Models and Sex

11 things girls should look for in guys

Someone Who Makes You Laugh

Some things in life are not funny. Can he make you at least chuckle when the chips are down?

Someone Who Understands You

You deserve a guy who will laugh at your jokes and “get” you. He might not understand you perfectly on the first date, but if you think you’re funny at all, I hope he gets that and appreciates it about you. Otherwise, you could be Kathy Griffin and you’ll still be laughing alone your whole life. Well, she’s single. But I mean, if Kathy Griffin were — whatever!

Someone Who Will Be There for You

You deserve a guy who will attend your lame “things.” Adult dance recital, Mom’s birthday party? Find the guy who will go to something boring even though he will get nothing out of it — but he’ll go for you

Someone Who Will Do Nothing With You

And I mean nothing. If you’re feeling low-energy, anti-social, or blah, can he sit and do nothing with you or does he always leave you on the couch and go party with the guys? And could you two entertain each other on a deserted island or while stuck in traffic?

Someone Who Cares

You should be with a guy who will give you a thoughtful gift or card. Not every time, obviously, but I would hope this dude would have his moments of showing you he has thought about you.

Someone Who Shares Their Feelings

You deserve someone who tells you he loves you. I do not care about his made-up theory that love is just a social construct or what have you. Hold out for someone who can and will say it. Also, he shouldn’t say it just because you want him to; he should say it because it feels good to say it.

Someone You Can Be Proud Of

Does he have a good head on his shoulders? Does he generally like his job? Is he proud of himself? Let’s hope so, ’cause if you think he’s a lazy idiot, you’ll end up resenting him.
I asked some of my friends what they held out for, and this is what they told me….

Someone You’re Attracted To

He doesn’t have to be Jude Law, but you should be attracted enough so that every time you have an argument, you will be motivated (by your underlying desire for him!) to work it out.

Someone Who Likes to Travel

If you have wanderlust and he never wants to leave his hometown, don’t compromise by staying with him long-term and staying home. It’s fine to be a homebody, but if you’re interested in exploring, find a guy with the travel bug. Otherwise, you’ll look back one day when you’re too old, tired, or broke and you’ll wish you had seen the world.

Someone Open to Kids

If you’re interested in having a family, don’t compromise on whether or not you’ll have kids. If you want them, find a guy who does. Me, I don’t get serious with guys who say “maybe” they want kids. I want someone who feels as sure as I do — and I can’t talk anyone in or out of anything.

Someone Who Sees Your Best Self

Wait for someone who sees you the way you want to be seen. He thinks you’re smart, funny, beautiful and powerful — always. Even on days when you can’t believe any of that about yourself.

Tags: dating a guy, girls look for in guys, what a guy needs

Beer Goggles Mystery Solved

Everyone looks better after you’ve tipped back a pint or two, and now we may know why.

It turns out that alcohol dulls our ability to recognize cockeyed, asymmetrical faces, according to researchers who tested the idea on both sober and inebriated college students in England.

“We tend to prefer faces that are symmetrical,” explained Lewis Halsey of Roehampton University in London. That’s well established by previous research, he said.

To find out if alcohol interfered with the ability to distinguish faces where the left and right sides were uneven, he and his colleagues designed an experiment involving images of faces that were tinkered with to make them perfectly symmetrical or subtly asymmetrical. The results of the study were published by Halsey, Joerg Huber, Richard Bufton and A.C. Little in a recent issue of the journal Alcohol.

“Over an evening Joerg, Richard and I went out to the university campus bars with a laptop and asked students to participate,” Halsey said.

This included students taking a quick breathalyzer test to confirm their alcohol consumption. The students were classified as either sober or intoxicated, then examined the images.

Twenty images of a pair of faces — one symmetrical, the other asymmetrical — and then 20 images of a single face were shown, one at a time, to 64 students. Participants were asked to state which face of each of the pairs was most attractive. They also had to determine whether each of the single faces displayed was symmetrical.

The sober students had a greater preference for symmetrical faces than did the intoxicated students. And it turned out that the sober students were better at detecting whether a face was symmetrical.

What’s more, the data suggest that men were less prone to losing their symmetry-detecting ability when intoxicated than women, which was unexpected, Halsey said. The difference probably has something to do with the tendency for men to be more visually oriented and more stimulated by what they see, he said.

“Men tend to ogle more than women do,” Halsey ventured.

The results add a new twist to ongoing research in this area, according to psychologist Benedict Jones of the University of Aberdeen.

“People in the past have compared attractiveness judgments of faces… to show that small amounts of alcohol see subjects give faces higher attractive ratings,” said Jones.

Some researchers have suggested that this might be because people become better at detecting beauty or simply become a bit less picky.

Halsey’s findings come as a surprise, said Jones, because the difference in ability between males and females was not seen in other studies where people looked at symmetry detection.

“Those studies were conducted in the lab though,” said Jones. “It’s possible that these new data show this sex effect because people were tested out in the community, and men and women respond in slightly different ways to that.”

Tags: beer goggles, mystery solved

The truth about single men

Tags: single men, truth single men

The long-term relationship rut — with no marriage in sight

Gowns have been fitted, caterers have been contracted and venues rented as June marks the busiest period of wedding season.

But not all long-term couples will be heading down the aisle, according to Hannah Seligson’s book, “A Little Bit Married.”

Seligson explores the trend of serious twenty- and thirty-something couples who invest years and even a decade in a relationship without the intention of ever getting married.

Just because a couple plays house by cohabitating or taking vacations with each other’s families, that doesn’t necessarily equate to marriage, Seligson said. The median age of marriage is at a record high (about 26 for women and 28 for men), according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2009.

Her book, released earlier this year, combines scientific research and interviews with more than 160 couples who are “a little bit married.”

CNN asked Seligson about these lengthy relationships, cohabitation and advice for couples who are in long-term relationships.

CNN: How do you know when you are “a little bit married”?

Seligson: My baseline is one year in a monogamous relationship. Do you see this as someone you are making big sacrifices and life decisions around? Are you factoring the other person into your long-term decisions?

CNN: What characteristics do you see in couples who are “a little bit married”?

Seligson: There are many permutations. You can live together. You can move across the country to a city you hate because your boyfriend or girlfriend has a job there. It’s the sense your life together is moving in unison. For example, the day-to-day staple activities are done together. You buy furniture together but you say, “What happens when if we broke up? Who would get the couch?” There is no definite sense this will culminate in marriage.

CNN: Why are people having these lengthy monogamous relationships that don’t result in marriage?

Seligson: It used to be you got married for economic reasons. A woman needed a man to support her. It was too risky to have sex outside of marriage because there was limited access to birth control. Now people get married because they want to have kids. Now there is a sense that marriage is a sense of adulthood. People want to be fully formed before they get married. You’re also seeing a social acceptability around cohabitation and delaying marriage.

CNN: In your book, you profile a couple that stayed together in a serious relationships for eight years without getting married. Why stick together for so long?

Seligson: There is this very powerful thing called the inertia theory: You live together, and you form these bonds. People say when they break up, “It’s like a divorce.” It’s very hard to move out when you live together. Also, part of it is complacency, and couples aren’t always on the same page. Someone is dating, and they are thinking this is a past agreement — that we are going to get married because we’ve been together for X years.

CNN: In your book, it sounds like communication is a key factor for interpreting whether a relationship is headed for marriage. How can couples communicate better?

Seligson: I was surprised how little communication there was between couples. You need to ask yourself: What does it mean when you move in together?

CNN: Some people believe cohabitation before marriage can affect the chances of marriage. What are your thoughts?

Seligson: Sure there is the saying, “Don’t buy the cow when you can get the milk for free.” I live with my boyfriend, and I don’t think he perceives he’s getting free milk. It’s a personal decision. The idea of being afraid to move in implies men don’t want to get married and that’s wholeheartedly incorrect. Men do want to get married. They are just on a different time frame. If you want to move in with your boyfriend, discuss what it means be on the same page about it.

CNN: So men do want to get married?

Seligson: Men do want to get married. It’s just that the timing that’s different. A man’s decision to get married is often correlated to income. I heard this from many men that they want to be able to provide. Men want to feel they are in a financially stable position before they get married. If you look at career rhythms of young people, it takes a long time to get it together.

CNN: The recession probably isn’t helping much either?

Seligson: You can see the impact of the recession from two angles. People are moving in together to save money and putting off having a wedding because it’s so expensive. The economics of having a wedding has to be factored in. The average wedding costs 20 grand, and we live in a culture where it seems like you have to buy into all of that hoopla.

CNN: Why did you decide to write this book?

Seligson: I saw it going on with my friends, but most importantly, I saw it going on with myself. I was “a little bit married.” We use to go on each other’s family vacation. His mom used to ask us when we would have kids. I thought this was all leading to marriage, but it wasn’t. It was this confusing, new romantic right of passage.

CNN: Trends of a tendency to shift back and forth. Do you think these long-term relationships without marriage will become less popular?

Seligson: It’s hard to imagining it shifting back because there are so many factors that aren’t slowing down, such as women entering workplace and the double-income, no-kid phenomenon. I don’t have my crystal ball, but it’s hard to imagine this trend reversing. I don’t think people will delay marriage inevitability, though, because women have a biological clock. It will probably rise and level off at some time.

Tags: no wedding

The five stages of life

Tags: The five stages of life