I don’t mean to rub it in, but I’m soooooo glad I’m married. No longer do I fret over when or how many times I can call (or nowadays, text), or stand like a piece of chuck butt at the club, or write about how much I like sunsets and long walks on the beach and searching the cobwebs of my computer for the one picture I took that one time that makes me look like I’m a 10 when I’m REALLY more like 8-ish.

Mostly I’m glad I’m not single because I dated ALL WRONG. I broke all the rules and sort of ran into my husband goofing off in a Yahoo! chat room. THEN! I slept with him on our third date. (whore!) I called him WHENEVER I felt like it, even if it was every few hours. (desperate!) AND I told him I loved him BEFORE he told me. (needy sucker!)

As dumb luck would have it, he called me the day after hot monkey love, liked to talk to me all the time too, and secretly loved me before I said I loved him but he was just too shy to tell me because I just so happened to be in the advantageous position of being his first love.

So with that out of the way, know that I’m not an authentic dating expert because I never did any of the stuff you’re supposed to do and STILL got married happily. I am, however, a kinda-journalist so I know how to research and report stuff and then write about it.

Which brings me to finally getting to the point of the title of this post. I’m skimming through Have Him at Hello: Confessions from 1,000 Guys About What Makes Them Fall in Love…or Never Call Back by Rachel Greenwald. When she polled these 1,000 dudes, the Numero Uno reason men got turned off from the women they were initially attracted to enough to ask for a first date was well…the misguided lass thought the “wo” in “woman” was extraneous.

“Many men basically said that date failed because they’d rather hire her than date her. They may respect [Ms. Ballbuster’s] intelligence and admire her capabilities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re attracted to her,” says Greenwald.

“The Boss,” according to the men she interviewed, looked like this:

• argumentative (e.g. “You keep asking me how I’m doing. Why are you such a punk?”
• competitive (e.g. “I can pee standing up too. Wanna see?”
• controlling (e.g. “First we’ll have dinner at 5:58 PM. Then at 8:35 you’ll tell me how beautiful I am. Do it!”)
• not feminine (e.g. “I’ve been thinking about getting a haircut. Who’s your barber?”)
• too independent (e.g. “I can open the door by myself, thankyouverymuch.”)
• not nurturing (e.g. “I hate kids, so although I practice NWNW, even THEN you won’t get one.”)
• or some combination of the above.

Except for that NWNW part, sounds like the perceived profile of the average educated and upwardly-mobile black woman.

Of course I don’t mean you. Just all the other sh-alphas. You’re not like thaaaaaaat.

…Right?

If you are as stumped on dating as I was, you might want to check out Zabeth’s blog, especially THIS entry.