After The Holiday Romance
September 27, 2006 by NML · 2 Comments
A reader wrote to me and explained how she had fallen in love on holiday in Jamaica and after many emails and phonecalls, plus a bit of saving, headed back to continue her romance only to be confronted with disappointment. Whilst she did see him on her visit, let’s say that out of a proposed fortnight it was about 3 times and when she did speak to him he was asking for money. She was fortunate to be staying with his friends but she didn’t see them either as they had to work and she also endured their pity for her situation. She did give him the money because she felt that she loved him but naturally feels cheated. Her friends think he’s a rat and whereas he’s telling her that of course he loves her and not to listen to anyone. Not listening to anyone could be her biggest mistake and his greatest advantage!
Call me cynical, but sometimes I’m inclined to feel that holiday romances should stay on holiday. A lot of people go on holiday hoping for sun, sea and a spot of sex and can often end up with more than they bargained for when they tot up the emotional and financial investment.
1. Don’t be an ATM. Don’t be played for a sucker and strike a financial balance. It shouldn’t be you doing all of the spending. If you are, I would bail out now before you end up broke. If you hear that word money too often, it’s not good.
2. Don’t confuse the combination of great sex/big dick, with sun, sea and sand as the start of the fairytale. Being on holiday creates an ambiance and atmosphere that can make you feel a bigger connection than actually exists and before you know it you’re building sandcastles in the sky.
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Bad Boy Lovers
September 22, 2006 by NML · 7 Comments
If you do a quick straw poll of a group of women and ask them what they prefer, it’s likely to be a Bad Boy. Ask them what they want to marry and it’s likely to be a Nice Guy. Ask them who they pursue and fall in love with, it’s a Bad Boy. Ask them who bores them; it’s a Nice Guy. Over on Tangomag, there is an interesting article and interview about our love of Bad Boys.
Like it or not, most women are conditioned to chase the elusive Bad Boy. He’s dangerous, exciting, charming, edgy, sexy and very likely to screw around with your head, heart and emotions as he only really cares about himself. The more he behaves like an asshole, the more a woman likes him. The trick with the Bad Boy, is that like a Mr Unavailable, he is clever enough to throw just enough crumbs to give the woman the impression that with a bit more time and effort, he can be just the man that she wants. He won’t be, because most Bad Boys, stay Bad Boy’s. They can get married, they just might not be faithful or treat you that well. They’re woeful for our self esteem as they have a way of making you feel that you should be grateful for feeling so sh*t!
According to Pat Love at Tangomag, “We are programmed by our culture to think that chemistry is love. We are constantly stimulated—by work, television, shopping—and we tend to move on if we’re not excited. Also, some women’s brains are wired to interpret anger and petulance as love because of their early negative experiences with men.”
Between writing on Baggage Reclaim and The Mr Unavailable Guide, I have realised that alarmingly, most women don’t like guys for good reasons. Emotional unavailability and the anger and petulance mentioned above, plus complete ambiguity, disinterest and the act of being used are the driving forces of attraction these days. It’s not good enough to meet an attentive, ‘nice’ guy, who may not be shattering the world but has the good characteristics that have the potential to contribute into a relationship. He needs to be an asshole, often fronting as something better by throwing the crumbs.
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Life tips for living single, dating, and relationships.
September 20, 2006 by NML · 2 Comments
Don’t treat being single as that difficult stretch of time between men. Luxuriate in the opportunity to enjoy your own company and do your own thing. Make it a positive lifestyle and embrace it.
If you can handle it emotionally and not let it complicate your life, get a f*ck buddy/ting/booty call and enjoy the freedom and control of the situation.
Try a sex break or dating hiatus. These two things will enlighten you to your emotional and relationship patterns so that you can positively enhance your future relationships and be more comfortable with yourself.
Do go on holiday on your own. It’s a liberating experience that will also ease that need to have to always do things in ‘twos’. Eat when you want, go where you want, sleep when you want and be brave and talk to and be whoever you want to be. Remember, what goes on tour, stays on tour.
Stop obsessing over when a guy will call after the first date. No matter how amazing you think the date was, it’s one date and burning up brain power and fretting over whether somebody you hardly know is going to call you is a surefire way to making you feel that you have more of a connection with him and want him more than you actually do. If he calls, he calls, if he doesn’t, tough tits for him and it’s his loss.
When you do see red flags, acknowledge, access them and depending on what it is, bail out and abort the mission or confront the red flag head on. Don’t ignore it and try to focus on the rosy glow of what you think things are because when you’re sobbing into your pillow in a few months about that very thing, you’ll kick yourself.
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Happy Birthday!
September 15, 2006 by NML · 2 Comments
I can’t believe it but Baggage Reclaim is a year old today! Thanks first of all to my boy The Daily Sketch who actually enabled Bagagge Reclaim to come to life. A mega thanks to my girls Vixen and New York Moments who have constantly contributed and sent over readers plus the other contributors who helped to get this show on the road.
Baggage Reclaim doesn’t exist without it’s readers and it’s built up a steady following since its birth. Thanks to every last one of you that has read, email, commented, linked and shown this blog lots of love. Unfortunately when I moved the blog over to Wordpress a few months ago, I lost all of the previous comments which was a bit of a p*sser…. 
I have selected some posts for a trip back down memory lane - Enjoy and have fabulous weekends whoever and whatever you’re doing. I am out of the country so I won’t be replying to comments for a few days. Ciao (that should be a hint as to where I am!)
Things that annoy women in the bedroom
Dating Games: The Pushey-Pulley Game
An emotional guide for the new relationship
10 Men that Make Dating Mistakes
How do men cope with being dumped?
How to have a booty call arrangement
Why being single is better than being married
How to spot emotionally unavailable men
NML’s rough guide to a new relationship
How to cope with being the other woman
Vixen’s Guide to Getting Yourself to Talk Dirty
Avoiding Virtual Mr Unavailable’s
7 signs that your relationship has staying power
Desperation and naievete - A pathetic, yet true story
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Five Reasons Men Leave Women They Love
September 13, 2006 by NML · 3 Comments
I get a daily newsletter from Christian Carter at Catch Em and Keep Em (If only getting a life partner was as simple as reeling in a fish…) and I found his latest one rather interesting.
Reason #1: The “Pleasure Principle”
According to Christian, people want to surround themselves with people that they feel good around and generally feel good in their lives. “When you are constantly freaking out on a man for what it is about him that freaks you out, you quickly turn into one of the people that it DOESN’T FEEL GOOD to be around. And this has a huge impact on whether or not he wants to invest more time, effort, and energy in you and your relationship. Or if he will decide to give up on trying to fix what’s going on with you so you can both feel good together.”
Now I do agree that people want to feel good but what escapes Christian Carter is that there are a number of forces and misconceptions at play. Women systematically, date, chase, love, throw themselves at the mercy of men, in spite of the fact that they feel like shit when they are around them. And whilst there are some men in the scenario above, there are also quite a few men that don’t know what to do with the love of a good woman, get freaked out, and run off, turn into stone emotionally, stall on commitment or even shag someone else. Feeling good or The Pleasure Principle for some guys means that they either freak out and run for the hills when it’s good or shag as many people as possible to get as much of The ‘Pleasure’ Principle as possible. Some men just don’t know they’re born, and some women, in fact many women have misguided insecurity that drives their relationship choices which means that they believe that part of loving is not feeling good!
Reason #2: Emotional Experience And The Future
I actually laughed rather loudly when I read this reason which I have published in full. “For a man in a relationship, the ways a woman acts in the “little” situations become indicators of how she’s going to respond when things really are tough and in the future.
So if a woman is consistently negative and emotional… and can’t get herself together even when a man tries to explain things and comfort her… then a man isn’t going to think that things could be any better in the future together.”
So let’s throw something out here: If this is a guy who has a fairly balanced attitude towards communicating and is in touch with his emotions, then I could understand this, but the reality is that there is a wide gap in communication between the sexes, and we both handle emotions and the displaying of them differently and there are also a hell of a lot of emotionally unavailable men out there! Whilst there is some room to agree with this reason, I also ask: what could HE do differently?
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My Own Worst Nightmare
September 12, 2006 by NYM · 3 Comments
For years I’ve hypothesized that one of the main reasons that male/female relationships are so difficult is not because men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but because men are emotionally crippled. I haven’t blamed men. I’ve blamed society. There is this macho-male ideal and boys have to be brought up to be macho men. Which means they need to be strong, not weak. There fore they are taught, from a very young age, that they must not show weakness. Any impulse they have to show fear or sadness, or any emotion that would make them seem less than completely brave and in control must be stopped. These weak emotions must be eradicated, hidden, squelched. However, they are not discouraged to show joy (as long as they celebrate in a manly way), anger, consternation, or any of the “manly” emotions.
The funny thing about emotions is that they have a life of their own. Once an emotion is produced, it is compelled to show itself. Even if it has to change shape or function, it want to make itself known. Therefore, I believe that many men channel their fear and sadness into other emotions such as anger, or they channel their fear and sadness into other things such as alcoholism or workaholism to name a few.
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Asking the Right Questions About Sex
September 11, 2006 by Vixen · Leave a Comment
The highly intelligent Dr. Annie from Smart at Love published a really important post on her blog recently. She asked 200 respondants to take a survey on her website and in it found out that only half of them actually ask the truly important questions about sexual health before getting intimate with your partner. Instead, we waste our time asking trivial questions, like “Do these jeans make me look fat?”, “Is she hotter than me?” and “Would you ever sleep with my best friend?”
Why do we prioritise superficial aspects first and our sexual health last? Is it because we are shy? Is it because we don’t want to truthfully examine our own past behaviors? Is it because we are so hot for him that regardless of what he says we will sleep with him anyway? There could be several reasons for this trend, but in this day and age—they are all excuses. We’ve got to ask the hard questions. Even if it might be a mood-killer, it opens the channels of communication and keeps you safe. It’s better to know what you might be dealing with sooner rather than later. Knowledge is power. Stay safe. Stay smart. Ask!
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Sexual Role-playing
September 8, 2006 by Vixen · Leave a Comment
For starters keep in mind that once you’ve opened the door to fantasies and role-playing, you have opened the door to a whole new dimension in the boudoir. You are opening the door to sharing your sexual fantasies, which will open your sexuality to new dimensions that you never thought possible and will unleash all kinds of characters. Yes I did say characters!
The key to role-playing is to get into character. As in, if he wants you to be the naughty schoolgirl, you will play that part to the hilt. This is when you give yourself to the character— what would the naughty schoolgirl do in this situation? What would the sexy nurse do? It’s no longer, what would Vixen do—but more, what would the character do. You have to give yourself over totally to the character, talk like her, use her phrases, try out some sultry looks that she would give. Take her attitude, her demeanor as well as her look.
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New York Moments Column: Back Home
I’ve spent the last five days visiting my parents. It had been a while since I’d visited. Boycotting visits was my way of protesting against their manner of disapproval of my lifestyle as a happily thirty-something single urban professional woman. Luckily the family crisis has passed due to the fact that I’ve realised that their disapproval had nothing to do with me and everything to do with their disappointed expectations of their own lives, due to the fact that they see how messed up some of their friends’ children are who’ve actually gotten married and had children. Due to the fact that my mother is on some medication now that seems to have tamed her emotional problems, and due to the fact that my dad is afraid that my sister and I have been cursed with my mother’s emotional temperament and to avoid any issues he’s treading gingerly. I didn’t receive even one word of criticism from my mother for anything! And she only shushed me twice the entire time. I hope she keeps taking these pills.
Living in Manhattan for nearly ten years and being all caught up in my own lifestyle and the dramas it creates has seemed to have erased all recollection of other ways of life. After spending too many months of uninterrupted time in Manhattan, naturally I become a bit frustrated with city life and its crowds, its noise, its dirt, and its smells. I get tired and frustrated with my little apartment and the zillion stairs I have to climb to get to it, my crazy neighbour, the thinness of the walls, and the disgusting food smells emanating from other’s apartments. This is why I look forward to my visits to my hometown. It always helps me to remember exactly why I live in New York.
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Landlord or Boyfriend?
September 6, 2006 by NML · Leave a Comment
I have been living with my boyfriend of two years since January 2006. He shares custody of his children who live with him part time. I have arranged to pay him rent of $1500 per month, which I thought was fair, but he recently had a gardener move into the one bedroom (vacant) apt. on the property and has arranged to exchange gardening services for rent (11 hours a week at $16 per hour). I told him I am going to reduce the amount of money I give him, as I felt I was giving him way too much, given what he is charging this woman. I am now thinking of moving back into my house and keeping the relationship going, but I’m having a tough time. I love him, but not his kids. I work alot around the house and pick up after them constantly, and feel I should just pay what the gardener pays now that he has arranged this sweet deal for her……not sure what to do….could you give me some advice? - Lisa
Hi Lisa, this sounds like a complicated affair. Money aside, it sounds like you don’t enjoy sharing his home with him. With the other factors, it wouldn’t matter if you paid less rent as there is the issue of his kids. It is a little odd that he would make the arrangement to exhange gardening for a room, but he would charge $1500. I have worked out that this woman is getting the room for $762.67 per month which is just under half of what you pay. How the hell has he given her a whole apartment for that money but he doesn’t think that what you pay is odd? If I read between the lines of your story, I’m guessing that he hasn’t exactly jumped at the suggestion of reducing the rent…
Everything, from the financial perspective depends on what the arrangement was when you moved in with him. It is vital when it comes to cohabiting that the expectations from both parties are laid out. It appears that even though you are both living together as boyfriend and girlfriend, this has the hallmarks of sounding like a rental agreement. If you are living together, ideally you should be discussing an arrangement like having this woman move in together. If he hasn’t consulted with you on the decision or didn’t feel like he needed to, it’s no wonder that you feel a little bewildered about the arrangement.
Remember that sometimes men (and women) can be unthinking, but I do think that many men are missing that ability to be emotionally perceptive about situations. This means that he’s probably patting himself on the back about getting his garden done and having everything taken care of in the home without for one moment considering how this may feel for you.
But what about his kids?
To love him and be with him, you are going to have to strike a balance with his children as they won’t disappear. If you are being treated like a maid/nanny, maybe some distance will make him recognise your worth and how you are being treated. Bear in mind though that disruption to your living arrangement, may confuse his children.
I have to put something out there though that is a little uncomfortable… I know that you’re boyfriend and girlfriend, but has he misguidedly made an assumptive agreement with you (clearly without discussing it with you) that you run around after his kids picking up and cleaning in exchange for paying that rent and living in his home? I would snatch your $1500 and run for the hills if I was you!
That aside, you are his girlfriend, not a cleaner and he should be giving you more respect and leeway than the woman who tugs up his weeds. You need to sit down with him and establish whether your boyfriend feels that you are a tennant or a girlfriend who he shares a home with. If you are the former, I would certainly move out (unless of course you are happy with that…you shouldn’t be by the way), and if you are the latter, I would explain in as non confrontational way as possible that you are not happy and give him specific reasons. He may not realise and if he does realise, but he doesn’t want to rectify the situation, you have bigger problems in the relationship than this gardener…
Make sure he realises what you are doing around the house. Sometimes men need to have it spelt out as they think that fairies come in and clean up! Don’t say that you don’t like his kids because it will make for a very uncomfortable situation. Maybe suggest that with the $1500 rent, he can afford to get a cleaner…
I think that if you can come to an arrangement about the rent, you probably won’t feel so irritable at the kids. Try to find a middle ground with him. I also suggest that if you are going to be a live in girlfriend that he be honest about all of the bills associated with your home as the $1500 may be half of what it costs to run the property…or it could be 75%…
The key is to ask lots of questions and explain your concerns. This time when you lay out your questions, you can know where you stand and manage your expectations.
I will say though that your boyfriend has got it all worked out well for him…
PS If for some reason you decide to stay, but he sees you as a tennant, get a lease. That’ll shut him up but it will also protect you.
If you are burning up brain power worrying about a dating or relationship issue, please email me or put a question in the comments box.
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