Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: psychology

Relationship advice for the dating newbs

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My brother has been asking me for dating advice and insight to the women he is dating. I find this hilarious because I am awful at dating. I am really good at reading people and knowing why they do things, but I can’t apply it to my own life. I haven’t dated in a decade and don’t really have a desire to do so since *waves broadly at the world around me*.

I fired up the apps when my brother started dating just to see what was out there. I didn’t fele I could give solid advice if I was just talking out of my ass. I mean, I’m wililng to do it beacuse I’m quite good at it, but I prefer having sometthing solid to back me up.

He called me late last night to talk about his dating woes and figure out what went wrong. He has three dates this weekend, one of them a second date. He was saying he wanted to have a big pre-sex talk about sex, which, yeah…..

Look. I am pro-sex. I am pro talking about sex. I agree with him that as a society, we don’t talk about sex openly enough. You have no argument with me there. However, any woman who is in her fifties has probably had many men start out with ‘Let’s talk openly about sex’ as a way to worm his way into the woman’s pants. Or cajole her to do something she may not want to do.

My brother is as honest as the day is long. He cannot lie, execpt maybe by omission–and even then, it’s only little lies. You will know how he feels, even if he doesn’t explicitly say it out loud. His countenance gives him away, and he has no poker face. What’s more, he’s not good with the nuances of emotions, so he can’t always tell when what he’s saynig is going over like a lead balloon.

I tried to explain to him that women get hit on all the time in many different ways. It’s sad because, yes, it would be better for everyone if we could talk openly about sex. Yes, we would all be better off if it weren’t such a taboo subject. But, in the world we live in, women get punished way more than men do for being open about sex.

I don’t think he really understood what I was trynig to say. I didn’t want to bust out Schrodinger’s Rapist on him, but I may have to. The problem is that he only sees things from his point of view. Which we all do, but because he’s a dude, he can’t fathom what women have to go through.

I tried to explain that while it’s good to have an honest sex talk before you have sex with someone, as a female-presenting person, I would be wary of a guy who just started waxing poetic about sex on our second date.  Especially if I wasn’t feeling it yet.

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Know myself

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I know myself pretty well. That’s not a humblebrag; it’s just a flat-out brag. Heh. I kid. It’s just reality. I have a pretty clear view on my negatives and a little less strong grasp on my positives. For example, there’s a famous survey that says 80% of the people surveyed think they’re better-than-average drivers. Which, as you can note, is statistically impossible. What I did not know was that all the respondents had been in a car accident at some point. Also, there’s another study that said fewer than 1% of the people surveyed believed they were worse-than-average drivers. Basically, people think they are above average in everything. An interesting corollary effect is that being around people who are overconfident makes you overconfident as well. All of this is from an article in Inc., by the way.

I am part of that fewer than 1%. I know that  I’m a bad driver and I have no difficulty saying so .I also know that I am very bad at spatial recognizing, and I am not a patient person. I am not great with money (paying bills and such. Good at not spending it) and I’m very weird compared to normies.

I don’t like kids in general. I don’t think babies are cute and I would rather not spend time with them if I don’t have to. There are individual exceptions, of course, but in general, I’m not a fan of babies. Don’t much like toddlers, either. I find them boring and their need for repetition irritating–probably because it rubs up against my own need for repetition. I like kids starting around nine or ten, when they can talk about real-world things rather than just kid stuff. Funnily enough, kids love me. I think it’s precisely because I treat them like human beings and not kids. I don’t talk to them in any special voice (I save that for my cat), nor do I treat them like babies. It’s just not my style. I don’t talk over their heads, obviously, but that’s because I’m not a jerk. Not in that sense, anyway.

It’s how I treat everyone, really. I meet them where they are and don’t expect them to be something they’re not. There’s a cashier at my local grocery store that loves me. The other day, she told me that I was her favorite, which was flattering. I think it’s because she’s Native American and thinks I am, too. We bonded over Wes Studi (a hot indigenous actor) who was on the cover of a magazine, which prompted her to tell me that she was Native American. She’s also disclosed that she loves masa tortillas, that she’s been having car trouble, and her son had to leave his sick puppy with her. I think the fact that we are both BIPOC and female-presenting added to the bond.


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Using my powers for good

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So. Since talking to my brother about my ability to read people, I’ve been thinking more about it. For most of my life, I’ve thought of it as something to tamp down and block myself from to the best of my ability. It’s difficult to deal with that kind of input on a daily basis without it overwhelming me. Whether you call it highly-sensitive or empathetic, it’s not something I consider a boon most of the time.

There are a few exceptions to that. One, when I’m helping friends with problems. Then it helps to let a little bit of that feeling in so I can understand what they’re going through. Two, it’s a good way to screen people when I meet them. In addition to my general ability to read people’s emotions/feelings. I am exceedingly adept at sussing out narcissism. It’s from growing up with one and it’s saved my bacon more than once. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work 100% so when a narcissist slips past my filters, it turns out really bad. But in general, I can spot them miles away and flee in the opposite direction.

I’ve told this story several times, but once I spotted one on Twitter and was able to see that he was not what he was positioning himself to be. My group of friends on Twitter were enamored with him. I tried to drop a hint or two that he wasn’t what he seemed, but I was totally ignored (like Cassandra). I gave up and kept well away from him. A few months later, he showed his ass in a spectacular way and everyone realized what a charlatan he was. I tried not to be smug about it, but I was crowing a bit inside.

Most of the time, I don’t tell people about themselves. Again, I understand how weird/creepy/scary it can be if someone else knows you better than you know yourself. I could do it with my brother  because he has thick skin and won’t take offense. Also, he forgets negative things fairly easily so it won’t stay with him long. But in general, people are not going to appreciate you giving them insight to themselves.


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