like a likeable bunch and are exempt from the concerns raised above.

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10. If he doesn’t cook…

If he doesn’t cook, ask yourself why not.

One generation ago it was extremely rare for guys to cook. If they did it was probably limited to putting meat or potatoes on the barbeque and letting the magical device do its work. It was rare indeed for guys to be competent in a kitchen. It was more often the case that they might injure themselves or others if they stepped into the kitchen. Or maybe this was just an excuse for them to get others (read: females) to cook for them. (Note: the gender roles are reversed for chefs and cooks in restaurants where guys hold down the vast majority of jobs cooking food for customers. No one knows why. Maybe if you paid your guy $10 an hour to cook for you he gladly would.) But at home guys sat back and their partners took control.

Fast forward to present day. It is much more common for guys these days to cook or bake. It may still be uncommon for guys to be able to make a souffle or understand that the softest and brownest bananas are the best ones for banana bread, but whatever stigmas used to exist around guys cooking at home have disipated. If your guy doesn’t cook there may be legitimate reason why — maybe he has a fear of sharp implements or heat. On the other hand, maybe he is just a mama’s boy who is going to expect to be waited on hand and foot.

Now, there are many of you who are thrilled at the prospect of cooking for your guy. (Incidentally, if you would like to make dinner or dessert for me sometime I would love that!) If you count yourself in those numbers, then this post isn’t directed at you and you should get back to cooking dinner or making his lunch. But for those of you who want to share the cooking at home or would like, at least once, for your guy to make you a special meal then evaluate this carefully (Note: chicken fingers heated up in the oven, while delicious, do not count). After all, if he isn’t willing to cook for you just once, to put himself in a new and difficult position, to experiment with what he is comfortable with, then what is he going to be like in bed?

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9. If he is a cheapskate…

 

If he is a cheapskate, stay away and count your blessings as they multiply like the balance of his savings account.

Being a cheapskate is not necessarily a gendered quality, but there are so many guys who are incredibly cheap that it may seem that way. Their cheapness can be born out of a childhood in which their family had little money, growing up in a third world country or just because they want to keep their money to themselves. Some cheap guys love shopping at dollar stores and buying useless crap there. Some take it even further and limit themselves to window shopping at dollar stores. My advice: be wary of the former and stay far away from the latter.

You should care if your guy is a cheapskate because on one level or another it will affect you. Now I’m not saying you’re a golddigger ot that you want your guy to buy you LV purses or Jimmy Choo shoes. Far from it, I’m sure. But who doesn’t want to feel special and loved with him splurging on you every now and again (did someone say flowers?)? Well, if you are seeing a guy who is a cheapskate you have to be prepared for him to raise his eyebrows when you order a second drink out at dinner or get dessert. Are you ready for that?

Guys who are cheapskates can be good partners. They will take you on walks in the countryside and take you for picnics in the park (provided they can cook). But they sure aren’t going to take you to that new restaurant in town that everyone’s been talking about and where you have to reserve a table a month ahead of time. It’s all about where you imagine yourself being happy: in a fancy restaurant with starched table clothes and four servers bringing you food prepared by a chef you’ve seen on tv or in the local pizza shop for the third time that week. The choice is yours because you know he’s not going to become a big spender over night (despite how many hints you drop).

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8. If he embraces moderation…

If he embraces moderation then this may seem like a valuable trait but you would be mistaken.

In the twenty-first century moderation seems quaint at best and dangerous at worst. All-you-can-eat buffets, video-on-demand, large sized popcorn and soda containers at the movies, all-day football on Sundays. These are what make life meaningful these days. These are also under direct attack by guys who moderate their consumption.

So what are we to make of guys who reject excess and instead embrace moderation. Why would a guy order water in a restaurant instead of soda or beer or wine or anything else with flavor? Why would he order a burger and get a side of salad instead of fries? Why would he go to a baseball game and not eat any food? You can easily imagine more scenarios which make no sense in the context of the twenty-first century ethos of excess.

So what lies behind their rejection of excessive consumption? Are we supposed to be impressed with guys who reject enjoying what we all take forgranted as necessary things in life? Are we supposed to feel bad about ourselves and our inability to say no? Well that’s the result. Whether it is intended or not, being around these beacons of moderation encourages us to look inwards and see exactly how little self-control we have.

It may seem possible that you will learn to embrace his ascetic lifestyle over time and that you will learn value lessons of self-control from him. It is possible that in two years time you’ll spend time together at an ashram in northern India rejecting the material trappings of this world and growing closer together in the process. But we all know that isn’t going to happen. Nothing against you, of course. It’s just not worth it.

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7. If he is friends with only guys…

 

If he is friends with only guys then you probably know where I’m going with this.

Guys in North America are particularly prone to being friends only with other guys. It may connect back to the pack mentality or it may just be a result of being in fraternities together for too long. For whatever reason, guys love homosocializing.  And why not? They have many of the same interests: they can work out together, watch sports together, talk about girls together and joke around with each other.  Most importantly, guys can just chill together without worrying about the future or the past and live thoroughly in the moment.

Living in the moment isn’t always possible with girls. They want to talk about previous arguments or plan for a future together. Guys who are used to hanging out only with other guys will find looking forward and looking back too demanding and difficult. If you are interested in a guy who only has male friends you must be prepared for this.

It is by no means impossible to break him from his homosocializing tendencies and to replace his interjections of “Dude” with him whispering “Sweetie” in your ear. But you can be sure it will take time and effort. It may even take driving a wedge between him and his guy friends. This is a dangerous option yet sometimes the only possible one. If you are too cavalier and quick in breaking things between him and his boys he will resent you. If you are too slow you may grow resentful and angry at always being second fiddle to a night-out-with-the-boys.

Your reward will be a guy of your own to hug and to hold until he gets tired of thinking too much and just wants to chill and watch sports.

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6. If he is in great physical shape…

If he is in great physical shape then start asking questions. 

By no means do I advocate going for a guy who is completely overweight and out of shape. Those are obvious signs that your guy does not take good care of himself. There may very well be legitimate reasons if he is bigger: a recurring injury, genetics, a busy schedule that doesn’t permit for physical activity or poor eating habits. It may also just be laziness or slothfulness and you don’t want that in your life. 

On the other hand, do you really want a guy who is a complete adonis with rock hard muscles and six pack abs? Maybe that is your dream. But consider this: do you have any idea how much time a guy has to spend in the gym and how much of his life must be dedicated to improving his body for him to achieve those results? The answer is alot. Chances are if you know a guy like this he has spent more on protein shakes in the last year than you have on shoes — and that’s no good. (Those shakes also taste terrible. I dare you to try a Green Apple flavored protein shake. You have to be truly obssessed with your body to drink that swill.)

Not only does this type of guy pour all of his money into developing and maintaining his body, he spends all of his time at the gym. If he were forsaking spending time with you to go to dance clubs, would you be suspicious then? Yeah, I thought so. What about if he didn’t want to hang out with you because he was at the bar with his buddies — you have a problem with that? Again, I think I know the answer. Well, for guys like this the gym is their dance club or bar. They can hang out with their buddies under the pretense of lifting. They can flex and preen in the mirrors and show off for each other. They can go and see girls in tight clothes working out and being active. Oh, it’s bad allright.

There are certain good aspects to picking a guy in great physical shape. He won’t drink and he won’t smoke. But who knows what he is injecting himself with at the gym to enhance his muscles? Who knows how many cycles of steroids he will do or how much creatine he’ll injest. It may not matter to you now, but the chickens will come home to roost when he starts going bald early, loses a testicle to cancer or has a ‘roid rage that leaves you shaken, not stirred.

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5. If he is going bald ungracefully…

 

If he is going bald ungracefully, you may have to re-evaluate things.

This is a difficult subject for anyone to talk about and especially difficult for bald men. Baldness is one of those difficult subjects that we are taught as children never to bring up in polite company. But address it we must. If you are interested in a guy then you have at least a 20% chance that he is going bald — that’s 1 in 5 guys. Do you know 5 guys? Then you probably know at least one struggling with his impending baldness. Maybe the changes to his hairline are happening so slowly that you can’t notice. But if you were to close your eyes now and open them in 5 years time, poof! You’d see the change then.

Given the fact that men do go bald, and as they get older a higher percentage of them are bald, it is important to examine how men deal with this. In the 1980s the toupe became an unfortunate cliche for bald men. How many movies or sitcoms have you seen showing men wearing terrible hair-pieces to hide the embarrassment of what they were losing underneath. This embarrassment and fear is understandable. It’s the answer that guys have to women’s concerns with their weight and a lack of confidence is at the heart of the matter.

So, we know this problem is common and that men have great difficulty dealing with it. How does this impact you? Well, for one, good luck finding the toilet in his washroom amidst the lotions, potions and pills he uses to keep his remaining hair in place. For another, if he doesn’t feel confidentand comfortable about himself how will his lack of confidence be manifest elsewhere in your relationship? I think you know what I mean…

If your guy is going bald ungracefully all is not lost and there is hope. Going bald is a process — it doesn’t all fall out at once. If he is just starting to lose it then obviously this is a new and difficult issue for him to confront and there is hope that he will learn how to cope with his new state. Although he may have a lack of confidence now and clings to the few remaining hairs on his head, he may learn in the future to proudly show off his dome.

On the other hand, if he has been losing his hair for some time and continues to hide it with a comb-over, sweep-over or some other way, then be careful. These guys have had time to deal with their new condition but have averted their eyes from it and have not gained the confidence to celebrate their new status. What do you think they are going to do when more serious changes happen later in life? I think you already know the answer — avert their eyes and ignore it. Are you interested in that? Or are you interested in a guy who will address his issues straight on. I thought so.

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4. If he doesn’t travel…

If he doesn’t travel, proceed slowly.

Back in the days of cavemen it made sense to not travel. Who knew what was around the bend? Saber-toothed tigers? A hostile tribe? It would have been understandable if Thag didn’t want to travel far from his cave and instead prefered to retreat to its mossy comforts.

Even a century ago it was difficult and taxing to travel just about anywhere. Want to go to Europe from North America? Sure. It was possible. Just sit on a boat for a month and there you are — Europe. Didn’t you enjoy that month of your life being knocked back and forth on a cramped vessel amid the high seas of the North Atlantic.  Once you got there few people would have spoken English beyond England; you wouldn’t have known European languages and it would have all been very difficult unless you had considerable means to fund your time abroad. I won’t even bother mentioning how difficult it would have been to travel to Asia or Africa. 

Things are different now. You can travel from New York to England in about the same time and with the same ease as it takes to get to California. They even speak the same language there! If he hasn’t bothered to travel at all he probably has a limited understanding about the world and about other people. Are you interested in that? Maybe you are. If you are, then enjoy spending the next 30 years of your life visiting the same places as you did up until this point. If you have a sense of adventure and you would like to explore the world, do not go for a guy like this.

What about exploring the world through the internet or tv or magazines, you say? Can’t me and my non-traveling guy explore the world together from the comfort of our couch? You can read Conde Nast Traveller, watch the travel channel and browse all the best internet sites. Well, you certainly could do all those things but that seems like a poor substitute for walking down ancient, winding roads in a city which was built 1,000 years ago where no one speaks English and the aromas are intriguing and unfamiliar.

The point is, if you meet a guy who doesn’t travel, you aren’t going to change him. If he has never left his town and shows no interest in doing so, he probably never will. Again, if you aren’t interested in going anywhere either, then by all means, go ahead. But if you are itching with wanderlust, find a more suitable mate.

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